Do you mean to give up going to Irkutsk?"
"Never!" cried Michael, in a tone which plainly showed that none
of his energy was gone.
"But you have not the letter!"
"That letter of which Ivan Ogareff robbed me! Well! I shall
manage without it, Nadia! They have treated me as a spy!
I will act as a spy! I will go and repeat at Irkutsk all I
have seen, all I have heard; I swear it by Heaven above!
The traitor shall meet me one day face to face! But I must
arrive at Irkutsk before him."
"And yet you speak of our separating, Michael?"
"Nadia, they have taken everything from me!"
"I have some roubles still, and my eyes! I can see for you, Michael;
and I will lead you thither, where you could not go alone!"
"And how shall we go?"
"On foot."
"And how shall we live?"
"By begging."
"Let us start, Nadia."
"Come, Michael."
The two young people no longer kept the names "brother" and "sister."
In their common misfortune, they felt still closer united.
They left the house after an hour's repose. Nadia had procured
in the town some morsels of "tchornekhleb," a sort of barley bread,
and a little mead, called "meod" in Russia. This had cost
her nothing, for she had already begun her plan of begging.
The bread and mead had in some degree appeased Michael's hunger
and thirst. Nadia gave him the lion's share of this scanty meal.
He ate the pieces of bread his companion gave him, drank from
the gourd she held to his lips.
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