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“Really? Oh, that Shvabrin is a great Schelm, and if he falls into my hands I will have him court-martialed within twenty-four hours and we will shoot him on the fortress wall! But meanwhile you must have patience….”
“Have patience!” I cried, beside myself. “But meanwhile he will marry Marya Ivanovna!”
“Oh, that won’t be so bad,” the General retorted; “it will be better for her to be Shvabrin’s wife for the time being; he will be able to look after her at present, and afterwards, when we shoot him, she will find plenty of suitors, God willing. Charming widows don’t remain old maids; I mean a young widow will find a husband sooner than a girl would.”
“I would rather die,” I cried in a rage, “than give her up to Shvabrin!”
“Oh, I see!” said the old man, “now I understand…. You are evidently in love with Marya Ivanovna. Oh, that’s another matter! Poor boy! But all the same, I cannot possibly give you a detachment of soldiers and fifty Cossacks. Such an expedition would be unreasonable; I cannot take the responsibility for it.”
I bowed my head; I was in despair. Suddenly an idea flashed through my mind. The reader will learn from the following chapter what it was—as the old-fashioned novelists put it.
XI
THE REBELS’ CAMP
The lion has just had a meal;
Ferocious as he is, he asked me kindly:
“What brings you to my lair?”
SUMAROKOV
I LEFT the General and hastened to my lodgings. Savelyich met me with his usual admonitions.
“Why ever do you go fighting those drunken brigands, sir? It isn’t the thing for a gentleman. You may perish for nothing any day. If at least they were Turks or Swedes—but these wretches are not fit to be mentioned….”
I interrupted him by asking how much money we had.
“We have enough,” he said, with an air of satisfaction; “the rascals rummaged everywhere, but I have managed to hide it from them.” With these words he took out of his pocket a long knitted purse full of silver.
“Well, Savelyich,” said I to him, “give me half of it and take the rest for yourself. I am going to the Belogorsky fortress.”
“My dear Pyotr Andreyich!” said the kind old man in a shaking voice, “What are you thinking of! How can you go at a time like this, when the brigands are all over the place? Have pity on your parents if you don’t care about yourself. How can you go? What for? Wait a little; troops will come and catch the rascals; then go anywhere you like.”
But my decision was firm.
“It is too late to argue,” I answered; “I must go, I cannot help it. Don’t grieve, Savelyich; God willing, we will meet again. Now don’t be overscrupulous or stint yourself. Buy everything you need, even if you have to pay three times the price. I make you a present of that money. If I don’t return in three days …”
“What, sir!” Savelyich interrupted me. “Do you imagine I would let you go alone? Don’t you dream of asking that. Since you have decided to go, I will follow you; if I have to walk I won’t leave you. To think of my sitting behind a stone wall without you! I haven’t taken leave of my senses yet. Say what you like, sir, but I will go with you.”
I knew it was useless to argue with Savelyich and so I allowed him to prepare for the journey. Half an hour later I mounted my good horse, and Savelyich a lame and skinny nag which one of the townspeople presented to him, not having the means to feed it. We rode to the town gates; the sentries let us pass; we left Orenburg.
It was growing dark. My way lay through the village of Berda, which was occupied by Pugachov’s troops. The main road was covered with snowdrifts, but traces of horses’ hoofs were all over the steppe, marked afresh each day. I was riding at a quick trot, Savelyich could hardly follow me at a distance, and kept shouting: “Not so fast, sir; for God’s sake not so fast! My cursed nag cannot keep up with your long-legged devil. Where are you hurrying to? It’s not to a feast we are going—more likely to our funeral! Pyotr Andreyich!… Pyotr Andreyich, my dear!… Good Lord, that child will come to grief!”
