“What villains?” Pugachev asked menacingly.
“Sorry, it just slipped out,” Savelyich replied. “Villains or not, your boys ransacked the place and took everything. Don’t be angry: a horse has four legs and still he stumbles. Tell him to finish reading.”
“Finish reading,” said Pugachev. The secretary went on:
“A chintz blanket, another of taffeta lined with cotton: four roubles.
“A crimson ratteen coat lined with fox fur: forty roubles.
“Also the hareskin coat given to Your Grace at the inn: fifteen roubles.”
“What’s this now?” Pugachev shouted, flashing his fiery eyes.
I confess I was afraid for my poor tutor. He was about to launch into his explanations again, but Pugachev interrupted him:
“How dare you get at me with such nonsense?” he cried, snatching the paper from the secretary’s hand and flinging it in Savelyich’s face. “Stupid old man! You’ve been robbed: too bad! You old geezer, you ought to pray to God eternally for me and my boys: you and your master could be hanging here with the disobedient ones…A hareskin coat! I’ll give you a hareskin coat! You know what, I’ll skin you alive and have coats made out of your hide!”
“As you please,” replied Savelyich, “but I’m a dependent man and must answer for my master’s property.”
Pugachev was obviously in a fit of magnanimity. He turned away and rode off without another word. Shvabrin and the Cossack chiefs followed him. The band left the fortress in orderly fashion. The people went to accompany Pugachev. I remained alone on the square with Savelyich. My tutor was holding his inventory and studying it with a look of deep regret.
Seeing I was on good terms with Pugachev, he had thought to make use of it, but this wise intention had not succeeded. I was about to chide him for his misplaced zeal, but could not help laughing.
“Laugh, sir,” said Savelyich, “laugh; but when we have to set up your whole household again, we’ll see how funny it is.”
I hurried to the priest’s house to see Marya Ivanovna. The priest’s wife met me with sad news. During the night Marya Ivanovna had come down with a high fever. She lay unconscious and in delirium. The priest’s wife led me to her room. I quietly approached her bed. The change in her face shocked me. The sick girl did not recognize me. I stood by her for a long time, listening neither to Father Gerasim nor to his good wife, who seemed to be comforting me. Dark thoughts troubled me. The plight of the poor, defenseless orphan, left among malicious rebels, as well as my own powerlessness, horrified me. Shvabrin, Shvabrin most of all, tormented my imagination. Invested with power by the impostor, put in command of the fortress, where the unfortunate girl, the innocent object of his hatred, remained, he could resolve on anything. What was I to do? How could I help her? How deliver her from the villain’s hands? One means was left me: I decided to go at once to Orenburg, to hasten the deliverance of the Belogorsk fortress and contribute to it as much as possible. I took leave of the priest and Akulina Pamfilovna, ardently entrusting to them the one whom I already considered my wife. I took the poor girl’s hand and kissed it, wetting it with my tears.
“Good-bye,” the priest’s wife said to me, “good-bye, Pyotr Andreich. Maybe we’ll see each other in better times. Don’t forget us and write to us often. Apart from you, poor Marya Ivanovna now has neither comfort nor protection.”
Coming out to the square, I stopped for a moment, looked at the gallows, bowed to it, left the fortress, and went down the Orenburg road, accompanied by Savelyich, who never left my side.
I walked along, caught up in my reflections, when I suddenly heard the hoofbeats of a horse behind me. I turned to look; I saw a Cossack galloping from the fortress, holding a Bashkir horse by the bridle and gesturing to me from afar. I stopped and soon recognized our sergeant. Galloping up, he got off his horse and said, handing me the bridle of the other:
“Your Honor! Our father grants you a horse and the fur coat off his back” (a sheepskin coat was tied to the saddle). “And,” the sergeant added, faltering, “he also grants you…fifty kopecks…only I lost them on the way. Have the goodness to forgive me.”
Savelyich looked at him suspiciously and growled:
“Lost them on the way! And what’s that jingling under your shirt? Shame on you!”
