Savéliitch groaned deeply as every moment he fell upon me. I lowered the tsinofka, I rolled myself up in my cloak and I went to sleep, rocked by the whistle of the storm and the lurching of the sledge. I had then a dream that I have never forgotten, and in which I still see something prophetic, as I recall the strange events of my life. The reader will forgive me if I relate it to him, as he knows, no doubt, by experience how natural it is for man to retain a vestige of superstition in spite of all the scorn for it he may think proper to assume.
I had reached the stage when the real and unreal begin to blend into the first vague visions of drowsiness. It seemed to me that the snowstorm continued, and that we were wandering in the snowy desert. All at once I thought I saw a great gate, and we entered the courtyard of our house. My first thought was a fear that my father would be angry at my involuntary return to the paternal roof, and would attribute it to a premeditated disobedience. Uneasy, I got out of my kibitka, and I saw my mother come to meet me, looking very sad.
“Don’t make a noise,” she said to me. “Your father is on his death-bed, and wishes to bid you farewell.”
Struck with horror, I followed her into the bedroom. I look round; the room is nearly dark. Near the bed some people were standing, looking sad and cast down. I approached on tiptoe. My mother raised the curtain, and said —
“Andréj Petróvitch, Petróusha has come back; he came back having heard of your illness. Give him your blessing.”
I knelt down. But to my astonishment instead of my father I saw in the bed a black-bearded peasant, who regarded me with a merry look. Full of surprise, I turned towards my mother.
“What does this mean?” I exclaimed. “It is not my father. Why do you want me to ask this peasant’s blessing?”
“It is the same thing, Petróusha,” replied my mother. “That person is your godfather. Kiss his hand, and let him bless you.”
I would not consent to this. Whereupon the peasant sprang from the bed, quickly drew his axe from his belt, and began to brandish it in all directions. I wished to fly, but I could not. The room seemed to be suddenly full of corpses. I stumbled against them; my feet slipped in pools of blood. The terrible peasant called me gently, saying to me —
“Fear nothing, come near; come and let me bless you.”
Fear had stupified me….
At this moment I awoke. The horses had stopped; Savéliitch had hold of my hand.
“Get out, excellency,” said he to me; “here we are.”
“Where?” I asked, rubbing my eyes.
“At our night’s lodging. Heaven has helped us; we came by chance right upon the hedge by the house. Get out, excellency, as quick as you can, and let us see you get warm.”
I got out of the kibitka. The snowstorm still raged, but less violently. It was so dark that one might, as we say, have as well been blind. The host received us near the entrance, holding a lantern beneath the skirt of his caftan, and led us into a room, small but prettily clean, lit by a loutchina. On the wall hung a long carbine and a high Cossack cap.
Our host, a Cossack of the Yaïk, was a peasant of about sixty, still fresh and hale. Savéliitch brought the tea canister, and asked for a fire that he might make me a cup or two of tea, of which, certainly, I never had more need. The host hastened to wait upon him.
“What has become of our guide? Where is he?” I asked Savéliitch.
“Here, your excellency,” replied a voice from above.
I raised my eyes to the recess above the stove, and I saw a black beard and two sparkling eyes.
“Well, are you cold?”
“How could I not be cold,” answered he, “in a little caftan all holes? I had a touloup, but, it’s no good hiding it, I left it yesterday in pawn at the brandy shop; the cold did not seem to me then so keen.”
At this moment the host re-entered with the boiling samovar. I offered our guide a cup of tea. He at once jumped down.
I was struck by his appearance. He was a man about forty, middle height, thin, but broad-shouldered. His black beard was beginning to turn grey; his large quick eyes roved incessantly around. In his face there was an expression rather pleasant, but slightly mischievous. His hair was cut short. He wore a little torn armak, and wide Tartar trousers.
I offered him a cup of tea; he tasted it, and made a wry face.
“Do me the favour, your excellency,” said he to me, “to give me a glass of brandy; we Cossacks do not generally drink tea.”
I willingly acceded to his desire. The host took from one of the shelves of the press a jug and a glass, approached him, and, having looked him well in the face —
“Well, well,” said he, “so here you are again in our part of the world.
