An unexpected event resolved my perplexity. A peasant woman who was hanging laundry in the attic found an old basket filled with woodchips, litter, and books. The whole house knew my love of reading. At the very time when I was sitting over my notebook, chewing my pen and thinking of experimenting with country preaching, my housekeeper triumphantly lugged the basket into my room, exclaiming joyfully:
“Books! Books!”
“Books!” I repeated in rapture and rushed to the basket.
In fact, I saw a whole pile of books with green and blue paper covers. It was a collection of old almanacs. This discovery cooled my rapture, but even so I was glad of the unexpected find, even so they were books, and I generously rewarded the laundress’s zeal with fifty silver kopecks. Left alone, I started to examine my almanacs, and soon my attention was strongly engaged by them. They made up a continuous sequence of years from 1744 to 1799, that is, exactly fifty-five years. The blue pages usually bound into almanacs were covered with old-fashioned handwriting. Casting a glance at these lines, I saw with amazement that they contained not only observations about the weather and household accounts, but also brief historical notices about the village of Goryukhino. I immediately began sorting through these precious notes and soon found that they presented a complete history of my paternal seat over the course of almost an entire century in the most strict chronological order. On top of that they contained an inexhaustible store of economic, statistical, meteorological, and other learned observations. Since then the study of these notes has occupied me exclusively, for I saw the possibility of extracting from them a well-ordered, interesting, and instructive narrative. After familiarizing myself sufficiently with these precious memorials, I began to search for new sources for the history of the village of Goryukhino. And the abundance of them soon amazed me. Having devoted a whole six months to preliminary research, I finally took up the long-desired work and with God’s help completed it this November 3rd of the year 1827.
Now, like a certain historian similar to me, whose name I cannot recall, having finished my arduous task, I set down my pen and with sadness go to my garden to reflect upon what I have accomplished. It seems to me, too, that, having written The History of Goryukhino, I am no longer needed in this world, that my duty has been done, and it is time I went to my rest!
Here I append a list of the sources I have used in compiling The History of Goryukhino:
1. The collection of old almanacs. Fifty-four parts. The first twenty parts written in an old-fashioned hand with contractions. This chronicle was composed by my great-grandfather, Andrei Stepanovich Belkin. It is distinguished by clarity and brevity of style; for instance: “May 4—Snow. Trishka beaten for rudeness. 6—Brown cow died. Senka beaten for drunkenness. 8—Fair weather. 9—Rain and snow. Trishka beaten on account of weather. 11—Fair weather. Fresh snowfall. Hunted down three hares…” and so on, without any reflections. The remaining thirty-five parts are written in various hands, mostly in what is known as “shopkeeper’s style,” with or without contractions, are generally prolix, incoherent, and do not follow the rules of orthography. Here and there a woman’s hand is noticeable. This portion includes the notes of my grandfather, Ivan Andreevich Belkin, and my grandmother, his spouse, Evpraxia Alexeevna, as well as the notes of the clerk Garbovitsky.
2. The chronicle of the Goryukhino sexton. This curious manuscript I dug up at my priest’s, who is married to the chronicler’s daughter. The first pages had been torn out by the priest’s children and used for so-called kites. One of them fell in the middle of my courtyard. I picked it up and was about to give it back to the children, when I noticed that it was covered with writing. From the first lines I saw that the kite had been made from a chronicle, the rest of which I luckily managed to save. This chronicle, which I acquired for a quarter measure of oats, is distinguished by its profundity and uncommon grandiloquence.
3. Oral tradition. I did not neglect any sources. But I am especially indebted to Agrafena Trifonova, mother of the headman Avdei, and, it was said, the mistress of the clerk Garbovitsky.
4. Census records, with observations by previous headmen (ledgers and expense accounts) concerning the morality and living conditions of the peasants.
The land known as Goryukhino, after the name of its capital, occupies more than 650 acres of the earthly globe. The number of its residents amounts to sixty-three souls. To the north it borders on the villages of Deriukhovo and Perkukhovo,9 whose inhabitants are poor, scrawny, and undersized, and whose proud proprietors are devoted to the warlike exercise of hare hunting. To the south the river Sivka separates it from the domain of the Karachevo free plowmen, restless neighbors, known for the violent cruelty of their temper. To the west it is surrounded by the flourishing fields of Zakharyino, prospering under the rule of wise and enlightened landowners. To the east it adjoins wild, uninhabited territory, an impassable swamp, where only wild cranberry grows, where the sole sound is the monotonous croaking of frogs, and which superstitious tradition supposes to be the dwelling-place of a certain demon.
NB. This place is in fact known as Demon’s Swamp. The story goes that a half-witted girl tended a heard of swine not far from this solitary place. She got pregnant and could give no satisfactory explanation of her misadventure. The voice of the people accused the swamp demon; but this tale is not worthy of a historian’s attention, and after Niebuhr it would be unpardonable to believe it.
From olden times Goryukhino had been famous for its fertility and favorable climate. Rye, oats, barley, and buckwheat thrive in its rich fields. A birch grove and a pine forest provide the inhabitants with timber and windfalls for building and heating their dwellings. There is no lack of nuts, cranberries, whortleberries, and bilberries. Mushrooms spring up in extraordinary numbers; fried with sour cream, they provide pleasant, though unhealthy, nourishment. The pond is full of carp, and in the river Sivka there are pike and burbot.
The male inhabitants of Goryukhino are for the most part of average height, of sturdy and manly build, their eyes gray, their hair brown or red. The women are distinguished by their slightly upturned noses, prominent cheekbones, and corpulence. NB. A buxom wench: this expression is found frequently in the headman’s notes to the census records. The men are well-behaved, hardworking (especially on their own land), brave, pugnacious: many of them go alone against bears and are famous in the neighborhood for fist-fighting; they are all generally inclined to the sensual pleasure of drunkenness. On top of housework, the women share a large part of the men’s labors; they yield nothing to them in bravery, and scarcely a one of them stands in fear of the headman. They make up a powerful public guard, tirelessly vigilant in the master’s courtyard, and are called “halberdears” (from the old word “halberd”). The chief duty of the halberdears is to bang a stone on a cast-iron plate as often as possible and thereby terrify evildoers. They are as chaste as they are beautiful, responding to audacious attempts both sternly and expressively.
The residents of Goryukhino have long carried on an abundant trade in bast, bast baskets, and bast shoes. It is favored by the river Sivka, which they cross in spring in dugout boats, like the ancient Scandinavians, and at other times of the year on foot, first rolling up their trousers to the knees.