A strange thought entered my mind. Might it be that Providence, by leading me to Pugachov a second time, was granting me the very opportunity I needed? I resolved to seize this opportunity and, without further reflection, I replied, “I was on my way to Fort Belogorsk to rescue an orphan who is being ill-treated there.”
Pugachov’s eyes glinted. “Which of my men dares to ill-treat an orphan?” he cried. “He may have the devil’s own cunning, but he won’t escape my justice. Tell me: who is it?”
“Shvabrin,” I answered. “He’s keeping prisoner the girl whom you saw lying ill at the priest’s house. He’s trying to force her to marry him.”
“I’ll teach him!” said Pugachov. “I’ll teach Shvabrin to persecute and oppress and take the law into his own hands. I’ll hang him.”
“Allow me a brief word,” Khlopusha said in a hoarse voice. “You were quick to give Shvabrin command of the fort—and now you are in a hurry to hang him. You have already outraged the Cossacks by putting a nobleman over them. Do not go frightening the nobles now by hanging them because of one word of slander.”
“The nobles deserve neither mercy nor favors,” said the old man with the blue ribbon. “There’s certainly no harm in hanging Shvabrin, but it would do no harm to give this officer a good questioning too. Why has he honored us with a visit? If he doesn’t acknowledge you as Tsar, then why’s he seeking justice from you? And if he does acknowledge you, then what’s he been doing all this time in Orenburg with your enemies? Why not let me take him down to the staff hut? I could get a nice hot fire going there to help him answer our questions. Something tells me that his Grace has been sent to us by his commanding officers.”
The old villain’s logic was pretty convincing. A shiver ran down my spine when I thought about the man into whose hands I had fallen. Pugachov noticed my apprehension. “Well?” he said with a wink. “My field marshal, it seems, is talking good sense. What say you, your Honor?”
Pugachov’s sly humor gave me back my courage. I replied calmly that I was in his hands and that he was free to do with me as he thought best.
“Good,” said Pugachov. “And now tell me how things are in your city.”
“All is well there, thank God,” I replied.
“All is well?” Pugachov repeated. “With the inhabitants dying of hunger?”
The impostor was speaking the truth, but I felt duty-bound to assert that this was mere rumor, empty groundless rumor, and that there were plentiful supplies of all kinds in Orenburg.
“You see!” said the old man. “He’s a shameless liar. The deserters all say with one voice that the inhabitants of Orenburg are starving to death, that people count themselves lucky if they find a scrap of carrion to eat—and his Grace declares that there is more than enough of everything. If you want to hang Shvabrin, then hang this young fellow on the same gallows, so that neither of them need feel hard done by.”
The words of this accursed old man seemed to make an impression on Pugachov. Fortunately, Khlopusha disagreed with his comrade. “That will do, Naumich. Stabbing and strangling—do you never think of anything else? Some warrior! Nothing but skin and bones. One foot in the grave and you want to drag everyone else in with you. Do you not have enough blood on your hands?”
“And what kind of saint are you?” replied Beloborodov. “Why so merciful all of a sudden?”
“Of course I too am a sinner,” replied Khlopusha. “And this hand and arm”—he clenched his bony fist, then rolled up his sleeve to expose a hairy forearm—“have shed Christian blood. But I killed my enemy, not my guest. I have killed on the highway, where two roads cross; I have killed in dark forests—but never as I sat by a warm stove. I have killed with a flail, I have killed with the butt of an ax—but never with womanish slander.”
The old man turned away and muttered, “Damned Slit Nose.”
“What are you muttering about, you old sod?” shouted Khlopusha. “I’ll give you Slit Nose. Just you wait, your turn will come too. God willing, you too will smell the torturer’s pincers. And watch that straggly little beard of yours or I’ll be ripping it off your chin!”[3]
“Gentlemen generals!” Pugachov said loftily. “Enough of your squabbling. I wouldn’t shed a tear if all the dogs in Orenburg were dangling from the same crossbeam, but it’s a bad day if our own fine hounds are at one another’s throats. Make it up!”
Khlopusha and Beloborodov looked blackly at one another and did not say a word. Thinking that all this might end badly for me and that I must change the subject, I turned to Pugachov and said cheerfully, “Why, I’ve been forgetting to thank you for the horse and the sheepskin coat. But for you I’d have frozen to death on the road and never reached Orenburg at all!”
My ruse worked. Pugachov brightened. “One good turn deserves another,” he said with a wink. “A debt repaid is a handsome thing. But tell me about this girl Shvabrin is ill-treating. What’s she to you? Is she your sweetheart?”
“She is my betrothed,” I answered. His mood had clearly changed for the better and I saw no point in hiding the truth.
“Your betrothed!” cried Pugachov. “Why didn’t you tell me before? We must see you married—yes, we must feast at your wedding!” Turning to Beloborodov, he went on, “Listen, Field Marshal! His Honor and I are old friends. Let’s all sit down to supper together. Our decision can wait till tomorrow—morning is wiser than evening.”
