Novels, Tales, Journeys: The Complete Prose of Alexander Pushkin

  “Who’s on watch?” Dubrovsky asked.

  “We are, dear master,” a high voice replied. “Vasilisa and Lukerya.”

  “Go home,” Dubrovsky said to them. “You’re not needed.”

  “Knock off,” said Arkhip.

  “Thank you, our dear provider,” the women replied and went home at once.

  Dubrovsky walked on. Two men approached him; they called out to him. Dubrovsky recognized the voices of Anton and Grisha.

  “Why aren’t you asleep?” he asked them.

  “As if we could sleep,” Anton replied. “Who’d have thought we’d live to see…”

  “Quiet!” Dubrovsky interrupted. “Where’s Egorovna?”

  “In the main house, in her attic,” Grisha replied.

  “Go, bring her here, and get all our people out of the house, so there’s not a soul left in it except the officials, and you, Anton, hitch up the wagon.”

  Grisha left and appeared a minute later with his mother. The old woman had not undressed for the night; apart from the officials, nobody in the house had slept a wink.

  “Everybody here?” asked Dubrovsky. “Nobody left in the house?”

  “Nobody except the officials,” Grisha replied.

  “Bring me some hay or straw,” said Dubrovsky.

  People ran to the stables and came back carrying armfuls of hay.

  “Lay it under the porch. Like this. Now, boys, the fire!”

  Arkhip opened the lantern; Dubrovsky lit a splinter.

  “Wait,” he said to Arkhip. “In my haste I think I locked the door to the front hall. Go quick and unlock it.”

  Arkhip ran to the entryway—the door was unlocked. Arkhip locked it, muttering in a half whisper, “Nohow I’ll unlock it!” and went back to Dubrovsky.

  Dubrovsky brought the splinter close, the hay caught fire, the flames soared and lit up the whole yard.

  “Ah, no!” Egorovna cried pitifully. “Vladimir Andreevich, what are you doing?”

  “Quiet!” said Dubrovsky. “And so farewell, children. I’ll go where God takes me. Good luck with your new master.”

  “Our father, our provider,” people replied, “we’d rather die than leave you, we’ll come with you.”

  The horses were brought. Dubrovsky got into the wagon along with Grisha and appointed the Kistenevka grove as the meeting place for them all. Anton whipped up the horses, and they drove out of the yard.

  The wind picked up. In a moment flames engulfed the whole house. Red smoke whirled above the roof. Glass cracked, rained down, blazing beams began to fall, there were pitiful screams and cries:

  “We’re burning! Help! Help!”

  “Nohow,” said Arkhip, gazing at the fire with a malicious smile.

  “Arkhipushka,” Egorovna said to him, “save the fiends. God will reward you.”

  “Nohow,” said the blacksmith.

  Just then the officials appeared at the window, trying to break the double frames. But here the roof came crashing down, and the screaming ceased.

  Soon all the servants came pouring into the yard. The women, shouting, rushed to save their junk; the children hopped up and down, admiring the fire. Sparks flew like a fiery blizzard; cottages began to burn.

  “It’s all right now,” said Arkhip. “How’s that for burning, eh? Bet it looks nice from Pokrovskoe.”

  Just then a new event caught his attention. A cat went running along the roof of the blazing shed, at a loss where to jump down; it was surrounded on all sides by flames. The poor animal meowed pitifully, calling for help. The boys died with laughter, looking at its despair.

  “What’re you laughing at, you little devils,” the blacksmith said angrily. “You’ve got no fear of God: God’s creature is perishing, and you fools are glad.” And leaning a ladder against the already-burning roof, he climbed up for the cat. It understood his intention and with a look of hurried gratitude clung to his sleeve. The half-singed blacksmith climbed down with his booty.

  “And so farewell, lads,” he said to the confused servants. “There’s nothing for me to do here. Good luck, and don’t hold anything against me.”

