Our hosts felt we had other things to do than to talk to them; they left
us. We remained alone. Marya told me all that had befallen her since the
taking of the fort; painted me the horrors of her position, all the
torment the infamous Chvabrine had made her suffer. We recalled to each
other the happy past, both of us shedding tears the while.
At last I could tell her my plans. It was impossible for her to stay in
a fort which had submitted to Pugatchef, and where Chvabrine was in
command. Neither could I dream of taking refuge with her in Orenburg,
where at this juncture all the miseries of a siege were being undergone.
Marya had no longer a single relation in the world. Therefore I proposed
to her that she should go to my parents' country house.
She was very much surprised at such a proposal. The displeasure my
father had shown on her account frightened her. But I soothed her. I
knew my father would deem it a duty and an honour to shelter in his
house the daughter of a veteran who had died for his country.
"Dear Marya," I said, at last, "I look upon you as my wife. These
strange events have irrevocably united us. Nothing in the whole world
can part us any more."
Marya heard me in dignified silence, without misplaced affectation. She
felt as I did, that her destiny was irrevocably linked with mine; still,
she repeated that she would only be my wife with my parents' consent. I
had nothing to answer. We fell in each other's arms, and my project
became our mutual decision.
An hour afterwards the "ouriadnik" brought me my safe-conduct pass,
with the scrawl which did duty as Pugatchef's signature, and told me the
Tzar awaited me in his house.
I found him ready to start.
How express what I felt in the presence of this man, awful and cruel for
all, myself only excepted? And why not tell the whole truth? At this
moment I felt a strong sympathy with him. I wished earnestly to draw him
from the band of robbers of which he was the chief, and save his head
ere it should be too late.
The presence of Chvabrine and of the crowd around us prevented me from
expressing to him all the feelings which filled my heart.
We parted friends.
Pugatchef saw in the crowd Akoulina Pamphilovna, and amicably threatened
her with his finger, with a meaning wink. Then he seated himself in his
"kibitka" and gave the word to return to Berd. When the horses
started, he leaned out of his carriage and shouted to me-"Farewell, your lordship; it may be we shall yet meet again!"
We did, indeed, see one another once again; but under what
circumstances!