THE CAPTAIN'S DAUGHTER

CHAPTER V

LOVE

WHEN I regained consciousness I could not grasp for a few minutes where I was, and what had happened to me. I was lying on a bed in a strange room, feeling very weak. Savelyitch was standing before me with a candle in his hand. Someone was carefully unwrapping the bandages round my chest and shoulder. Gradually my thoughts cleared. I remembered my duel, and understood that I had been wounded. At that moment the door creaked.

'How is he?' whispered a voice which sent a tremor through me.

' Still the same,' Savelyitch answered, with a sigh. ' Still unconscious. It's the fifth day.'

I tried to turn my head, but could not.

'Where am I? Who is here?' I said, with an effort.

Marya Ivanovna came up to my bed and bent over me.

'Well, how do you feel?' she asked.

'God be thanked,' I answered in a weak voice. 'Is it you, Marya Ivanovna? Tell me . . .'

I had not the strength to go on, and broke off. Savelyitch cried out. His face lit up with joy.

' He has come to his senses! Thank God! Well, my dear Pyotr Andreyitch, you have given me a fright! Five days, it's no joke!'

Marya Ivanovna interrupted him.

'Don't talk to him too much, Savelyitch,' she said, 'he is still weak.' She went out and quietly closed the door.

My thoughts were in a turmoil. And so I was in the Commandant's house: Marya Ivanovna had come in to me. I wanted to ask Savelyitch several questions, but the old man shook his head and stopped his ears. I closed my eyes in vexation and soon dropped asleep.

When I woke up I called Savelyitch, but instead of him I saw Marya Ivanovna before me; her angelic voice greeted me. I cannot express the blissful feeling that possessed me at that moment. I seized her hand and covered it with kisses, wetting it with tears of tenderness. Masha did not withdraw her hand . . . and suddenly her lips touched my cheek and I felt their fresh and ardent kiss. A flame ran through me.

'Dear, kind Marya Ivanovna,' I said to her, 'be my wife, consent to make me happy.'

She regained her self-possession.

'Calm yourself, for heaven's sake,' she said, taking her hand from me, 'you are not out of danger yet—the wound may open. Take care of yourself, if only for my sake.'

With these words she went out, leaving me in an ecstasy of delight. Happiness revived me. Slie would be mine! She loved me! My whole being was filled with this thought.

From that time onward I grew better every hour. I was treated by the regimental barber, for there was no other doctor in the fortress, and fortunately he did not attempt to be clever. Youth and nature hastened my recovery. The whole of the Commandant's family looked after me. Marya Ivanovna never left my side. Of course, at the first opportunity, I returned to our interrupted explanation, and Marya Ivanovna heard me out with more patience. Without any affectation she confessed her love for me and said that her parents would certainly be glad of her happiness.

'But think well,' she added, 'won't your parents raise objections ?'

I pondered. I had no doubts of my mother's kindness; but knowing my father's views and disposition I felt that my love would not particularly touch him and that he would look upon it as a young man's whim. I candidly admitted this to Marya Ivanovna, but decided to write to my father as eloquently as possible, asking him to give us his blessing. I showed my letter to Marya Ivanovna, who found it so touching and convincing that she never doubted of its success and abandoned herself to the feelings of her tender heart with all the trustfulness of youth and love.

I made peace with Shvabrin in the first days of my convalescence. In reprimanding me for the duel Ivan Kuzmitch had said to me:

'Ah, Pyotr Andreyitch, I ought really to put you under arrest, but you have been punished enough already. Alexey Ivanitch, though, is shut up in the storehouse and Vasilissa Yegorovna has his sword under lock and key. It is just as well he should think things over and repent.'

I was much too happy to retain any hostile feeling in my heart. I interceded for Shvabrin, and the kind Commandant, with his wife's consent, decided to release him. Shvabrin called on me; he expressed a profound regret for what had passed between us; he admitted that he had been entirely to blame and asked me to forget the past. It was not in my nature to harbour malice and I sincerely forgave him both our quarrel and the wound he had inflicted on me. I ascribed his slander to the vexation of wounded vanity and rejected love, and generously excused my unhappy rival.

