News spread of the battle of Borodino.11 Everyone talked about it; each one had his own most accurate information; each one had a list of the dead and wounded. My brother did not write to us. We were extremely alarmed. Finally one of those purveyors of all sorts of stuff came to inform us that he had been taken prisoner, and meanwhile announced in a whisper to Polina that he was dead. Polina was deeply upset. She was not in love with my brother and was often annoyed with him, but at that moment she saw him as a martyr, a hero, and she mourned for him in secret from me. Several times I found her in tears. That did not surprise me; I knew how painfully concerned she was with the fate of our suffering fatherland. I did not suspect that the cause of her grief was something else.
One morning I went for a stroll in the garden; Sénicourt walked beside me; we talked about Polina. I had noticed that he deeply sensed her extraordinary qualities and that her beauty had made a strong impression on him. I laughingly observed that his situation was most romantic. A wounded knight captured by the enemy falls in love with the noble mistress of the castle, touches her heart, and finally wins her hand.
“No,” Sénicourt said to me, “the princess sees me as an enemy of Russia and will never agree to leave her fatherland.”
Just then Polina appeared at the end of the alleé; we went to meet her. She approached with quick steps. Her pallor struck me.
“Moscow is taken,” she said to me, ignoring Sénicourt’s bow. My heart was wrung, tears poured down in streams. Sénicourt kept silent, his eyes lowered. “The noble, enlightened French,” she went on in a voice trembling with indignation, “celebrated their triumph in a worthy way. They set fire to Moscow. Moscow has been burning for two days now.”
“What are you saying?” cried Sénicourt. “It can’t be.”
“Wait till night,” she replied drily. “Maybe you’ll see the glow.”
“My God! He’s done for,” said Sénicourt. “Can’t you see that the burning of Moscow is the ruin of the whole French army, that Napoleon will have nothing to hold on to anywhere, that he will be forced to retreat quickly through the devastated, deserted land at the approach of winter with a disorderly and discontented army! And you could think that the French dug such a hell for themselves! No, no, the Russians, the Russians set fire to Moscow. What terrible, barbaric magnanimity! Now it’s all decided: your fatherland is no longer in danger; but what will happen to us, what will happen to our emperor…”
He left us. Polina and I could not collect our wits.
“Can it be,” she said, “that Sénicourt is right, that the burning of Moscow is the work of our own hands? If so…Oh, I can take pride in the name of the Russian woman! The whole universe will be amazed at so great a sacrifice! Now even our downfall doesn’t frighten me, our honor is saved; never again will Europe dare to fight with a people who cut off their own hands and burn their capital.”
Her eyes shone, her voice rang. I embraced her, we mingled tears of noble rapture with ardent prayers for our fatherland.
“You don’t know?” Polina said to me with an inspired look. “Your brother…He’s a happy man, he’s not a prisoner. Rejoice: he was killed for the salvation of Russia.”
I cried out and fell unconscious into her arms…
*1 My dear child, I am quite sick. It would be very nice of you to come and revive me. Try to get madame your mother’s permission and give her the respects of your friend de S.
*2 The words are apparently Chateaubriand’s. Pushkin’s note. [The words are a slightly inexact quotation from the end of Chateaubriand’s short novel René (1802): “There is happiness only along common paths.” Translator.]
Dubrovsky
Volume One
CHAPTER ONE
Several years ago there lived on one of his estates an old-time Russian squire, Kirila Petrovich Troekurov. His wealth, noble birth, and connections gave him great weight in the provinces where his properties lay. Neighbors were happy to satisfy his slightest whim; provincial officials trembled at his name; Kirila Petrovich received these tokens of servility as a fitting tribute; his house was always full of guests ready to entertain his squirely idleness, to share in his noisy and sometimes wild amusements. No one dared to refuse his invitations or not to appear with due respect on certain days in the village of Pokrovskoe. In his domestic life Kirila Petrovich displayed all the vices of an uncultivated man. Spoiled by all that surrounded him, he was accustomed to giving free rein to all the impulses of his hot temper and all the fancies of his rather limited mind. Despite an extraordinarily strong constitution, he suffered twice a week or so from his gluttony and was in his cups every evening. In one wing of his house lived sixteen maidservants, occupied with handwork suited to their sex. The windows in the wing had wooden bars; the doors were locked, and Kirila Petrovich kept the keys. At appointed hours the young recluses were let out to the garden and strolled under the supervision of two old women. From time to time Kirila Petrovich gave some of them away in marriage, and new ones came to replace them. His treatment of the peasants and house serfs was severe and arbitrary; yet they were devoted to him: they were proud of their master’s wealth and renown, and in their turn allowed themselves much in relation to their neighbors, trusting in his powerful protection.
Troekurov’s customary occupations consisted of driving around his vast domain, of prolonged banquets, and of pranks invented each day and whose victim was usually some new acquaintance; though old friends did not always manage to evade them, with the sole exception of Andrei Gavrilovich Dubrovsky. This Dubrovsky, a retired lieutenant of the guards, was his nearest neighbor and owned seventy souls.1 Troekurov, arrogant in his dealings with people of the highest rank, respected Dubrovsky in spite of his humble condition. They had once been comrades-in-arms, and Troekurov knew from experience the impatience and resoluteness of his character. Circumstances had kept them apart for a long time. Dubrovsky, his fortune in disarray, had been forced to go into retirement and settle on his one remaining estate. On learning that, Kirila Petrovich offered him his protection, but Dubrovsky thanked him and remained poor and independent. After a few years, Troekurov, a retired general-en-chef, came to his estate; they met and were glad of each other. From then on they got together every day, and Kirila Petrovich, who in all his born days had never honored anyone with a visit, would drop in unceremoniously at his old comrade’s little house. Being of the same age, born to the same social class, brought up in the same way, they partly resembled each other in both character and inclinations. In certain respects their fates were also the same: both had married for love, both had soon been widowed, both had been left with a child. Dubrovsky’s son had been educated in Petersburg, Kirila Petrovich’s daughter had grown up under her father’s eye, and Troekurov often said to Dubrovsky:
“Listen, brother Andrei Gavrilovich: if your Volodka turns out well, I’ll give him Masha; never mind if he’s poor as a coot.”
Andrei Gavrilovich would usually shake his head and reply:
“No, Kirila Petrovich, my Volodka’s no match for Marya Kirilovna. A poor gentleman the likes of him would do better to marry a poor young miss and be the head of the household, than to become the steward of a spoiled wench.”
Everybody envied the harmony that reigned between the haughty Troekurov and his poor neighbor, and marveled at the latter’s boldness when, at Kirila Petrovich’s table, he spoke his opinion straight out, regardless of whether it contradicted the host’s opinion or not. Some tried to imitate him and cross the line of proper obedience, but Kirila Petrovich put such a scare into them that they forever lost their taste for such attempts, and Dubrovsky alone remained outside the general law. An unexpected event upset and altered all that.