Novels, Tales, Journeys

Here he began to copy out my travel papers, and I set myself to examining the pictures that adorned his humble but well-kept abode. They illustrated the story of the prodigal son.4 In the first a venerable old man in a nightcap and dressing gown is seeing off a restless young man, who hastily receives his blessing and a bag of money. In the next the young man’s dissipated behavior is portrayed in vivid strokes: he sits at a table surrounded by false friends and shameless women. Further on, the ruined young man, in rags and a cocked hat, is tending swine and sharing their meal; his face shows profound sorrow and repentance. Finally, his return to his father is portrayed: the good old man has run out to meet him in the same nightcap and dressing gown; the prodigal son is on his knees; in the background the cook is killing the fatted calf, and the older son is questioning the servants about the cause of such rejoicing. Under each picture I read the appropriate German verses. All of that is preserved in my memory to this day, along with the pots of impatiens, and the bed with the motley canopy, and other objects that surrounded me at that time. I can see, as if it were now, the host himself, a man of about fifty, hale and hearty, and his long green frock coat with three medals on faded ribbons.

No sooner had I paid my old coachman than Dunya returned with the samovar. The little coquette had noticed at second glance the impression she had made on me; she lowered her big blue eyes; I started to converse with her, she replied without any timidity, like a girl who has seen the world. I offered her father a glass of punch, gave Dunya a cup of tea, and the three of us began talking as if we had known each other for ages.

The horses had long been ready, but I still did not feel like parting from the stationmaster and his daughter. At last I took leave of them; the father wished me a good journey, and the daughter saw me off to the carriage. In the entryway I stopped and asked permission to kiss her. Dunya consented…I can count many kisses,

Since I first took up that occupation,

but not one of them left me with so lasting, so pleasant a memory.

Several years passed, and circumstance brought me to that same highway, to those same parts. I remembered the old stationmaster’s daughter and rejoiced to think that I would see her again. But, I reflected, maybe the old stationmaster has been replaced; Dunya is probably already married. The thought of the death of the one or the other also flashed in my mind, and I approached the * * * station with sad foreboding.

The horses stopped by the little station house. On entering the room, I immediately recognized the pictures illustrating the story of the prodigal son; the table and the bed stood in their former places; but there were no plants in the windows now, and everything around had a look of decline and neglect. The stationmaster was asleep under a sheepskin coat; my arrival awakened him; he got up…This was indeed Samson Vyrin; but how he had aged! While he was preparing to copy my travel papers, I kept looking at his gray hair, his deeply wrinkled, long-unshaven face, his bent back—and could not stop marveling at how three or four years could turn a hearty fellow into a feeble old man.

“Do you recognize me?” I asked him. “You and I are old acquaintances.”

“Maybe so,” he answered gloomily. “It’s a big road out there; many travelers have passed my way.”

“Is your Dunya well?” I went on. The old man frowned.

“God knows,” he answered.

“So she’s evidently married?” I said. The old man pretended not to hear my question and went on reading my papers in a whisper. I stopped my questions and asked him to put the kettle on. Curiosity was beginning to stir in me, and I hoped that punch would loosen my old acquaintance’s tongue.

I was not mistaken: the old man did not refuse the offered glass. I noticed that rum brightened his gloominess. At the second glass he became talkative; he remembered me, or made as if he did, and I learned a story from him which at the time greatly interested and moved me.

“So you knew my Dunya?” he began. “Well, who didn’t? Ah, Dunya, Dunya! What a girl she was! It used to be, whoever passed through, they all praised her, nobody said a bad word about her. Ladies gave her presents, one a little shawl, another a pair of earrings. Gentleman travelers stayed longer on purpose, supposedly to have dinner or supper, but really only so as to go on looking at her. It used to be, however angry a master was, he’d calm down with her there and talk kindly to me. Would you believe it, sir: couriers, government messengers, sat talking to her for half an hour at a time. She ran the household: what to tidy up, what to prepare, she kept it all going. And I, old fool that I am, couldn’t admire her enough, couldn’t rejoice enough. Didn’t I love my Dunya, didn’t I cherish my little one; wasn’t that the life for her? But no, you can’t pray trouble away; what’s fated won’t pass you by.”