ke a step towards him! Imitate me, my daughter.”
Michael had just experienced the most violent emotion which a man can feel. His mother and Nadia were there!
The two prisoners who were always together in his heart, God had brought them together in this common misfortune. Did Nadia know who he was? Yes, for he had seen Marfa’s gesture, holding her back as she was about to rush towards him. [Ссылки могут видеть только зарегистрированные пользователи. ] Marfa, then, had understood all, and kept his secret.
During that night, Michael was twenty times on the point of looking for and joining his mother; but he knew that he must resist the longing he felt to take her in his arms, and once more press the hand of his young companion. The least imprudence might be fatal. He had besides sworn not to see his mother. Once at Tomsk, since he could not escape this very night, he would set off without having even embraced the two beings in whom all the happiness of his life was centered, and whom he should leave exposed to so many perils.
Michael hoped that this fresh [Ссылки могут видеть только зарегистрированные пользователи. ] meeting at the Zabediero camp would have no disastrous consequences either to [Ссылки могут видеть только зарегистрированные пользователи. ] his mother or to himself. But he did not know that part of this scene, although it passed so rapidly, had been observed by Sangarre, Ogareff’s spy.
The Tsigane was there, a few paces off, on the bank, as usual, watching the old Siberian woman. She had not caught sight of Michael, for he disappeared before she had time to look around; but the mother’s gesture as she kept back Nadia had not escaped her, and the look in Marfa’s eyes told her all.
It was now beyond doubt that Marfa Strogoff’s son, the Czar’s courier, [Ссылки могут видеть только зарегистрированные пользователи. ] was at this moment in Zabediero, among Ivan Ogareff’s prisoners. Sangarre did not know him, but she knew that he was there. She did not [Ссылки могут видеть только зарегистрированные пользователи. ] then attempt to discover him, for it would have been impossible in the dark and the immense crowd.
As for again watching Nadia and Marfa Strogoff, [Ссылки могут видеть только зарегистрированные пользователи. ] that was equally useless. It was evident that the two women would keep on their guard, and it would be impossible to overhear anything of a nature to compromise the courier of the Czar. The Tsigane’s first thought was to tell Ivan Ogareff. She therefore immediately left the encampment. A quarter of an hour after, she reached Zabediero, and was shown into the house occupied by the Emir’s lieutenant. Ogareff received the Tsigane directly.
“What have you to tell me, Sangarre?” he asked.
“Marfa Strogoff’s son is in the encampment.”
“A prisoner?”
“A prisoner.”
“Ah!” exclaimed Ogareff, “I shall know —”
“You will know nothing, Ivan,” replied Tsigane; “for you do not even know him by sight.”
“But you know him; you have seen him, Sangarre?”
“I have not seen him; but his mother betrayed herself by a gesture, which told me everything.”
“Are you not mistaken?”
“I am not mistaken.”
“You know [Ссылки могут видеть только зарегистрированные пользователи. ] the importance which I attach to the apprehension of this courier,” said Ivan Ogareff. “If the letter which he has brought from Moscow reaches Irkutsk, if it is given to the Grand Duke, the Grand Du
upon the land anywhere, it necessarily leaves that place dry when it recedes; again, if the dry land has encroached on the sea at all by a process of silting set up by the rivers when at their full, the time must come when this place will be flooded again.
