chunk: Michael, his mother and Nadia are eventually taken prisoner by the Tartar forces. Ivan Ogareff alleges that Michael is a spy. After opening the Koran at random, Feofar decides that Michael will be blinded as punishment in the Tartar fashion, with a hot blade. For several chapters the reader is led to believe that Michael was indeed blinded, but it transpires in fact that he was saved from this fate (his tears at his mother evaporated and saved his corneas) and was only pretending.
  Eventually, Michael and Nadia escape, and travel to Irkutsk with a friendly peasant. They are delayed by fire and the frozen river. However, they eventually reach Irkutsk, and warn the Tsar's brother in time of Ivan Ogareff. Nadia's father, who has been appointed commander of a suicide battalion, and later pardoned, joins them and Michael and Nadia are married.