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Updated: May 4, 2025
I unbound him, gave him food and wine and as soon as he was sufficiently recovered ordered my droshka and took him to Zara's house. I made him wait until I had gone to her, and told her of my last interview with the emperor, and I succeeded in securing her reluctant consent to go to the palace with me that day.
Though the thunder still rolled and the lightning still flashed, the rain soon ceased and the clouds began to show cheerful patches of blue. Mendel was gone some five minutes when a covered droshka drove up the road as rapidly as the muddy ground would allow.
It said that my brother had been wounded, and was at my house; that it was safe for me to go there now. I hastened. I ran to the droshka, and sprang inside before I knew that it was occupied. Durnief was there. He seized me. Something was wrapped around my head, and I lost consciousness, I think.
To shoot a man like that, was against every impulse of my soul; and yet he was armed with a weapon as deadly as mine, if once I should get within reach of its point. I possessed none with which to meet him on even ground. But, inside the droshka, was unquestionably the unconscious form of the woman I loved. The occasion was a crisis. There could be no temporizing. Zara must be rescued.
Passing out into the street, he entered the droshka which was in waiting, and in which he had intended carrying off Kathinka, and was driven to his home. The Rabbi on his return was at once informed of the occurrence. While his daughter related her story, he walked up and down with clenched fists and heaving breast.
As they came to the highway, a droshka passed them at full speed; they fell back to the right and left to make room for the galloping horses and in a moment the carriage had disappeared. When they reached the spot pointed out by Mendel they saw the impress of a child's form in the yielding ground, and a tattered little cap which was Jacob's; but the child was gone.
Further information he could not give, having no recollection of anything that happened from the time of his lying upon the highway until he found himself in the droshka with the ladies. "You say that the soldiers came to your house and took you and your brother away?" asked the Count. "Yes, sir." "What did they want with you?"
Then I heard sounds, as if men were fighting, and I crawled from the overturned droshka, and saw you two struggling together, in the snow. I was dazed, frightened, and very weak. I did not remember what had happened; I did not recognize you. I thought, at first, that it was Durnief whom I should assist, and I stood there, watching the struggle for a long time, trying to remember.
One of the horses pitched forward, shot through the brain, I knew; the other fell upon the first, and I ran forward at all speed, towards the wrecked and overturned droshka. As I ran, I saw an officer in uniform leap from the interior of the droshka, and draw his sword in preparation for my attack, while his yemschik, whip in hand, scrambled from the snow, and assumed a place beside him.
I could not criticise such a reluctance, under the circumstances; and while I was congratulating myself upon the fact that she would not have to pass such another night as this one, I saw the front door swing suddenly open, and the form of a woman in whom I instantly recognized Zara, ran down the steps and leaped into a waiting droshka, which had hitherto escaped my notice.
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