. Do you
not grant me a thousand times more than I dared hope, and if your father
refuses me, do I not know myself that you are sharing my grief?" cried
Foedor.

"Yes; but that will not happen, I hope," said Vaninka, holding out her
hand to the young officer, who kissed it passionately.

"Now be hopeful and take courage;" and Vaninka retired, leaving the
young man a hundred times more agitated and moved than she was herself,
woman though she was.

The same day Foedor asked for an interview with the general. The
general received his aide-de-camp as usual with a genial and smiling
countenance, but with the first words Foedor uttered his face darkened.
However, when he heard the young man's description of the love, so true,
constant, and passionate, that he felt for Vaninka, and when he heard
that this passion had been the motive power of those glorious deeds he
had praised so often, he held out his hand to Foedor, almost as moved as
the young soldier.

And then the general told him, that while he had been away, and ignorant
of his love for Vaninka, in whom he had observed no trace of its being
reciprocated, he had, at the emperor's desire, promised her hand to the
son of a privy councillor. The only stipulation that the general had
made was, that he should not be separated from his daughter until she
had attained the age of eighteen. Vaninka had only five months more to
spend under her father's roof. Nothing more could be said: in Russia the
emperor's wish is an order, and from the moment that it is expressed,
no subject would oppose it, even in thought. However, the refusal
had imprinted such despair on the young man's face, that the general,
touched by his silent and resigned sorrow, held out his arms to him.
Foedor flung himself into them with loud sobs.

Then the general questioned him about his daughter, and Foedor answered,
as he had promised, that Vaninka was ignorant of everything, and that
the proposal came from him alone, without her knowledge. This assurance
calmed the general: he had feared that he was making two people
wretched.

At dinner-time Vaninka came downstairs and found her father alone.
Foedor had not enough courage to be present at the meal and to meet her
again, just when he had lost all hope: he had taken a sleigh, and driven
out to the outskirts of the city.

During the whole time dinner lasted Vaninka and the general hardly
exchanged a word, but although this silence was so expressive,