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

by Alexander Pushkin

  Meanwhile the young lady was beginning to recover. Vladimir had not been seen in Gavrila Gavrilovich’s house for a long time. He was afraid of meeting the usual reception. They decided to send for him and announce to him an unexpected blessing: their acceptance of the marriage. But what was the amazement of the Nenaradovo landowners when, in response to their invitation, they received a half-crazed letter from him! He announced to them that he would never set foot in their house, and asked them to forget a poor wretch for whom death remained the only hope. Some days later they learned that Vladimir had left for the army. It was 1812.3

  For a long time they did not dare to inform the convalescent Masha of this. She never mentioned Vladimir. Several months later, finding his name among those distinguished and gravely wounded at Borodino,4 she swooned, and they feared her delirium might return. But, thank God, the swoon had no consequences.

  Another sorrow visited her: Gavrila Gavrilovich passed away, leaving her heiress to the entire estate. But the inheritance was no comfort to her; she sincerely shared the grief of poor Praskovya Petrovna, and swore never to part from her; the two women left Nenaradovo, a place of sorrowful memories, and went to live on their estate at * * *.

  There, too, wooers swarmed around the sweet and rich young lady; but she gave no one the slightest hope. Her mother occasionally tried to persuade her to choose a companion; Marya Gavrilovna shook her head and grew pensive. Vladimir was no longer of this world: he had died in Moscow, on the eve of the French entry. His memory seemed sacred to Masha; at any rate she cherished everything that could remind her of him: the books he had once read, his drawings, the music and verses he had copied out for her. The neighbors, learning of all this, marveled at her constancy and waited with curiosity for the hero who would finally triumph over the sorrowing fidelity of this virginal Artemisia.5

  Meanwhile, the war had ended in glory. Our regiments were returning from abroad. People ran to meet them. For music they played conquered songs: “Vive Henri-Quatre,” Tyrolean waltzes, and arias from Joconde.6 Officers who went off on campaign as all but boys came back matured by the air of battle and hung with medals. Soldiers talked merrily among themselves, constantly mixing German and French words into their speech. An unforgettable time! A time of glory and rapture! How strongly the Russian heart beat at the word “fatherland”! How sweet were the tears of reunion! With what unanimity we combined the feeling of national pride with love for the sovereign! And for him, what a moment it was!

  The women, the Russian women, were incomparable then. Their usual coldness vanished. Their rapture was truly intoxicating when, meeting the victors, they shouted: Hurrah!

  And into the air their bonnets threw.7

  Who among the officers of that time would not confess that it was to the Russian woman that he owed his best, his most precious reward?…

  At that brilliant time Marya Gavrilovna was living with her mother in * * * province and did not see how the two capitals8 celebrated the return of the troops. But in the provincial towns and villages the general rapture was perhaps still stronger. The appearance of an officer in those places was a real triumph for him, and a lover in a frock coat had a hard time in his vicinity.

  We have already said that, despite her coldness, Marya Gavrilovna was as surrounded by suitors as before. But they all had to step back when the wounded hussar colonel Burmin appeared in her castle, with a St. George in his buttonhole9 and with an “interesting pallor,” as the local young ladies used to say. He was about twenty-six. He came on leave to his estate, which was next to Marya Gavrilovna’s village. Marya Gavrilovna singled him out at once. In his presence, her habitual pensiveness brightened up. It could not be said that she flirted with him; but a poet, observing her behavior, would have said:

  Se amor non è, che dunque?…10

  Burmin was indeed a very nice young man. His was just the sort of mind that women like: a mind decorous, observant, without any pretensions, and light-heartedly mocking. His conduct with Marya Gavrilovna was simple and unconstrained; but whatever she said or did, his soul and his gaze followed her. He seemed to be of a quiet and modest disposition, but rumor averred that he had once been a terrible scapegrace, though that did him no harm in the eyes of Marya Gavrilovna, who (like all young ladies generally) took pleasure in excusing pranks that betrayed a boldness and fervor of character.

