Works of Alexander Pushkin (85 page)

Impatience possessed me and I could not rest. My father’s estate was on the other side of the river, some twenty miles away. I asked if anyone would row me across. All the peasants were fishermen; there were plenty of boats. I came to Zurin and told him of my intention.

“Take care,” he said, “it is dangerous for you to go alone. Wait for the morning. We will be the first to cross and will pay a visit to your parents with fifty Hussars in case of emergency.”

I insisted on going. The boat was ready. I stepped into it with two boatmen. They pushed off and plied their oars.

The sky was clear. The moon was shining brightly. The air was still. The Volga flowed calmly and evenly. Swaying rhythmically, the boat glided over the dark waves. Half an hour passed. I sank into dreaming. I thought of the calm of nature and the horrors of civil war; of love, and so on. We reached the middle of the river.... Suddenly the boatmen began whispering together.

“What is it?” I asked, coming to myself.

“Heaven only knows; we can’t tell,” the boatmen answered, looking into the distance.

I looked in the same direction and saw in the dark something floating down the river. The mysterious object was approaching us. I told the oarsmen to stop and wait.

The moon hid behind a cloud. The floating phantom seemed darker still. It was quite close to me and yet I could not distinguish it.

“Whatever can it be?” the boatmen said. “It isn’t a sail nor a mast.”

Suddenly the moon came out from behind the cloud and lighted a terrible sight. A gallows fixed to a raft was floating toward us. Three corpses were swinging on the cross-bar. A morbid curiosity possessed me. I wanted to look into the hanged men’s faces. I told the oarsmen to hold the raft with a boat-hook, and my boat knocked against the floating gallows. I jumped out and found myself between the terrible posts. The full moon lighted the disfigured faces of the unfortunate creatures.... One of them was an old Chuvash, another a Russian peasant boy of about twenty, strong and healthy. I was shocked when I looked at the third and could not refrain from crying out: it was our servant Vanka — poor Vanka, who, in his foolishness, went over to Pugachov. A black board was nailed over the gallows and had written on it in white letters: “Thieves and rebels.” The oarsmen waited for me unconcerned, holding the raft with the hook. I stepped into the boat. The raft floated down the river. The gallows showed black in the dim night long after we passed it. At last it disappeared and my boat landed at the high and steep bank.

I paid the oarsmen handsomely. One of them took me to the headman of the village by the landing-stage. We went into the hut together. When the headman heard that I was asking for horses he spoke to me rather rudely, but my guide whispered something to him and his sternness immediately gave way to hurried obsequiousness. The troika was ready in a minute. I stepped into the carriage and told the driver to take me to our estate.

We galloped along the high road past the sleeping villages. The only thing I feared was being stopped on the way. My night meeting on the Volga proved the presence of rebels in the district, but it also proved the strong counter-action on the part of the authorities. To meet all emergencies I had in my pocket the pass given me by Pugachov and Colonel Zurin’s order. But I did not meet anyone, and, toward morning, I saw the river and the pine copse behind which lay our village. The driver whipped up the horses and in another quarter of an hour I drove into it. Our house stood at the other end. The horses were going at full speed. Suddenly in the middle of the village street the driver began pulling up.

“What is it?” I asked impatiently.

“A barrier, sir,” the driver answered, with difficulty bringing the fuming horses to a standstill.

Indeed, I saw a barrier fixed across the road and a watchman with a club. The man came up to me and, taking off his hat, asked for my passport.

“What does this mean?” I asked him. “Why is this barrier here? Whom are you guarding?”

“Why, sir, we are in rebellion,” he answered, scratching himself.

“And where are your masters?” I asked, with a sinking heart.

“Where are our masters?” the peasant repeated. “Master and mistress are in the granary.”

“In the granary?”

“Why, Andryushka, the headman, put them in stocks, you see, and wants to take them to our Father Czar.”

“Good Heaven! Lift the bar, you blockhead! What are you gaping at?”

The watchman did not move. I jumped out of the carriage, gave him a box on the ear, I am sorry to say, and lifted the bar myself.

The peasant looked at me in stupid perplexity. I took my seat in the carriage once more and told the driver to drive to the house as fast as he could. Two peasants, armed with clubs, were standing by the locked doors of the granary. The carriage drew up just in front of them. I jumped out and rushed at them.