The lights of Berda soon came into sight. We rode up to the ravines that formed the natural defenses of the village. Savelyich kept pace with me, never ceasing from his pitiful entreaties. I was hoping to get round the village when suddenly I saw before me in the twilight some five peasants armed with clubs: it was the advance guard of Pugachov’s camp. They called to us. Not knowing their password, I wanted to ride past them without saying anything; but they immediately surrounded me and one of them seized my horse by the bridle. I seized my sword and hit the peasant on the head; his cap saved him, but he staggered and let go the bridle. The others were confused and ran away; I took advantage of that moment, spurred my horse and galloped on. The darkness of the approaching night might have saved me from all danger, when turning round I suddenly saw that Savelyich was not with me. The poor old man could not ride away from the brigands on his lame horse. What was I to do? After waiting a few minutes and making certain that he had been detained, I turned my horse back and went to his rescue.
As I rode up to the ravine I heard a noise, shouts and my Savelyich’s voice. I rode faster and soon found myself once more among the peasant watchmen who had stopped me a few minutes before. Savelyich was with them. They had pulled the old man off his nag and were preparing to bind him. My return pleased them. They rushed at me with a shout and instantly pulled me off my horse. One of them, evidently the chief, said that he would take us to the Czar at once.
“And it is for the Father Czar to decide,” he added, “whether we are to hang you at once or wait till dawn.”
I offered no resistance; Savelyich followed my example, and the watchmen led us along in triumph.
We crossed the ravine and entered the village. Lights were burning in all the windows. Noise and shouting came from everywhere. We met a number of people in the streets, but in the dark no one noticed us or recognized me for an officer from Orenburg. We were brought straight to a cottage that stood at the crossroads. There were several wine barrels and two cannon at the gate.
“Here is the palace,” one of the peasants said. “I’ll go and announce you.”
He went in. I glanced at Savelyich; the old man was silently repeating a prayer and crossing himself. I waited a long time; at last the peasant returned and said to me: “Walk in, our father says he will see the officer.”
I went into the cottage, or the palace, as the peasants called it. It was lighted by two tallow candles and the walls were papered with gold paper; but the benches, the table, the washing arrangements, the towel on a nail, the oven fork in the corner and the broad stove shelf covered with pots, were just as in any other cottage. Pugachov, wearing a red coat and a tall cap, was sitting under the ikons with an air of importance, his arms akimbo. Several of his chief associates were standing by him with an expression of feigned servility: news of the arrival of an officer from Orenburg had evidently aroused the rebels’ curiosity and they had prepared an impressive reception for me. Pugachov recognized me at the first glance. His assumed air of importance suddenly disappeared.
“Ah, your honor!” he said genially. “How are you? What brings you here?”
I answered that I was traveling on my own business and that his men had detained me.
“And what is your business?” he asked me.
I did not know what to say. Thinking I did not want to speak before witnesses, Pugachov turned to his comrades and ordered them to leave the room. All obeyed except two who did not stir.
“Speak boldly in their presence,” Pugachov said to me, “I hide nothing from them.”
I threw a sidelong glance at the impostor’s confidants. One of them, a puny, bent old man with a gray beard, had nothing remarkable about him except a blue ribbon worn across the shoulder over a gray peasant coat. But I shall never forget his comrade. He was tall, stout, and broad-shouldered, and seemed to be about forty-five. A thick red beard, gray glittering eyes, a nose without nostrils,
and reddish marks on the forehead and the cheeks gave an indescribable expression to his broad, pock-marked face. He wore a red shirt, a Kirghiz gown and Cossack trousers. As I learned later, the first was a runaway corporal, Beloborodov; the second, Afanasy Sokolov, nicknamed Khlopusha, a convict who had escaped three times from the Siberian mines. In spite of the feelings which absorbed me, the company in which I so unexpectedly found myself strongly appealed to my imagination. But Pugachov brought me back to myself by repeating: “Tell me on what business have you left Orenburg?”
A strange idea came into my head: it seemed to me that Providence, which had brought me for the second time to Pugachov, was giving me an opportunity to carry out my intention. I decided to take advantage of it and, without stopping to consider my decision, said in answer to Pugachov: “I was going to the Belogorsky fortress to rescue an orphan who is being ill-treated there.”
