"And with reason! Does not this marriage threaten to ruin my whole life? Will it not bring the secret of your birth to light--that birth the bane of my early life?" "Mother! Do you curse the day of my birth?" "Not now only, but twice daily--when I wake and when I lie down. You were as a death-sentence to me, the hour of which was unfixed. I have thought with shuddering of you. You have been my accomplice, a living witness to my wrecked honor; and now my fate is to be accomplished through you. You announce to the whole world that you exist--look! here am I!" "No, mother; I will hide myself. No one shall see me. No one shall know of me." Korynthia here pretended that pity and maternal love had gained the mastery. In sorrowing tones, she exclaimed: "But, my poor child, do you not know that you are condemning yourself to a living grave--that you are choosing a life worse than hell? You will be the wife of an adventurer, who is sunk so low in sin, so fettered by vicious associates, that, even if he desired it, he is powerless to avoid the consequences. Do you want to follow him to Siberia?" "If misfortune assails him I will share it with him." "And suppose the mad scheme in which he is the foremost actor succeeds, and his hands are stained with your father's blood?" "Then I will find a path in which to implore Heaven's pardon for him." "Blinded creature! Your self-created ideal prevents your seeing the man as he is. Do you believe it possible to confine a heart in a cage that is accustomed to take free flight, and which, moreover, you have by no means made captive? For Pushkin loves you not! I tell you, he loves you not! Be convinced; he loves you not!" Sophie looked in bewilderment at Korynthia. The instinct of her woman's heart, added to a nervous foreboding, told her the horrible truth. Seizing Korynthia's hand, she exclaimed: "_You love him!_" "You are right!" hissed Korynthia, with wild vehemence. Sophie, pressing her hands to her heart, turned white as death; her eyes closed, her breathing stopped, and she fell lifeless to the ground. The Princess went in search of Helenka. "Go in to your mistress; she is not well." And, drawing her cashmere close about her (the mornings are misty by the river) and replacing her bonnet, she left the villa. Knowing that her farewell kiss would be of no benefit to the poor swooning girl, she let it alone. CHAPTER XXXI THE WILL That day Pushkin felt as heavy-hearted as if he had not only all the sins of the world, but the national debts of all Europe, upon his shoulders. Was it one of those presentiments to which the race of poets, whose stock-in-trade is nerves, are so sensitive? Nothing gave him any pleasure. He went to Zeneida, to formally announce his approaching marriage to her. She had long been informed of it, for she possessed a splendid service of secret police. Zeneida replied, with cold, stoical irony: "I still do not believe that the Czar's daughter _will marry you_."