The Queen of Spades, and other stories
"The gens d'armes got in by his side, the Moldavian cracked his whip,
and the _karutsa_ rolled away.
"What was Kirdjali saying to you? inquired a young official of the
police officer.
"He asked me," replied the officer, smiling, "to take care of his
wife and child, who live a short distance from Kilia, in a Bulgarian
village; he is afraid they might suffer through him. The rabble are so
ignorant!'"
The young official's story affected me greatly. I was sorry for poor
Kirdjali. For a long while I knew nothing of his fate. Many years
afterwards I met the young official. We began talking of old times.
"How about your friend Kirdjali?" I asked. "Do you know what became of
him?"
"Of course I do," he replied, and he told me the following.
After being brought to Jassy, Kirdjali was taken before the Pasha,
who condemned him to be impaled. The execution was postponed till
some feast day. Meanwhile he was put in confinement. The prisoner was
guarded by seven Turks--common people, and at the bottom of their
hearts brigands like himself. They respected him and listened with
the eagerness of true orientals to his wonderful stories. Between the
guards and their prisoner a close friendship sprang up. On one occasion
Kirdjali said to them:
"Brothers! My hour is near. No one can escape his doom. I shall soon
part from you, and I should like to leave you something in remembrance
of me." The Turks opened their ears.
"Brothers;" added Kirdjali, "three years back, when I was engaged in
brigandage with the late Mihailaki, we buried in the Steppes, not far
from Jassy, a kettle with some coins in it. Seemingly, neither he nor
I will ever possess that treasure. So be it; take it to yourselves and
divide it amicably."
The Turks nearly went crazy. They began considering how they could find
the spot so vaguely indicated. They thought and thought, and at last
decided that Kirdjali must himself show them.
Night set in. The Turks took off the fetters that weighed upon the
prisoner's feet, hound his hands with a rope, and taking him with them,
started for the Steppes. Kirdjali led them, going in a straight line
from one mound to another. They walked about for some time. At last
Kirdjali stopped close to a broad stone, measured a dozen steps to the
south, stamped, and said, "Here."
The Turks arranged themselves for work. Four took out their daggers and
began digging the earth, while three remained on guard. Kirdjali sat
down on the stone, and looked on.
"Well, now, shall you be long?" he inquired; "have you found it?"
"Not yet," replied the Turks, and they worked away till the
perspiration rolled like hail from them.
Kirdjali grew impatient.
"What people!" he exclaimed; "they can't even dig decently. Why, I
should have found it in two minutes. Children! Untie my hands, and give
me a dagger."
The Turks reflected, and began to consult with one another.
"Why not?" they concluded. "We will release his hands, and give him a
dagger. What can it matter? He is only one, while we are seven."
And the Turks unbound his bands and gave him a dagger.
At last Kirdjali was free and armed. What must have been his
sensations. He began digging rapidly, the guard assisting. Suddenly he
thrust his dagger into one of them, leaving the blade sticking in the
man's breast; he snatched from his girdle a couple of pistols.
The remaining six, seeing Kirdjali armed with two pistols, ran away.
Kirdjali is now carrying on his brigandage near Jassy. Not long ago
he wrote to the Hospodar, demanding from him five thousand louis, and
threatening, in the event of the money not being paid, to set fire to
Jassy, and to reach the Hospodar himself. The five thousand louis were
forwarded to him.
A fine fellow Kirdjali!
THE HISTORY OF THE VILLAGE OF GOROHINA.
Of all professions that of a man of letters has always seemed to me
most enviable.
My parents, respectable but humble folk, had been brought up in the old
fashion. They never read anything; and beyond an alphabet (bought for
me), an almanack, and the latest letter-writer, they had no books in
the house.
The letter-writer had long provided me with entertainment. I knew it by
heart, yet daily found in it fresh beauties; and next to General N----,
to whom my father had been _aide-de-camp,_ Kurganoff, its author, was,
in my estimation, one of the greatest men. I questioned everyone about
him; but unhappily no one could gratify my curiosity. Nobody knew him
personally. To all my questioning the reply was that Kurganoff was the
author of the latest letter-writer, but that I knew already. He was
wrapped in darkness and mystery like some ancient demi-god. At times
I doubted even his existence. His name was perhaps an invention, the
legend about him an empty myth awaiting the investigation of some
new Niebuhr. Nevertheless he dogged my imagination. I tried to give
some form to this very personage, and finally decided that he must be
like the land-judge, Koriuchkin, a little old man with a red nose and
glittering eyes.
In 1812 I was taken to Moscow and placed at a boarding school belonging
to Karl Ivanovitch Meyer. There I stayed only some three months,
because the school broke up in anticipation of the enemy's coming. I
returned to the country.
* * * * *
This epoch of my life was to me so important that I shall dilate upon
it, apologizing beforehand if I trespass upon the good nature of the
reader.
It was a dull autumn day. On reaching the station whence I must turn
off to Gorohina (that was the name of our village) I engaged horses,
and drove off by the country road. Though naturally calm, so impatient
was I to revisit the scenes where I had passed the best years of my
life, that I kept urging the driver to quicken speed with alternate
promises of vodka and threats of chastisement. How much easier it was
to belabour him than to unloose my purse. I own I struck him twice or
thrice, a thing I had never done in my life before. I don't know why,
but I had a great liking for drivers as a class.