I would gladly have declined this honor, but I had no choice. Two young girls, daughters of the Cossack to whom the hut belonged, laid a white cloth on the table, brought in bread, fish soup, and several jugs of vodka and beer—and once again I found myself sharing a meal with Pugachov and his terrible companions.
The wild revelry to which I was an involuntary witness lasted far into the night. At last, the drink began to get the better of them. Pugachov fell asleep in his chair; his companions stood up and gestured to me to follow them. We all went outside. On Khlopusha’s orders, the guard took me to the staff hut, where I found Savelich and where we were locked up for the night together. Savelich was so bemused by all that was happening that he did not ask me a single question. He lay down in the dark and went on sighing and groaning for a long time. At last he began to snore, and I gave myself up to thoughts that were to keep me awake all through the night.
In the morning I received a summons from Pugachov. I went to his hut. By the gate stood a covered sleigh to which three Tatar horses had been harnessed. The lane was full of people. I met Pugachov coming out through the door. He was dressed for the road, in a fur coat and a Kirghiz hat. His comrades were standing around him, once again looking servile. Pugachov greeted me cheerfully and told me to get into the sleigh with him.
We climbed in. “To Fort Belogorsk!” Pugachov told the broad-shouldered Tatar standing in front of us. My heart pounded. The horses got going, the bells jingled, and the sleigh flew over the snow.
“Stop! Stop!” came a voice I knew only too well. I saw Savelich running towards us. Pugachov told the driver to stop. “Dear Pyotr Andreich!” Savelich called out, “do not abandon me in my old age among these—” “You again!” said Pugachov. “So the Lord has brought us together once more! All right, you old grouch, climb up and sit on the box.”
“Thank you, gracious Sir, thank you, my dear father!” Savelich said as he sat down. “May the Lord grant you a hundred years of good health for pitying and comforting an old man. I shall say prayers for you till the end of my days and never will you hear another word from me about that hare-skin coat.”
I was afraid that this hare-skin coat might, at last, well and truly enrage Pugachov. Fortunately, he either failed to hear Savelich or else chose to ignore his ill-judged words. The horses galloped off; passersby stopped and bowed low. Pugachov nodded right and left. In less than a minute we had left Berdy and were gliding over smooth snow.
What I felt at that moment is not difficult to imagine. Within a few hours I would be seeing the woman I had thought lost to me foreve
r. I tried to picture the moment of our reunion. I also thought about the man in whose hands my destiny lay and to whom, by a strange confluence of events, I had become so mysteriously bound. I recalled the wanton, bloodthirsty cruelty of this Cossack who had volunteered to rescue my beloved. Pugachov did not know that Maria Ivanovna was the daughter of Captain Mironov. Enraged and embittered, Shvabrin might tell him everything. Or he might find out in some other way. What would become of Maria Ivanovna then? I shivered; my hair stood on end.
Pugachov interrupted my thoughts with a question: “What is your Honor thinking about so deeply?”
“I have a lot to think about,” I replied. “I am an officer and a nobleman. Only yesterday I was fighting against you and today we are in one sleigh and the happiness of my entire life depends on you.”
“So,” said Pugachov, “are you afraid?”
I replied that having been spared by him once, I trusted myself not only to his mercy but also to his readiness to help others.
“And you’re right, by God! You’re right! You saw what my men thought of you. This morning the old one was insisting again that you are a spy. He said you should be tortured, then hanged . . . But I didn’t agree,” he went on more quietly, evidently not wanting to be overheard by Savelich and the Tatar, “because I remembered your glass of vodka and the hare-skin coat. You see, I am not so thirsty for blood as your brothers make out.”
I recalled the fall of Fort Belogorsk, but I did not think it necessary to contradict him. I remained silent.
“What do they say of me in Orenburg?” Pugachov asked after a brief pause.
“They say that they’ve got their work cut out for them if they’re to get the better of you. You’ve certainly made your presence felt.”
The impostor’s face was a picture of gratified vanity. “Yes, I’m not such a bad warrior, am I? Have your people in Orenburg heard yet about the battle at Yuzeyeva?[4] Forty generals killed, four armies taken prisoner. What do you think? Would the King of Prussia be a match for me?”[5]
The brigand’s boasts amused me. “What do you think yourself? Do you think you could get the better of the King of Prussia?”
“Get the better of Fyodor Fyodorovich? Why not? I always get the better of your generals, and they’ve defeated Fyodor Fyodorovich before now. My armies have never yet lost a battle. But what I’ve done until now is nothing—just wait till I march on Moscow!”
“You mean to march on Moscow?”
The impostor paused for thought, then said in a low voice, “God knows. My path is narrow—I have little room for maneuver. My boys are bandits and they’re getting above themselves. I have to keep my wits about me. One slip on my part and all they’ll be thinking of is how to save their own skins. They’ll be offering up my head on a platter to save their necks from the noose.”
