“Aha!” Kirila Petrovich interrupted. “So you’re not one of the brave! What are you afraid of?”
“What do you mean what, my dear Kirila Petrovich? And Dubrovsky? I might just fall into his clutches. He’s nobody’s fool, he doesn’t miss a trick, and as for me, why, he’d skin me twice over.”
“Why such distinction, brother?”
“What do you mean why, my dear Kirila Petrovich? Because of the lawsuit against the late Andrei Gavrilovich. Didn’t I give evidence, for your good pleasure—that is, in all honesty and fairness—that the Dubrovskys were masters of Kistenevka without any right, but solely by your indulgence? The deceased (God rest his soul) vowed to get even with me in his own way, and the boy might just keep the father’s word. So far God has been merciful. Only one of my barns has been looted, but they could get to the house any time now.”
“And in the house they’ll have a heyday,” Kirila Petrovich observed. “I’ll bet the little red cashbox is stuffed full…”
“Ah, no, my dear Kirila Petrovich. It was full once, but now it’s quite empty!”
“Enough nonsense, Anton Pafnutych. We know you. Where do you go spending any money? At home you live like a pig, you don’t receive anybody, you fleece your peasants, hoarding is all you know.”
“You keep joking, my dear Kirila Petrovich,” Anton Pafnutych muttered with a smile, “but, by God, we’re completely ruined”—and having swallowed his host’s cavalier joke, he bit into a hunk of rich meat pie. Kirila Petrovich dropped him and turned to the new police chief, who was visiting him for the first time and was sitting at the other end of the table next to the tutor.
“And so, Mister Police Chief, will you at least catch Dubrovsky?”
The police chief shrank, bowed, smiled, stammered, and finally managed to say: “We’ll try hard, Your Excellency.”
“Hm, ‘we’ll try hard.’ They’ve been trying for a long, long time now, but nothing’s come of it. And, indeed, why catch him? Dubrovsky’s robberies are blessings for the police chiefs: travels, investigations, supplies, and money in the pocket. Why rid yourself of such a benefactor? Isn’t that so, Mister Police Chief?”
“Quite so, Your Excellency,” replied the totally embarrassed police chief.
The guests burst out laughing.
“I love the lad for his sincerity,” said Kirila Petrovich, “but it’s a pity about our late police chief Taras Alexeevich; if they hadn’t burned him up, the neighborhood would be much quieter. But what news of Dubrovsky? Where was he last seen?”
“At my house, Kirila Petrovich,” squeaked a lady’s fat voice. “Last Tuesday he dined at my house…”
All eyes turned to Anna Savishna Globova, a rather simple widow, loved by all for her kind and cheerful nature. They all prepared themselves with curiosity to hear her story.
“You should know that three weeks ago I sent my steward to the post office with money for my Vanyusha. I don’t spoil my son, and I’m not in a position to spoil him even if I wanted to; however, you yourselves will kindly agree that an officer of the guards needs to keep up a proper appearance, so I share my little income with Vanyusha as far as I can. So I sent him two thousand roubles. Though Dubrovsky came to my mind more than once, still I thought: the town’s close by, five miles at most, maybe God will spare us. In the evening my steward comes back, pale, ragged, and on foot—I just gasped: ‘What is it? What’s happened to you?’ He says: ‘Anna Savishna, dear, thieves robbed me; they nearly killed me, Dubrovsky himself was there, he wanted to hang me, then had pity and let me go, but he robbed me of everything, took the horse and the cart.’ My heart sank. Lord in Heaven, what will happen to my Vanyusha? Nothing to be done: I wrote a letter to my son, told him everything, and sent him my blessing without a penny.
“A week went by, then another—suddenly a carriage drives into my courtyard. Some general asks to see me: I bid him welcome. A man of about thirty-five comes in, dark-haired, moustache, beard, the perfect portrait of Kulnev,11 introduces himself as a friend and army comrade of my late husband, Ivan Andreevich. He was driving by and couldn’t go without visiting his widow, knowing that I lived here. I treated him to whatever God provided, we talked about this and that, and finally about Dubrovsky. I told him of my misfortune. My general frowned. ‘That’s strange,’ he said. ‘I’ve heard that Dubrovsky doesn’t attack just anybody, but only the notoriously rich, and even then he splits with them and doesn’t clean them out, and nobody accuses him of murder. There must be some hoax here. Have them send for your steward.’ The steward was sent for; he appeared; the moment he saw the general, he was simply dumbfounded. ‘Tell me now, brother, how Dubrovsky went about robbing you and how he wanted to hang you.’ My steward trembled and fell at the general’s feet. ‘I’m guilty, dear master—it was the devil’s work—I lied.’ ‘In that case,’ said the general, ‘kindly tell the lady how it all happened, and I’ll listen.’ The steward couldn’t come to his senses. ‘Well, so,’ the general continued, ‘tell us: where did you run into Dubrovsky?’ ‘By the twin pines, dear master, by the twin pines.’ ‘And what did he say to you?’ ‘He asked me whose I was, where I was going, and why.’ ‘Well, and then?’ ‘And then he demanded the letter and the money.’ ‘Well?’ ‘I gave him the letter and the money.’ ‘And he?…Well, and he?’ ‘I’m guilty, dear master.’ ‘Well, so what did he do?…’ ‘He gave me back the money and the letter and said, “Go with God, put it in the post.” ’ ‘Well, and you?’ ‘I’m guilty, dear master.’ ‘I’ll make short work of you, dear boy,’ the general said menacingly. ‘And you, my lady, have this swindler’s trunk searched and hand him over to me. I’ll teach him. Know that Dubrovsky was an officer of the guards himself, and he would not want to harm a comrade.’ I had an idea who his excellency was, there was nothing for me to discuss with him. The coachman tied the steward to the box of his carriage. The money was found; the general dined with me, then left at once and took the steward with him. My steward was found the next day in the forest, tied to an oak tree and stripped clean.”
They all listened silently to Anna Savishna’s story, especially the young ladies. Many of them secretly wished Dubrovsky well, seeing him as a romantic hero, especially Marya Kirilovna, an ardent dreamer, imbued with the mysterious horrors of Radcliffe.12
“And you suppose, Anna Savishna, that it was Dubrovsky himself?” asked Kirila Petrovich. “You’re quite mistaken. I don’t know who your visitor was, but it was not Dubrovsky.”
“How’s that, my dear sir? Not Dubrovsky? Who else takes to the highway, stopping travelers and searching them?”
“I don’t know, but it was surely not Dubrovsky. I remember him as a child; I don’t know if his hair has turned black; back then he was a curly-headed blond boy; but I know for certain that Dubrovsky is five years older than my Masha, and that means he’s not thirty-five, but around twenty-three.”
“Exactly right, Your Excellency,” the police chief exclaimed. “I have Vladimir Dubrovsky’s description in my pocket. It says that he is indeed twenty-three years old.”
“Ah!” said Kirila Petrovich, “that’s handy: read it to us and we’ll listen; it won’t be bad for us to know his description; if we chance to lay eyes on him, he won’t slip away.”
The police chief took a very soiled sheet of paper from his pocket, solemnly unfolded it, and began to read in a singsong voice: