Page:Pushkin - Russian Romance (King, 1875).djvu/130

118 has brought us together again. All right; jump up behind."

"Thank you, sire, thank you, my father!" Savelitch repeated, taking his seat. "May God grant thee health for a hundred years, because thou hast looked down upon me, old man that I am, and hast comforted me. I shall ever pray for thee, and shall never even mention the hare-skin touloup again."

This hare-skin touloup might have seriously angered Pougatcheff in the end. Fortunately the pretender either did not hear, or pretended not to hear the misplaced allusion. The horses were again off. The people in the streets stopped as we passed, and bowed low. Pougatcheff nodded to them on both sides. In a few minutes we were out of the village, and hurrying along the level road.

It is easy to imagine what my feelings were at that moment. In a few hours I was to see her whom I had already considered as lost to me. I pictured to myself our re-union; I also thought of the man upon whom my fate depended, and who, by a curious chain of circumstances, was so mysteriously connected with me. I recalled to mind the hasty cruelty, the bloodthirsty habits of him who had constituted himself the deliverer of the one I loved. Pougatcheff was not aware that she was Captain Mironoff's daughter; the enraged Shvabrine was capable of revealing all to him; Pougatcheff might also discover the truth from other sources. What would then befall Maria Ivanovna? I felt a cold tremor, and my hair stood on end

Suddenly Pougatcheff interrupted my meditations, turning to me with the question:—