Troekurov’s customary occupations consisted of driving around his vast domain, of prolonged banquets, and of pranks invented each day and whose victim was usually some new acquaintance; though old friends did not always manage to evade them, with the sole exception of Andrei Gavrilovich Dubrovsky. This Dubrovsky, a retired lieutenant of the guards, was his nearest neighbor and owned seventy souls.1 Troekurov, arrogant in his dealings with people of the highest rank, respected Dubrovsky in spite of his humble condition. They had once been comrades-in-arms, and Troekurov knew from experience the impatience and resoluteness of his character. Circumstances had kept them apart for a long time. Dubrovsky, his fortune in disarray, had been forced to go into retirement and settle on his one remaining estate. On learning that, Kirila Petrovich offered him his protection, but Dubrovsky thanked him and remained poor and independent. After a few years, Troekurov, a retired general-en-chef, came to his estate; they met and were glad of each other. From then on they got together every day, and Kirila Petrovich, who in all his born days had never honored anyone with a visit, would drop in unceremoniously at his old comrade’s little house. Being of the same age, born to the same social class, brought up in the same way, they partly resembled each other in both character and inclinations. In certain respects their fates were also the same: both had married for love, both had soon been widowed, both had been left with a child. Dubrovsky’s son had been educated in Petersburg, Kirila Petrovich’s daughter had grown up under her father’s eye, and Troekurov often said to Dubrovsky:
“Listen, brother Andrei Gavrilovich: if your Volodka turns out well, I’ll give him Masha; never mind if he’s poor as a coot.”
Andrei Gavrilovich would usually shake his head and reply:
“No, Kirila Petrovich, my Volodka’s no match for Marya Kirilovna. A poor gentleman the likes of him would do better to marry a poor young miss and be the head of the household, than to become the steward of a spoiled wench.”
Everybody envied the harmony that reigned between the haughty Troekurov and his poor neighbor, and marveled at the latter’s boldness when, at Kirila Petrovich’s table, he spoke his opinion straight out, regardless of whether it contradicted the host’s opinion or not. Some tried to imitate him and cross the line of proper obedience, but Kirila Petrovich put such a scare into them that they forever lost their taste for such attempts, and Dubrovsky alone remained outside the general law. An unexpected event upset and altered all that.
Once, at the beginning of autumn, Kirila Petrovich was getting ready to go hunting. The previous evening orders had been given to the huntsmen and grooms to be ready by five in the morning. The tent and field kitchen were sent on ahead to the place where Kirila Petrovich was to dine. The host and guests went to the kennels, where more than five hundred hounds and borzoi lived in warmth and plenty, extolling Kirila Petrovich’s generosity in their doggy language. Here there was also a clinic for sick dogs, supervised by the staff medic Timoshka, and a section where noble bitches whelped and nursed their pups. Kirila Petrovich was proud of this fine institution and never missed a chance to boast of it to his guests, each of whom was already viewing it for at least the twentieth time. He strutted about the kennels, surrounded by his guests and accompanied by Timoshka and the chief huntsmen, stopped before certain kennels, now inquiring after the health of the sick, now making more or less stern and just observations, now calling over the dogs he knew and speaking amiably with them. The guests considered it their duty to admire Kirila Petrovich’s kennels. Dubrovsky alone frowned and kept silent. He was an ardent hunter. His situation allowed him to keep only two hounds and one leash of borzoi; he could not help being slightly envious at the sight of this magnificent institution.
“Why are you frowning, my friend?” Kirila Petrovich asked him. “Don’t you like my kennel?”
“No,” he replied severely, “the kennel’s a marvel; it’s unlikely your servants live as well as your dogs do.”
One of the huntsmen took offense.
“We don’t complain of our life,” he said, “thanks to God and the master, but it’s true enough that some gentleman wouldn’t do badly to exchange his estate for any of these kennels. He’d be warmer and better fed.”
Kirila Petrovich laughed loudly at his serf’s insolent remark, and the guests burst out laughing after him, though they sensed that the huntsman’s joke could refer just as well to them. Dubrovsky turned pale and did not say a word. Just then Kirila Petrovich was brought some newborn puppies in a basket; he busied himself with them, chose two, and ordered the others drowned. Meanwhile Andrei Gavrilovich disappeared, and nobody noticed it.
