"It has nothing in the world to do with her."
"I prophesy it. Else why am I the pythoness? Does Prince Ghedimin know of it?"
"Prince Ghedimin! Mille tonnerres! Am I to go to the Prince, too, to ask for Sophie's hand? He, at any rate, is out of it."
"Not on account of your wooing, my friend, but that the Prince may erase your name from 'the green book.' You will doubtless see that the name of the son-in-law of the Czar can hardly adorn—I will not say blacken—its pages."
"By Jove! you are right. I had not thought of that."
With heavier heart than he had come, Pushkin left her.
Zeneida's villa was on the Kreskowsky Island, thus some distance from Sophie's home, which lay embowered in orange groves. From afar the light-green roof was visible, standing out from amidst the pines. Every evening a white flag was to be seen floating from the flagstaff, hoisted by Sophie herself, as a signal that she was expecting him. Sometimes she would come down to the shore to meet him, her white-clad figure greeting him when he was yet a long way off.
Now neither white flag nor white-clad maiden was visible. He hastened on impatiently. Usually, as his boat approached the landing-stage, another, in which sat Bethsaba, would row away. The Circassian Princess never awaited Pushkin; they only exchanged greetings from a distance. Now he perceived a gondola, painted in the Ghedimin family colors, still chained to the landing-stage, the boatmen stretched on benches fast asleep.
Without waiting for his boat to reach the land, Pushkin sprang ashore and ran towards the house.
On either side of the path Sophie's beloved roses were blooming; the ground was covered with their fallen leaves.