Where, in heaven’s name, do you come from now?”
My guide winked in a meaning manner, and replied by the well-known saying —
“The sparrow was flying about in the orchard; he was eating hempseed; the grandmother threw a stone at him, and missed him. And you, how are you all getting on?”
“How are we all getting on?” rejoined the host, still speaking in proverbs.
“Vespers were beginning to ring, but the wife of the pope forbid it; the pope went away on a visit, and the devils are abroad in the churchyard.”
“Shut up, uncle,” retorted the vagabond. “When it rains there will be mushrooms, and when you find mushrooms you will find a basket to put them in. But now” (he winked a second time) “put your axe behind your back, the gamekeeper is abroad. To the health of your excellency.”
So saying he took the glass, made the sign of the cross, and swallowed his brandy at one gulp, then, bowing to me, returned to his lair above the stove.
I could not then understand a single word of the thieves’ slang they employed. It was only later on that I understood that they were talking about the army of the Yaïk, which had only just been reduced to submission after the revolt of 1772.
Savéliitch listened to them talking with a very discontented manner, and cast suspicious glances, sometimes on the host and sometimes on the guide.
The kind of inn where we had sought shelter stood in the very middle of the steppe, far from the road and from any dwelling, and certainly was by no means unlikely to be a robber resort. But what could we do? We could not dream of resuming our journey. Savéliitch’s uneasiness amused me very much. I stretched myself on a bench. My old retainer at last decided to get up on the top of the stove, while the host lay down on the floor. They all soon began to snore, and I myself soon fell dead asleep.
When I awoke, somewhat late, on the morrow I saw that the storm was over. The sun shone brightly; the snow stretched afar like a dazzling sheet. The horses were already harnessed. I paid the host, who named such a mere trifle as my reckoning that Savéliitch did not bargain as he usually did. His suspicions of the evening before were quite gone. I called the guide to thank him for what he had done for us, and I told Savéliitch to give him half a rouble as a reward.
Savéliitch frowned.
“Half a rouble!” cried he. “Why? Because you were good enough to bring him yourself to the inn? I will obey you, excellency, but we have no half roubles to spare. If we take to giving gratuities to everybody we shall end by dying of hunger.”
I could not dispute the point with Savéliitch; my money, according to my solemn promise, was entirely at his disposal. Nevertheless, I was annoyed that I was not able to reward a man who, if he had not brought me out of fatal danger, had, at least, extricated me from an awkward dilemma.
“Well,” I said, coolly, to Savéliitch, “if you do not wish to give him half a rouble give him one of my old coats; he is too thinly clad. Give him my hareskin touloup.”
“Have mercy on me, my father, Petr’ Andréjïtch!” exclaimed Savéliitch. “What need has he of your touloup? He will pawn it for drink, the dog, in the first tavern he comes across.”
“That, my dear old fellow, is no longer your affair,” said the vagabond, “whether I drink it or
whether I do not. His excellency honours me with a coat off his own back. It is his excellency’s will, and it is your duty as a serf not to kick against it, but to obey.”
“You don’t fear heaven, robber that you are,” said Savéliitch, angrily. “You see the child is still young and foolish, and you are quite ready to plunder him, thanks to his kind heart. What do you want with a gentleman’s touloup? You could not even put it across your cursed broad shoulders.”
“I beg you will not play the wit,” I said to my follower. “Get the cloak quickly.”
“Oh! good heavens!” exclaimed Savéliitch, bemoaning himself. “A touloup of hareskin, and still quite new! And to whom is it given? — to a drunkard in rags.”
However, the touloup was brought. The vagabond began trying it on directly. The touloup, which had already become somewhat too small for me, was really too tight for him. Still, with some trouble, he succeeded in getting it on, though he cracked all the seams. Savéliitch gave, as it were, a subdued howl when he heard the threads snapping.
As to the vagabond, he was very pleased with my present. He ushered me to my kibitka, and saying, with a low bow, “Thanks, your excellency; may Heaven reward you for your goodness; I shall never forget, as long as I live, your kindnesses,” went his way, and I went mine, without paying any attention to Savéliitch’s sulkiness.
