The next day the hussar was worse. His man rode to town for the doctor. Dunya tied a handkerchief moistened with vinegar around his head and sat down by his bed with her sewing. In front of the stationmaster, the sick man groaned and said scarcely a word; however, he drank two cups of coffee and, groaning, ordered dinner for himself. Dunya never left his side. He kept asking to drink, and Dunya offered him a mug of her specially prepared lemonade. The sick man moistened his lips, and each time he handed back the mug, he pressed Dunyushka’s hand with his own weak hand in token of gratitude. Towards dinnertime the doctor came. He took the sick man’s pulse, talked with him in German, and announced in Russian that all he needed was peace and quiet, and that he could set out on his way in a couple of days. The hussar handed him twenty-five roubles for the visit and invited him for dinner; the doctor accepted; the two ate with great appetite, drank a bottle of wine, and parted very pleased with each other.
Another day went by, and the hussar recovered completely. He was extremely cheerful, joked incessantly now with Dunya, now with the stationmaster, whistled tunes, talked with the travelers, copied their papers into the register, and was so much to the good stationmaster’s liking that on the third day he was sorry to part with his amiable guest. It was Sunday; Dunya was about to go to church. The hussar’s kibitka was ready. He said good-bye to the stationmaster, rewarded him generously for his bed and board; said good-bye to Dunya as well, and volunteered to take her to the church, which was at the edge of the village. Dunya stood in perplexity…
“What are you afraid of?” her father said to her. “His honor’s not a wolf, he’s not going eat you: ride to church with him.”
Dunya got into the kibitka beside the hussar, the servant leaped up onto the box, the coachman whistled, and the horses galloped off.
The poor stationmaster could not understand how on earth he could have allowed his Dunya to go off with the hussar, how such blindness could have come over him, and what had happened then to his reason. Before half an hour went by, his heart began to ache, to ache, and anxiety took such hold of him that he could not bear it and went to church himself. Coming to the church, he saw that people were already leaving, but Dunya was neither within the fence nor on the porch. He hurriedly went into the church: the priest was coming out of the sanctuary; the sexton was putting out the candles; two old women were still praying in one corner; but there was no Dunya in the church. The poor father barely brought himself to ask the sexton if she had been at the service. The sexton replied that she had not. The stationmaster went home more dead than alive. One hope remained for him: Dunya, with the flightiness of youth, might have taken it into her head to go on to the next station, where her godmother lived. In painful agitation he waited for the return of the troika in which he had sent her off. The coachman did not return. Finally, in the evening, he came back alone and drunk, with devastating news: “Dunya went on from that station with the hussar.”
The old man could not bear his misfortune; he took at once to that same bed in which the young deceiver had lain the day before. Now, considering all the circumstances, the stationmaster figured out that the illness had been feigned. The poor man came down with a high fever; he was taken to S–– and another man temporarily filled his place. He was treated by the same doctor who had visited the young hussar. He assured the stationmaster that the young man had been perfectly well and that even then he had guessed his evil intentions, but had said nothing for fear of his whip. Whether the German was telling the truth, or merely wished to boast of his prescience, he did not comfort his poor patient in the least. Having barely recovered from his illness, the stationmaster obtained a two-month leave from his superior in S–– and, telling no one of his intentions, set out on foot after his daughter. From the travel papers he knew that cavalry captain Minsky was going from Smolensk to Petersburg. The coachman who had driven him said that Dunya had wept all the time on the way, though she seemed to be going of her own will.
“Maybe I’ll bring my lost sheep home,” thought the stationmaster.
With that thought in mind, he arrived in Petersburg, stopped in the neighborhood of the Izmailovsky regiment, at the house of a retired corporal whom he had once served with, and began his search. He soon found out that cavalry captain Minsky was in Petersburg and living at the Demut Inn.5 The stationmaster decided to go and see him.
Early in the morning he came to the front hall and asked them to inform his honor that an old soldier was asking to see him. The orderly, who was polishing a boot on a boot tree, told him that his master was asleep and that he did not receive anyone before eleven o’clock. The stationmaster went away and came back at the appointed time. Minsky himself came out to him, in a dressing gown and a red skullcap.
