Novels, Tales, Journeys

Here he began telling me his grief in detail.

Once, three years ago, on a winter evening, when the stationmaster was drawing lines in a new register and his daughter behind the partition was sewing herself a dress, a troika drove up and a traveler in a Circassian hat, a military greatcoat, wrapped in a scarf, came into the room and demanded horses. The horses were all gone. At that news, the traveler raised his voice and his whip; but Dunya, who was used to such scenes, ran out from behind the partition and sweetly addressed him with a question: Wouldn’t he like something to eat? Dunya’s appearance produced its usual effect. The traveler’s anger went away; he agreed to wait for horses and ordered supper. Having taken off the wet, shaggy hat, unwound the scarf, and pulled off the greatcoat, the traveler emerged as a young, trim hussar with a small black moustache. He made himself comfortable at the stationmaster’s and began conversing gaily with him and his daughter. Supper was served. Meanwhile horses arrived, and the stationmaster ordered them hitched to the traveler’s kibitka at once, without being fed; but, on going back inside, he found the young man lying nearly unconscious on a bench: he felt faint, had a headache, it was impossible to go on…What could they do! The stationmaster yielded his bed to him, and it was decided that, if the sick man did not feel better, they would send to S–– the next morning for a doctor.

The next day the hussar was worse. His man rode to town for the doctor. Dunya tied a handkerchief moistened with vinegar around his head and sat down by his bed with her sewing. In front of the stationmaster, the sick man groaned and said scarcely a word; however, he drank two cups of coffee and, groaning, ordered dinner for himself. Dunya never left his side. He kept asking to drink, and Dunya offered him a mug of her specially prepared lemonade. The sick man moistened his lips, and each time he handed back the mug, he pressed Dunyushka’s hand with his own weak hand in token of gratitude. Towards dinnertime the doctor came. He took the sick man’s pulse, talked with him in German, and announced in Russian that all he needed was peace and quiet, and that he could set out on his way in a couple of days. The hussar handed him twenty-five roubles for the visit and invited him for dinner; the doctor accepted; the two ate with great appetite, drank a bottle of wine, and parted very pleased with each other.

Another day went by, and the hussar recovered completely. He was extremely cheerful, joked incessantly now with Dunya, now with the stationmaster, whistled tunes, talked with the travelers, copied their papers into the register, and was so much to the good stationmaster’s liking that on the third day he was sorry to part with his amiable guest. It was Sunday; Dunya was about to go to church. The hussar’s kibitka was ready. He said good-bye to the stationmaster, rewarded him generously for his bed and board; said good-bye to Dunya as well, and volunteered to take her to the church, which was at the edge of the village. Dunya stood in perplexity…

“What are you afraid of?” her father said to her. “His honor’s not a wolf, he’s not going eat you: ride to church with him.”

Dunya got into the kibitka beside the hussar, the servant leaped up onto the box, the coachman whistled, and the horses galloped off.

The poor stationmaster could not understand how on earth he could have allowed his Dunya to go off with the hussar, how such blindness could have come over him, and what had happened then to his reason. Before half an hour went by, his heart began to ache, to ache, and anxiety took such hold of him that he could not bear it and went to church himself. Coming to the church, he saw that people were already leaving, but Dunya was neither within the fence nor on the porch. He hurriedly went into the church: the priest was coming out of the sanctuary; the sexton was putting out the candles; two old women were still praying in one corner; but there was no Dunya in the church. The poor father barely brought himself to ask the sexton if she had been at the service. The sexton replied that she had not. The stationmaster went home more dead than alive. One hope remained for him: Dunya, with the flightiness of youth, might have taken it into her head to go on to the next station, where her godmother lived. In painful agitation he waited for the return of the troika in which he had sent her off. The coachman did not return. Finally, in the evening, he came back alone and drunk, with devastating news: “Dunya went on from that station with the hussar.”