“No, young man,” said he, shaking his head. “At such a great distance the enemy would easily cut off your communication with the principal strategical point, and gain a complete victory over you. Communication being cut off....”
I became alarmed when I perceived that he was about to enter upon a military dissertation, and I hastened to interrupt him.
“The daughter of Captain Mironoff has written a letter to me,” I said to him; “she asks for help: Shvabrin wants to compel her to become his wife.”
“Indeed! Oh, this Shvabrin is a great rascal, and if he should fall into my hands I will order him to be tried within twenty-four hours, and we will have him shot on the parapet of the fortress. But in the meantime we must have patience.”
“Have patience!” I cried, perfectly beside myself. “But in the meantime he will force Maria Ivanovna to become his wife!”
“Oh!” exclaimed the General. “But even that would be no great misfortune for her. It would be better for her to become the wife of Shvabrin, he would then take her under his protection; and when we have shot him we will soon find a sweetheart for her, please God. Pretty widows do not remain single long; I mean that a widow finds a husband much quicker than a spinster.”
“I would rather die,” said I in a passion, “than resign her to Shvabrin.”
“Oh, oh!” said the old man, “now I understand. You are evidently in love with Maria Ivanovna, and that alters the case altogether. Poor fellow! But, for all that, I cannot give you a battalion of soldiers and fifty Cossacks. Such an expedition would be the height of folly, and I cannot take the responsibility of it upon myself.”
I cast down my head; despair took possession of me. Suddenly a thought flashed through my mind: what it was, the reader will discover in the following chapter, as the old romance writers used to say.