Works of Alexander Pushkin (82 page)

“Take me to her,” said the usurper, rising.

It was impossible to hesitate. Chvabrine led Pugatchéf to Marya
Ivánofna’s room. I followed them. Chvabrine stopped on the stairs.

“Tzar,” said he, “you can constrain me to do as you list, but do not permit a stranger to enter my wife’s room.”

“You are married!” cried I, ready to tear him in pieces.

“Hush!” interrupted Pugatchéf, “it is my concern. And you,” continued he, turning towards Chvabrine, “do not swagger; whether she be your wife or no, I take whomsoever I please to see her. Your lordship, follow me.”

At the door of the room Chvabrine again stopped, and said, in a broken voice —

“Tzar, I warn you she is feverish, and for three days she has been delirious.”

“Open!” said Pugatchéf.

Chvabrine began to fumble in his pockets, and ended by declaring he had forgotten the key.

Pugatchéf gave a push to the door with his foot, the lock gave way, the door opened, and we went in. I cast a rapid glance round the room and nearly fainted. Upon the floor, in a coarse peasant’s dress, sat Marya, pale and thin, with her hair unbound. Before her stood a jug of water and a bit of bread. At the sight of me she trembled and gave a piercing cry. I cannot say what I felt. Pugatchéf looked sidelong at Chvabrine, and said to him with a bitter smile —

“Your hospital is well-ordered!” Then, approaching Marya, “Tell me, my little dove, why your husband punishes you thus?”

“My husband!” rejoined she; “he is not my husband. Never will I be his wife. I am resolved rather to die, and I shall die if I be not delivered.”

Pugatchéf cast a furious glance upon Chvabrine.

“You dared deceive me,” cried he. “Do you know, villain, what you deserve?”

Chvabrine dropped on his knees. Then contempt overpowered in me all feelings of hatred and revenge. I looked with disgust upon a gentleman at the feet of a Cossack deserter. Pugatchéf allowed himself to be moved.

“I pardon you this time,” he said, to Chvabrine; “but next offence I will remember this one.” Then, addressing Marya, he said to her, gently, “Come out, pretty one; I give you your liberty. I am the Tzar.”

Marya Ivánofna threw a quick look at him, and divined that the murderer of her parents was before her eyes. She covered her face with her hands, and fell unconscious.

I was rushing to help her, when my old acquaintance, Polashka, came very boldly into the room, and took charge of her mistress.

Pugatchéf withdrew, and we all three returned to the parlour.

“Well, your lordship,” Pugatchéf said to me, laughing, “we have delivered the pretty girl; what do you say to it? Ought we not to send for the pope and get him to marry his niece? If you like I will be your
marriage godfather
, Chvabrine best man; then we will set to and drink with closed doors.”

What I feared came to pass.

No sooner had he heard Pugatchéf’s proposal than Chvabrine lost his head.

“Tzar,” said he, furiously, “I am guilty, I have lied to you; but Grineff also deceives you. This young girl is not the pope’s niece; she is the daughter of Iván Mironoff, who was executed when the fort was taken.”

Pugatchéf turned his flashing eyes on me.

“What does all this mean?” cried he, with indignant surprise.

But I made answer boldly —

“Chvabrine has told you the truth.”

“You had not told me that,” rejoined Pugatchéf, whose brow had suddenly darkened.

“But judge yourself,” replied I; “could I declare before all your people that she was Mironoff’s daughter? They would have torn her in pieces, nothing could have saved her.”

“Well, you are right,” said Pugatchéf. “My drunkards would not have spared the poor girl; my gossip, the pope’s wife, did right to deceive them.”

“Listen,” I resumed, seeing how well disposed he was towards me, “I do not know what to call you, nor do I seek to know. But God knows I stand ready to give my life for what you have done for me. Only do not ask of me anything opposed to my honour and my conscience as a Christian. You are my benefactor; end as you have begun. Let me go with the poor orphan whither God shall direct, and whatever befall and wherever you be we will pray God every day that He watch over the safety of your soul.”

I seemed to have touched Pugatchéf’s fierce heart.

“Be it even as you wish,” said he. “Either entirely punish or entirely pardon; that is my motto. Take your pretty one, take her away wherever you like, and may God grant you love and wisdom.”

