The Queen of Spades, and other stories
80 kopecks of change, an official reprimand, and a narrow escape of
arrest, and all in vain.
In spite of all the protest of my reason, the audacious thought of
becoming a writer kept recurring. At last, unable longer to resist it,
I made a thick copy book and resolved to fill it somehow. All kinds
of poems (humble prose did not yet enter into my reckoning) were in
turn considered and approved. I decided to write an epic furnished on
Russian history. I was not long in finding a hero. I chose Rurik, and I
set to work.
I had acquired a certain aptitude for rhymes, by copying those in
manuscript which used to circulate among our officers, such as the
criticism on the Moscow Boulevards, the Presnensky Ponds, and the
Dangerous Neighbour. In spite of that my poem progressed slowly,
and at the third verse I dropped it. I concluded that the epic was
not my style, and began _Rurik_, _a Tragedy._ The tragedy halted. I
turned it into a ballad, but the ballad hardly seemed to do. At last
I had a happy thought. I began and succeeded in finishing an ode to a
portrait of Rurik. Despite the inauspicious character of such a title,
particularly for a young bard's first work, I yet felt that I had not
been born a poet, and after this first attempt desisted. These essays
in authorship gave me so great a taste for writing that I could now no
longer abstain from paper and ink. I could descend to prose. But at
first I wished to avoid the preliminary construction of a plot and the
connection of parts. I resolved to write detached thoughts without any
connection or order, just as they struck me. Unfortunately the thoughts
would not come, and in the course of two whole days the only thought
that struck me was the following:
He who disobeys reason and yields to the inclination of his passions
often goes wrong and ends by repenting when it is too late.
This though no doubt true enough was not original.
Abandoning aphorism I took to tales; but being too unpractised in
arranging incidents I selected such remarkable occurrences as I had
heard of at various times and tried to ornament the truth by a lively
style and the flowers of my own imagination. Composing these tales
little by little, I formed my style and learnt to express myself
correctly, pleasantly, and freely. My stock was soon exhausted, and I
again began to seek a subject.
To abandon these childish anecdotes of doubtful authenticity, and
narrate real and great events instead, was an idea by which I had long
been haunted.
To be the judge, the observer, and the prophet of ages and of peoples
seemed to me a most attainable object of ambition to a writer. What
history could I write--I with my pitiable education? Where was I not
forestalled by highly cultivated and conscientious men? What history
had they left unexhausted. Should I write a universal history? But was
there not already the immortal work of Abbé Millot. A national history
of Russia, what could I say after Tatishtcheff Bolitin and Golikoff?
And was it for me to burrow amongst records and to penetrate the
occult meaning of a dead language--for me who could never master the
Slavonian alphabet? Why not try a history on a smaller scale?--for
instance, the history of our town! But even here how very numerous
and insuperable seemed the obstacles--a journey to the town, a visit
to the governor and the bishop, permission to examine the archives,
the monastery, the cellars, and so on. The history of our town would
have been easier; but it could interest neither the philosopher nor
the artist, and afford but little opening for eloquence. The only
noteworthy record in its annals relates to a terrible fire ten years
ago which burnt the bazaar and the courts of justice. An accident
settled my doubts. A woman hanging linen in a loft found an old
basket full of shavings, dust, and books. The whole household knew my
passion for reading. My housekeeper while I sat over my paper gnawing
my pen and meditating on the experience of country prophets entered
triumphantly dragging a basket into my room, and bringing joyfully
"books! books!"
Books! I repeated in delight as I rushed to the basket. Actually a pile
of them with covers of green and of blue paper. It was a collection of
old almanacks. My ardour was cooled by the discovery, still they were
books, and I generously rewarded her pains with half a silver ruble.
When she had gone I began to examine my almanacks; I soon became
absorbed. They formed a complete series from 1744 to 1799 including
exactly 55 years. The blue sheets of paper usually bound in the
almanacks were covered with old-fashioned handwriting. Skimming these
lines I noticed with surprise that besides remarks on the weather
and accounts they contained scraps of historical information about
the village of Gorohina. Among these valuable documents I began my
researches, and soon found that they presented a full history of my
native place for nearly a century, in chronological order, besides an
exhaustive store of economical, statistical, meteorological, and other
learned information. Thenceforth the study of these documents took up
my time, for I perceived that from them a stately, instructive, and
interesting history could be made. As I became sufficiently acquainted
with these valuable notes, I began to search for new sources of
information about the village of Gorohina, and I soon became astonished
at the wealth of material. After devoting six months to a preliminary
study of them, I at last began the long wished for work; and by God's
grace completed the same on the 3rd of November, 1827. To-day, like a
fellow-historian, whose name I do not recollect, having finished my
hard task, I lay down my pen and sadly walk into my garden to meditate
upon my performance. It seems even to me that now the history of
Gorohina is finished I am no longer wanted in the world. My task is
ended; and it is time for me to die.
