"I was."
"Then you must have been aware that not alone he whom you denounced was lost, but also you yourself, for having stolen a Vladimir order."
"But I have returned it."
"None the less, you are a thief, and must be sent to the pillory."
"Women of higher rank than mine have stood there already."
"Your shoulders will be branded with hot iron."
"My dark skin marks me already as a gypsy. I am bad from head to foot."
"Come, I don't believe that. This very day, through you, I have forever lost my only son. All night long until the sun rose I was tossing in an agony of sobs on my bed. In the early morning I went into the chapel, and there, before my Maker, I swore an oath that I would free the unhappy creature who had been my son's undoing, body and soul. At least, I will loose your outer chains."
"No need to trouble the jailer for that. If I choose and you allow, I can be rid of them myself."
The gypsy girl had extraordinarily little hands. Easily, as if she were drawing off a glove, she drew out her hands from the fetters; and as simply, without even sitting down, freed her feet. Lifting one foot in the air, she balanced herself on the other, and, in a second, stood unfettered. So she stood before Araktseieff, holding one end of her chain in her hand, looking capable of laying about her with the other end on the head of any one who came near her; and that person would have remembered the attention to his dying day.