“Moosieu, hey, moosieu, devil take you!”
Anton Pafnutych fell silent—fatigue and alcoholic vapors gradually overcame his fearfulness, he began to doze off, and soon deep sleep enveloped him completely.
A strange awakening was in store for him. Through sleep he felt someone gently pulling at his shirt collar. Anton Pafnutych opened his eyes and in the pale light of the autumn morning saw Desforges before him; the Frenchman held a pocket pistol in one hand, and with the other was unfastening the cherished pouch. Anton Pafnutych went numb.
“Kess ke say, moosieu, kess ke say?”*7 he said in a trembling voice.
“Shh, keep still,” the tutor replied in pure Russian, “keep still, or you’re lost. I am Dubrovsky.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Now we ask the reader’s permission to explain the latest events in our story by prior circumstances, which we have not yet had time to relate.
At the * * * posting station, in the house of the stationmaster, whom we have already mentioned, a traveler sat in a corner with a humble and patient air, betokening a commoner or a foreigner, that is, someone who has no voice on the post road. His britzka stood in the yard waiting to be greased. In it lay a small suitcase, meager evidence of a none-too-substantial fortune. The traveler did not ask for tea or coffee; he kept glancing out the window and whistling, to the great displeasure of the stationmaster’s wife, who was sitting behind the partition.
“The Lord God’s sent us a whistler,” she said in a half whisper. “Just keeps on whistling, blast him, the cursed heathen.”
“So what?” said the stationmaster. “Where’s the harm in it, let him whistle.”
“Where’s the harm?” his angry spouse retorted. “Don’t you know about the omen?”
“What omen? That whistling drives out money? Ahh, Pakhomovna, with us, whistle or not, there’s never any anyway!”
“Send him on his way, Sidorych. Why on earth keep him? Give him horses and let him go to the devil.”
“He can wait, Pakhomovna, we’ve only got three troikas in the stables, the fourth one’s resting. Good travelers may turn up in a wink; I don’t want to answer for the Frenchman with my neck. There! Hear that? Somebody’s galloping up. Oh-ho-ho, quite a clip! A general, maybe?”
A carriage stopped at the porch. A servant jumped off the box, opened the doors, and a moment later a young man in a military greatcoat and a white visored cap came into the stationmaster’s house. After him the servant brought in a box and set it on the windowsill.
“Horses,” the officer said peremptorily.
“This minute,” the stationmaster replied. “Your travel papers, please.”
“I have no papers. I’m turning off for…Don’t you recognize me?”
The stationmaster got into a bustle and ran out to hurry the coachmen. The young man started pacing up and down the room, went behind the partition, and quietly asked the stationmaster’s wife who the traveler was.
“God knows,” the woman replied. “Some Frenchman. He’s been waiting five hours for horses and keeps whistling. He’s a damned nuisance.”
The young man addressed the traveler in French.
“Where might you be going?” he asked him.
“To the next town,” the Frenchman replied, “and from there I’ll make my way to a certain landowner who has hired me as a tutor sight unseen. I had hoped to get there today, but it seems Mister Stationmaster has judged otherwise. It is difficult to find horses in these parts, Mister Officer.”
“And with which of the local landowners have you found employment?” asked the officer.
“With Mr. Troekurov,” replied the Frenchman.
“Troekurov? Who is this Troekurov?”
“Ma foi, mon officier…I’ve heard little good of him. They say that he is a proud and capricious gentleman, that he is cruel in the treatment of his domestics, that no one can get along with him, that everyone trembles at the sound of his name, that he is unceremonious with tutors (avec les ouchitels*8) and has already whipped two of them to death.”
“Good heavens! And you’d venture to be employed by such a monster?”
“What can I do, Mister Officer? He offers me a good salary, three thousand roubles a year and everything provided. Maybe I’ll be luckier than the others. I have an old mother, I’ll send half the salary for her upkeep, and with the rest of the money I can lay aside a small capital in five years, enough to secure my future independence—and then, bonsoir, I’ll go to Paris and set up some commercial dealings.”
“Does anyone at Troekurov’s know you?” he asked.
“No one,” replied the tutor. “He invited me from Moscow through one of his friends, whose chef, my compatriot, recommended me. You should know that I was trained to be a pastry chef, not a tutor, but I was told that in your country the title of tutor is much more advantageous…”
The officer pondered.
“Listen,” he interrupted the Frenchman, “what if, instead of this future, you were offered ten thousand in ready cash, with the provision that you go back to Paris at once?”
The Frenchman looked at the officer in amazement, smiled, and shook his head.
“The horses are ready,” said the stationmaster, coming in. The servant confirmed it.
“Right away,” said the officer. “Step out for a moment.” The stationmaster and the servant left. “I’m not joking,” he went on in French. “I can give you ten thousand. All I need is your absence and your papers.” With those words he unlocked the box and took out several wads of banknotes.
The Frenchman goggled his eyes. He did not know what to think.
“My absence…my papers,” he repeated in amazement. “Here are my papers…But you’re joking: what do you need my papers for?”
“That’s not your business. I’m asking, do you agree or not?”
The Frenchman, still refusing to believe his ears, handed his papers to the young officer, who quickly looked through them.
“Your passport…good. A letter of introduction, let’s see. Birth certificate, excellent. Well, here’s your money, go back home. Good-bye…”
The Frenchman stood as if rooted to the spot.
The officer came back.
“I almost forgot the most important thing. Give me your word of honor that all this will remain just between us—your word of honor.”
“On my word of honor,” said the Frenchman. “But my papers, what am I to do without them?”
“At the first town you come to, declare that you were robbed by Dubrovsky. They’ll believe you and give you the necessary papers. Good-bye, and God grant you get to Paris quickly and find your mother in good health.”
Dubrovsky left the room, got into the carriage, and galloped off.
The stationmaster was looking out the window, and when the carriage had driven off, he turned to his wife and exclaimed: “Do you know what, Pakhomovna? That was Dubrovsky!”
His wife rushed headlong to the window, but it was too late: Dubrovsky was already far away. She started scolding her husband:
“Have you no fear of God, Sidorych? Why didn’t you tell me earlier? I could at least have caught a glimpse of Dubrovsky, but now just sit and wait till he comes this way again! Shame on you, really, shame on you!”
The Frenchman stood as if rooted to the spot. The arrangement with the officer, the money—it all seemed like a dream to him. But the wads of banknotes were there in his pocket and eloquently confirmed the reality of the astonishing incident.
He decided to hire horses for town. The coachman drove at a walk and it was night by the time they dragged their way to town.
Before they reached the town gates, where instead of a sentry there stood a dilapidated sentry box, the Frenchman ordered the driver to stop, got out of the britzka, and continued on foot, explaining by signs to the coachman that he was leaving him the britzka and the suitcase as a tip. The coachman was as amazed at his generosity as the Frenchman himself had been at Dubrovsky’s offer. But, concluding that the foreigner had lost his mind, the coachman thanked him with a zealous bow and, deciding it might be best not to drive into the town, headed for a certain pleasure establishment he knew and whose owner was a good acquaintance. There he spent the whole night, and the next morning he set out for home on an empty troika, without the britzka and without the suitcase, his face puffy and his eyes red.