"In doing so you had gone to the right place, and could tell all your troubles to sympathetic ears."
"Oh, if only you had heard what she did say!"
"I saw."
"How saw?"
"By your face. Every word of hers was reflected on your face. Did she not say, 'Poor Galban! If only you knew how much he has suffered on your account! He has actually been on the point of making away with himself. Then he wanted to bury himself in the catacombs of Solowetshk. It would but be giving a copper to a starving man out of your wealth. It should be kept secret; no one should know. It is the way all we women act; there is not a single exception among us. Besides, it is only paying back in the same coin. Every one of us is deceived by our husbands; you and I, and all of us. At the moment that Galban made his confession to you, you may take it for granted that Pushkin was vowing his love to some other woman, who would not be so scrupulous as you.'"
"So he really did say; and yet more. This man—whose name my lips can never more utter—is capable, for sake of me, of exiling himself from St. Petersburg, of renouncing his brilliant position, merely that he may live near me! He is capable, in his despair, of killing Alexander, me, himself, if I torture him longer. Oh, how he has terrified me! As soon as I get home I will tell it all to Alexander, and, taking his hand in mine, will implore him to run away to the other end of the earth with me."
"By so doing you would attain just the contrary to what you desire. Just this: that Pushkin would be aroused, and, not having been conceded permission to return to St. Petersburg, would challenge Galban to go to him, and their duel would end fatally. Do not be afraid of him! Fight him yourself!"
"I? I fight him? Galban? I, a weak, foolish, cowardly little creature, who tremble at every word he utters?"
"You tremble and are fearful because you believe your heart in danger. But how if you knew that the net is not thrown out to catch your heart, but Pushkin's head—that it is his life against which every mesh has been woven? Then you would not be a coward."
"What do you say?—that it is against Alexander's life their plots are directed?"