Pushkin was free to turn back to his wife. There was no longer an Eleutheria. She was dead and buried. There was no one to accuse him of having belonged to the League of the Partisans of Freedom. His name had been inscribed among that ten thousand whom the "demoniacal" whim of an actress had saved from the scaffold and from banishment to Siberia. After that came enough of the hard times beloved by Pushkin's muse. And, that he might belong entirely to his muse, Bethsaba, too, forsook him. She went--to rejoin Sophie. She could no longer endure this cold prison-world of ours. And Pushkin then remained alone in his desolate castle, with no other confidante than old Helenka. To her he read his verses. In the spring of the following year he received a command from Czar Nicholas to present himself at St. Petersburg. His imprisoned friends at that time were to be executed. That, too, was a tragic episode! It would need the pen of a Victor Hugo to describe how, at the very moment of execution, the whole bloody holocaust broke down, and condemned, executioners, and officers of justice were alike buried beneath it. It was then that the Czar commanded Pushkin in audience before him. Pushkin was wearing mourning. "For whom do you mourn?" the Czar asked. "For my wife, sire." "So, not for your dead friends? Now, confess. _On which side would you have stood had you been here in St. Petersburg?_" Pushkin felt the cold edge of the executioner's sword at his throat. Dare one answer such a question with a lie? According to the world's ethics, one may--one does. The conspirator is not in duty bound to accuse himself, to make confession of what cannot be proved against him, is not required to open out the secrets of his heart. And yet Pushkin could not bring a lie to his lips. Reason dictated it, but his proud heart went counter to it. "_Had I been present_," he answered the Czar, "_I should have taken my place by the side of my friends._" "I am glad that you have answered me thus," returned the Czar. "I am about to have the period of Peter the Great written, and seek a man for the purpose who can poetize, but who cannot lie. That man I have found! I commit the writing of that epoch to you. Go back to your home and begin; and to all that you from henceforth write I will myself be censor." Thus did one of Russia's greatest poets and personalities escape the fatal catastrophe. At the Bear's Paw they certainly proscribed him as a traitor; for although all other secret societies had paid for their opinions with their blood, that of the Bear's Paw still existed, and did not cease even then to thirst for Freedom. GHEDIMIN AND ZENEIDA Ghedimin was no longer a prince, but became, in Tobolsk, the happiest of men. Five children, all sons, were born to him there, not one of whom has become a prince. One is a tanner, another a furrier; but they are prosperous, and know nothing of the ancestral palace in St. Petersburg.