Counter to that, General-en-chef Troekurov, Kirila Petrovich, on January 3rd of this year, addressed this court with a petition that, although the aforesaid Lieutenant of the Guards Andrei Dubrovsky did present to the court the power of attorney that his father had issued to the titular councilor Sobolev, neither the original deed of purchase nor any sufficiently clear proof of such a deed, in compliance with the general regulations of chapter 19 and the decision handed down in the year of 1752 on the 29th day of November, was presented. Consequently, the power of attorney itself, owing to the death of its issuer, his father, by the decision of the year 1818, the * * * day of May, is now completely null and void. And moreover—
it is ordered that disputed estates be returned to their owners—by deed where there is a deed, and by investigation where there is no deed.
For the which estate, belonging to his father, he has already presented in evidence a deed of purchase, from which it follows, based on the aforesaid statutes, that it should be taken from the wrongful possession of the aforementioned Dubrovsky and given to him by right of inheritance. And since the aforesaid landowners, having in their possession an estate not belonging to them and without any legality, and wrongfully enjoying profits from it not belonging to them, then by calculation, as much as is due by right of…should be exacted from the landowner Dubrovsky and be given to him, Troekurov, in satisfaction.—Upon the examination of which case and of extracts from it and from the law in the * * * district court, it is determined:
Concerning the aforesaid disputed estate, presently in the possession of Lieutenant of the Guards Dubrovsky, Andrei Gavrilovich, consisting of the village of Kistenevka, with * * * souls of the male sex according to the recent…census, with land and appurtenances, the case makes it clear that General-en-chef Troekurov, Kirila Petrovich, has presented the original deed of purchase by his late father, a provincial secretary, later a collegiate assessor, in the year 17––, from the chancery clerk Fadei Spitsyn, gentleman, and moreover this purchaser, Troekurov, as is clear from an addendum to the said deed, was put in possession of it by the * * * district court, which estate was already in his seizin, and though counter to that a power of attorney was presented on the part of Lieutenant of the Guards Andrei Dubrovsky, granted by the deceased purchaser Troekurov to the titular councilor Sobolev for carrying out the purchase in the name of his, Dubrovsky’s, father, in such transactions not only the maintaining of a deed to real estate, but even temporary possession is prohibited by decree of…, since with the death of the grantor, the power of attorney is rendered completely null and void. Moreover, Dubrovsky for his part has presented no clear evidence of where and when the above-mentioned disputed estate was actually purchased by his power of attorney from the start of proceedings, that is in the year 18––, until the present time. And therefore this court decides: to confirm that the above-mentioned estate, * * * souls, with land and appurtenances, in the condition in which it now finds itself, belongs, in accordance with the deed of purchase presented, to General-en-chef Troekurov; to remove Lieutenant of the Guards Dubrovsky from disposal of it, and to put Mr. Troekurov in proper possession of it, and to require the * * * court to issue a seizin for it as coming to him by inheritance. Moreover, General-en-chef Troekurov also petitions for the recovery from Lieutenant of the Guards Dubrovsky of the profits appropriated by him through the unlawful possession of his inherited estate. But since the said estate, according to the testimony of the old people, had been in the uncontested possession of Messrs Dubrovsky for some years, and the present investigation has not discovered any previous petitions on the part of Mr. Troekurov of such wrongful possession of the said estate by the Dubrovskys, according to the code—
it is ordered, that if someone sows on another’s land, or fences it in and builds on it, and a complaint about wrongful seizure is made, and the truth is found out, then the rightful owner should be given back the land, with the crops, and the fence, and the buildings—
and therefore General-en-chefTroekurov is refused in his claim against Lieutenant of the Guards Dubrovsky, for the estate belonging to him is returned to his possession, with nothing removed from it. But if on entering it he should find that all is not where it should be, General-en-chef Troekurov has leave meanwhile, if he should have clear and legal proof of such a claim, to petition separately in the proper place. Which decision is announced in advance, on a legal basis, by appellate procedure, to the plaintiff as well as to the defendant, who will be summoned to this court for hearing of the decision and signing their accord or disaccord through the police.
Which decision is signed by all those present at the court.
The secretary fell silent, the assessor rose and, with a low bow, turned to Troekurov, inviting him to sign the proffered document, and the triumphant Troekurov, taking the pen from him, signed under the court’s decision his full accord. It was Dubrovsky’s turn. The secretary offered him the paper. But Dubrovsky stood motionless, his head lowered.
The secretary repeated his invitation to sign his full and complete accord or his outright disaccord, if contrary to expectation he felt in all conscience that his cause was just, and intended within the time prescribed by law to make an appeal to the proper quarters. Dubrovsky was silent…Suddenly he raised his head, his eyes flashed, he stamped his foot, shoved the secretary away with such force that the man fell down, and, seizing the ink bottle, flung it at the assessor. Everybody was horrified.