He turned towards Chvabrine, and bid him write me a safe conduct pass for all the gates and forts under his command. Chvabrine remained still, and as if petrified.

Pugatchéf went to inspect the fort; Chvabrine followed him, and I stayed behind under the pretext of packing up. I ran to Marya’s room. The door was shut; I knocked.

“Who is there?” asked Polashka.

I gave my name. Marya’s gentle voice was then heard through the door.

“Wait, Petr’ Andréjïtch,” said she, “I am changing my dress. Go to
Akoulina Pamphilovna’s; I shall be there in a minute.”

I obeyed and went to Father Garasim’s house.

The pope and his wife hastened to meet me. Savéliitch had already told them all that had happened.

“Good-day, Petr’ Andréjïtch,” the pope’s wife said to me; “here has God so ruled that we meet again. How are you? We have talked about you every day. And Marya Ivánofna, what has she not suffered anent you, my pigeon? But tell me, my father, how did you get out of the difficulty with Pugatchéf? How was it that he did not kill you? Well, for
that
, thanks be to the villain.”

“There, hush, old woman,” interrupted Father Garasim; “don’t gossip about all you know; too much talk, no salvation. Come in, Petr’ Andréjïtch, and welcome. It is long since we have seen each other.”

The pope’s wife did me honour with everything she had at hand, without ceasing a moment to talk.

She told me how Chvabrine had obliged them to deliver up Marya Ivánofna to him; how the poor girl cried, and would not be parted from them; how she had had continual intercourse with them through the medium of Polashka, a resolute, sharp girl who made the
“ouriadnik”
himself dance (as they say) to the sound of her flageolet; how she had counselled Marya Ivánofna to write me a letter, etc. As for me, in a few words I told my story.

The pope and his wife crossed themselves when they heard that Pugatchéf was aware they had deceived him.

“May the power of the cross be with us!” Akoulina Pamphilovna said. “May God turn aside this cloud. Very well, Alexey Iványtch, we shall see! Oh! the sly fox!”

At this moment the door opened, and Marya Ivánofna appeared, with a smile on her pale face. She had changed her peasant dress, and was dressed as usual, simply and suitably. I seized her hand, and could not for a while say a single word. We were both silent, our hearts were too full.

Our hosts felt we had other things to do than to talk to them; they left us. We remained alone. Marya told me all that had befallen her since the taking of the fort; painted me the horrors of her position, all the torment the infamous Chvabrine had made her suffer. We recalled to each other the happy past, both of us shedding tears the while.

At last I could tell her my plans. It was impossible for her to stay in a fort which had submitted to Pugatchéf, and where Chvabrine was in command. Neither could I dream of taking refuge with her in Orenburg, where at this juncture all the miseries of a siege were being undergone. Marya had no longer a single relation in the world. Therefore I proposed to her that she should go to my parents’ country house.

She was very much surprised at such a proposal. The displeasure my father had shown on her account frightened her. But I soothed her. I knew my father would deem it a duty and an honour to shelter in his house the daughter of a veteran who had died for his country.

“Dear Marya,” I said, at last, “I look upon you as my wife. These strange events have irrevocably united us. Nothing in the whole world can part us any more.”

Marya heard me in dignified silence, without misplaced affectation. She felt as I did, that her destiny was irrevocably linked with mine; still, she repeated that she would only be my wife with my parents’ consent. I had nothing to answer. We fell in each other’s arms, and my project became our mutual decision.

An hour afterwards the “
ouriadnik
” brought me my safe-conduct pass, with the scrawl which did duty as Pugatchéf’s signature, and told me the Tzar awaited me in his house.

I found him ready to start.

How express what I felt in the presence of this man, awful and cruel for all, myself only excepted? And why not tell the whole truth? At this moment I felt a strong sympathy with him. I wished earnestly to draw him from the band of robbers of which he was the chief, and save his head ere it should be too late.

The presence of Chvabrine and of the crowd around us prevented me from expressing to him all the feelings which filled my heart.

We parted friends.

Pugatchéf saw in the crowd Akoulina Pamphilovna, and amicably threatened her with his finger, with a meaning wink. Then he seated himself in his
“kibitka”
and gave the word to return to Berd. When the horses started, he leaned out of his carriage and shouted to me —

“Farewell, your lordship; it may be we shall yet meet again!”

We did, indeed, see one another once again; but under what circumstances!

