“Peter Andreitch, I know you have a kind heart. Oblige me by an act of friendship. Heaven will recompense you. Beg my father to grant me permission to see Afrossinia——”
Tolstoi gently kissed the bandaged hand and said in a voice tremulous with sincere tears:
“I will obtain this permission! I will do all that is possible for you. Only we must first answer some little questions. There are but three.”
He read aloud the list of questions which the Tsar had drawn up.
The Tsarevitch closed his eyes in exhaustion.
“What further answer can I make? God is my witness I have already said all I had to say! I have neither words nor thoughts left. I have become quite idiotic.”
“Never mind, never mind, Tsarevitch,” rejoined Tolstoi hastily. He drew up a table and brought out paper, pen and ink.
“I will dictate, all you have to do is to write——”
“Will he be able to write?” Tolstoi suddenly inquired of the physician with a look in which the latter thought he saw the inexorable eyes of the Tsar.
Blumentrost shrugged his shoulders, and murmuring to himself “Barbarians!” he took the bandage off the patient’s right hand.