Pugachov’s eyes glittered.
“Which of my men dares to ill-treat an orphan?” he cried. “He may be as clever as you please, but he won’t escape my sentence. Tell me, who is the guilty man?”
“Shvabrin,” I answered. “He keeps under lock and key the girl whom you saw lying ill at the priest’s house, and wants to marry her by force.”
“I’ll teach Shvabrin!” said Pugachov menacingly. “I’ll show him what it is to take the law into his own hands and to ill-treat people. I will hang him!”
“Allow me to say a word,” Khlopusha said, in a hoarse voice. “You were in a hurry to put Shvabrin in command of the fortress and now you are in a hurry to hang him. You have already offended the Cossacks by putting a gentleman over them; do not now frighten the gentry by hanging him at the first accusation.”
“One need not pity them nor show them favors!” said the old man with the blue ribbon. “There is no harm in hanging Shvabrin; but it wouldn’t be amiss to question this officer thoroughly, too. Why has he come here? If he doesn’t recognize you as Czar he need not seek justice from you; and if he does acknowledge you, why has he sat till today with your enemies in Orenburg? Won’t you let me take him to the office and light a fire under his toes? It seems to me his honor has been sent to us by the Orenburg commanders.”
The old villain’s logic struck me as rather convincing. A shiver ran down my back when I thought in whose hands I was. Pugachov noticed my confusion.
“Eh, your honor?” he said to me, with a wink. “I fancy my field marshal is talking sense. What do you think?”
Pugachov’s mockery gave me back my courage. I calmly answered that I was in his power and that he was free to do what he liked with me.
“Good,” said Pugachov, “and now tell me how are things going with you in the town?”
“Thank Heaven, all is well,” I answered.
“All is well?” Pugachov repeated. “And people are dying of starvation?” The Pretender was right, but in accordance with my duty I began assuring him that this was an empty rumor and that there were plenty of provisions in Orenburg.
“You see,” the old man chimed in, “he is deceiving you to your face. All refugees say with one voice that there is famine and pestilence in Orenburg; people eat carcasses, and even that is a treat; and his honor assures you they have plenty of everything. If you want to hang Shvabrin, hang this fellow, too, on the same gallows so as to be fair to both!”
The cursed old man’s words seemed to have shaken Pugachov. Fortunately Khlopusha began contradicting his comrade.
“Come, Naumych,” he said to him, “you always want to be hanging and murdering. And you are not much of a man to look at—you can hardly keep body and soul together. You have one foot in the grave and yet you are destroying others. Isn’t there enough blood on your conscience?”
“You are a fine saint!” Beloborodov retorted. “Why should you have pity?”
“Of course, I, too, have things on my conscience,” Khlopusha answered, “and this hand”—he clenched his bony fist and, turning up his sleeve, showed a hairy arm—“has been guilty of shedding Christian blood. But I destroyed enemies, not guests; on a high road and in the dark forest and not at home behind the stove; with a club and an ax and not with womanish slander.”
The old man turned away and muttered: “Torn nostrils …”
“What are you muttering, you old wretch?” Khlopusha shouted. “I’ll give you ‘torn nostrils’! Wait a bit, your time will come, too; God willing, you, too, will sniff the hangman’s pincers…. And, meanwhile, take care I don’t pull out your scurvy beard!”
“My Generals,” Pugachov said pompously, “that’s enough quarreling! It does not matter if all the Orenburg pack wriggle under the same gallows; but it does matter if our dogs are at one another’s throats. There, make peace!”
Khlopusha and Beloborodov did not say a word and looked at each other gloomily. I saw that it was necessary to change the subject of a conversation which might end very badly for me and, turning to Pugachov, I said to him with a cheerful air: “Oh, I have forgotten to thank you for the horse and the sheepskin. Had it not been for you I could not have found the road and should have been frozen on the way.”
My ruse succeeded. Pugachov’s good humor was restored.
