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Updated: June 18, 2025
Petersburg as soon as possible, where a triumphal entry awaited them. The same ukase declared that Souvarow should be quartered in the imperial palace for the rest of his life, and lastly that a monument should be raised to him in one of the public places of St. Petersburg. Foedor was thus about to see Vaninka once more.
"We can do nothing this morning," said Annouschka, drawing back the window curtains. "Look, the dawn is breaking." "But what can we do with the body of this unhappy man?" cried Vaninka. "It must remain hidden where it is all day, and this evening, while you are at the Court entertainment, my brother shall remove it."
During the whole time dinner lasted Vaninka and the general hardly exchanged a word, but although this silence was so expressive, Vaninka controlled her face with her usual power, and the general alone appeared sad and dejected. That evening, just when Vaninka was going downstairs, tea was brought to her room, with the message that the general was fatigued and had retired.
Vaninka might have excused herself from accompanying her father by feigning some slight indisposition, but two considerations made her fear to act thus: the first was the fear of making the general anxious, and perhaps of making him remain at home himself, which would make the removal of the corpse more difficult; the second was the fear of meeting Ivan and having to blush before a slave.
The emperor may die, my betrothed may die, my father may God protect him! my father himself may die !" "But if they force you to marry?" "Force me!" interrupted Vaninka, and a deep flush rose to her cheek and immediately disappeared again. "And who will force me to do anything? Father? He loves me too well. The emperor?
When they had ceased to be heard, she rushed into Annouschka's room, and both began to pull aside a bundle of linen, thrown down, as if by accident, into the embrasure of a window. Under the linen was a large chest with a spring lock. Annouschka pressed a button, Vaninka raised the lid.
"It is done," said the girl in a low voice. Vaninka breathed a sigh of relief, as if a mountain had been removed from her breast. Great as was her self-control, she could no longer bear her father's presence, and excused herself from remaining to supper with him, on the plea of the fatigues of the evening.
The first crisis over, Vaninka was able to pray. She spent an hour on her knees, then, yielding to the entreaties of her faithful attendant, went to bed. Annouschka sat down at the foot of the bed. Neither slept, but when day came the tears which Vaninka had shed had calmed her. Annouschka was instructed to reward her brother.
Vaninka was in bed, paler perhaps than usual, but quite calm, with the loving smile on her lips with which she always welcomed her father. "To what fortunate circumstance," asked the young girl in her softest tones, "do I owe the pleasure of seeing you at so late an hour?"
Petersburg had been marked by feelings till then never experienced before in his life. As for Vaninka, she had hardly noticed Foedor; for what was a young sub-lieutenant, without fortune or prospects, to her?
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