The General remanded us to prison. I looked at Alexis. He smiled with
satisfied hate, raised up his shackles to hasten his pace and pass
before me. I had no further examination. I was not an eye-witness of
what remains to be told the reader; but I have so often heard the
story, that the minutest particulars are engraved on my memory.

Marie was received by my parents with the cordial courtesy which
distinguished the preceding generation. They became very much attached
to her, and my father no longer considered my love a folly. The news
of my arrest was a fearful blow; but Marie and Saveliitch had so
frankly told the origin of my connection with Pougatcheff, that the
news did not seem grave. My father could not be persuaded that I would
take part in an infamous revolt, whose object was the subversion of the
throne and the extinction of the nobility. So better news was
expected, and several weeks passed, when at last a letter came from our
relative Prince B---. After the usual compliments, he told my father
that the suspicions of my complicity in the rebel plots were only too
well founded, as had been proved,--that an exemplary execution might
have been my fate, were it not that the Empress, out of consideration
for the father's white hair and loyal services, had commuted the
sentence of the criminal son. She had exiled him for life to the
depths of Siberia!

The blow nearly killed my father. his firmness gave way, and his
usually silent sorrow burst into bitter plaints: "What! my son plotting
with Pougatcheff! The Empress gives him his life! Execution not the
worst thing in the world! My grandfather died on the scaffold in
defense of his convictions! But, that a noble should betray his oath,
unite with bandits, knaves and revolted slaves! shame! shame forever