“Open the doors!” I said to them.

I must have looked formidable, for they threw down their clubs and ran away. I tried to knock the lock off the door or to pick it, but the doors were of oak and the huge lock was unbreakable. At that moment a young peasant came out of the servants’ quarters and haughtily asked me how I dared to make a disturbance.

“Where is Andryushka, the headman?” I shouted to him. “Call him to me.”

“I am Andrey Afanasyevich and not Andryushka,” he answered proudly, with his arms akimbo. “What do you want?”

By way of an answer, I seized him by the collar, and dragging him to the granary doors told him to open them. He did not comply at once; but the “fatherly.”

chastisement had due effect upon him. He pulled out the key and unlocked the granary. I rushed over the threshold and saw in a dark corner dimly lighted by a narrow skylight my father and mother. Their hands were tied and their feet were in stocks. I flew to embrace them and could not utter a word. They both looked at me with amazement: three years of military life had so altered me that they could not recognize me.

Suddenly I heard the sweet voice I knew: “Pyotr Andreyich! It’s you?”

I turned round and saw Marya Ivanovna in another corner, also bound hand and foot. I was dumbfounded. My father looked at me in silence, not daring to believe his senses. His face lit up with joy.

“Welcome, Petrusha,” he said, pressing me to his heart. “Thank God, we have lived to see you!”

My mother cried out and burst into tears.

“Petrusha, my darling!” she said. “How has the Lord brought you here? Are you well?”

I hastened to cut with my sword the ropes that bound them and to take them out of their prison; but when I came to the door I found that it had been locked again.

“Andryushka, open!” I shouted.

“No fear!” the man answered from behind the door. “You may as well sit here, too! We’ll teach you how to be rowdy and drag the Czar’s officials by the collar!” I began looking round the granary to see if there was some way of getting out.

“Don’t trouble,” my father said to me. “It’s not my way to have granaries into which thieves could find a way.”

My mother, who had rejoiced a moment before at my coming, was overcome with despair at the thought that I, too, would have to perish with the rest of the family. But I was calmer now that I was with them and Marya Ivanovna. I had a sword and two pistols; I could withstand a siege. Zurin was due to arrive in the evening and would set us free. I told all this to my parents and succeeded in calming my mother and Marya Ivanovna. They gave themselves up completely to the joy of our meeting, and several hours passed for us imperceptibly in expressions of affection and continual conversation.

“Well, Pyotr,” my father said, “you have been foolish enough, and I was quite angry with you at the time. But it’s no use remembering old scores. I hope that you have sown your wild oats and are reformed. I know that you have served as an honest officer should. I thank you; you have comforted me in my old age. If I owe my deliverance to you, life will be doubly pleasant to me.”

I kissed his hand with tears and gazed at Marya Ivanovna, who was so overjoyed at my presence that she seemed quite calm and happy.

About midday we heard extraordinary uproar and shouting. “What does this mean?” my father said. “Can it already be your colonel?”

“Impossible,” I answered. “He won’t come before evening.”

The noise increased. The alarm bell was rung. We heard men on horseback galloping across the yard. At that moment Savelyich’s gray head was thrust through the narrow opening cut in the wall and the poor old man said in a pitiful voice:

“Andrey Petrovich! Pyotr Andreyich, my dear! Marya Ivanovna! We are lost! The villains have come into the village. And do you know who has brought them, Pyotr Andreyich? Shvabrin, Alexey Ivanych, damnation take him!”

When Marya Ivanovna heard the hated name she clasped her hands and remained motionless.

“Listen!” I said to Savelyich. “Send someone on horseback to the ferry to meet the hussar regiment and to tell the Colonel of our danger.”

“But whom can I send, sir? All the boys have joined the rebels, and the horses have all been seized. Oh, dear! There they are in the yard! They are coming to the granary.”

As he said this, we heard several voices behind the door. I made a sign to my mother and Marya Ivanovna to move away into a corner, bared my sword, and leaned against the wall just by the door. My father took the pistols, cocked them both, and stood beside me. The lock rattled, the door opened and Andryushka’s head showed. I hit it with my sword and he fell, blocking the doorway. At the same moment my father fired the pistol. The crowd that had besieged us ran away, cursing. I dragged the wounded man across the threshold and closed the door.