“What! You don’t respect the church of God! Away, heathenish tribe!” Then, turning to Kirila Petrovich: “It’s unheard of, Your Excellency,” he went on, “hunters bringing dogs into the church of God! Dogs running all over the church! Just you wait, I’ll teach you…”
Hearing the noise, the guards rushed in and with difficulty overpowered him. He was taken out and seated in the sledge. Troekurov came out after him, accompanied by the whole court. Dubrovsky’s sudden madness had a strong effect on his imagination and poisoned his triumph.
The judges, who had hoped for his gratitude, were not honored with a single pleasant word from him. He left for Pokrovskoe that same day. Meanwhile, Dubrovsky lay in bed; the district doctor, fortunately not a total ignoramus, managed to bleed him and treat him with leeches and Spanish flies. Towards evening the sick man became better and regained consciousness. The next day he was driven to Kistenevka, which now almost did not belong to him.
CHAPTER THREE
Some time passed, but poor Dubrovsky’s health was still bad. True, the fits of madness were not renewed, but his forces were noticeably weakened. He forgot his former occupations, rarely left his room, and spent whole days lost in thought. Egorovna, a kindly old woman who had once looked after his son, now became his own nanny. She watched over him as if over a child, reminded him of the times to eat and sleep, fed him, put him to bed. Andrei Gavrilovich quietly obeyed her and aside from her had no relations with anybody. He was in no condition to think about his affairs, to run the estate, and Egorovna saw the necessity of writing about it all to the young Dubrovsky, who served in one of the infantry guards regiments and was in Petersburg at the time. And so, tearing a page from the account book, she dictated a letter to the only literate man in Kistenevka, the cook Khariton, and sent it that same day to the post office in town.
But it is time the reader became acquainted with the real hero of our story.
Vladimir Dubrovsky was educated in the Cadet Corps3 and graduated as an ensign in the guards. His father spared nothing for his proper keeping, and the young man received more from home than he should have expected. Being extravagant and ambitious, he allowed himself luxurious whims, gambled and got into debt, did not worry about the future, and foresaw a rich bride for himself sooner or later—the dream of a poor young man.
One evening, when several officers were sitting around at his place, sprawled on the sofas and smoking his amber-stemmed pipes, Grisha, his valet, handed him a letter, the address and seal of which struck the young man at once. He quickly ope
ned it and read the following:
Dear Master, Vladimir Andreevich –
I, your old nanny, have decided to report to you on your papa’s health! He is very poorly, sometimes rambles in his speech, and sits all day like a stupid child, but in life and death it is as God wills. Come to us here, my bright falcon, we will send horses to Pesochnoe for you. We have heard that the district court will be coming to us to put us under the authority of Kirila Petrovich Troekurov, because we are said to belong to him, but we have been yours time out of mind, and never in our lives heard such. Maybe, living in Petersburg, you could tell that to our dear tsar, and he will not let us be offended. I remain your faithful servant and nanny,
Orina Egorovna Buzyreva.
I send my maternal blessing to Grisha, does he serve you well? It is the second week we are having rain, and the shepherd Rodya died around St. Nicholas’s day.
Vladimir Dubrovsky reread these rather muddled lines several times with extraordinary agitation. He had lost his mother in childhood and, barely knowing his father, had been brought to Petersburg in his eighth year; but for all that he was romantically attached to him and loved family life all the more, the less he had managed to savor its quiet joys.
The thought of losing his father wrung his heart painfully, and the situation of the poor sick man, which he surmised from his nanny’s letter, horrified him. He pictured his father, abandoned in a remote village, in the hands of a stupid old woman and some servants, threatened by some sort of calamity, and fading away without help in the sufferings of body and soul. Vladimir reproached himself for criminal neglect. For a long time he had received no letters from his father and had never thought of inquiring about him, supposing that he was traveling or busy with the estate.
He decided to go to him and even to retire from the service, if his father’s ailing condition required his presence. His comrades, noticing his uneasiness, went home. Vladimir, left alone, wrote a request for a leave of absence, lit his pipe, and fell into deep reflection.
That same day he turned in his request, and three days later he was already on the high road.
Vladimir Andreevich was approaching the posting station where he had to turn off for Kistenevka. His heart was full of sad forebodings, he feared he would not find his father alive, he pictured the melancholy way of life awaiting him in the country, the remoteness, the solitude, the poverty, and the bother with things he knew nothing about. On reaching the station, he went to the stationmaster and inquired about hiring horses. The stationmaster asked him where he had to go, and announced that horses sent from Kistenevka had already been awaiting him for three days. Soon the old coachman Anton, who once used to take him around the stables and looked after his little horse, appeared before Vladimir Andreevich. Anton shed a few tears on seeing him, bowed to the ground, said that the old master was still alive, and ran to hitch up the horses. Vladimir Andreevich refused the lunch offered him and hastened to set off. Anton drove him along the country roads, and a conversation started between them.
