“Very well. I see that your highness is beginning to speak with yourself and tell the truth to your own face. Boldly, boldly! Pay no heed to rank.”
“You see, Sakovich, that my Castor is growing familiar with me; as it is, I kick him often in the ribs, but a greater accident may meet you.”
Sakovich sprang up as if red with anger, like Billevich a little while before; and since he had an uncommon gift of mimicry, he began to cry in a voice so much like that of Billevich that any one not seeing who was talking, might have been deceived.
“What! is this captivity? Do they wish to oppress a free citizen, to trample on cardinal rights?”
“Give us peace! give us peace!” said the prince, fretfully. “She defended that old fool with her person, but here there is one to defend you.”
“If she defended him, she should have been taken in pawn!”
“There must be some witchcraft in this place! Either she must have given me something, or the constellations are such that I am simply leaving my mind. If you could have seen her when she was defending that mangy old uncle of hers! But you are a fool! It is growing cloudy in my head. See how my hands are burning! To love such a woman, to gain her—with such a woman to—”
“To have posterity!” added Sakovich.
“That’s so, that’s so!—as if you knew that must be; otherwise I shall burst as a bomb. For God’s sake! what is happening to me? Must I marry, or what, by all the devils of earth and hell?”
Sakovich grew serious. “Your princely highness, you must not think of that!”