Novels, Tales, Journeys

Never had so small a body contained in itself so much mental activity. She meddled in everything, knew everything, busied herself with everything. With her clever and insinuating mind, she had managed to earn the love of her masters and the hatred of the rest of the household, which she ruled despotically. Gavrila Afanasyevich heeded her denunciations, complaints, and petty demands; Tatyana Afanasyevna constantly asked her opinion and followed her advice; and Natasha had a boundless affection for her and confided to her all her thoughts and all the stirrings of her sixteen-year-old heart.

“You know, Lastochka,” she said, “my father is giving me away to the Moor.”

The dwarf sighed deeply, and her wrinkled face became more wrinkled still.

“Is there no hope?” Natasha went on. “Will my father not take pity on me?”

The dwarf shook her little bonnet.

“Won’t my grandfather or my aunt intercede for me?”

“No, my young miss. During your illness, the Moor managed to enchant everybody. The master’s lost his mind over him, the prince raves only about him, and Tatyana Afanasyevna says: ‘Too bad he’s a Moor, otherwise we couldn’t dream of a better suitor.’ ”

“My God, my God!” poor Natasha moaned.

“Don’t grieve, my beauty,” said the dwarf, kissing her weak hand. “Even if you do marry the Moor, you’ll still have your freedom. Nowadays it’s not the same as in olden times; husbands don’t lock their wives up; they say the Moor’s rich; your house will be a full cup, your life will flow like a song…”

“Poor Valerian,” said Natasha, but so softly that the dwarf could only guess at but not hear the words.

“That’s just it,” she said, lowering her voice mysteriously. “If you thought less about the strelets’s orphan, you wouldn’t have raved about him in your fever, and your father wouldn’t be angry.”

“What?” said Natasha, frightened. “I raved about Valerian, my father heard it, my father’s angry!”

“That’s just the trouble,” said the dwarf. “Now, if you ask him not to marry you to the Moor, he’ll think it’s because of Valerian. Nothing to be done: submit to the parental will, and what will be will be.”

Natasha did not utter a word of objection. The thought that her heart’s secret was known to her father had a strong effect on her imagination. One hope remained for her: to die before the hateful marriage took place. This thought comforted her. With a weak and sorrowful heart she submitted to her fate.

CHAPTER SEVEN

To the right of the front hall in Gavrila Afanasyevich’s house there was a small room with one little window. In it stood a simple bed covered with a flannelette blanket, and before the bed a small deal table on which a tallow candle burned and a musical score lay open. On the wall hung an old blue uniform and an equally old three-cornered hat; over it a cheap woodcut portraying Charles XII on horseback was fastened to the wall with three nails. The sounds of a flute could be heard in this humble abode. The captive dancing master, its solitary inhabitant, in a nightcap and a nankeen dressing gown, charmed away the boredom of the winter evening by playing old Swedish marches, which reminded him of the merry days of his youth. Having devoted a whole two hours to this exercise, the Swede took the flute apart, put it into the case, and began to undress.

Just then the latch of his door was raised, and a tall, handsome young man in a uniform came into the room.

The astonished Swede stood up before the unexpected guest.

“Don’t you recognize me, Gustav Adamych?” said the young visitor in a moved voice. “Don’t you remember the little boy to whom you taught the Swedish field manual, with whom you almost set fire to this very room, shooting from a toy cannon?”

Gustav Adamych peered at him intently…

“A-a-ah!” he cried at last, embracing him. “Greetinks! Zo it’s really you! Zit down, my goot scapegrace, let’s talk…”

*1 Lucky time, bearing the mark of license, / When light-footed madness skips about, / Swinging its little bell, all over France, / When no mortal deigns to be devout, / When they do all except for penitence. —Voltaire, La Pucelle d’Orléans, Canto XIII.

*2 “Good night.”

*3 “Between us.”

*4 “What the devil is all this?”

*5 steps

*6 “I would have dumped”

*7 “in poor health”

*8 “pretentious young thing”

*9 Literally “swallow.”

The Tales of the Late Ivan Petrovich Belkin

Mme Prostakova: So, my dear sir, he has been a lover of stories since childhood.

Skotinin: Mitrofan takes after me.

FONVIZIN, The Dunce1

FROM THE PUBLISHER