  But most of all…(more than his tenderness, more than his pleasant conversation, more than his interesting pallor, more than his bandaged arm) most of all it was the young hussar’s silence that piqued her curiosity and imagination. She could not help realizing that he liked her very much; probably he, too, with his intelligence and experience, had already been able to notice that she had singled him out: how was it, then, that until now she had not seen him at her feet and had not yet heard his declaration? What held him back? The timidity inseparable from true love, pride, the teasing of a clever philanderer? It was a riddle to her. Having given it a good deal of thought, she decided that timidity was the only cause of it, and proposed to encourage him by greater attentiveness and, depending on the circumstances, even by tenderness. She prepared the most unexpected denouement, and awaited with impatience the moment of a romantic declaration. Mystery, of whatever sort it might be, is always a burden for the feminine heart. Her military operation had the desired effect: at any rate Burmin fell into such pensiveness and his dark eyes rested on Marya Gavrilovna with such fire that the decisive moment seemed to be near. The neighbors spoke of the wedding as of an already settled matter, and the good Praskovya Petrovna rejoiced that her daughter had finally found herself a worthy match.

  The old woman was sitting alone in the drawing room one day, laying out a game of grande patience,11 when Burmin came into the room and at once inquired about Marya Gavrilovna.

  “She’s in the garden,” the old woman replied. “Go to her, and I’ll wait for you here.” Burmin went, and the old woman crossed herself and thought, “Maybe the matter will be settled today!”

  Burmin found Marya Gavrilovna by the pond, under a willow tree, with a book in her hand and wearing a white dress, a veritable heroine of a novel. After the initial questions, Marya Gavrilovna deliberately stopped keeping up the conversation, thus intensifying the mutual embarrassment, which could only be dispelled by a sudden and resolute declaration. And so it happened: Burmin, feeling the difficulty of his position, declared that he had long been seeking a chance to open his heart to her, and asked for a moment of attention. Marya Gavrilovna closed the book and lowered her eyes in a sign of consent.

  “I love you,” said Burmin, “I love you passionately…” (Marya Gavrilovna blushed and lowered her head still more.) “I have acted imprudently, giving myself up to the sweet habit, the habit of seeing you and hearing you every day…” (Marya Gavrilovna recalled the first letter of St. Preux.12) “Now it is already too late to resist my fate; your memory, your dear, incomparable image, will henceforth be the torment and delight of my life; but it still remains for me to fulfill a painful duty, to reveal to you a terrible secret, and to place an insurmountable obstacle between us…”

  “It has always existed,” Marya Gavrilovna interrupted with animation. “I could never have been your wife…”

  “I know,” he replied softly. “I know that you once loved, but death and three years of mourning…My good, dear Marya Gavrilovna! Do not try to deprive me of my last consolation: the thought that you could have agreed to make my happiness, if…don’t speak, for God’s sake, don’t speak. You torment me. Yes, I know, I feel that you could be mine, but—I am the most wretched of creatures…I am married!”

  Marya Gavrilovna glanced up at him in astonishment.

  “I am married,” Burmin went on. “I’ve been married for four years now, and I don’t know who my wife is, or where she is, or whether we are ever to see each other!”

  “What are you saying?” Marya Gavrilovna exclaimed. “This is so strange! Go on; I’ll tell you afterwards…but go on, if you ple
ase!”

  “At the beginning of 1812,” said Burmin, “I was hurrying to Vilno, where our regiment was. Coming to a posting station late one night, I ordered horses to be hitched up quickly, when a terrible blizzard suddenly arose, and the stationmaster and the coachmen advised me to wait. I heeded their advice, but an incomprehensible restlessness came over me; it seemed as if someone was pushing me. Meanwhile the blizzard did not let up. I couldn’t help myself, ordered them again to hitch up, and drove off into the storm. The coachman took it into his head to go along the river, which was supposed to shorten our way by two miles. The banks were snowbound; the coachman drove past the place where he should have turned onto the road, and as a result we found ourselves in unknown parts. The storm did not let up. I saw a little light and told the coachman to go there. We came to a village; there was a light in the wooden church. The church was open and several sledges stood inside the fence; people were moving about on the porch.

