He rushed towards the door. "I am mad," said he, pausing, "I forget that I cannot leave my cage without permission. My dearest friend, bring her here, I beseech you! Or stay, this man will go." He spoke in Russian to the Cossack, who went out.
In a few minutes, and before I could answer a tithe of the numerous questions Alexis asked me, the man returned, but alone.
"Well?" said the Count, changing countenance.
"The governor says you must be aware that the prisoners are not allowed to receive visits from women."
The Count struck his forehead with his clenched hand, and fell back upon a chair. His features were almost convulsed by the violence of his emotions. At last he turned to the Cossack.
"Beg the sergeant to come here." The soldier left the room.
"Can any thing be more horrible?" cried Alexis. "She has come nine hundred leagues to see me; she is not a hundred yards from me, and we are forbidden to meet!"
"There must surely be some blunder," said I; "an order misunderstood, or something of the kind."
Alexis shook his head doubtingly. There was a wild look of despair in his large dark eyes that alarmed me. At this moment, the sergeant who had charge of the prisoners entered.
"Sir," cried the Count with vehemence, "the woman I love has left St Petersburg to join me, and after a thousand dangers and hardships has arrived here. I am now told that I shall not be allowed to see her. It is doubtless a mistake?"