“Vaninka!” The young girl drew herself away proudly.

“Forgive me!” said Foedor.  “What am I doing?  You have but to order:  I have no wish apart from you.  I dread lest I shall offend you.  Tell me what to do, and I will obey.”

“The first thing you must do, Foedor, is to ask my father’s consent.”

“So you will allow me to take this step?”

“Yes, but on one condition.”

“What is it?  Tell me.”

“My father, whatever his answer, must never know that I have consented to your making this application to him; no one must know that you are following my instructions; the world must remain ignorant of the confession I have just made to you; and, lastly, you must not ask me, whatever happens, to help you in any other way than with my good wishes.”

“Whatever you please.  I will do everything you wish me to do.  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.