* * * * *
I add a list of the sources whence I drew the history of Gorohina.
I. A collection of ancient almanacks in fifty fifty--five parts. Of
these the first twenty are covered with an old-fashioned writing;
much abbreviated. The manuscript is that of my grandfather; Andrei
Stepanovitch Belkin; and is remarkably clear and concise. For example:
4th of May. Snow.
Trishka for his impertinence beaten. 6th. The red cow died. Senka for
drunkenness beaten. 8th. A fine day. 9th. Rain and snow. Trishka for
drunkenness beaten.... and so on without comment. 11th. The weather
fine, first snow; hunted three hares. The remaining thirty-five parts
were in various hands mostly commercial with or without abbreviations,
usually profuse; disjointed; and incorrectly written. Here and there a
feminine handwriting appeared. In these years occurred my grandfather's
notes about his wife Bupraxic Aleksevna; others written by her and
others by the steward Grobovitsky.
II. The notes of the Gorohina church clerk. This curious manuscript
was discovered by me at the house of my priest; who has married the
daughter of the writer. The first earlier sheets had been torn out and
used by the priests children for making kites. One of these had fallen
in the middle of my yard. I picked it up? and was about to restore it
to the children when I noticed that it was written on. From the first
lines I saw that the kite was made out of some one's journal. Luckily I
was in time to save the rest. These journals, which I got for a measure
of oats, are remarkable for depth of thought and dignity of expression.
III. Oral legends. I despised no source of information, but I am
specially indebted for much of this to Agrafena Tryphonovna, the mother
of Avdei the starosta and reputed mistress of the steward Grobovitsky.
IV. Registry reports with remarks by the former _starosta_ on the
morality and condition of the peasants.
"31st October, 1830. Fabulous Times. The Starosta Tryphon."
The foundation of Gorohina and the history of its original inhabitants
are lost in obscurity. Dark legend tells how that Gorohina was once a
large and wealthy village, that all its inhabitants were rich, that
the obrok (the land proprietor's tithes) was collected once a year and
carted off in loads no one knew to whom. At that time everything was
bought cheap and sold dear. There were no stewards, and the elders
dealt fairly by all. The inhabitants worked little and lived merrily.
The shepherds as they watched their flocks wore boots. We must not be
deceived by this charming picture. The notion of a golden age is common
to all nations, and only proves that as people are never contented with
the present, and derive from experience small hope for the future,
they adorn the irrevocable past with all the hues of fancy. What is
certain, however, is that the village of Gorohina from ancient times
has belonged to the distinguished race of Belkins. But these ancestors
of mine had many other estates, and paid but little attention to this
remote village. Gorohina paid small tithe and was managed by elders
elected by the people in common council.
At that early period the inheritance of the Belkins was broken up, and
fell in value. The impoverished grandchildren of the rich grandsire,
unable to give up their luxurious habits, required from an estate now
only producing one tenth of its former revenue the full income of
former times. Threats followed threats. The starosta read them out in
common council. The elders declaimed, the commune agitated, and the
masters, instead of the double tithes, received tiresome excuses and
humble complaints written on dirty paper and sealed with a _polushka_
(less than a farthing).
A sombre cloud hung over Gorohina; but no one heeded it. In the last
year of Tryphon's power, the last of the starostas chosen by the
people, the day of the church festival, when the whole population
either crowded noisily round the house of entertainment (the
public-house) or wandered through the streets embracing one another
or loudly singing the songs of Arhip the Bald, there drove into the
courtyard a covered hired _britchka_ drawn by a couple of half-dead
screws, with a ragged Jew upon the box. From the britchka a head in a
cap looked out and seemed to peer curiously at the merry-making crowd.
The inhabitants greeted the carriage with laughter and rude jokes.
With the flaps of their coats turned up the madmen mocked the Jewish
driver, shouting in doggrell rhyme, "Jew, Jew, eat a pig's ear." But
how great was their astonishment (wrote the clerk) when the carriage
stopped in the middle of the village and the occupant jumped out, and
in an authoritative voice called for the starosta Tryphon. This officer
was in the house of pleasure, whence two elders led him forth holding
him under the arms. The stranger looked at him sternly, handed him a
letter, and told him to read it at once. The starostas of Gorohina
were in the habit of never reading anything themselves. The rural
clerk Avdei was sent for. He was found asleep under a hedge and was
brought before the stranger. But either from the sudden fright or from
a sad fore-boding, the words distinctly written in the letter appeared
to him in a mist, and he could not read them. The stranger sent the
starosta Tryphon and the rural clerk Avdei with terrible curses to
bed, postponing the reading of the letter till the morrow and entered
the office hut, whither the Jew carried his small trunk. The people
of Gorohina looked in amazement at this unusual incident, but the
carriage, the stranger, and the Jew were quickly forgotten. They ended
their day with noise and merriment, and Gorohina went to sleep without
presentiments of the future.
At sunrise the inhabitants were awakened with knockings at the windows