“They will indeed,” I replied. “Shouldn’t you leave them, while there’s still time, and throw yourself on the Empress’s mercy?”
Pugachov smiled bitterly. “No,” he said, “it’s too late to repent. There can be no mercy for me now. I must go on as I have begun. Who knows? Maybe I’ll carry it off. After all, didn’t Grishka Otrepyev reign in Moscow?”[6]
“And do you know how he ended? He was thrown out of a window, stabbed, burned—and then his ashes were fired from a cannon.”
“Listen,” said Pugachov with a kind of wild inspiration. “Let me tell you a tale an old Kalmyk woman told me when I was a boy. An eagle once asked a raven, “Tell me, raven bird: why is it you live for three hundred years in this bright world, while I live only for three and thirty?” The raven replied, “Because, dear eagle, you drink living blood, while I eat dead flesh.” “Very well,” thought the eagle, “I’ll try eating the same as him.” The eagle and the raven flew off together. They saw a dead horse; they flew down and perched on it. The raven had a few pecks of flesh and said how tasty it was. The eagle took one peck, and then another. Then he shrugged his wings and said, “No, brother raven, rather than feed on dead flesh for three hundred years, I choose to drink one good drink of living blood—and then may God’s will be done!” Well, do you like my Kalmyk tale?”
“It’s very clever,” I answered. “But to live by murder and robbery is, to my mind, the same as to peck carrion.”
Pugachov looked at me in astonishment and made no reply. We fell silent, each deep in his thoughts. The Tatar driver began to sing a melancholy song. Savelich dozed, swaying from side to side on the box. The sleigh flew along the smooth winter road. Suddenly, on the steep bank of the Yaik, I caught sight of a little village with a palisade and a belfry; and in another quarter of an hour we were entering Fort Belogorsk.
12. THE ORPHAN
Our lovely apple tree
Has no young shoots and no fine crown;
Our lovely bride
Has no dear father and no dear mother.
No one to dress her
In a wedding gown,
No one to bless her.
—WEDDING SONG [1]
OUR SLEIGH drew up in front of the commandant’s house. Hearing Pugachov’s sleigh bells, people thronged after us. Shvabrin came out to welcome him. The traitor was dressed like a Cossack and had let his beard grow. He helped Pugachov out of the sleigh, making obsequious professions of his devotion and saying how overjoyed he was at this honor. Shvabrin was clearly taken aback when he saw me, but he quickly recovered himself and held out his hand, saying, “Come over to us, have you? None too soon!” I turned my back on him and did not say a word.
It was painful to enter the room I knew so well, where the late commandant’s commission still hung on the wall like a sad epitaph to times past. Pugachov sat on the very couch where Ivan Kuzmich had so often dozed, lulled to sleep by his wife’s grumbling. Shvabrin himself brought Pugachov some vodka. Pugachov emptied his glass and said, pointing to me, “Offer some to his Honor!” Shvabrin came over to me with his tray, but once again I turned my back. Shvabrin was visibly troubled. With his characteristic quickness he had, of course, guessed that Pugachov was displeased with him. He was afraid of Pugachov, and he kept looking at me mistrustfully. Pugachov inquired about the state of the fortress, about reports of enemy troop movements, and so on, before asking all of a sudden, “Tell me, brother—who’s this young girl you’ve got locked up in here? Let me see her.”
Shvabrin turned deathly pale. “Your Majesty,” he said, his voice trembling. “Your Majesty, she’s not locked up . . . she’s ill . . . she’s upstairs, lying in bed.”
“Let me see her,” said Pugachov, getting to his feet. There was nothing Shvabrin could do but to lead Pugachov up to Maria Ivanovna’s room. I followed.
Shvabrin paused on the stairs. “Your Majesty!” he said, “you may require of me what you will—but do not allow a stranger to enter my wife’s bedchamber.”
I quivered with fury. “So you’re married!” I said to Shvabrin, preparing to tear him limb from limb.
“Quiet!” said Pugachov. “Leave this to me. And you,” he said, turning to Shvabrin, “don’t put on airs and don’t try to be clever. Whether or not she’s your wife, I shall take whoever I please to see her . . . Your Honor, follow me!”
Outside the door, Shvabrin stopped again and said in a faltering voice, “I must warn you, your Majesty, that she has a high fever. This is the third day she’s been raving.”
“Open the door!” said Pugachov.
Shvabrin fumbled in his pockets and said he had forgotten the key. Pugachov kicked the door; the lock gave way; the door swung open and we entered.
One look and I nearly fainted. Maria Ivanovna—pale, thin, and wild-haired—was sitting on the floor in a torn peasant dress. Before her stood a pitcher of water, with a hunk of bread placed on top of it. Seeing me, she trembled violently and cried out. What that did to me is more than I can say.