On returning from the kennels with his guests, Kirila Petrovich sat down to supper, and only then, not seeing Dubrovsky, did he notice his absence. The servants told him that Andrei Gavrilovich had gone home. Troekurov immediately told them to overtake him and bring him back without fail. Never yet had he gone hunting without Dubrovsky, an experienced and fine connoisseur of canine qualities and a faultless arbiter of various hunting disputes. The servant who galloped after him came back while they were still at the table and reported to his master that Andrei Gavrilovich refused to listen and would not come back. Kirila Petrovich, flushed with liqueurs as he usually was, became angry and sent the same servant a second time to tell Andrei Gavrilovich that if he did not come at once to spend the night at Pokrovskoe, he, Troekurov, would break with him forever. The servant rode off again, Kirila Petrovich got up from the table, dismissed his guests, and went to bed.
The next morning his first question was: Is Andrei Gavrilovich here? Instead of an answer, he was handed a letter folded into a triangle. Kirila Petrovich told his clerk to read it aloud, and this is what he heard:
My most gracious sir,
I have no intention of going to Pokrovskoe until you send me the huntsman Paramoshka with an apology. It will be up to me whether to punish or pardon him, but I have no intention of taking jokes from your serfs, nor will I endure them from you, because I am not a buffoon, but of ancient nobility.
With that I remain your most humble servant,
Andrei Dubrovsky.
By present-day notions of etiquette, this letter would be quite improper, but it angered Kirila Petrovich not by its odd style and attitude, but only by its substance.
“What?” Troekurov thundered, jumping out of bed barefoot. “Send him my servants with apologies, it’s for him to pardon or punish them! What on earth is he thinking of? Does he know who he’s dealing with? I’ll show him…He’ll rue the day! He’ll learn what it means to go against Troekurov!”
Kirila Petrovich dressed and rode out to the hunt with his usual splendor, but the hunt was no success. In the whole day they saw only one hare, and it got away. Dinner in the field under the tent was no success either, or at least it was not to the taste of Kirila Petrovich, who beat the cook, yelled at the guests, and on the way back deliberately rode with all his hunt across Dubrovsky’s fields.
Several days went by and the hostility between the two neighbors did not subside. Andrei Gavrilovich did not go back to Pokrovskoe, Kirila Petrovich was bored without him, and his vexation loudly gave vent to itself in the most insulting expressions, which, thanks to the diligence of the local gentlefolk, reached Dubrovsky with additions and corrections. Then a new circumstance destroyed the last hope of reconciliation.
One day Dubrovsky was driving around his small domain. Approaching a birch grove, he heard the blows of an axe and a minute later the crash of a falling tree. He hastened to the grove and came upon some Pokrovskoe muzhiks calmly stealing his wood. Seeing him, they tried to run away. Dubrovsky and his coachman caught two of them, tied them up, and brought them to his place. Three enemy horses were also taken as spoils by the victor. Dubrovsky was extremely angry: before then Troekurov’s people, who were well-known robbers, had not dared to do any mischief within the boundaries of his domain, knowing of his friendship with their master. Dubrovsky saw that they were now taking advantage of the
rift that had occurred, and decided, against all notions of the rules of war, to teach his prisoners a lesson with the rods they had provided for themselves in his grove, and to set the horses to work, adding them to the manor’s herd.
Rumors of this incident reached Kirila Petrovich that same day. He was beside himself and in the first moment of wrath was about to set off with all his house serfs to launch an attack on Kistenevka (so his neighbor’s estate was called), utterly lay waste to it, and besiege the landowner himself in his own house. Such feats were nothing unusual for him. But his thoughts soon took a different turn.
Pacing with heavy steps up and down the hall, he happened to glance out the window and saw a troika stop at the gate. A little man in a leather cap and a frieze overcoat got out of the cart and went to the steward in the wing. Troekurov recognized the assessor Shabashkin and had him summoned. A moment later Shabashkin was already standing before Kirila Petrovich, making one bow after another and reverently awaiting his orders.
“Hello, what’s-your-name,” Troekurov said to him. “Why the visit?”
“I was going to town, Your Excellency,” replied Shabashkin, “and stopped at Ivan Demyanovich’s to find out if there were any orders from Your Excellency.”
“You’ve come very opportunely, what’s-your-name; I have need of you. Drink some vodka and listen.”
Such a warm reception pleasantly surprised the assessor. He declined the vodka and started listening to Kirila Petrovich with all possible attention.