Pugatchéf was gone.

I long watched the steppe over which his
“kibitka”
was rapidly gliding.

The crowd dwindled away; Chvabrine disappeared. I went back to the pope’s house, where all was being made ready for our departure. Our little luggage had been put in the old vehicle of the Commandant. In a moment the horses were harnessed.

Marya went to bid a last farewell to the tomb of her parents, buried behind the church.

I wished to escort her there, but she begged me to let her go alone, and soon came back, weeping quiet tears.

Father Garasim and his wife came to the door to see us off. We took our seats, three abreast, inside the “
kibitka
,” and Savéliitch again perched in front.

“Good-bye, Marya Ivánofna, our dear dove; good-bye, Petr’ Andréjïtch, our gay goshawk!” the pope’s wife cried to us. “A lucky journey to you, and may God give you abundant happiness!”

We started. At the Commandant’s window I saw Chvabrine standing, with a face of dark hatred.

I did not wish to triumph meanly over a humbled enemy, and looked away from him.

At last we passed the principal gate, and for ever left Fort Bélogorsk.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE ARREST.

Reunited in so marvellous a manner to the young girl who, that very morning even, had caused me so much unhappy disquiet, I could not believe in my happiness, and I deemed all that had befallen me a dream.

Marya looked sometimes thoughtfully upon me and sometimes upon the road, and did not seem either to have recovered her senses. We kept silence — our hearts were too weary with emotion.

At the end of two hours we had already reached the neighbouring fort, which also belonged to Pugatchéf. We changed horses there.

By the alertness with which we were served and the eager zeal of the bearded Cossack whom Pugatchéf had appointed Commandant, I saw that, thanks to the talk of the postillion who had driven us, I was taken for a favourite of the master.

When we again set forth it was getting dark. We were approaching a little town where, according to the bearded Commandant, there ought to be a strong detachment on the march to join the usurper.

The sentries stopped us, and to the shout, “Who goes there?” our postillion replied aloud —

“The Tzar’s gossip, travelling with his good woman.”

Immediately a party of Russian hussars surrounded us with awful oaths.

“Get out, devil’s gossip!” a Quartermaster with thick moustachios said to me.

“We’ll give you a bath, you and your good woman!”

I got out of the “
kibitka
,” and asked to be taken before the authorities.

Seeing I was an officer, the men ceased swearing, and the Quartermaster took me to the Major’s.

Savéliitch followed me, grumbling —

“That’s fun — gossip of the Tzar! — out of the frying-pan into the fire!
Oh, Lord! how will it all end?”

The “
kibitka
” followed at a walk. In five minutes we reached a little house, brilliantly lit up. The Quartermaster left me under the guard, and went in to announce his capture.

He returned almost directly, and told me “his high mightiness,” had not time to see me, and that he had bid me be taken to prison, and that my good woman be brought before him.

“What does it all mean?” I cried, furiously; “is he gone mad?”

“I cannot say, your lordship,” replied the Quartermaster, “only his high mightiness has given orders that your lordship be taken to prison, and that her ladyship be taken before his high mightiness, your lordship.”

I ran up the steps. The sentries had not time to stop me, and I entered straightway the room, where six hussar officers were playing “
faro
.”

The Major held the bank.

What was my surprise when, in a momentary glance at him, I recognized in him that very Iván Ivánovitch Zourine who had so well fleeced me in the Simbirsk inn!

“Is it possible?” cried I. “Iván Ivánovitch, is it you?”

“Ah, bah! Petr’ Andréjïtch! By what chance, and where do you drop from?
Good day, brother, won’t you punt a card?”

“Thanks — rather give me a lodging.”

“What, lodging do you want? Stay with me.”

“I cannot. I am not alone.”

“Well, bring your comrade too.”

“I am not with a comrade. I am — with a lady.”

“With a lady — where did you pick her up, brother?”

After saying which words Zourine began to whistle so slyly that all the others began to laugh, and I remained confused.

“Well,” continued Zourine, “then there is nothing to be done. I’ll give you a lodging. But it is a pity; we would have had a spree like last time. Hullo! there, boy, why is not Pugatchéf’s gossip brought up? Is she refractory? Tell her she has nothing to fear, that the gentleman who wants her is very good, that he will not offend her in any way, and at the same time shove her along by the shoulder.”