I was soon quite well again and able to move into my lodgings; I awaited with impatience the answer to my last letter, not daring to hope, and trying to stifle melancholy forebodings. I had not yet declared my intentions to Vasilissa Yegorovna and her husband; but my offer was not likely to surprise them. Neither Marya Ivanovna nor I attempted to conceal our feelings from them, and we were certain of their consent beforehand.

At last, one morning Savelyitch came in to me holding a letter. I seized it with a tremor. The address was written in my father's hand. This prepared me for something important, for as a rule it was my mother who wrote to me and my father only added a few lines at the end of the letter. Several minutes passed before I unsealed the envelope, reading over again and again the solemnly worded address: 'To my son Pyotr Andreyevitch Grinyov, at the Belogorsky fortress in the Province of Orenburg'. I tried to guess from the handwriting in what mood my father wrote the letter; at last I brought myself to open it and saw from the very first lines that all was lost. The letter was as follows:

MY SON PYOTR!

On the 15th of this month we received the letter in which you ask for our parental blessing and consent to your marriage with Marya Ivanovna, Mironov's daughter; I do not intend to give you either my blessing or my consent, and, indeed, I mean to get at you and give you a thorough lesson as to a naughty boy for your pranks, not regarding your officer's rank, for you have proved that you are not yet worthy to wear the sword which has been given you to defend your fatherland, and not to fight duels with scapegraces like yourself. I will write at once to Audrey Karlovitch asking him to transfer you from the Belogorsky fortress to some remote place where you can get over your foolishness. When your mother heard of your duel and of your being wounded, she was taken ill with grief and is now in bed. What will become of you? I pray to God that you may be reformed although I dare not hope in His great mercy. Your father,

A.G.

The perusal of this letter stirred various feelings in me. The cruel expressions, which my father did not stint, wounded me deeply. The contemptuous way in which he referred to Marya Ivanovna appeared to me as unseemly as it was unjust. The thought of my being transferred from the Belogorsky fortress terrified me; but most of all I was grieved by the news of my mother's illness. I felt indignant with Savelyitch, never doubting it was he who had informed my parents of the duel. As I paced up and down my tiny room I stopped before him and said, looking at him angrily:

'So it's not enough for you that I have been wounded because of you, and lain for a whole month at death's door— you want to kill my mother as well.'

Savelyitch was thunderstruck.

'Good heavens, sir, what are you saying?' he said, almost sobbing. " You have been wounded because of me! God knows I was running to shield you with my own breast from Alexey Ivanitch's sword! It was old age, curse it, that hindered me. But what have I done to your mother?'

'What have you done?' I repeated. 'Who asked you to betray me? Are you here to spy on me?'

'I betrayed you?' Savelyitch answered with tears. '0 Lord, King of Heaven! Very well, read then what master writes to me: you will see how I betrayed you.'

He pulled a letter out of his pocket and read the following:

' You should be ashamed, you old dog, not to have written to me about my son, Pyotr Andreyevitch, in spite of my strict orders; strangers have to inform me of his misdoings. So this is how you carry out your duties and your master's will? I will send you to look after pigs, you old dog, for concealing the truth, and conniving with the young man. As soon as you receive this I command you to write to me at once about his health, which, I am told, is better, in what place exactly he was wounded, and whether his wound has healed properly.'

It was obvious that Savelyitch was innocent and I had insulted him for nothing by my reproaches and suspicion. I begged his pardon; but the old man was inconsolable.

'This is what I have come to,' he kept repeating; 'this is the favour my masters show me for my services! I am an old dog and a swineherd, and I am the cause of your wound! . . . No, my dear Pyotr Andreyitch, not I, but the damned Frenchman is at the bottom of it: he taught you to prod people with iron spits, and to stamp with your feet, as though prodding and stamping could save one from an evil man! Much need tliere was to hire the Frenchman and spend money for nothing!'