“What do you want, brother?” he asked.
The old man’s blood began to boil, tears welled up in his eyes, and in a trembling voice all he said was: “Your Honor!…Show me this divine mercy!…”
Minsky glanced quickly at him, flushed, took him by the hand, led him to his study, and shut the door behind him.
“Your Honor!” the old man went on. “What falls off the cart is lost for good; at least give me back my poor Dunya. You’ve had your fun with her; don’t ruin her for nothing.”
“What’s done can’t be undone,” the young man said in the utmost embarrassment. “I’m guilty before you, and I gladly ask your forgiveness; but don’t think that I could forsake Dunya: she’ll be happy, I give you my word of honor. What do you want her for? She loves me; she’s lost the habit of her former situation. Neither you nor she will forget what’s happened.”
Then, slipping something into the old man’s cuff, he opened the door, and the stationmaster, without knowing how, found himself in the street.
For a long time he stood motionless, but finally he noticed a wad of papers behind the cuff of his sleeve. He took them out and unfolded several crumpled five- and ten-rouble banknotes. Tears welled up in his eyes again, tears of indignation! He rolled the papers into a ball, threw them on the ground, stamped on them with his heel, and walked away…After going several steps, he stopped, reflected…and turned back…but the banknotes were no longer there. A well-dressed young man, seeing him, ran over to a cab, quickly got in, and shouted: “Drive!…” The stationmaster did not chase after him. He decided to go back home to his station, but first he wanted to see his poor Dunya at least once more. For that he went back to Minsky’s a couple of days later; but the orderly told him sternly that the master was not receiving anybody, pushed him out of the front hall with his chest, and slammed the door in his face. The stationmaster stood there, stood there—and then left.
That same day, in the evening, he was walking down Liteiny Street, after having prayers said at the Joy of the Afflicted.6 Suddenly a smart droshky raced past him, and the stationmaster recognized Minsky. The droshky stopped in front of a three-story house, just by the entrance, and the hussar went running up to the porch. A happy thought flashed in the stationmaster’s head. He turned around and coming alongside the coachman, asked:
“Whose horse is that, brother? Is it Minsky’s?”
“That’s right,” replied the coachman. “What’s it to you?”
“It’s this: your master told me to take a note to his Dunya, but I forget where his Dunya lives.”
“Right here, on the second floor. You’re late with your note, brother; he’s already with her now.”
“Never mind,” the stationmaster objected with an inexplicable stirring of the heart. “Thanks for telling me, I’ll do what I’m supposed to.” And with those words he went up the stairs.
The door was locked. He rang and spent several painful seconds waiting. A key jangled, the door opened.
“Does Avdotya Samsonovna live here?” he asked.
“Yes,” a young maid replied. “What do you want with her?”
The stationmaster, without replying, went into the room.
“You mustn’t, you mustn’t!” the maid
called after him. “Avdotya Samsonovna has visitors!”
But the stationmaster did not listen and went on. The first two rooms were dark, in the third there was light. He went up to the open door and stopped. In a beautifully decorated room, Minsky sat deep in thought. Dunya, dressed with all the luxury of fashion, was sitting on the arm of his chair like a horsewoman on an English saddle. She looked at Minsky with tenderness, winding his black locks around her sparkling fingers. Poor stationmaster! Never had his daughter seemed so beautiful to him; he admired her despite himself.
“Who’s there?” she asked, without raising her head. He kept silent. Receiving no answer, Dunya raised her head…and with a cry fell to the carpet. The frightened Minsky rushed to pick her up, but, suddenly seeing the old stationmaster in the doorway, he left Dunya and went over to him, trembling with wrath.
“What do you want?” he said, clenching his teeth. “Why are you slinking after me everywhere like a robber? Do you want to put a knife in me? Get out!” And seizing the old man by the collar with his strong hand, he pushed him out to the stairs.
