“Russian?” he repeated simply, almost helplessly, as if it were something that it had never occurred to him before to question. He looked down at his uniform, and then lifted a khaki sleeve to study the brown band of tape at the cuff, the band of an officer’s sleeves.
“Why, yes—I am Peter Petrovitch,” he said finally.
He stepped to the window and looked out upon the Sofistkaya, and at the flattened gable-end of the little hut below which had been his and his father’s. Katerin drew close to him, and putting her hand softly upon his arm, looked into his face. Her own was drawn with suffering, and glistened with fresh tears.
“Peter Petrovitch,” she whispered, “you look upon a new Russia—the one you knew has gone. The old prison on the hill is empty! Empty! Thank God for it! What more can you do?”
He looked directly at her, and studied her face for a minute, his own face still reamed with the lines of the hatred which held his nerves taut.
“You trusted me?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“You deceived me,” he retorted, once more himself and completely readjusted to the meaning of her return.
“Yes. To save my father. But I trusted you, too, else I could have avoided you. I would give my life to save my father, but it is too late now—I can neither save him nor myself. We live only so long as Zorogoff delays in coming.”
“You speak to thwart me,” he said bitterly.