“What’s jingling under my shirt?” the sergeant retorted, not embarrassed in the least. “God help you, good old man! It’s the bridle, not the fifty kopecks.”
“All right,” I said, interrupting the argument. “Give my thanks to the one who sent you; as for the lost fifty kopecks, try to pick them up on the way back and treat yourself to some vodka.”
“Many thanks, Your Honor,” he replied, turning his horse around. “I’ll forever pray to God for you.”
With those words he galloped back, holding one hand to his shirt front, and in a moment he was out of sight.
I put the coat on and mounted up, seating Savelyich behind me.
“So you see, sir,” said the old man, “it was not in vain that I gave the rascal my petition: the thief felt ashamed, though the lanky Bashkir nag and the sheepskin coat aren’t worth a half of what the rascals stole from us and what you gave him yourself; still, it’s something—a clump of fur from a vicious dog.”
CHAPTER TEN
The Siege of the Town
Invading fields and hills around,
From high up, like an eagle, he surveyed the town.
Behind the camp he built a wooden gun-cart and installed
His thunderbolts within it, and by night came to the wall.
KHERASKOV29
As we approached Orenburg, we saw a crowd of convicts with shaved heads, their faces disfigured by the executioner’s pincers. They were working around the fortifications under the surveillance of the garrison veterans. Some were removing cartloads of the litter that filled the moat; others were digging the earth with spades; on the rampart masons were toting bricks and repairing the town wall. At the gate the sentries stopped us and demanded our passports. As soon as the sergeant heard that I was coming from the Belogorsk fortress, he led me straight to the general’s house.
I found him in the garden. He was looking over the apple trees, bared by the breath of autumn, and, with the help of an old gardener, was carefully wrapping them in warm straw. His face was the picture of calm, health, and good nature. He was glad to see me and started questioning me about the terrible events I had witnessed. I told him everything. The old man listened to me attentively, and meanwhile kept cutting back the dead branches.
“Poor Mironov!” he said, when I finished my sad story. “I’m sorry for him: he was a good officer. And Madam Mironov was a kind lady and such an expert at pickling mushrooms! But what about Masha, the captain’s daughter?”
I replied that she remained in the fortress, in the care of the priest’s wife.
“Aie, aie, aie!” the general observed. “That’s bad, very bad. There is no relying on the bandits’ discipline. What will happen to the poor girl?”
I replied that the Belogorsk fortress was not far away and that his excellency would probably not be slow in sending an army to free its poor inhabitants. The general shook his head with a doubtful air.
“We’ll see, we’ll see,” he said. “We still have time to discuss that. Allow me to invite you for a cup of tea: there will be a council of war today at my place. You can give us reliable information about this worthless Pugachev and his troops. In the meantime go and get some rest.”
I went to the quarters assigned to me, where Savelyich was already settling in, and began to wait impatiently for the appointed time. The reader will easily imagine that I did not fail to show up at a council that was to have such influence upon my fate. At the appointed hour I was already at the general’s.
I found there one of the town officials, the director of customs, as I recall, a fat and ruddy-cheeked old man in a brocade kaftan. He started questioning me about the fate of Ivan Kuzmich, whom he called
a family friend, and often interrupted my speech with additional questions and moralizing observations, which, if they did not show him to be a man well-versed in the military art, at least revealed his keen wit and innate intelligence. Meanwhile all the other invitees gathered. Among them, apart from the general himself, there was not a single military man. When they had all been seated and served a cup of tea, the general explained, very clearly and extensively, how things stood.
“Now, gentlemen,” he went on, “we must decide how to act against the rebels: offensively or defensively. Each of these methods has its advantages and its disadvantages. Offensive action offers greater hopes for the speedy destruction of the enemy; defensive action is more trustworthy and safe…And so, let us put it to a vote in lawful order, that is, beginning with the lowest in rank. Mr. Lieutenant!” he went on, turning to me. “Kindly give us your opinion.”