The old man went back to his quarters. His friend advised him to lodge a complaint; but the stationmaster reflected, waved his hand, and decided to give up. Two days later he left Petersburg, went back to his station, and took up his duties again.
“For three years now,” he concluded, “I’ve lived without Dunya and without any news of her. God knows whether she’s still alive or not. All sorts of things happen. She’s neither the first nor the last to be seduced by a passing rake, who’ll keep a girl and then abandon her. There’s lots of those young fools in Petersburg, in satin and velvet today, and tomorrow, just look, they’re sweeping the streets along with some drunken riffraff. When you think sometimes that Dunya, too, may be perishing like that, you can’t help sinning by wishing her in her grave…”
Such was the story of my friend, the old stationmaster, a story interrupted more than once by tears, which he picturesquely wiped with the skirt of his coat, like the zealous Terentyich in Dmitriev’s wonderful ballad.7 Those tears were provoked in part by the punch, of which he drained five glasses in the course of his narrative; but, however it was, they touched my heart strongly. Having parted from him, for a long time I could not forget the old stationmaster, for a long time I thought about poor Dunya…
Just recently, passing through the little town of * * *, I remembered about my friend; I learned that the station he had been in charge of had since been abolished. To my question “Is the old stationmaster still alive?”—no one could give me a satisfactory answer. I decided to visit those familiar parts, hired some private horses, and set out for the village of N––.
This happened in the autumn. Grayish clouds covered the sky; a cold wind blew from the harvested fields, carrying off red and yellow leaves from the trees it met on its way. I reached the village at sunset and stopped by the little station house. A fat peasant woman came out to the front hall (where poor Dunya once gave me a kiss), and to my questions replied that the old stationmaster had died about a year before, that a brewer now lived there, and that she was the brewer’s wife. I began to regret my useless trip and the seven roubles I had spent for nothing.
“What did he die of?” I asked the brewer’s wife.
“Of drink, my good sir,” she replied.
“Where was he buried?”
“At the edge of the village, next to his late wife.”
“Couldn’t someone take me to his grave?”
“Why not? Hey, Vanka! Enough fooling with the cat. Take the mister to the cemetery and show him the stationmaster’s grave.”
At these words a raggedy boy, redheaded and one-eyed, ran out to me and immediately led me to edge of the village.
“Did you know the deceased?” I asked him on the way.
“How could I not! He taught me to whittle pipes. He used to come from the pot-house (God rest his soul!), and we’d follow after him: ‘Grandpa, grandpa! Give us some nuts!’ And he’d give us nuts. He used to play with us all the time.”
“Do travelers remember him?”
“There’s not many travelers nowadays; the assessor drops by sometimes, but he can’t be bothered with dead people. There was a lady passed by last summer, and she did ask about the old stationmaster and went to his grave.”
“What kind of lady?” I asked with curiosity.
“A beautiful lady,” the boy replied. “She rode in a coach-and-six, with three little sirs, and a wet nurse, and a black pug; and when they told her the old stationmaster had died, she wept and said to the children: ‘Sit quietly, while I go to the cemetery.’ I volunteered to take her there. But the lady said: ‘I know the way myself.’ And she gave me five silver kopecks—such a kind lady!…”
We came to the cemetery, a bare place, no fence around it, studded with wooden crosses, not shaded by a single tree. In all my born days I had never seen such a desolate cemetery.
“Here’s the old stationmaster’s grave,” said the boy, jumping onto a pile of sand in which a black cross with a brass icon was planted.
“And the lady came here?” I asked.
“Yes, she did,” replied Vanka, “I watched her from further off. She lay down here and went on lying for a long time. Then the lady went to the village and summoned the priest, gave him money, and drove away, and me she gave five silver kopecks—such a nice lady!”
I, too, gave the boy five kopecks and no longer regretted either the trip or the seven roubles it had cost me.
THE YOUNG LADY PEASANT
You look lovely, Dushenka, in any garments.