  “ ‘This way! This way!’ several voices shouted. I told my coachman to go there. “ ‘For pity’s sake, why are you so late?’ somebody said to me. ‘The bride has fainted; the priest doesn’t know what to do; we were about to go back. Get out quickly.’ I silently jumped out of the sledge and went into the church, dimly lit by two or three candles. A girl was sitting on a bench in a dark corner of the church; another was rubbing her temples.

  “ ‘Thank God,’ she said, ‘you’ve come at last. You were nearly the death of the young miss.’

  “The old priest came to me and asked, ‘Shall we begin?’

  “ ‘Begin, begin, father,’ I replied distractedly.

  “The girl was helped to her feet. Not bad looking, I thought…Incomprehensible, unpardonable frivolity…I stood beside her at the altar; the priest was in a hurry; the three men and the maid supported the bride and were occupied only with her. We were married.

  “ ‘Kiss now,’ they said to us. My wife turned her pale face to me. I was about to kiss her…She cried out:

  “ ‘Aie! It’s not him, not him!’ and fell unconscious.

  “The witnesses fixed their frightened eyes on me. I turned, walked out of the church unhindered, threw myself into my kibitka, and shouted: ‘Drive!’ ”

  “My God!” cried Marya Gavrilovna. “And you don’t know what became of your poor wife?”

  “No, I don’t,” replied Burmin. “I don’t know the name of the village where I was married; I don’t remember what station I stopped at. I ascribed so little importance to my criminal prank at the time that, having driven away from the church, I fell asleep and woke up the next morning, already three stations away. The servant who was with me then died in the campaign, so that I also have no hope of finding the woman on whom I played such a cruel joke and who is now so cruelly revenged.”

  “My God, my God!” said Marya Gavrilovna, seizing his hand. “So that was you! And you don’t recognize me?”

  Burmin went pale…and threw himself at her feet…

  THE COFFIN-MAKER

  Do we not gaze every day on coffins,

  The gray hair of the aging universe?

  DERZHAVIN1

  The last belongings of the coffin-maker Adrian Prokhorov were piled on the hearse, and for the fourth time the scrawny pair dragged it from Basmannaya to Nikitskaya Street, where the coffin-maker was moving with all his household. Having locked up the shop, he nailed to the gate a notice that the house was for sale or rent, and went on foot to his new home. Approaching the little yellow house that had so long captivated his imagination, and that he had finally purchased for a considerable sum, the old coffin-maker felt with surprise that his heart was not rejoicing. Stepping across the unfamiliar threshold and finding turmoil in his new dwelling, he sighed for the decrepit hovel, where in the course of eighteen years everything had been managed in the strictest order; he started scolding his two daughters and the maidservant for being slow, and set about helping them himself. Soon order was established; the icon stand with its icons, the cupboard with its dishes, the table, the sofa, and the bed took up their appointed corners in the back room; the kitchen and the living room were filled with the master’s handiwork: coffins of all colors and sizes, as well as cupboards with mourning hats, mantles, and torches. Over the gate rose a signboard depicting a stout Cupid with an upside down torch in his hand, with the inscription: “Plain and painted coffins sold and upholstered here, old ones also rented out and repaired.” The girls went to their room. Adrian took a turn around his dwelling, sat down by the window, and ordered the samovar prepared.

  The enlightened reader knows that Shakespeare and Walter Scott both presented their gravediggers as merry and jocular people, in order to strike our imaginations the more forcefully by this contrast. Out of respect for the truth we cannot follow their example and are forced to admit that our coffin-maker’s disposition suited his gloomy profession perfectly. Adrian Prokhorov was habitually morose and pensive. He broke his silence only to chide his daughters when he found them gazing idly out the window at passersby, or to ask an exorbitant price for his products from those who had the misfortune (or sometimes the pleasure) of needing them. And so Adrian, sitting by the window and drinking his seventh cup of tea, was immersed in his habitual melancholy reflections. He was thinking about the pouring rain which, a week earlier, had met the funeral of a retired brigadier just at the city gates. Many mantles had shrunk because of it, many hats had been deformed. He foresaw inevitable expenses, for his old stock of funerary vestments had fallen into a pitiful state. He hoped to make up for the loss on the old merchant woman Tryukhina, who had been at death’s door for about a year already. But Tryukhina was dying in Razgulyai, and Prokhorov feared that her heirs, despite their promise, would be too lazy to send so far for him and would make a deal with a contractor closer by.