“I have a neighbor,” said Troekurov, “a petty-landowning boor. I want to take his estate from him. What do you think of that?”
“Your Excellency, if there are any sort of documents or…”
“Nonsense, brother, forget about documents. That means law. The whole point is to take the estate from him without any right. Wait a minute, though. That estate used to belong to us; it was bought from a certain Spitsyn, and then sold to Dubrovsky’s father. Can’t we hang something on that?”
“It’s tricky, Your Excellency; the sale was probably done in accordance with the law.”
“Think, brother, put your mind to it.”
“If, for instance, Your Excellency could in some way or other obtain from your neighbor the record or deed of purchase authorizing his ownership of the estate, then of course…”
“I understand, but the trouble is—all his papers got burned up in a fire.”
“What, Your Excellency, his papers got burned up?! Could anything be better? In that case you can proceed according to the law, and you will undoubtedly obtain full satisfaction.”
“You think so? Well, look sharp, then. I rely on your diligence, and you can be sure of my gratitude.”
Shabashkin bowed almost to the ground, left, started busying himself that same day with the projected case, and, thanks to his adroitness, exactly two weeks later Dubrovsky received an invitation from town to provide immediately a proper explanation regarding his ownership of the village of Kistenevka.
Andrei Gavrilovich, astonished by the unexpected request, wrote in reply that same day a rather rude declaration, in which he stated that the village of Kistenevka had become his at the death of his late parent, that he owned it by right of inheritance, that Troekurov had nothing to do with the matter, and that any outside claim to his property was calumny and fraud.
This letter made a rather pleasant impression on the soul of the assessor Shabashkin. He saw, first, that Dubrovsky knew little about legal affairs, and, second, that it would be easy to put such a hot-tempered and imprudent man in a most disadvantageous position.
Andrei Gavrilovich, having considered the assessor’s inquiries cool-headedly, saw the necessity of responding in more detail. He wrote a rather sensible paper, but subsequently it turned out to be insufficient.
The case dragged on. Convinced that he was in the right, Andrei Gavrilovich worried little about it, had neither the wish nor the means to throw money around, and though he used to be the first to mock the bought conscience of the ink-slinging tribe, the thought of falling victim to calumny never entered his head. For his part, Troekurov cared just as little about the success of the case he had undertaken. Shabashkin bustled about for him, acted in his name, threatened and bribed judges, and interpreted various decrees either straightly or crookedly.
Be that as it may, in the year 18––, on the 9th day of February, Dubrovsky received, through the town police, a summons to appear before the * * * district judge for the hearing of his decision in the affair of the estate contested between him, Lieutenant Dubrovsky, and General-en-chef Troekurov and the signing of his accord or disaccord. That same day Dubrovsky set out for town; on the way Troekurov overtook him. They looked at each other proudly, and Dubrovsky noticed a malicious smile on his adversary’s face.
CHAPTER TWO
Having arrived in town, Andrei Gavrilovich stopped with a merchant acquaintance, spent the night there, and the next morning appeared in the office of the district court. No one paid any attention to him. After him came Kirila Petrovich. The clerks rose and put their pens behind their ears. The members of the court received him with expressions of profound obsequiousness, moved a chair for him in a show of respect for his rank, years, and portliness; he sat down by the open door. Andrei Gavrilovich stood leaning against the wall. A profound silence ensued, and the secretary in a ringing voice began to read the decision of the court. We insert it here in full,2 supposing that everyone will be pleased to see one of the means by which we in Russia can be deprived of an estate, to the ownership of which we have an indisputable right.
