CHAPTER XXIX MADAME POTIPHAR At the appointed hour Pushkin presented himself at Villa Ghedimin, and was passed on from one footman to another, until he finally arrived at Korynthia's boudoir. The Princess was a handsome woman; but to-day she wanted to surpass herself. The feminine fashions of that day were very becoming. The pale-golden silk, fine as any from the loom, thrown lightly about her head, enhanced the gold of her waving hair, arranged in a classic coil, and threw up her complexion; as did the soft Brussels lace the whiteness of her neck and arms. Her shoulder-straps even were set with yellow diamonds, and, coquettishly placed between the lace, a pale yellow tea-rose diffused its delicate perfume. Her whole being betrayed an agitation unusual to her. She blushed and smiled as Pushkin entered. And both blushes and smiles repeated themselves during the greeting and exchange of customary courtesies. Then she signed him to a chair, while she seated herself upon a silken divan opposite to him, and opened the conversation. "I have shed as many tears over your lovely poem as though I had been myself to the Baktshisseraj Well of Tears." "I am rejoiced that the heroine of my lay should have won your sympathy, Princess. For in her I impersonated my betrothed, Sophie Narishkin." Oh, what a change passed over her face! Her cheeks aflame with anger, her eyebrows arched like bows, her eyes shooting out arrows of fire. "You desire to marry Sophie Narishkin?" she cried, passionately. "Impossible!" "I think it, on the contrary, very possible, seeing that our wedding is already fixed for the 21st of June." "In a week? Has the betrothal been already announced, then?" "No! A dispensation has been granted for our marriage." Springing from her divan, the Princess gasped: "Impossible! Impossible!" Pushkin retained his seat. He was not easily frightened by any man--or woman either. So he answered, calmly: "But, my dear Princess, what objection can you have to it?" Korynthia saw that she had suffered her impetuosity to carry her too far. So, commanding herself, she resumed her seat and made as if fanning herself from the heat. "He who advised you to this was no friend of yours!" she hissed out. "It was the Czar!" Korynthia, shutting her fan, put it to her lips. After a short silence she said: "You know, then, that the Czar is Sophie's father?" "I have divined it." "And have you also divined the future which awaits you in marrying a daughter of the Czar? You will be banished from the society in which you have hitherto lived; the circles into which you will try to force yourself will hold you in contempt. As long as the Czar lives you will be a prisoner in the glittering cage of the court, deprived of free-will; an unhappy man, born to enlighten others, condemned to be the shadow of a man! At the death of the Czar you may be appointed to a governorship in the Caucasus or on the Amur."