  These reflections were unexpectedly interrupted by three Masonic knocks on the door.

  “Who’s there?” asked the coffin-maker.

  The door opened, and a man, who could be recognized at first glance as a German artisan, came into the room and with a cheerful air approached the coffin-maker.

  “Forgive me, kind neighbor,” he said in that Russian parlance which to this day we cannot hear without laughing, “forgive me for bothering you…I wished quickly to make your acquaintance. I am a shoemaker, my name is Gottlieb Schultz, I live across the street from you, in that little house opposite your windows. Tomorrow I am celebrating my silver anniversary, and I ask you and your daughters to dine with me in friendly fashion.”

  The invitation was favorably received. The coffin-maker asked the shoemaker to sit down and have a cup of tea, and, thanks to Gottlieb Schultz’s open disposition, they were soon conversing amicably.

  “How goes your trade, my dear sir?” Adrian asked.

  “Ehh,” replied Schultz, “up and down. I can’t complain. Though, of course, my trade’s not the same as yours: a living man can do without boots, but a dead man can’t live without a coffin.”

  “The exact truth,” observed Adrian. “However, if a living man lacks the wherewithal to buy boots, then, no offense intended, he goes around barefoot; while a beggarly dead man gets his coffin for nothing.”

  Their talk went on like that for some time; finally the shoemaker got up and took leave of the coffin-maker, renewing his invitation.

  The next day, at exactly twelve noon, the coffin-maker and his daughters stepped through the gateway of their newly purchased house and headed for their neighbor’s. I am not going to describe Adrian Prokhorov’s Russian kaftan, nor the European outfits of Akulina and Darya, departing on this occasion from the custom adopted by present-day novelists. I suppose, however, that it is not superfluous to observe that the two girls put on yellow hats and red shoes, which they used to do only on solemn occasions.

  The shoemaker’s small apartment was filled with guests, mostly German artisans, their wives and apprentices. Of Russian officials there was only the sentry Yurko, a Finn, who, despite his humbl
e rank, had managed to earn the host’s special favor. For twenty-five years he had served faithfully in that capacity, like Pogorelsky’s postman. The fire of the year twelve, having destroyed the former capital, also did away with his yellow sentry box.2 But immediately upon the expulsion of the enemy, a new one appeared in its place, gray with little white columns of the Doric order, and Yurko again started pacing before it “with a poleaxe and in a homespun cuirass.”3 He was acquainted with most of the Germans, who lived near the Nikitsky Gate: some of them occasionally even stayed overnight with Yurko from Sunday to Monday. Adrian at once made his acquaintance, as a person he might chance to have need of sooner or later, and when the guests went to the table, they sat next to each other. Mr. and Mrs. Schultz, together with their daughter, the seventeen-year-old Lottchen, while dining with their guests, passed the plates and helped the cook to serve. The beer flowed. Yurko ate enough for four; Adrian did not lag behind him; his daughters behaved decorously; the German conversation grew louder and louder. Suddenly the host called for attention and, uncorking a resin-sealed bottle, pronounced loudly in Russian:

  “To the health of my good Louisa!”

  The sparkling wine foamed up. The host tenderly kissed the fresh face of his forty-year-old companion, and the guests noisily drank the health of good Louisa.

  “To the health of my dear guests!” proposed the host, uncorking a second bottle—and the guests thanked him, emptying their glasses again. Here toasts began to follow one after the other: they drank the health of each particular guest, drank the health of Moscow and a full dozen small German towns, drank the health of all guilds in general and each in particular, drank the health of masters and apprentices. Adrian drank heartily and became so merry that he offered a sort of jocular toast himself. Suddenly one of the guests, a fat baker, raised his glass and exclaimed: