Collected Shorter Fiction, Volume 2
Page 99
‘What for, what for?!’ she screamed out, and bursting into hysterical laughter she collapsed on to the box, which had been removed from the tarantass and was standing on the ground nearby. Her whole body shaking with sobs and with tears streaming down her face, Ludwika went up to her.
‘Panienka,11 my dearest Panienka! Jak Boga kokham,12 nothing will happen to you, nothing will happen!’ she said, distractedly running her hands over her mistress.
Migurski was handcuffed and led out of the inn yard. Seeing what was happening, Albina ran after him.
‘Forgive me, forgive me!’ she cried. ‘It is all my fault, I alone am to blame!’
‘They’ll sort out who is to blame in court. And I’ve no doubt the case will involve you,’ said the chief of police, pushing her out of the way.
They led Migurski down to the river crossing and Albina, not knowing herself why she was doing so, followed him and refused to listen to Ludwika’s advice.
All this time the Cossack Danilo Lifanov was standing leaning against a wheel of the tarantass and glaring angrily now at the chief of police, now at Albina, and now at his own feet.
When Migurski had been led away Trezorka, now left alone, wagged his tail and began to fawn on him. The Cossack had grown used to the dog during the journey. Suddenly he pulled himself upright, tore his cap from his head and hurled it with all his strength on to the ground, pushed Trezorka away from him with his foot, and went into the eating-house. Once inside he ordered vodka and drank solidly for a day and a night, drinking away all the money he had on him and everything he had with him, and only on the next night, when he woke up in a ditch, was he able to stop thinking about the question which had been tormenting him: why had he done it, informing the authorities about the little Polish woman’s husband in the box?
Migurski was tried and sentenced to run the gauntlet of a thousand rods. His relatives and Wanda, who had connections in St Petersburg, managed after much trouble to obtain a mitigation of the punishment, and instead he was sent into permanent exile in Siberia. Albina travelled after him.
And Tsar Nicholas Pavlovich rejoiced that he had crushed the hydra of revolution not only in Poland, but throughout Europe, and took pride in the fact that he had not betrayed the ordinances of the Russian autocracy, but for the good of the Russian people had kept Poland in Russia’s power. And men wearing decorations and gilt uniforms lauded him for this to such an extent, that when he came to die he sincerely believed that he was a great man and that his life had been a great blessing for humanity in general and for Russians in particular, those Russians to whose corruption and stupefaction he had unwittingly directed all his powers.
1 The Rzecz Pospolita, instituted in 1569 by King Sigismund II Augustus, last of the Jagellon dynasty.
2 Representative assembly, Diet.
3 Polish aristocracy.
4 Literally: ‘to hold the sweetmeat high’ – i.e. to put him through his paces first.
5 Victory to the Poles, destruction to the Muscovites! Hurrah!
6 A Polish man’s hat with a square base and a tassel on top.
7 Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Thy great mercy.
8 As I love my mother.
9 Couriers or special messengers.
10 A settlement inhabited by descendants of the Streltsy (archers), a state security force established by Ivan the Terrible and disbanded by Peter the Great (1708).
11 Diminutive of ‘pani’ (mistress).
12 As I love God.
ABOUT THE TRANSLATORS
LOUISE AND AYLMER MAUDE spent much of their lives in Russia. Their Quaker background led them to share many of Tolstoy’s views on spiritual life, moral obligation and passive resistance to violence, and they helped him to organize the Doukhobor migration to Canada in 1893. Aylmer Maude, whose business activities left him time to write a biography of his friend, also translated most of Tolstoy’s major works in partnership with his wife. These translations, which were commended by the author himself, are still widely regarded as the best.
NIGEL J. COOPER read French and Russian at Christ Church, Oxford. He has recently retired from Middlesex University where he was a Principal Lecturer in Modern Languages.
ABOUT THE INTRODUCER
JOHN BAYLEY is former Thomas Warton Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford. His many books include Tolstoy and the Novel; Pushkin: A Comparative Commentary; The Short Story: Henry James to Elizabeth Bowen; An Essay on Hardy, Shakespeare and Tragedy and a detailed study of A. E. Housman’s poems. He has also written several novels.
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