I rose and, first briefly describing Pugachev and his band, stated positively that there was no way the impostor could stand up against regular arms.
My opinion was met by the officials with obvious disapproval. They saw in it the recklessness and boldness of a young man. Murmuring arose, and I clearly heard the word “greenhorn” uttered by someone in a low voice. The general turned to me and said with a smile:
“Mr. Lieutenant, the first votes at military councils are usually given in favor of offensive action; that is in the order of things. We will now continue with the voting. Mr. Collegiate Councilor,30 tell us your opinion!”
The little old man in the brocade kaftan hastily finished his third cup of tea, liberally laced with rum, and answered the general:
“I think, Your Excellency, that we should act neither offensively nor defensively.”
“How’s that, Mr. Collegiate Councilor?” the amazed general rejoined. “Tactics offer no other way: either offensive action or defensive…”
“Your Excellency, act corruptively.”
“Heh-heh-heh! Your opinion is quite sensible. Tactics allow for corruptive actions, and we will make use of your advice. We could promise…maybe seventy roubles for the worthless fellow’s head…or even a hundred…from a special fund…”
“And then,” the director of customs interrupted, “I’m a Kirghiz sheep and no collegiate councilor if these thieves don’t give up their leader to us, bound hand and foot in irons.”
“We’ll think about it and discuss it further,” the general replied. “However, we ought in any case to take military measures as well. Gentlemen, give us your votes in due order.”
All the opinions turned out to be opposed to mine. All the officials spoke of the unreliability of the troops, of the uncertainty of success, of prudence and the like. They all thought it more sensible to stay under cover of the cannon, behind strong stone walls, than to try the fortune of arms in the open field. Finally the general, having listened to all the opinions, knocked the ashes from his pipe and delivered the following speech:
“My dear sirs! I must declare to you that I, for my part, agree completely with the opinion of Mr. Lieutenant: for that opinion is based on all the rules of sound tactics, which almost always prefer the offensive actions to the defensive actions.”
Here he paused and began to fill his pipe. My vanity was triumphant. I cast a proud glance at the officials, who exchanged whispers among themselves with an air of displeasure and uneasiness.
“But, my dear sirs,” he went on, letting out, along with a deep sigh, a dense stream of tobacco smoke, “I dare not take upon myself so great a responsibility, when it comes to the safety of the provinces entrusted to me by her imperial majesty, my most sovereign lady. And so I agree with the majority of voices, which have decided that it is most sensible and safe to await the siege within the town, and to repel the enemy’s assaults by force of artillery and (if it proves possible) by sorties.”
The officials in their turn glanced mockingly at me. The council broke up. I could not help regretting the weakness of the venerable soldier, who, contrary to his own conviction, decided to follow the opinions of uninformed and inexperienced people.
Several days after this illustrious council, we learned that Pugachev, faithful to his promise, was approaching Orenburg. I saw the rebel army from the height of the town wall. It seemed to me that their number had increased tenfold since the time of the last assault, of which I had been a witness. They had artillery with them, taken by Pugachev from the small fortresses he had already subjugated. Recalling the council’s decision, I foresaw a long confinement within the walls of Orenburg and all but wept with vexation.
I will not describe the Orenburg siege, which belongs to history and not to family memoirs. I will say briefly that, owing to the imprudence of the local authorities, this siege was disastrous for the inhabitants, who suffered hunger and all possible distress. It can easily be imagined that life in Orenburg was utterly unbearable. Everyone waited dejectedly for their fate to be decided; everyone groaned about the high prices, which indeed were terrible. The inhabitants got used to cannonballs flying into their courtyards; even Pugachev’s assaults no longer attracted general curiosity. I was dying of boredom. Time was passing. I received no letters from the Belogorsk fortress. All the roads were cut off. Separation from Marya Ivanovna became intolerable for me. Ignorance of her fate tormented me. My only diversion consisted in mounted sorties. Thanks to Pugachev, I had a good horse, with which I shared my scanty food and on which I rode out of town daily to exchange fire with Pugachev’s horsemen. In these skirmishes the odds were usually on the side of the villains, who were well fed, well drunk, and well mounted. The scrawny town cavalry could not overcome them. Occasionally our hungry infantry also took the field; but the deep snow prevented it from acting successfully against the scattered horsemen. The artillery thundered futilely from the high rampart, and in the field it got mired down and was unable to move because the horses were exhausted. Such was the mode of our military action! And this was what the Orenburg officials called prudence and good sense!
