"A week ago? Let me see--what happened a week ago? But why should I ask?
Nothing ever happens to me, nothing until now! And now, oh Vjera, it is
you who do not understand, it is you who do not know, who cannot guess."
As if he had forgotten everything else in the sudden realisation of his
return to liberty and fortune, he began to speak quickly and excitedly in
a tone louder and clearer than that of his ordinary voice.
"No," he cried, "you can never guess what this change is to me. You can
never know what I enjoy in the thought of being myself again, you cannot
understand what it is to have been rich and great, and to be poor and
wretched and to regain wealth and dignity again by the stroke of a pen in
the vibration of a second. And yet it is true, all true, I tell you,
to-day, at last, after so much waiting. To-morrow they will come to my
lodging to fetch me--a court carriage or two, and many officials who will
treat me with the old respect I was used to long ago. They will come up my
little staircase, bringing money, immense quantities of money, and the
papers and the parchments and the seals. How they will stare at my poor
lodging, for they have never known that I have been so wretched. Yes, one
will bring money in a black leathern case--I know just how it will
look--and another will have with him a box full of documents--all lawfully
mine--and a third will bring my orders, that I once wore, and with them
the order of Saint Alexander Nevsky and a letter on broad heavy paper,
signed Alexander Alexandrovitch, signed by the Tsar himself, Vjera.
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