The driver urged his troika to a quicker pace, but to me it seemed that
public-driver-like he coaxed the horses and waved his whip but at the
same time tightened the reins. At last I caught sight of Gorohina wood,
and in ten minutes more we drove into the courtyard of the manor house.
My heart beat violently. I looked round with unwonted emotion. For
eight years I had not seen Gorohina. The little birches which I had
seen planted near the palings had now grown into tall branching trees.
The courtyard, once adorned with three regular flower beds divided by
broad gravel paths, was now an unmown meadow, the grazing land of a red
cow.
My britchka stopped at the front door. My servant went to open it, but
it was fastened; yet the shutters were open, and the house seemed to be
inhabited. A woman emerging from a servant's hut asked what I wanted.
Hearing the master had arrived, she ran back into the hut, and soon
I had all the inhabitants of the courtyard around me. I was deeply
touched to see the known and unknown faces, and I greeted each with a
friendly kiss.
The boys my playmates had grown to men. The girls who used to squat
upon the floor and run with such alacrity on errands were married
women. The men wept. To the women I said unceremoniously:
"How you have aged." And they answered sadly:
"And you, little father, how plain you have grown."
They led me towards the back entrance; I was met by my old
wet-nurse, by whom I was welcomed back with sobs and tears, like the
much-suffering Ulysses. They hastened to heat the bath. The cook, who
in his long holiday had grown a beard, offered to cook my dinner or
supper, for it was growing dark. The rooms hitherto occupied by my
nurse and my late mother's maids were at once got ready for me. Thus I
found myself in the humble home of my parents, and fell asleep in that
room where three-and-twenty years before I had been born.
Some three weeks passed in business of various kinds. I was engaged
with land judges, presidents, and every imaginable official of the
province. Finally I got possession of my inheritance. I was contented:
but soon the dulness of inaction began to torment me. I was not
yet acquainted with my kind and venerable neighbour N---- Domestic
occupations were altogether strange to me. The conversation of my
nurse, whom I promoted to the rank of housekeeper, consisted of fifteen
family anecdotes. I found them very interesting, but as she always
related them in the same way she soon became for me another Niebuhr
letter-writer, in which I knew precisely on what page every particular
line occurred. That worthy book I found in the storeroom among a
quantity of rubbish sadly dilapidated. I brought it out into the light
and began to read it; but Kurganoff had lost his charm. I read him
through once more and never after opened him again.
In this extremity it struck me:
"Why not write myself?" The reader has been already told that I was
educated on copper money. Besides, to become an author seemed so
difficult, so unattainable, that the idea of writing quite frightened
me at first. Dare I hope ever to be numbered amongst writers, when my
ardent wish even to meet one had not yet been gratified? This reminds
me of something which I shall tell to show my unbounded enthusiasm for
my native literature.
In 1820, while yet an ensign, I chanced to be on government business at
Petersburg. I stayed a week; and although I had not one acquaintance
in he place, I passed the time very pleasantly. I went daily to the
theatre, modestly to the fourth row in the gallery. I learnt the
names of all the actors and fell passionately in love with B----. She
had played one Sunday with great artistic feeling as Eulalie in _Hass
und Reue_ (in English _The Stranger._) In the morning, on my way from
headquarters, I would call at a small confectioner's, drink a cup of
chocolate, and read a literary journal. One day, while thus deep in an
article "by Goodintention, some one in a pea-green greatcoat suddenly
approached and gently withdrew the _Hamburg Gazette_ from under my
newspaper. I was so occupied that I did not look up. The stranger
ordered a steak and sat down facing me. I went on reading without
noticing him.
Meanwhile he finished his luncheon, scolded the waiter for some
carelessness, drank half a bottle of wine, and left. Two young men were
also lunching.
"Do you know who that was?" inquired one of them.
"That was Goodintention ... the writer."
"The writer!" I exclaimed involuntarily, and leaving the article unread
and the cup of chocolate undrunk, I hastily paid my reckoning, and
without waiting for the change rushed into the street. Looking round I
descried in the distance the pea-green coat and dashed along the Nevsky
Prospect almost at a run. When I had gone several steps I felt myself
stopped by some one, and looking back I found I had been noticed by an
officer of the guards. I; ought not to have knocked against him on the
pavement, but rather to have stopped and saluted. After this reprimand
I was more careful. Unluckily I met an officer every moment, and every
moment I had to stop, while the author got farther and farther away.
Never before had my soldier's overcoat proved so irksome, never had
epaulettes appeared so enviable. At last near the Annitchkin Bridge I
came up with the pea-green greatcoat.
"May I inquire," I said, saluting, "are you Mr. Goodintention, whose
excellent article I have had the pleasure of reading in the _Zealous
Enlightener?_"
"Not at all," he replied. "I am not a writer but a lawyer. But I know
Goodintention very well. A quarter of an hour ago I passed him at the
Police Bridge." In this way my respect for Russian letters cost me