In the year 18––, the 27th day of October, the district court examined the case of the wrongful possession by Lieutenant of the Guards Dubrovsky, Andrei Gavrilovich, of an estate belonging to General-en-chef Troekurov, Kirila Petrovich, situated in * * * province in the village of Kistenevka, consisting of * * * male souls and of * * * acres of land with meadows and appurtenances. The case presents the following: on the 9th day of June past, in the year of 18––, the aforesaid General-en-chef Troekurov submitted to this court a petition to the effect that his late father, the collegiate assessor and chevalier Troekurov, Pyotr Efimovich, in the year 17––, on the 14th day of August, while serving as provincial secretary in a local office, did purchase from the gentleman and chancery clerk Spitsyn, Fadei Egorovich, an estate lying in the * * * township, in the aforementioned village of Kistenevka (which village, according to the * * * census, was then called the Kistenevka settlements), consisting, according to the 4th census, of * * * souls of the male sex with all their peasant chattels, the farmstead, with arable and non-arable land, woods, hayfields, fishing in the river, called the Kistenevka, and with all the appurtenances belonging to the estate and the wooden manor house, and, in short, everything without exception that his father, the village constable Spitsyn, Egor Terentyevich, gentleman, had left him as inheritance and that had been in his possession, not excluding a single soul, nor a single square foot of land, for the price of 2,500 roubles, the deed for which was signed on the same day in the * * * court of justice, and on the 26th day of that same August at the district court his father entered into possession and the seizin for it was recorded.—And finally, in the year 17––, the 6th day of September, by the will of God his father died, and meanwhile he, the petitioner, General-en-chef Troekurov, had been in the military service since the year 17––, almost from infancy, and for the most part had been on campaigns abroad, for which reason he could not have information of his father’s death, nor likewise of the property left to him. Now, having gone into full retirement from the service and returned to his father’s estates, located in * * * and * * * provinces, * * * and * * * districts, in various villages, comprising 3,000 souls in all, he discovers that, of the number of these above-listed estates mentioned in the * * * census, the souls (some * * * souls in that village at the present date * * *), with land and with all appurtenances, is without any title in the possession of the aforementioned Lieutenant of
the Guards Andrei Dubrovsky, for which reason, presenting along with his petition the original deed of purchase which his father received from the seller Spitsyn, Troekurov requests that the said estate, removed from the wrongful possession of Dubrovsky, be placed at the full disposal of its rightful owner, Troekurov. And for the unlawful appropriation of it, with the profits he gained from its use, after making a proper inquiry into them, a penalty in accordance with the law be imposed on him, Dubrovsky, to his, Troekurov’s, satisfaction.
The investigation of this petition by the * * * district court has discovered: that the said present owner of the disputed estate, Lieutenant of the Guards Dubrovsky, gave the local assessor of the nobility the explanation that the estate now in his possession, the said village of Kistenevka, * * * souls with land and appurtenances, came to him as an inheritance after the death of his father, Sub-lieutenant of Artillery Dubrovsky, Gavrila Evgrafovich, who obtained it through purchase from the petitioner’s father, former provincial secretary, later collegiate assessor Troekurov, through the power of attorney granted by him in the year 17––, on the 30th day of August, notarized in the * * * district court, to the titular councilor Sobolev, Grigory Vassilyevich, who was to provide him, Dubrovsky’s father, with the deed, in which it would be stated that the entire estate, * * * souls with the land, obtained by him, Troekurov, through purchase from the clerk Spitsyn, had been sold to his, Dubrovsky’s, father, and the agreed sum, 3,200 roubles, had been received from the father in full and without return, and it was requested that the attorney Sobolev provide his father with the official deed. And meanwhile his father, by the same power of attorney, having paid the full sum, was to take over this estate purchased by him and manage it as its lawful owner until the deed was executed, and neither he, the seller Troekurov, nor anyone else was to intervene henceforth in this estate. But precisely when and in what office the deed was executed and given by Sobolev to his father, he, Andrei Dubrovsky, does not know, for he was in his earliest infancy at the time, and after his father’s death he was unable to find the said deed, and supposes that it may have been burned up, along with other papers and property, during the fire in their house that took place in the year of 17––, as is also known to the inhabitants of the village. And that the estate, since the purchase from Troekurov or the receipt of the power of attorney by Sobolev, that is, since the year 17––, and from the death of his father until the present day, has been in their, the Dubrovskys’, undisputed possession, this has been testified to by the local inhabitants, 52 persons in all, who, being questioned under oath, bore witness that indeed, as far as they could remember, the said disputed estate had been in the possession of the aforesaid Messrs Dubrovsky for some 70 years now with no dispute from anyone, but by precisely what act or deed they do not know. Whether the previous purchaser of the estate mentioned in this case, the former provincial secretary Pyotr Troekurov, had owned the said estate, they do not recall. The house of Messrs Dubrovsky burned down in a fire that occurred in the village during the nighttime some 30 years ago, while disinterested persons suppose that the average income of the aforementioned disputed estate, counting from that time on, could be no less than 2,000 roubles annually.