BOGDANOVICH1
In one of our remote provinces lay the estate of Ivan Petrovich Berestov. He served with the guards in his youth, retired at the beginning of 1797, went to his village, and after that never left it. He married a poor noblewoman, who died in childbirth while he was out hunting. The exercise of estate management soon consoled him. He built a house to his own plan, started a fulling mill, tripled his income, and began to consider himself the most intelligent man in the whole neighborhood, in which he was not contradicted by his neighbors, who came to visit him with their families and dogs. On weekdays he went around in a velveteen jacket, for Sundays he put on a frock coat of homespun broadcloth; he kept the accounts himself and read nothing except the Senate Gazette. He was generally liked, though he was considered proud. The only one who did not get along with him was Grigory Ivanovich Muromsky, his nearest neighbor. This was a real Russian squire. Having squandered the greater part of his fortune in Moscow and become a widower at the same time, he left for the last of his holdings, where he went on playing pranks, but now of a different sort. He planted an English garden, into which he poured almost all his remaining income. His stable-boys were dressed like English jockeys. His daughter had an English governess. He cultivated his fields following the English method,
But Russian grain won’t grow in foreign fashion,2
and, despite a significant reduction of expenses, Grigory Ivanovich’s income did not increase; he found ways to make new debts in the country as well; yet for all that he was considered none too stupid, because among the landowners of his province he was the first to mortgage his estate to the Government Trust: a transaction which at that time seemed extremely complicated and courageous.3 Of people who disapproved of him, the most severe was Berestov. Hatred of innovation was the distinguishing mark of his character. He could not speak indifferently about his neighbor’s anglomania, and constantly found occasions to criticize him. He would show a guest over his domain, and in reply to praise of his management, would say with a sly smile:
“Yes, sir, with me it’s not like with my neighbor Grigory Ivanovich! We won’t go ruining ourselves English-style! It’s enough if we get our fill Russian-style.”
These and similar jests, through the diligence of obliging neighbors, were made known to Grigory Ivanovich with additions and explanations. The anglomaniac bore criticism no more patiently than do our journalists
. He raged and dubbed his detractor a bear and a provincial.
Such were the relations between these two proprietors when Berestov’s son came to his village. He had been educated at * * * University and had intended to enter military service, but his father would not consent to it. The young man felt himself totally unsuited to civil service. Neither would yield to the other, and the young man began meanwhile to live as a squire, letting his moustache grow just in case.
Alexei was indeed a fine fellow. It really would have been a pity if a military uniform were never to hug his slender waist, and if, instead of showing himself off on horseback, he were to spend his youth hunched over office papers. Seeing how he always galloped at the head of the hunt, heedless of the road, the neighbors all agreed that he would never make a worthwhile department chief. The young ladies cast an eye on him, some even fixed an eye on him; but Alexei paid little attention to them, and they supposed that the cause of his insensibility was a love intrigue. Indeed, a copy of the address from one of his letters was passed around: To Akulina Petrovna Kurochkina, in Moscow, opposite the St. Alexei Monastery, in the house of the coppersmith Savelyev, humbly requesting that you deliver this letter to A. N. R.
Those of my readers who have never lived in the country cannot imagine how charming these provincial young ladies are! Brought up on fresh air, in the shade of their apple orchards, they draw their knowledge of the world and of life from books. Solitude, freedom, and reading develop early in them feelings and passions unknown to our distracted beauties. For such a young lady the jingle of bells is already an adventure, a trip to the nearest town is considered epoch-making, and the visit of a guest leaves a lasting, sometimes even eternal, memory. Of course, anyone is free to laugh at some of their oddities, but the jests of the superficial observer cannot do away with their essential merits, the main one being “a particularity of character, a uniqueness (individualité),” without which, in the opinion of Jean-Paul, there can be no human greatness.4 In the capitals women may receive a better education; but social habits soon smooth their character away and make their souls as alike as their hats. This is said neither in judgment nor in condemnation,5 but still nota nostra manet,*1 as an ancient commentator writes.
Novels, Tales, Journeys: The Complete Prose of Alexander Pushkin Page 11