But who, then, had taken the trouble to inform my father of my conduct? The General? But he did not seem to show much interest in me, and Ivan Kuzmitch did not think it necessary to report my duel to him. I was lost in conjectures. My suspicions fixed upon Shvabrin. He alone could benefit by informing against me and thus causing me, perhaps, to be removed from the fortress and parted from the Commandant's family. I went to tell it all to Marya Ivanovna. She met me on the steps.

' What is the matter with you ?' she said when she saw me. ' How pale you are!'

'All is lost,' I answered, and gave her my father's letter.

She turned pale, too. After reading the letter she returned it to me with a hand that shook, and said in a trembling voice:

'It seems it is not to be. . . . Your parents do not want me in your family. God's will be done! God knows better than we do what is good for us. There is nothing for it. Pyotr Andreyitch, may you at least be happy. . . .'

'This shall not be,' I cried, seizing her hand; 'you love me;

I am ready to face any risk. Let us go and throw ourselves at your parents' feet; they are simple-hearted people, not hard and proud . . . they will bless us; we will be married . . . and then in time I am sure we will soften my father's heart; my mother will intercede for us; he will forgive me.'

'No, Pyotr Andreyitch,' Masha answered, 'I will not marry you without your parents' blessing. Without their blessing there can be no happiness for you. Let us submit to God's will. If you find a wife, if you come to love another woman —God be with you, Pyotr Andreyitch; I shall pray for you both. . . .'

She burst into tears and left me; I was about to follow her indoors, but feeling that I could not control myself, returned home.

I was sitting plunged in deep thought when Savelyitch broke in upon my reflections.

'Here, sir,' he said, giving me a piece of paper covered with writing,' see if I am an informer against my master and if I try to make mischief between father and son.'

I took the paper from his hands: it was Savelyitch's answer to my father's letter. Here it is, word for word:

DEAR SIR, ANDREY PETROVITCH, OUR GRACIOUS FATHER!

I have received your gracious letter, in which you are pleased to be angry with me, your servant, saying that I ought to be ashamed not to obey my master's orders; I am not an old dog but your faithful servant; I obey your orders and have always served you zealously and have lived to be an old man. I have not written anything to you about Pyotr Andreyitch's wound, so as not to alarm you needlessly, for I hear that, as it is, the mistress, our mother Avdotya Vassilyevna, has been taken ill with fright, and I shall pray for her health. Pyotr Andreyitch was wounded in the chest under the right shoulder, just under the bone, three inches deep, and he lay in the Commandant's house where we carried him from the river-bank, and the local barber, Stepan Paramonov, treated him, and now, thank God, Pyotr Andreyitch is well and there is nothing but good to be said of him. His commanders, I hear, are pleased with him and Vasilissa Yegorovna treats him as though he were her own son. And as to his having got into trouble, that is no disgrace to him: a horse has four legs, and yet it stumbles. And you are pleased to write that you will send me to herd pigs. That is for you to decide as my master. I humbly salute you.

Your faithful serf,

ARHIP SAVELYEV.

I could not help smiling more than once as I read the good old man's epistle. I felt I could not answer my father, and Savelyitch's letter seemed to me sufficient to relieve my mother's anxiety.

From that time my position changed. Marya Ivanovna hardly spoke to me and did her utmost to avoid me. The Commandant's house lost all its attraction for me. I gradually accustomed myself to sit at home by myself. Vasilissa Yegorovna chid me for it at first, but seeing my obstinacy left me in peace. I only saw Ivan Kuzmitch when my duties required it; I seldom met Shvabrin and did so reluctantly, especially as I noticed his secret dislike of me, which confirmed my suspicions. Life became unbearable to me. I sank into despondent brooding, nurtured by idleness and isolation. My love grew more ardent in solitude and oppressed me more and more. I lost the taste for reading and composition. My spirits drooped. I was afraid that I should go out of my mind or take to drink. Unexpected events that had an important influence upon my life as a whole suddenly gave my mind a powerful and beneficial shock.

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