“Maybe I’ll bring my lost sheep home,” thought the stationmaster.
With that thought in mind, he arrived in Petersburg, stopped in the neighborhood of the Izmailovsky regiment, at the house of a retired corporal whom he had once served with, and began his search. He soon found out that cavalry captain Minsky was in Petersburg and living at the Demut Inn.5 The stationmaster decided to go and see him.
Early in the morning he came to the front hall and asked them to inform his honor that an old soldier was asking to see him. The orderly, who was polishing a boot on a boot tree, told him that his master was asleep and that he did not receive anyone before eleven o’clock. The stationmaster went away and came back at the appointed time. Minsky himself came out to him, in a dressing gown and a red skullcap.
“What do you want, brother?” he asked.
The old man’s blood began to boil, tears welled up in his eyes, and in a trembling voice all he said was: “Your Honor!…Show me this divine mercy!…”
Minsky glanced quickly at him, flushed, took him by the hand, led him to his study, and shut the door behind him.
“Your Honor!” the old man went on. “What falls off the cart is lost for good; at least give me back my poor Dunya. You’ve had your fun with her; don’t ruin her for nothing.”
“What’s done can’t be undone,” the young man said in the utmost embarrassment. “I’m guilty before you, and I gladly ask your forgiveness; but don’t think that I could forsake Dunya: she’ll be happy, I give you my word of honor. What do you want her for? She loves me; she’s lost the habit of her former situation. Neither you nor she will forget what’s happened.”
Then, slipping something into the old man’s cuff, he opened the door, and the stationmaster, without knowing how, found himself in the street.
For a long time he stood motionless, but finally he noticed a wad of papers behind the cuff of his sleeve. He took them out and unfolded several crumpled five- and ten-rouble banknotes. Tears welled up in his eyes again, tears of indignation! He rolled the papers into a ball, threw them on the ground, stamped on them with his heel, and walked away…After going several steps, he stopped, reflected…and turned back…but the banknotes were no longer there. A well-dressed young man, seeing him, ran over to a cab, quickly got in, and shouted: “Drive!…” The stationmaster did not chase after him. He decided to go back home to his station, but first he wanted to see his poor Dunya at least once more. For that he went back to Minsky’s a couple of days later; but the orderly told him sternly that the master was not receiving anybody, pushed him out of the front hall with his chest, and slammed the door in his face. The stationmaster stood there, stood there—and then left.
That same day, in the evening, he was walking down Liteiny Street, after having prayers said at the Joy of the Afflicted.6 Suddenly a smart droshky raced past him, and the stationmaster recognized Minsky. The droshky stopped in front of a three-story house, just by the entrance, and the hussar went running up to the porch. A happy thought flashed in the stationmaster’s head. He turned around and coming alongside the coachman, asked:
“Whose horse is that, brother? Is it Minsky’s?”
“That’s right,” replied the coachman. “What’s it to you?”
“It’s this: your master told me to take a note to his Dunya, but I forget where his Dunya lives.”
“Right here, on the second floor. You’re late with your note, brother; he’s already with her now.”
“Never mind,” the stationmaster objected with an inexplicable stirring of the heart. “Thanks for telling me, I’ll do what I’m supposed to.” And with those words he went up the stairs.
The door was locked. He rang and spent several painful seconds waiting. A key jangled, the door opened.
“Does Avdotya Samsonovna live here?” he asked.
“Yes,” a young maid replied. “What do you want with her?”
The stationmaster, without replying, went into the room.
“You mustn’t, you mustn’t!” the maid called after him. “Avdotya Samsonovna has visitors!”
But the stationmaster did not listen and went on. The first two rooms were dark, in the third there was light. He went up to the open door and stopped. In a beautifully decorated room, Minsky sat deep in thought. Dunya, dressed with all the luxury of fashion, was sitting on the arm of his chair like a horsewoman on an English saddle. She looked at Minsky with tenderness, winding his black locks around her sparkling fingers. Poor stationmaster! Never had his daughter seemed so beautiful to him; he admired her despite himself.
“Who’s there?” she asked, without raising her head. He kept silent. Receiving no answer, Dunya raised her head…and with a cry fell to the carpet. The frightened Minsky rushed to pick her up, but, suddenly seeing the old stationmaster in the doorway, he left Dunya and went over to him, trembling with wrath.
“What do you want?” he said, clenching his teeth. “Why are you slinking after me everywhere like a robber? Do you want to put a knife in me? Get out!” And seizing the old man by the collar with his strong hand, he pushed him out to the stairs.
The old man went back to his quarters. His friend advised him to lodge a complaint; but the stationmaster reflected, waved his hand, and decided to give up. Two days later he left Petersburg, went back to his station, and took up his duties again.
“For three years now,” he concluded, “I’ve lived without Dunya and without any news of her. God knows whether she’s still alive or not. All sorts of things happen. She’s neither the first nor the last to be seduced by a passing rake, who’ll keep a girl and then abandon her. There’s lots of those young fools in Petersburg, in satin and velvet today, and tomorrow, just look, they’re sweeping the streets along with some drunken riffraff. When you think sometimes that Dunya, too, may be perishing like that, you can’t help sinning by wishing her in her grave…”
Such was the story of my friend, the old stationmaster, a story interrupted more than once by tears, which he picturesquely wiped with the skirt of his coat, like the zealous Terentyich in Dmitriev’s wonderful ballad.7 Those tears were provoked in part by the punch, of which he drained five glasses in the course of his narrative; but, however it was, they touched my heart strongly. Having parted from him, for a long time I could not forget the old stationmaster, for a long time I thought about poor Dunya…
Just recently, passing through the little town of * * *, I remembered about my friend; I learned that the station he had been in charge of had since been abolished. To my question “Is the old stationmaster still alive?”—no one could give me a satisfactory answer. I decided to visit those familiar parts, hired some private horses, and set out for the village of N––.
This happened in the autumn. Grayish clouds covered the sky; a cold wind blew from the harvested fields, carrying off red and yellow leaves from the trees it met on its way. I reached the village at sunset and stopped by the little station house. A fat peasant woman came out to the front hall (where poor Dunya once gave me a kiss), and to my questions replied that the old stationmaster had died about a year before, that a brewer now lived there, and that she was the brewer’s wife. I began to regret my useless trip and the seven roubles I had spent for nothing.