Here we remained about a week, while a vessel was being fitted out to take us down the river. All that was terrible to me, and I ought to pass it in silence. My governess, to whose care I had been entrusted by my mother, did not wish to leave me, and had come with me to the village. She thought that we would pass all the days of our misfortune there; but things turned out differently, and she was compelled to leave me. She was a foreigner, and could not endure all the hardships; yet, as much as she could she did for me in those days: went on the ill-starred vessel that was to take us away, fixed everything there, hung the walls with tapestry to keep out the dampness, that I might not catch a cold; she placed a pavilion on board, partitioned off a room, in which we were to live, and wept for me all the time. At last there arrived the bitter day when we must depart. We were given ten people to attend on us, and a woman for each person, in all, five. I had intended to take my maid with me, but my sisters-in-law dissuaded me: they gave me theirs to take her place, and gave me another maid for an assistant to the laundresses, who could do nothing else but wash clothes; I was compelled to agree to their arrangement. My maid wept, and did not want to part from me. I asked her not to importune me with her tears, and to take things as fate had decreed. Such was my equipment: I had not even my own serf, and not a penny of money. My governess gave me every kopek she had; it was not a great sum, only sixty roubles, and with that I departed. I do not remember whether we went on foot to the vessel, or whether we drove to it in a carriage. The river was not far from our house; there I bid good-bye to my family, for they had been permitted to see us off. I stepped into the cabin, and saw how it was fixed up: my governess had done all she could to help me in my evil plight. I had to thank her here for the love she had shown to me, and for the education she had given me; I also bid her farewell, not expecting ever to see her again: we grasped each other’s necks, and my hands grew stiff with cold, and I do not remember how we were torn from each other. I regained consciousness in the place that served as a cabin. I was lying in the bed, and my husband was standing over me, holding me by my hand, and making me smell some salts. I jumped down from my bed, ran upstairs, thinking that I would still catch a glimpse of it all, but those were all unfamiliar scenes,--we had sailed away a long distance. Then I noticed that I had lost a pearl that I wore on my finger; I evidently dropped it in the water as I bade my family farewell; I was not even sorry for it,--other thoughts were occupying me: life was lost, and I was left alone, had lost all for the sake of one man. And thus we sailed all night long.