‘And what of Mazeppa?’ I asked.
Then Vera told me that though Mazeppa, upon receiving his nomination as Hetman, had presumed to visit once again the home he had outraged, in order to resume his suit for Vera’s hand, the old Boyar her father had caused his servants to expel him from the house without deigning to speak to him or give him any answer to his insolent advances.
Mazeppa’s words to me had conveyed a very different meaning.
As for the Boyar’s arrest, her father had been so indignant, said Vera, over the conduct of Tsar Peter, who had seemed to choose Vera for his bride and had afterwards passed her over for another, that he had violently sided with the Regent so soon as differences arose, lending her money and serf-levies from his estates, which conduct brought about his arrest by Peter’s orders, as soon as the young Tsar heard of it.
Having thus made sure of my Vera, I hastened again to Troitsa in order to push my interest with Tsar Peter; but his Highness was so busy that I could not obtain his ear.
‘Wait,’ he said, ‘good Chelminsky; let us first see what I am; my sister’s sins still hang about my neck!’
Therefore I waited a week, and a second week, the Tsar being now in Moscow, and at the end of that time I obtained from Peter the saying that there might soon be reason for making a change in the office of Hetman, and that I should have the next nomination!
This was something, though not much.
Then suddenly, as I walked one day within the Kremlin walls, I met Mazeppa.
He greeted me friendly, as though there had never been a difference between us, thanking heaven that he had been able at our last meeting to allow me to escape from Batourin: