Page 262 - Revelation
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Svetlana de Rohan-Levashova.   Revelation

            Isidora?!!! – He whispered almost breathless.

                  A wild and unrealizable hope, the source of which apparently was me, burned in
            his eyes... But as I answered, he saw that he had been wrong, and to my greatest
            surprise, the "iron" Caraffa wilted!!! For a moment it seemed to me that something
            broke inside him, as if he had just found and then lost something vitally important and
            maybe even dear to him.
                  – You see, life is not always so simple, as it seems to us or as we would like to see
            it, Your Holiness. Sometimes we consider the simplest thing to be the most correct and
            real, but, unfortunately, it is not always true. Yes, I could have gone long ago. But
            what would it change? You would find other "gifted" ones, who, certainly, would not
            be as strong as I am, and try to "knock" the knowledge you are interested in out of
            them. And these poor fellows would not have  the slightest hope of resisting you.

                  – And you think that you have it, don’t you? – Caraffa asked with a sickly tension.
            Man is dead without hope, Your Holiness; as you can see, I am still alive. Hope will
            glimmer in me to the last instant of my life. You see, we witches, are very strange
            people.
                  – Well, I think, that is enough conversation for today! – Caraffa exclaimed with
            unexpected malice, and before I could get scared, added: – You will be taken to your
            rooms. See you soon, Madonna!
                  – But what about my father, Your Holiness? I want to be present at whatever you
            do to him, no matter how terrible it may be.

                  – Don’t worry, dear Isidora, I promise, you will see everything. It would not be so
            "amusing" without you! I am very glad that you conceived such a desire.
                  He complacently smiled, turned to the door, but suddenly remembered something
            and stopped:

                  – Tell me, Isidora, does the place from which you "disappear" matter?
                  – No, Your Holiness, it doesn’t. It’s not like passing through walls. I simply "melt"
            in one place and appear in another, if this explanation can give you a picture. – And I
            added to finish him off. – Everything is very simple, when you know how to do it...
            Holiness.
                  Caraffa devoured me with his black eyes for a moment more, then turned and
            quickly left the room, as if being afraid that I suddenly would stop him for some reason.

                  I perfectly understood why he asked the last question. From the minute he saw
            that I could disappear so easily, he raked his proud brain as to how he could "bind"
            me to something or put me behind stone walls from which I could never "fly" away...
            But my answer shattered his peace and quiet and my soul sincerely rejoiced at this
            little victory, because I knew that Caraffa would know no rest trying to think of the
            most reliable place he could hide me.
                  Certainly, those were only amusing moments which slightly distracted me from
            the terrible reality, but they helped to draw my attention from it for an instant even in
            Caraffa’s presence and not show how badly and deeply wounded I was at what was
            going on. I wanted to find a way out from our hopeless situation so much, wishing it
            with all the forces of my exhausted soul! But just my desire to defeat Caraffa was not


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