"Only, as it happens, he is neither invited, nor may he come. You must accept your godmother's invitation."
"What! The invitation to her ball!"
"There you will meet the Czar and Czarina; they will speak to you."
"I—there—without Alexander?"
"Upon you it depends that Pushkin may be free to go where you go. Your marriage with him has entirely marred his career. He does not feel it now, but in the course of a year or two he will remember that formerly every step he took was accompanied by the clank of spurs. The soul of a man is not to be confined in a cage like a tame bird, especially when he has eagle's wings. Be it your task to implore forgiveness from the Czar for your husband, that Pushkin may proceed on his interrupted career. Now the meadows are still green; in another month they will be covered with snow, and the couple condemned to fireside and indoor life will not be so light-hearted as the one flying their kites in the open meadow."
"Then it is your wish that I should intercede for Alexander's return to St. Petersburg?"
"Not for all the world! No; a thousand times rather entreat the Czar to give him a mission that shall take you and him to your own people and country. Describe to the Czar and Czarina the land in which you were born, as it lives in your memory, with its genial climate, its aromatic woods, its fruit-bearing trees. Tell them all the lovely and beautiful things of it that your memory can recall, and entreat the Czar, as an act of mercy to yourself, to send your husband there."
"Oh, the tempting thought!" sighed Bethsaba.
"But he will never consent that I should leave him and go away, and stay days and weeks away from him."
"It would only be one week."