Once, when we somehow managed to break up and drive back a rather dense crowd, I ran into a Cossack who had lagged behind his comrades; I was about to strike him with my Turkish saber when he suddenly took off his hat and shouted:
“Hello, Pyotr Andreich! How’s God treating you?”
I looked and recognized our sergeant. I was inexpressibly glad to see him.
“Hello, Maximych,” I said to him. “Have you been away from the Belogorsk fortress for long?”
“Not long, dear Pyotr Andreich; I went back just yesterday. I’ve got a little letter for you.”
“Where is it?” I cried, flushing all over.
“With me,” replied Maximych, putting his hand under his shirt. “I promised Palasha I’d deliver it to you somehow.” Here he handed me a folded piece of paper and galloped off at once. I unfolded it and with trembling read the following lines:
It pleased God to deprive me suddenly of my father and mother: I have no family or protectors on earth. I turn to you, knowing that you always wished me well and that you are ready to help any person. I pray to God that this letter somehow reaches you! Maximych has promised to deliver it. Also Palasha has heard from Maximych that he frequently sees you from a distance on sorties, and that you show no regard for yourself at all and do not think of those who pray to God for you in tears. I was sick for a long time; and when I got well, Alexei Ivanovich, who is in command here in place of my late father, forced Father Gerasim to hand me over to him for fear of Pugachev. I live in our house under guard. Alexei Ivanovich is forcing me to marry him. He says he saved my life, because he concealed Akulina Pamfilovna’s deception in telling the villains I was her niece. For me it would be easier to die than to become the wife of a man like Alexei Ivanovich. He treats me with great cruelty and threatens that if I don’t change my mind and consent, he’ll take me to the villains’ camp and it will be the same for me as it was for Lizaveta Kharlova.31 I begged Alexei Ivanovich to let me think it over. He agreed to wait three
more days. If I don’t marry him in three days, there will be no mercy. Dearest Pyotr Andreevich, you are the only protector I have! Intercede for a poor girl! Persuade the general and all the commanders to send us help quickly, and come yourself, if you can. I remain obediently yours,
The poor orphan, Marya Mironova.
After reading this letter, I nearly lost my mind. I started back to town, mercilessly spurring on my poor horse. As I rode I kept thinking over one way or another to rescue the poor girl and could not come up with anything. Galloping into town, I went straight to the general’s and burst into his room.
The general was pacing up and down, smoking his meerschaum pipe. Seeing me, he stopped. My look probably struck him; he inquired solicitously about the cause of my hasty arrival.
“Your Excellency,” I said to him, “I come to you as to my own father; for God’s sake don’t deny me my request: it’s a matter of the happiness of my whole life.”
“What is it, dear boy?” asked the astonished old man. “What can I do for you? Tell me.”
“Your Excellency, order me to take a company of soldiers and some fifty Cossacks and let me clear out the Belogorsk fortress.”
The general looked at me intently, probably thinking I had lost my mind (in which he was not far wrong).
“How’s that? Clear out the Belogorsk fortress?” he said finally.
“I guarantee success,” I replied vehemently. “Just let me go.”
“No, young man,” he said, shaking his head. “At such a great distance the enemy will easily cut you off from communications with the main strategic point and obtain a complete victory over you. The suppression of communications…”
I got frightened, seeing him going off into military explanations, and hastened to interrupt him.
“Captain Mironov’s daughter,” I said to him, “has written me a letter: she asks for help; Shvabrin is forcing her to marry him.”
Novels, Tales, Journeys Page 37