  The blacksmith left. The fire raged for some time. It finally died down, and heaps of flameless embers glowed brightly in the darkness of the night, and around them wandered the burnt-out inhabitants of Kistenevka.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The next day news of the fire spread all over the neighborhood. Everybody explained it with various conjectures and suppositions. Some insisted that Dubrovsky’s people had gotten drunk at the funeral and set fire to the house out of carelessness; others accused the officials, who had made too merry at the housewarming; many were convinced that it had burned down of itself with the court officials and all the servants. Some guessed the truth and maintained that Dubrovsky himself, moved by anger and despair, was to blame for the terrible calamity. Troekurov came to the scene of the fire the next day and conducted an investigation himself. It turned out that the police chief, the local court assessor, the lawyer, and the clerk, as well as Vladimir Dubrovsky, the nanny Egorovna, the servant Grigory, the coachman Anton, and the blacksmith Arkhip had disappeared no one knew where. All the servants testified that the officials had burned up when the roof collapsed. Their charred bones were unearthed. The women Vasilisa and Lukerya said they had seen Dubrovsky and the blacksmith Arkhip a few minutes before the fire. The blacksmith Arkhip, according to general testimony, was alive and was probably the main one, if not the only one, to blame for the fire. Dubrovsky, too, was under strong suspicion. Kirila Petrovich sent the governor a detailed account of the whole incident, and a new case was started.

  Soon other news gave other food for curiosity and gossip. Robbers had appeared in * * * and spread terror through the whole region. The measures taken against them by the government proved inadequate. Robberies, one more remarkable than the other, followed one after the other. There was no safety either on the roads or in the villages. Several troikas full of robbers drove in broad daylight all over the province, stopped travelers and the post, rode into villages, robbed landowners’ houses and committed them to the flames. The chief of the band became known for his intelligence, daring, and a sort of magnanimity. Wonders were told of him; the name of Dubrovsky was on everybody’s lips, everybody was sure that he and no one else was the leader of these daring evildoers. One thing was astonishing: Troekurov’s estates had been spared; not a single barn had been robbed, not a single cart had been stopped. With his usual arrogance, Troekurov ascribed this exception to the fear he had been able to instill in the whole province, and also to the excellent quality of the police he had established in his villages. At first the neighbors laughed among themselves at Troekurov’s haughtiness, and expected every day that the uninvited guests would visit Pokrovskoe, where there was a good haul to be made, but they were finally forced to agree with him and admit that the robbers, too, had an incomprehensible respect for him…Troekurov was triumphant, and each time there was news of a new robbery by Dubrovsky, he burst into mockery of the governor, the police chiefs and company commanders from whom Dubrovsky always escaped unharmed.

  Meanwhile October 1st came—the day of the church feast in Troekurov’s village. But before we set about describing this solemnity and the subsequent events, we ought to acquaint the reader with some persons new to him, or of whom we made only slight mention at the beginning of our story.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The reader has probably guessed that Kirila Petrovich’s daughter, of whom we have as yet said only a few words, is the heroine of our story. In the period we are describing, she was seventeen years old and her beauty was in full bloom. Her father loved her to distraction, but treated her with his own special willfulness, now trying to cater to her slightest whims, then frightening her with severe and sometimes cruel treatment. Assured of her affection, he could never gain her confidence. She was used to concealing her feelings and thoughts from him, because she could never know for certain how they would be
received. She had no friends and grew up in solitude. The neighbors’ wives and daughters rarely visited Kirila Petrovich, whose habitual conversation and amusements called for the camaraderie of men and not the presence of ladies. Rarely did our beauty appear among the guests feasting at Kirila Petrovich’s. An enormous library, consisting for the most part of works by eighteenth-century French writers, was put at her disposal. Her father, who never read anything except The Perfect Cook, could not guide her in the choice of books, and Masha, having leafed through works of various sorts, quite naturally settled on novels. It was thus that she completed her education, begun previously under the guidance of Mam’selle Mimi, to whom Kirila Petrovich had shown great confidence and benevolence, and whom he had finally been forced to send quietly to another estate, once the consequences of his friendship became too obvious. Mam’selle Mimi left quite a pleasant memory behind her. She was a good girl and never misused the influence she obviously had over Kirila Petrovich, differing in this from other confidantes, who were replaced every minute. Kirila Petrovich himself seemed to have liked her more than the others, and a dark-eyed boy, a scamp of about nine, recalling Mam’selle Mimi’s southern features, was brought up in the house and recognized as his son, though many barefoot children, as like him as two drops of water, ran around outside his windows and were considered serfs. For his little Sasha, Kirila Petrovich invited a French tutor from Moscow, who arrived in Pokrovskoe during the events we are now describing.

