Works of Alexander Pushkin (86 page)

I was supported under the arms. A crowd of peasants, Cossacks, and Bashkirs hemmed us in. Shvabrin was terribly pale. He was pressing one hand to his wounded side. His face expressed malice and pain. He slowly raised his head, glanced at me and said, in a weak, hardly audible voice:

“Hang him... and all of them... except her.” The crowd surrounded us at once and dragged us to the gates. But suddenly they left us and scampered away: Zurin and a whole squadron of Hussars, with bared swords, rode into the courtyard.

The rebels were flying as fast as they could. The Hussars pursued them, striking right and left with their swords and taking prisoners. Zurin jumped off his horse, bowed to my father and mother, and warmly clasped me by the hand.

“I have come just in time,” he said to me. “Ah, and here is your betrothed!”

Marya Ivanovna flushed crimson. My father went up to him and thanked him calmly, though he was obviously touched. My mother embraced him, calling him an angel-deliverer.

“Welcome to our home!” my father said to him, and led him toward the house.

Zurin stopped as he passed Shvabrin.

“Who is this?” he asked, looking at the wounded man.

“It is the leader of the gang,” my father answered, with a certain pride that betokened an old soldier. “God has helped my feeble hand to punish the young villain and to avenge the blood of my son.”

“It is Shvabrin,” I said to Zurin.

“Shvabrin! I am very glad. Hussars, take him! Tell the leech to dress his wound and to take the utmost care of him. Shvabrin must certainly be sent to the Kazan Secret Commission. He is one of the chief criminals and his evidence may be of great importance...

Shvabrin wearily opened his eyes. His face expressed nothing but physical pain. The Hussars carried him away on an outspread cloak.

We went into the house. I looked about me with a tremor, remembering the years of my childhood. Nothing had changed in the house, everything was in its usual place: Shvabrin had not allowed it to be pillaged, preserving in his very degradation an unconscious aversion to base cupidity.

The servants came into the hall. They had taken no part in the rebellion and were genuinely glad of our deliverance. Savelyich was triumphant. It must be mentioned that during the alarm produced by the brigands’ arrival he ran to the stables where Shvabrin’s horse had been put, saddled it, led it out quietly and, unnoticed in the confusion, galloped toward the ferry. He met the regiment having a rest this side of the Volga. When Zurin heard from him of our danger, he ordered his men to mount, cried” Off! Off! Gallop!” and, thank God, arrived in time.

Zurin insisted that Andryushka’s head should be exposed for a few hours at the top of a pole by the tavern.

The Hussars returned from their pursuit bringing several prisoners with them. They were locked in the same granary where we had endured our memorable siege. We all went to our rooms. The old people needed a rest. As I had not slept the whole night, I flung myself on the bed and dropped fast asleep. Zurin went to make his arrangements.

In the evening we all met round the samovar in the drawing-room, talking gaily of the past danger. Marya Ivanovna poured out the tea. I sat down beside her and devoted myself entirely to her. My parents seemed to look with favor upon the tenderness of our relations. That evening lives in my memory to this day. I was happy, completely happy — and are there many such moments in poor human life?

The following day my father was told that the peasants had come to ask his pardon. My father went out on to the steps to talk to them. When the peasants saw him they knelt down.

“Well, you silly fools,” he said to them, “whatever did you rebel for?”

“We are sorry, master,” they answered as one man. “Sorry, are you? They get into mischief and then they are sorry! I forgive you for the sake of our family joy — God has allowed me to see my son, Pyotr Andreyich, again. So be it, a sin confessed is a sin forgiven.”

“We did wrong; of course we did.”

“God has sent fine weather. It is time for haymaking; and what have you been doing for the last three days, you fools? Headman! send everyone to make hay; and mind that by St. John’s Day all the hay is in stacks, you red-haired rascal! Begone!”

The peasants bowed and went to work as though nothing had happened. Shvabrin’s wound proved not to be mortal. He was sent under escort to Kazan. I saw from the window how they laid him in a cart. Our eyes met. He bent his head and I made haste to move away from the window; I was afraid of looking as though I were triumphing over a humiliated and unhappy enemy.

Zurin had to go on farther. I decided to join him, in spite of my desire to spend a few more days with my family. On the eve of the march I came to my parents and, in accordance with the custom of the time, bowed down to the ground before them, asking their blessing on my marriage with Marya Ivanovna. The old people lifted me up, and with joyous tears gave their consent. I brought Marya Ivanovna, pale and trembling, to them. They blessed us.... I will not attempt to describe what I was feeling. Those who have been in my position will understand; as to those who have not, I can only pity them and advise them, while there is still time, to fall in love and receive their parents’ blessing.

The following day our regiment was ready. Zurin took leave of our family. We were all certain that the military operations would soon be over. I was hoping to be married in another month’s time. Marya Ivanovna kissed me in front of all as she said good-bye. I mounted my horse; Savelyich followed me again and the regiment marched off. For a long time I kept looking back at the country house that I was leaving once more. A gloomy foreboding tormented me. Something seemed to whisper to me that my misfortunes were not yet over. My heart felt that another storm was ahead.

I — will not describe our campaign and the end of the Pugachov war. We passed through villages pillaged by Pugachov, and could not help taking from the poor inhabitants what the brigands had left them.

They did not know whom to obey. There was no lawful authority anywhere. The landowners were hiding in the forests. Bands of brigands were ransacking the country. The chiefs of separate detachments sent in pursuit of Pugachov, who was by then retreating toward Astrakhan, arbitrarily punished both the guilty and the innocent. The entire region where the conflagration had raged was in a terrible state. God save us from seeing a Russian revolt, senseless and merciless. Those who plot impossible upheavals among us, are either young and do not know our people or are hardhearted men who do not care a straw either about their own lives or those of other people.

