"I have divined it."
"And have you also divined the future which awaits you in marrying a daughter of the Czar? You will be banished from the society in which you have hitherto lived; the circles into which you will try to force yourself will hold you in contempt. As long as the Czar lives you will be a prisoner in the glittering cage of the court, deprived of free-will; an unhappy man, born to enlighten others, condemned to be the shadow of a man! At the death of the Czar you may be appointed to a governorship in the Caucasus or on the Amur."
"Princess! I shall neither become a prisoner at court nor governor of Kamchatka. My wife will accompany me to my little estate of Pleskow, where I mean to be sometime farmer, sometime poet."
"You do not love the girl. Vanity alone has led you to this step."
Pushkin never took a blow unrequited—even from a woman.
"Princess, did you know her you would know that it were impossible not to love her!"
The Princess bit her lips until they bled. It was a cruel thrust. Quickly upon it followed a second.
"Sophie has only inherited her father's sweetness of disposition; nothing of her mother."
The Princess rose. She could bear it no longer. Her face was deathly pale, her eyes gleaming with a dangerous light. Going up to Pushkin, she seized his hand as she whispered:
"Has the Czar also confided to you the name of Sophie's mother?"