"I do not know if I am sensible; I only know that I love him!"
"A categorical answer! How positive you are that he will marry you! And where did you get to know Pushkin?"
"During the flood. Oh, I was in such terrible danger! Had they not come to save me I should have been washed away."
"Who came to save you then?"
Sophie was surprised at the question.
"Do you not know? Did not Bethsaba tell you?"
"Bethsaba? No; she has not spoken to me a word of you or Pushkin. Sly girl—she shall pay for this. So the same fairy sheltered you who carried off Bethsaba from my carriage? That devil in woman's form! And Bethsaba has thought well to keep it from me! And for whole days and nights you were in that den of iniquity! Now I understand it all! It is this fiend who has brought it all about!"
"Mother, do not curse her! I owe all my happiness to her."
"Do you know, then, what is 'happiness'?"