  Kirila Petrovich liked this tutor for his pleasant appearance and simple manners. He presented Kirila Petrovich with his references and a letter from one of Troekurov’s relations, with whom he had lived for four years as a tutor. Kirila Petrovich looked through it all and was displeased only by his Frenchman’s youth—not that he considered this agreeable drawback incompatible with the patience and experience so necessary to the unfortunate position of tutor, but he had doubts of his own, which he decided at once to explain to him. For that he ordered Masha to be sent to him (Kirila Petrovich did not speak French, and she served as his interpreter).

  “Come here, Masha. Tell this moosieu that, so be it, I’ll take him; only provided that he not dare to go chasing after my girls, otherwise I’ll show the son of a dog…Translate that for him, Masha.”

  Masha blushed and, turning to the tutor, told him in French that her father hoped for his modesty and proper behavior.

  The Frenchman bowed and replied that he hoped to earn respect, even if favor were denied him.

  Masha translated his reply word for word.

  “All right, all right,” said Kirila Petrovich. “He has no need of favor or respect. His business is to look after Sasha and teach him grammar and geography. Translate that for him.”

  Marya softened her father’s crude expressions in her translation, and Kirila Petrovich sent his Frenchman off to the wing, where a room had been assigned to him.

  Masha, having been brought up with aristocratic prejudices, paid no attention to the young Frenchman. For her a tutor was a sort of servant or artisan, and servants or artisans did not seem like men to her. Nor did she notice the impression she had made on M. Desforges, his confusion, his trembling, his altered voice. After that, for several days in a row she met him rather often, without paying any greater attention to him. In an unexpected way, she acquired a completely new idea of him.

  Several bear cubs were usually reared in Kirila Petrovich’s yard and constituted one of the Pokrovskoe landowner’s chief amusements. While still young, the cubs would be brought each day to the drawing room, where Kirila Petrovich would spend hours at a time playing with them, setting them at cats and puppies. Grown up, they would be put on chains, in anticipation of real baiting. Now and then they would be brought before the windows of the master’s house and an empty wine barrel bristling with nails would be rolled up to them. The bear would sniff it, then touch it lightly, pricking its paws, angrily shove it harder, and make the pain worse. It would fly into a complete rage, rush at the barrel with a roar, and stop only when the object of the poor beast’s vain fury was taken away. Or else a team of bears would be hitched to a wagon, some guests, willingly or unwillingly, would be seated in it, and they would be sent galloping off God knows where. But to Kirila Petrovich’s mind the best joke was the following.

  A hungry bear would be locked in an empty room, tied with a rope to a ring screwed into the wall. The rope was almost the length of the whole room, so that only the opposite corner could be safe from the fearsome beast’s attack. They would bring someone, usually a novice, to the door of this room, as if inadvertently shove him in with the bear, lock the door, and the unfortunate victim would be left alone with the shaggy hermit. The poor guest, his coattails shredded and himself scratched and bleeding, would soon find the safe corner, but would sometimes be forced to stand for a whole three hours pressed to the wall and watch as the infuriated beast two steps away roared, jumped, reared, and strained, trying to reach him. Such were the noble amusements of the Russian squire! A few days after the tutor’s arrival, Troekurov remembered about him and conceived the idea of treating him to the bear room. To that end, summoning him one morning, he led him along the dark corridors; suddenly a side door opened, two servants shoved the Frenchman in and locked the door with a key. Coming to his senses, the tutor saw the tied-up bear; the beast began to snort, sniffing at his guest from a distance, and suddenly, rising on his hind legs, came towards him…The Frenchman did not panic, did not run, but waited for the attack. The bear came close; Desforges drew a small pistol from his pocket, put it into the hungry beast’s ear, and fired. The bear collapsed. Everyone came running, the door opened, Kirila Petrovich came in, amazed at the outcome of his joke. Kirila Petrovich wanted the whole matter explained at once: who had warned Desforges of the joke prepared for him, or why was there a loaded pistol in his pocket? He sent for Masha. Masha came running and translated her father’s questions for the Frenchman.