“Tell me, please, Anton, what’s this business between my father and Troekurov?”
“God knows about them, dear Vladimir Andreevich…They say the master didn’t see eye to eye with Kirila Petrovich, and the man took it to court, though oftener than not he’s his own court. It’s not a servant’s business to sort out the master’s will, but, by God, your father shouldn’t have gone against Kirila Petrovich. You can’t chop down a tree with a penknife.”
“So it’s clear this Kirila Petrovich does whatever he likes around here?”
“That he does, master: they say he doesn’t give a hoot about the assessor, and the police chief just runs errands for him. Squires come and fawn on him, and as the saying goes, where there’s a trough, there’ll be pigs.”
“Is it true that he’s taking away our estate?”
“Oh, master, we’ve heard that, too. The other day the Pokrovskoe sacristan said at a christening at our village headman’s: ‘Your fun is over; Kirila Petrovich’ll take you in hand.’ Mikita the blacksmith said to him: ‘Enough, Savelyich, don’t upset the host, don’t trouble the guests. Kirila Petrovich is his own man, and Andrei Gavrilovich is his own man, and we’re all God’s and the sovereign’s; but still, you can’t button another man’s lip.’ ”
“Meaning you don’t want to be owned by Troekurov?”
“Owned by Troekurov! Lord, save us and deliver us! His own people sometimes have a bad time of it, but once he gets hold of another man’s, he won’t just skin them, he’ll tear them to pieces. No, God grant Andrei Gavrilovich a long life, and if God takes him, we don’t want anybody but you, our provider. Don’t give us up, and we’ll stand by you.”
With those words, Anton swung the whip, shook the reins, and his horses broke into a brisk trot.
Touched by the old coachman’s devotion, Dubrovsky kept silent and fell again into reflection. More than an hour went by; suddenly Grisha wakened him with the exclamation: “Here’s Pokrovskoe!” Dubrovsky raised his head. He was driving along the bank of a wide lake, from which a small river flowed and went meandering among the hills in the distance; on one hill, above the dense greenery of a copse, rose the green roof and belvedere of an immense stone house, on another a five-domed church and an ancient bell tower; peasant cottages were scattered around them, with their wells and kitchen gardens. Dubrovsky recognized these places; he remembered that on that same hill he had played with little Masha Troekurov, who was two years his junior and even then promised to be a beauty. He wanted to ask Anton about her, but some sort of shyness held him back.
Driving up to the manor house, he caught sight of a white dress flashing among the trees in the garden. At that moment Anton whipped up the horses and, obedient to the ambition common to country coachmen and city drivers, raced at top speed over the bridge and past the village. Leaving the village behind, they went up the hill, and Vladimir glimpsed a birch grove and, to the left, in an open space, a small gray house with a red roof. His heart throbbed. Before him he saw Kistenevka and his father’s poor home.
Ten minutes later he drove into the courtyard. He looked around him with indescribable emotion. For twelve years he had not seen his birthplace. The birches, which in his time had just been planted along the fence, had grown and were now tall, branchy trees. The courtyard, once adorned with three regular flowerbeds with wide, well-swept paths between them, had been turned into an unmowed meadow on which a hobbled horse grazed. The dogs were beginning to bark, but, recognizing Anton, they stopped and wagged their shaggy tails. Servants poured out of their cottages and surrounded the young master with noisy expressions of joy. He could barely force his way through their zealous crowd and run up the decrepit porch; in the front hall Egorovna met him and tearfully embraced her nursling.
“Hello, hello, nanny,” he repeated, pressing the kind old woman to his heart. “What about papa? Where is he? How is he?”
Just then a tall old man, pale and thin, in a dressing gown and a nightcap, came into the room, barely able to move his feet.
“Greetings, Volodka!” he said in a weak voice, and Vladimir warmly embraced his father. Joy produced too great a shock in the sick man, he grew weak, his legs gave way under him, and he would have fallen, if his son had not held him up.
“Why did you get up?” Egorovna said to him. “You can’t keep your feet, yet you head off to where people are.”
The old man was carried to the bedroom. He kept trying to talk with him, but the thoughts were confused in his head and his words had no connection. He fell silent and lapsed into somnolence. Vladimir was struck by his condition. He settled in his bedroom and asked to be left alone with his father. The servants obeyed, and then they all turned to Grisha and took him to their own quarters, where they regaled him country-style, with all possible hospitality, wearing him out with questions and salutations.
CHAPTER FOUR
The once festive table now bears a coffin.
Novels, Tales, Journeys Page 18