I warrant the sky seemed to you the size
of a sheepskin. And you would certainly have swung beneath the
cross-beam but for your old servant. I knew the old owl again directly.
Well, would you ever have thought, sir, that the man who guided you to a
lodging in the steppe was the great Tzar himself?" As he said these
words he assumed a grave and mysterious air. "You are very guilty as
regards me," resumed he, "but I have pardoned you on account of your
courage, and because you did me a good turn when I was obliged to hide
from my enemies. But you shall see better things; I will load you with
other favours when I shall have recovered my empire. Will you promise to
serve me zealously?"
The robber's question and his impudence appeared to be so absurd that I
could not restrain a smile.
"Why do you laugh?" he asked, frowning. "Do you not believe me to be the
great Tzar? Answer me frankly."
I did not know what to do. I could not recognize a vagabond as Emperor;
such conduct was to me unpardonably base. To call him an impostor to his
face was to devote myself to death; and the sacrifice for which I was
prepared on the gallows, before all the world, and in the first heat of
my indignation, appeared to me a useless piece of bravado.
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