EGYPTIAN NIGHTS

Translated by T. Keane

I

Quel est cet homme?
—
Ha, c’est un bien grand talent, il fait de sa voix tout ce qu’il veut. — Il devroit bien, madame, s’en faire une culotte.

CHARSKY was one of the native-born inhabitants of Saint Petersburg. He was not yet thirty years of age; he was not married; the service did not burden him. His late uncle, having been a vice-governor in the good old days, had left him a respectable estate. His life was a very agreeable one, but he had the misfortune to write and print verse. In the journals he was called “poet,” and in the servants’ quarters “scribbler.”

In spite of the great privileges which versifiers enjoy (we must confess that, except the right of using the accusative instead of the genitive, and other so-called poetical licenses, we fail to see what are the particular privileges of Russian poets), in spite of their every possible privilege, these persons are compelled to suffer a great many disadvantages and much unpleasantness. The bitterest misfortune of all, the most intolerable for the poet, is the appellation with which he is branded, and which always clings to him. The public look upon him as their own property; in their opinion, he was created for their especial benefit and pleasure. Should he return from the country, the first person who meets him accosts him with:

“Haven’t you brought anything new for us?”

Should the derangement of his affairs, or the illness of some being dear to him, cause him to become lost in reflection, immediately a trite smile accompanies the trite exclamation:

“No doubt you are composing something!”

Should he happen to fall in love, his fair one purchases an album at the English shop, and expects a poem.

Should he call upon a man whom he hardly knows, to talk about serious matters of business, the latter quickly calls his son and compels him to read some of the verses of so-and-so, and the lad regales the poet with some of his lame productions. And these are but the flowers of the calling; what then must be the thorns! Charsky acknowledged that the compliments, the questions, the albums, and the little boys bored him to such an extent, that he was constantly compelled to restrain himself from committing some act of rudeness.

Charsky endeavored in every possible way to rid himself of the intolerable appellation. He avoided the society of his literary brethren, and preferred to them men of the world, even the most shallow-minded. His conversation was of the most commonplace character, and never turned upon literature. In his dress he always observed the very latest fashion, with the timidity and superstition of a young Moscovite arriving in Saint Petersburg for the first time in his life. In his study, furnished like a lady’s bedroom, nothing recalled the writer; no books littered the tables; the divan was not stained with ink; there was none of that disorder which denotes the presence of the Muse and the absence of broom and brush. Charsky was in despair if any of his society friends found him with a pen in his hand. It is difficult to believe to what trifles a man, otherwise endowed with talent and soul, can descend. At one time he pretended to be a passionate lover of horses, at another a desperate gambler, and at another a refined gourmet, although he was never able to distinguish the mountain breed from the Arab, could never remember the trump cards, and in secret preferred a baked potato to all the inventions of the French cuisine. He led a life of dissipation, was seen at all the balls, over-ate at all the diplomatic dinners, and at all the soirees was as inevitable as the Rezanov ices. For all that, he was a poet, and his passion was invincible. When the “silly fit” (thus he called inspiration) came upon him, Charsky would lock himself up in his study, and write from morning till late into the night. He confessed to his genuine friends that only then did he know what real happiness was. The rest of his time he strolled about, dissembled, and was assailed at every step by the eternal question:

“Haven’t you written anything new?”

One morning, Charsky felt that happy disposition of the spirit when the dreams shape themselves clearly before your eyes, and you find vivid, unexpected words to body forth your visions, when verses flow easily from the pen, and sonorous rhythms fly to meet harmonious thoughts. Charsky was mentally plunged into sweet oblivion... and the world, and the opinions of the world, and his own particular whims no longer existed for him. He was writing verse.

Suddenly the door of his study creaked, and a strange head appeared. Charsky started and frowned.

“Who is there?” he asked with vexation, inwardly cursing his servants, who were never in the ante-room when they were wanted.

The stranger entered. He was tall and spare, and ap- peared to be about thirty years of age. The features of his swarthy face were very expressive: his pale, lofty forehead, shaded by locks of black hair, his sparkling black eyes, aquiline nose, and thick beard surrounding his sunken, tawny cheeks, showed him to be a foreigner. He wore a black dress-coat, already whitened at the seams, and summer trousers (although the season was well into the autumn); under his threadbare black cravat, upon a yellowish shirt-front, glittered an imitation diamond; his shaggy hat seemed to have seen good and bad weather. Meeting such a man in a wood, you would have taken him for a robber; in society — for a political conspirator; in an ante-room — for a charlatan, a seller of elixirs and arsenic.

“What do you wish?” Charsky asked him in French.

“Signor,” replied the foreigner, with profound bows:
“Lei foglia perdonarmi se.
..”

Charsky did not offer him a chair, and he rose himself: the conversation was continued in Italian.

“I am a Neapolitan artist,” said the stranger: “circumstances compelled me to leave my native land; I have come to Russia, trusting to my talent.”

Charsky thought that the Neapolitan was preparing to give some violoncello concerts and was disposing of his tickets from house to house. He was just about to give him twenty-five rubles in order to get rid of him as quickly as possible, when the stranger added:

“I hope, signor, that you will give friendly support to your confrere, and introduce me into the houses to which you have entree.”

It was impossible to offer a greater affront to Char- sky’s vanity. He glanced haughtily at the individual who called himself his confrère.

“Allow me to ask, what are you, and for whom do you take me?” he said, with difficulty restraining his indignation.