have brought it to you.
Please!
Too bad I couldn't receive you again.
I'm not well, I only got up
because of an urgent matter.
Besides, as you know,
the Emperor's answer hasn't yet...
All right... all right...
I have no good news for you, Princess.
If I'm not mistaken, this is your
tenth visit here, isn't it?
Excuse me, the eleventh.
You see?.
Where's my letter, General?
Where's the paper I signed?
- Couldn't the answer get mislaid?
- Oh, no, the courier...
You see?
God knows I didn't want
to bother the Empress.
Pafnuti!
- The paper?
- Waiting, as you said.
Send it this week.
No, next week.
Shall I send it on Tuesday?
Friday.
Friday will be just right.
It will be just right on Friday.
Yes, yes, yes...
Friday is just right.
Or take the varieties
of Little Russia...
Or rennet, for example...
This was planted exactly in the year
that Masha was born.
What did my sister's nail mark here?
It's better to doubt nobility
than virtuousness.
A coal-miner's wife deserves more
respect than a prince's mistress.
How did you like the prince?
You aren't matchmaking for me,
dear brother, or are you?
Well, Prince Volkonsky is one of
the best eligible bachelors in Russia.
Maybe I'd better wait for a more
modest suitor. Why hurry?
I'd sooner run away than become
the wife of a titled dandy.
Grief's constant sister...
Grief's constant sister...
Hope is high...
Hope...
Hope...
Hope.
Doesn't he love his Fatherland who
makes sacrifices for his convictions,
who is ready to mount the scaffold
for them?
Doesn't he command respect
for the only reason
that he ventured a new
cause before its time came?
Let's go, Your Excellency.
Get in, be so kind.
Your Excellency!
I was ordered to overtake
Your Excellency.
A message from St. Petersburg.
Will you read it, please?
The wife of a state criminal is not
to leave the place of exile
before her husband dies.
Even after his death, the government
takes no obligation
to permit the widows of criminals
to return to Russia.
Thank you.
Now tell me,
how far is Yekaterinburg?
Two hundred versts, Your Excellency.
How come, Your Excellency?
Wait, I'll announce you.
But I don't know if he'll receive you.
Dear sir, you have received
the answer last week.
Stop your evasions!
You know about the letter as well as
I do.
Really, Princess?
But I haven't read it yet.
Too bad, I didn't have the time.
Then read it,
dear sir!
Certainly I will read it.
But I receive a lot of mail from His
Majesty which concerns not only you.
- Maybe in a week...
- Sir!
You've been keeping me waiting
for almost six months!
Well, as you wish. Pafnuti!
You may read it.
At least read what's required of you.
I don't care, and you know it.
You're wrong.
You're very wrong, Princess.
A wife, following her husband,
will share his fate
and lose her former title
of any rank,
that is, will be recognized as no
other than an exiled convict's wife.
At the same time, she agrees
to take any distress
that such a position may involve,
namely:
children that may be begotten
in Siberia
will be enlisted as factory peasants...
with no right of inheriting either
the property or name of their father,
for they will be
registered as serfs.
You shouldn't have tortured
yourself so.
Had you listened to me in the first
place, you would've been home now.
And your parents wouldn't have pined
for their daughter.
Is that all?
Can I go to my husband now?
Be so kind as to make arrangements
for the horses.
Have you ever seen
convicts in irons?
Answer me!
Why are you shouting?
Who gave you that right?
You gave it to me!
You're the wife of an exiled convict.
You yourself will be sent
to Nerchinsk as a convict.
With your hands and feet in irons.
You will go with a group of
convicts under convoy.
You will be tied up with the rest,
as villains are, so that...
they don't escape.
And one more thing: out of 500 men
we send under convoy,
no more than a