“One good turn deserves another,” he said, with a wink. “And tell me now why are you concerned about the girl whom Shvabrin is ill-treating? Is she your sweetheart, by any chance?”
“She is my betrothed!” I answered, seeing the favorable change in the weather and not thinking it necessary to conceal the truth.
“Your betrothed!” Pugachov shouted. “Why didn’t you say so before? Why, we’ll have you married and make merry at your wedding!”
Then he turned to Beloborodov and said: “Listen, Field Marshal! His honor and I are old friends, so let us sit down to supper. Morning is wiser than evening; we shall see tomorrow what we are to do with him.”
I should have been glad to refuse the honor, but there was nothing for it. Two young girls, daughters of the Cossack to whom the hut belonged, spread a white cloth on the table, brought bread, fish soup, and several bottles of vodka and beer. Once more I found myself at the same table with Pugachov and his terrible comrades.
The orgy of which I was an involuntary witness lasted far into the night. At last the company were overpowered with drink. Pugachov dozed; his friends got up and made me a sign to leave him. I went with them out of the room. At Khlopusha’s orders the watchman took me into the cottage that served as office; I found Savelyich there and we were locked up together for the night. The old man was so amazed at all that was happening that he did not ask me a single question. He lay down in the dark and was a long time sighing and groaning; at last he snored, and I gave myself up to thoughts which did not give me a wink of sleep all night.
In the morning Pugachov sent for me. I went to him. A chaise, drawn by three Tatar horses, was standing at his gate. There was a crowd in the street. I met Pugachov in the entry; he was dressed for the journey in a fur coat and a Kirghiz cap. His comrades of the day before surrounded him with an air of servility which little accorded with all that I had seen the night before. Pugachov greeted me cheerfully and told me to step into the chaise with him. We took our seats.
“To the Belogorsky fortress!” Pugachov said to the broad-shouldered Tatar who drove the troika standing.
My heart beat violently. The horses set off, the bell clanged, the chaise flew along….
“Stop! Stop!” a familiar voice called out, and I saw Savelyich running toward us. Pugachov told the driver to stop.
“My dear Pyotr Andreyich!” Savelyich cried. “Don’t abandon me in my old age among these rascals!”
“Ah, you old creature!” Pugachov said to him. “So God has brought us together again. Well, climb onto the box!”
“Thank you, sire, thank you, our father!” said Savelyich, climbing up. “May God let you live to be a hundred for your kindness to an old man. I will pray for you as long as I live and will never mention the hareskin jacket again.”
One may well imagine what I was feeling at that moment. In a few hours I was to see her whom I had already considered as lost to me. I was picturing the moment of our meeting…. I was also thinking of the man in whose hands I was and who was mysteriously connected with me through a strange combination of circumstances. I was recalling the thoughtless cruelty, the bloodthirsty habits of the would-be rescuer of my beloved. Pugachov did not know that she was Captain Mironov’s daughter; Shvabrin in his bitterness might tell him; or Pugachov might discover the truth in other ways…. What would become of Marya Ivanovna then? A shiver ran down my back and my hair stood on end.
Suddenly Pugachov interrupted my reflections with a question: “What are you thinking of so deeply, your honor?”
“How can I help thinking,” I answered. “I am an officer and a gentleman; only yesterday I was fighting against you and today I am driving beside you and the happiness of my whole life depends upon you.”
“Well, are you afraid?” Pugachov asked.
I answered that since he had spared me once, I was hoping he would do so again and would, indeed, help me.
“And you are right, upon my soul, you are right!” Pugachov said. “You saw that my men were looking askance at you; and the old man again insisted this morning that you were a spy and ought to be tortured and hanged; but I did not agree,” he added, lowering his voice so that Savelyich and the Tatar should not hear him, “remembering your glass of vodka and the hareskin jacket. You see, I am not so bloodthirsty as your people make me out.”
I recalled the taking of the Belogorsky fortress but did not think it necessary to contradict him and did not answer.