I soon forgot the snowstorm, the guide, and my hareskin touloup.
Upon arrival at Orenburg I immediately waited on the General. I found a tall man, already bent by age. His long hair was quite white; his old uniform reminded one of a soldier of Tzarina Anne’s time, and he spoke with a strongly-marked German accent. I gave him my father’s letter. Upon reading his name he cast a quick glance at me.
“Ah,” said he, “it was but a short time Andréj Petróvitch was your age, and now he has got a fine fellow of a son. Well, well — time, time.”
He opened the letter, and began reading it half aloud, with a running fire of remarks —
“‘Sir, I hope your excellency’ — What’s all this ceremony? For shame! I wonder he’s not ashamed of himself! Of course, discipline before everything; but is it thus one writes to an old comrade? ‘Your excellency will not have forgotten’ — Humph! ‘And when under the late Field Marshal Münich during the campaign, as well as little Caroline’ — Eh! eh! bruder! So he still remembers our old pranks? ‘Now for business. I send you my rogue’ — Hum! ‘Hold him with gloves of porcupine-skin’ — What does that mean — ’gloves of porcupine-skin?’ It must be a Russian proverb.
“What does it mean, ‘hold with gloves of porcupine-skin?’“ resumed he, turning to me.
“It means,” I answered him, with the most innocent face in the world, “to treat someone kindly, not too strictly, to leave him plenty of liberty; that is what holding with gloves of porcupine-skin means.”
“Humph! I understand.”
“‘And not give him any liberty’ — No; it seems that porcupine-skin gloves means something quite different.’ Enclosed is his commission’ — Where is it then? Ah! here it is! — ’in the roll of the Séménofsky Regiment’ — All right; everything necessary shall be done. ‘Allow me to salute you without ceremony, and like an old friend and comrade’ — Ah! he has at last remembered it all,” etc., etc.
“Well, my little father,” said he, after he had finished the letter and put my commission aside, “all shall be done; you shall be an officer in the —— th Regiment, and you shall go to-morrow to Fort Bélogorsk, where you will serve under the orders of Commandant Mironoff, a brave and worthy man. There you will really serve and learn discipline. There is nothing for you to do at Orenburg; amusement is bad for a young man. To-day I invite you to dine with me.”
“Worse and worse,” thought I to myself. “What good has it done me to have been a sergeant in the Guard from my cradle? Where has it brought me? To the —— th Regiment, and to a fort stranded on the frontier of the Kirghiz-Kaïsak Steppes!”
I dined at Andréj Karlovitch’s, in the company of his old aide de camp. Strict German economy was the rule at his table, and I think that the dread of a frequent guest at his bachelor’s table contributed not a little to my being so promptly sent away to a distant garrison.
The next day I took leave of the General, and started for my destination.
CHAPTER III.
THE LITTLE POET.
The little fort of Bélogorsk lay about forty versts from Orenburg. From this town the road followed along by the rugged banks of the R. Yaïk. The river was not yet frozen, and its lead-coloured waves looked almost black contrasted with its banks white with snow. Before me stretched the Kirghiz Steppes. I was lost in thought, and my reverie was tinged with melancholy. Garrison life did not offer me much attraction. I tried to imagine what my future chief, Commandant Mironoff, would be like. I saw in my mind’s eye a strict, morose old man, with no ideas beyond the service, and prepared to put me under arrest for the smallest trifle.
Twilight was coming on; we were driving rather quickly.
“Is it far from here to the fort?” I asked the driver.
“Why, you can see it from here,” replied he.
I began looking all round, expecting to see high bastions, a wall, and a ditch. I saw nothing but a little village, surrounded by a wooden palisade. On one side three or four haystacks, half covered with snow; on another a tumble-down windmill, whose sails, made of coarse limetree bark, hung idly down.
“But where is the fort?” I asked, in surprise.
“There it is yonder, to be sure,” rejoined the driver, pointing out to me the village which we had just reached.