  “I had not heard about the bear,” Desforges replied, “but I always carry pistols on me, because I do not intend to put up with offenses for which, owing to my position, I cannot demand satisfaction.”

  Masha looked at him in amazement and translated his words for Kirila Petrovich. Kirila Petrovich made no reply, ordered the bear taken away and skinned; then, turning to his servants, he said: “There’s a fine fellow! He wasn’t scared, by God, he wasn’t scared!” From that moment on he came to like Desforges and no longer thought of testing him.

  But this incident made a still greater impression on Marya Kirilovna. Her imagination was struck: she saw the dead bear, and Desforges calmly standing over him and calmly conversing with her. She saw that courage and proud self-esteem did not belong exclusively to one estate, and from then on she began to show the young tutor a respect which grew more attentive by the hour. Certain relations were established between them. Masha had a beautiful voice and great musical ability. Desforges volunteered to give her lessons. After that it will not be hard for the reader to guess that Masha fell in love with him, though she did not yet admit it to herself.

  Volume Two

  CHAPTER NINE

  On the eve of the feast, the guests began to arrive. Some stayed in the manor house or in the wings, others at the steward’s, still others at the priest’s, and others again with well-to-do peasants. The stables were filled with carriage horses, the yards and coach houses were cluttered with all sorts of vehicles. At nine o’clock in the morning, the bells rang for the liturgy, and everyone moved towards the new stone church, built by Kirila Petrovich and adorned every year with his offerings. Such a multitude of honorable worshippers gathered that simple peasants could not get into the church and stood on the porch or inside the fence. The liturgy had not started yet; they were waiting for Kirila Petrovich. He drove up in a coach-and-six and solemnly walked to his place accompanied by Marya Kirilovna. The eyes of men and women turned to her; the former marveled at her beauty, the latter attentively examined her dress. The liturgy began, th
e serf choir sang, Kirila Petrovich himself joined in, prayed, looking neither right nor left, and bowed to the ground with proud humility when the deacon made vociferous mention of “the benefactor of this church.”

  The liturgy ended. Kirila Petrovich went up first to kiss the cross. Everyone followed after him, then the neighbors approached him deferentially. The ladies surrounded Masha. Kirila Petrovich, coming out of the church, invited them all to dinner, got into his carriage, and went home. They all drove along behind him. The rooms filled with guests. New persons came in every minute and could barely make their way to the host. The ladies sat in a decorous semicircle, dressed in outmoded fashion, in much-worn but expensive outfits, all covered with pearls and diamonds; the men crowded around the caviar and vodka, talking among themselves in a loud hubbub. In the reception room the table was being laid for eighty people. Servants bustled about, arranging bottles and carafes and adjusting tablecloths. Finally the butler announced “Dinner is served”—and Kirila Petrovich went first to take his place at the table; the ladies followed after him and solemnly took their seats, with some observance of seniority; the girls crowded together like a flock of timid little goats and chose seats next to each other. The men placed themselves opposite them. At the end of the table sat the tutor beside little Sasha.

  The servants began to serve dishes according to rank, guiding themselves in perplexing cases by Lavaterian guesswork,10 almost always unerringly. The clatter of dishes and spoons merged with the loud talk of the guests. Kirila Petrovich cheerfully surveyed his table and fully relished the happiness of a hospitable host. Just then a carriage drawn by six horses drove into the yard.

  “Who’s this?” asked the host.