The courtyard was full of armed men. I recognized Shvabrin among them.

“Don’t be afraid,” I said to the women, “there is hope. And don’t you shoot any more, father. Let us save up the last shot.”

My mother was praying silently. Marya Ivanovna stood beside her, waiting with angelic calm for her fate to be decided. Threats, abuse, and curses were heard behind the door. I was standing in the same place ready to hit the first man who dared to show himself. Suddenly the villains subsided. I heard Shvabrin’s voice calling me by name.

“I am here. What do you want?”

“Surrender, Grinyov; resistance is impossible. Have pity on your old people. Obstinacy will not save you. I shall get at you!”

“Try, traitor!”

“I am not going to put myself forward for nothing or waste my men; I will set the granary on fire and then we’ll see what you will do, Belogorsky Don Quixote. Now it is time to have dinner. Meanwhile you can sit and think it over at leisure. Good-bye! Marya Ivanovna, I do not apologize to you: you are probably not feeling bored with your knight beside you in the dark.”

Shvabrin went away, leaving sentries at the door. We were silent, each of us thinking his own thoughts, not daring to express them to the others. I was picturing to myself all that Shvabrin was capable of doing in his malice. I hardly cared about myself. Must I confess it? Even my parents’ fate terrified me less than Marya Ivanovna’s. I knew that my mother was adored by the peasants and the house serfs. My father, too, was loved in spite of his sternness, for he was just and knew the true needs of the men he owned. Their rebellion was a delusion, a passing intoxication, and not the expression of their resentment. It was possible that my parents would be spared. But Marya Ivanovna? What did the dissolute and unscrupulous man hold in store for her? I did not dare to dwell upon this awful thought and would have killed her (God forgive me!) sooner than see her fall once more into the hands of the cruel enemy.

Another hour passed. Drunken men could be heard singing in the village. Our sentries envied them, and in their annoyance abused us, threatening us with tortures and death. We were waiting for Shvabrin to carry out his threat. At last there was great commotion in the courtyard and we heard Shvabrin’s voice once more.

“Well, have you thought better of it? Do you surrender to me of your own will?”

No one answered.

After waiting a while, Shvabrin ordered his men to bring some straw. In a few minutes flames appeared, lighting the dim granary. Smoke began to rise from under the door.

Then Marya Ivanovna came up to me and, taking me by the hand, said in a low voice:

“Come, Pyotr Andreyich, don’t let both yourself and your parents perish because of me. Shvabrin will listen to me. Let me out!”

“Never!” I cried angrily. “Do you know what awaits you?”

“I will not survive dishonor,” she answered calmly, “but perhaps I shall save my deliverer and the family that has so generously sheltered a poor orphan. Goodbye, Andrey Petrovich! Good-bye, Avdotya Vassily- evna! You have been more than benefactors to me. Bless me! Farewell to you, too, Pyotr Andreyich, Believe me that... that...”

She burst into tears and buried her face in her hands.... I was beside myself. My mother was weeping.

“Stop this nonsense, Marya Ivanovna,” said my father. “Whoever would dream of letting you go alone to the brigands? Sit here and keep quiet. If we must die, we may as well die together. Listen! What is he saying now?”

“Do you surrender?” Shvabrin shouted. “You see you will be roasted in another five minutes.”

“We won’t surrender, you villain!” my father answered firmly.

His vigorous, deeply lined face was wonderfully animated. His eyes sparkled under the gray eyebrows. Turning to me, he said: “Now’s the time!”

He opened the door. The flames rushed in and rose up to the beams whose chinks were stuffed with dry moss. My father fired the pistol, stepped over the burning threshold and shouted “Follow me!” I took my mother and Marya Ivanovna by the hands and quickly led them out. Shvabrin, shot through by my father’s feeble hand, was lying by the threshold. The crowd of brigands who had rushed away at our sudden sally took courage and began closing in upon us. I succeeded in dealing a few more blows; but a well-aimed brick hit me right on the chest. I fell down and lost consciousness for a few moments; I was surrounded and disarmed. Coming to myself I saw Shvabrin sitting on the blood-stained grass, with all our family standing before him.