But the whole vital process of the earth takes place so gradually and in periods of time which are so immense compared with the length of our life, that these changes are not observed, and before their course can be recorded from beginning to end whole nations perish and are destroyed. Of such destructions the most utter and sudden are due to wars; but pestilence or famine cause them too. Famines, again, are either sudden and severe or else gradual. In the latter case the disappearance of a nation is not noticed because some leave the country while others remain; and this goes on until the land is unable to [Ссылки могут видеть только зарегистрированные пользователи. ] maintain any inhabitants at all. So a long period of time is likely to elapse from the first departure to the last, and no one remembers and the lapse of time destroys all record even before the last inhabitants have disappeared. In the same way a nation must be supposed to lose account of the time when it first settled in a land that was changing from a marshy and watery state and becoming dry. Here, too, the change is gradual and lasts a long time and men do not remember [Ссылки могут видеть только зарегистрированные пользователи. ] who came [Ссылки могут видеть только зарегистрированные пользователи. ] first, or when, or what the land was like when they came. This has been the case with Egypt. Here it is obvious that the land is continually getting drier and that the whole country is a deposit of the river Nile. But because the neighbouring peoples settled in the land gradually as the marshes dried, the lapse of time has hidden the beginning of the process. However, all the mouths of the Nile, [Ссылки могут видеть только зарегистрированные пользователи. ] with the single exception of that at Canopus, are obviously artificial and not natural. And Egypt was nothing more than what is called Thebes, as [Ссылки могут видеть только зарегистрированные пользователи. ] Homer, too, shows, modern though he is in relation to such changes. For Thebes is the place that he mentions; which implies that Memphis did not yet exist, or at any rate was not as important as it is now. That this should be so is natural, since the lower land came to be inhabited later than that which lay higher. For the parts that lie nearer to the place where [Ссылки могут видеть только зарегистрированные пользователи. ] the river is depositing the silt are necessarily marshy for a longer time since the water always lies most in the newly formed land. But in time this land changes its character, and in its turn enjoys a period of prosperity. For these places dry up and come to be in good condition while the [Ссылки могут видеть только зарегистрированные пользователи. ] places that were formerly well-tempered some day grow excessively dry and deteriorate. This happened to the land of Argos and Mycenae in Greece. In the time of the Trojan wars the Argive land was marshy and could only support a small population, whereas the land of Mycenae was in good condition (and for this reason Mycenae was the superior). But now the opposite is the case, for the reason we have mentioned: the land of Mycenae has become completely dry and barren, while the Argive land that was formerly
forbade his brother to address him again on the subject of their disagreement.
‘Tom is dying,’ wrote Everard, early in February, to his cousin in Queen’s Road. ‘Dr. Swain assures me that unless he be removed he cannot last more than [Ссылки могут видеть только зарегистрированные пользователи. ] a month or two. This morning I saw the woman’— it was thus he always referred to his sister-inlaw —‘and talked to her in what was probably the plainest language she ever had the privilege of hearing. It was a tremendous scene, brought to a close only by her flinging herself on the sofa with shrieks which [Ссылки могут видеть только зарегистрированные пользователи. ] terrified the whole household. My idea is that we must carry the poor fellow away [Ссылки могут видеть только зарегистрированные пользователи. ] by force. His infatuation makes me rage and curse, but I [Ссылки могут видеть только зарегистрированные пользователи. ] am bent on trying to save his life. Will you come and give your help?’
A week later they succeeded in carrying the invalid back to Torquay. Mrs. Barfoot had abandoned him to his doctors, nurses, and angry relatives; she declared herself driven out of the house, and went to live at a fashionable hotel. Everard remained in Devon for more than a month, devoting himself with affection, which the trial of his temper [Ссылки могут видеть только зарегистрированные пользователи. ] seemed only to increase, to his brother’s welfare. Thomas improved a little; once more there was hope. Then on a sudden frantic impulse, after writing fifty letters which elicited no reply, he travelled in pursuit of his wife; and [Ссылки могут видеть только зарегистрированные пользователи. ] three days after his arrival in London he was dead.
By a will, executed at Torquay, he bequeathed to Everard about a quarter of his wealth. All the rest went to Mrs. Barfoot, who had declared herself too ill to attend the funeral, but in a fortnight was sufficiently recovered to visit one of her friends in the [Ссылки могут видеть только зарегистрированные пользователи. ] country.
Everard could now count upon an income of not much less than fifteen hundred a year. That his brother’s death would enrich him he had always foreseen, but no man could have exerted himself with more ardent energy to postpone that advantage. The widow charged him, wherever she happened to be, with deliberate fratricide; she vilified his reputation, by word of mouth or
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