I noticed near the gateway an old iron cannon. The streets were narrow and crooked, nearly all the izbás were thatched. I ordered him to take me to the Commandant, and almost directly my kibitka stopped before a wooden house, built on a knoll near the church, which was also in wood.
No one came to meet me. From the steps I entered the ante-room. An old pensioner, seated on a table, was busy sewing a blue patch on the elbow of a green uniform. I begged him to announce me.
“Come in, my little father,” he said to me; “we are all at home.”
I went into a room, very clean, but furnished in a very homely manner. In one corner there stood a dresser with crockery on it. Against the wall hung, framed and glazed, an officer’s commission. Around this were arranged some bark pictures, representing the “Taking of Kustrin” and of “Otchakóf,” “The Choice of the Betrothed,” and the “Burial of the Cat by the Mice.” Near the window sat an old woman wrapped in a shawl, her head tied up in a handkerchief. She was busy winding thread, which a little, old, one-eyed man in an officer’s uniform was holding on his outstretched hands.
“What do you want, my little father?” she said to me, continuing her employment.
I answered that I had been ordered to join the service here, and that, therefore, I had hastened to report myself to the Commandant. With these words I turned towards the little, old, one-eyed man, whom I had taken for the Commandant. But the good lady interrupted the speech with which I had prepared myself.
“Iván Kouzmitch is not at home,” said she. “He is gone to see Father Garassim. But it’s all the same, I am his wife. Be so good as to love us and take us into favour. Sit down, my little father.”
She called a servant, and bid her tell the “ouriadnik” to come.
The little, old man was looking curiously at me with his one eye.
“Might I presume to ask you,” said he to me, “in what regiment you have deigned to serve?”
I satisfied his curiosity.
“And might I ask you,” continued he, “why you have condescended to exchange from the Guard into our garrison?”
I replied that it was by order of the authorities.
“Probably for conduct unbecoming an officer of the Guard?” rejoined my indefatigable questioner.
“Will you be good enough to stop talking nonsense?” the wife of the Commandant now said to
him. “You can see very well that this young man is tired with his journey. He has something else to do than to answer your questions. Hold your hands better. And you, my little father,” she continued, turning to me, “do not bemoan yourself too much because you have been shoved into our little hole of a place; you are not the first, and you will not be the last. One may suffer, but one gets accustomed to it. For instance, Chvabrine, Alexey Iványtch, was transferred to us four years ago on account of a murder. Heaven knows what ill-luck befel him. It happened one day he went out of the town with a lieutenant, and they had taken swords, and they set to pinking one another, and Alexey Iványtch killed the lieutenant, and before a couple of witnesses. Well, well, there’s no heading ill-luck!”
At this moment the “ouriadnik,” a young and handsome Cossack, came in.
“Maximitch,” the Commandant’s wife said to him, “find a quarter for this officer, and a clean one.”
“I obey, Vassilissa Igorofna,” replied the “ouriadnik.” “Ought not his excellency to go to Iwán Poléjaïeff?”
“You are doting, Maximitch,” retorted the Commandant’s wife; “Poléjaïeff has already little enough room; and, besides, he is my gossip; and then he does not forget that we are his superiors. Take the gentleman — What is your name, my little father?”
“Petr’ Andréjïtch.”
“Take Petr’ Andréjïtch to Séméon Kouzoff’s. The rascal let his horse get into my kitchen garden. Is everything in order, Maximitch?”
“Thank heaven! all is quiet,” replied the Cossack. “Only Corporal
Prokoroff has been fighting in the bathhouse with the woman Oustinia
Pegoulina for a pail of hot water.”
“Iwán Ignatiitch,” said the Commandant’s wife to the little one-eyed man, “you must decide between Prokoroff and Oustinia which is to blame, and punish both of them; and you, Maximitch, go, in heaven’s name! Petr’ Andréjïtch, Maximitch will take you to your lodging.”
I took leave. The “ouriadnik” led me to an izbá, which stood on the steep bank of the river, quite at the far end of the little fort. Half the izbá was occupied by the family of Séméon Kouzoff, the other half was given over to me. This half consisted of a tolerably clean room, divided into two by a partition.