“Thank you, good sir, thank you, dear father!” Savelyich said, seating himself. “God grant you prosper a hundred years for minding and comforting an old man like me. I’ll pray to God for you all my days, and won’t even mention the hareskin coat.”
This hareskin coat could finally have made Pugachev downright angry. Luckily, the impostor either did not hear or ignored the awkward hint. The horses galloped off; people in the street stopped and bowed low. Pugachev nodded his head to both sides. A moment later we were outside the village and racing down a smooth road.
It can easily be imagined what I was feeling at that moment. In a few hours I was going to see the one whom I had already considered lost for me. I pictured the moment of our reunion…I also thought about the man who had my destiny in his hands and who by a strange concurrence of circumstances was mysteriously connected with me. I recalled the impulsive cruelty, the bloodthirsty habits, of the one who had volunteered to deliver my beloved! Pugachev did not know she was Captain Mironov’s daughter; the malicious Shvabrin might reveal everything to him; Pugachev might find out the truth in some other way…Then what would become of Marya Ivanovna? Chills came over me, and my hair stood on end…
Suddenly Pugachev interrupted my reflections, turning to me with a question:
“What might you be thinking about, Your Honor?”
“How can I not be thinking?” I replied. “I’m an officer and a gentleman; just yesterday I was fighting against you, and today I’m riding with you in the same kibitka, and the happiness of my whole life depends on you.”
“What, then?” asked Pugachev. “Are you afraid?”
I replied that, having been spared by him once already, I hoped not only for his mercy, but even for his help.
“And you’re right, by God, you’re right!” said the impostor. “You saw that my boys looked askance at you; and today, too, the old man insisted that you’re a spy and that you should be tortured and hanged; but I didn’t agree,” he added, lowering his voice, so that Savelyich and the Tatar could not hear him, “remembering the glass of vodka and the hareskin coat. You see, I’m not as bloodthirsty as your fellows say I am.”
I recalled the taking of the Belogorsk fortress; but I did not consider it necessary to contradict him and said nothing in reply.
“What do they say about me in Orenburg?” Pugachev asked after some silence.
“They say it’s pretty hard dealing with you; there’s no denying you’ve made yourself felt.”
The impostor’s face expressed satisfied vanity.
“Yes!” he said with a cheerful air. “At fighting I’m as good as they come. Do your people in Orenburg know about the battle of Yuzeevo?35 Forty yennerals killed, four armies taken captive. What do you think: could the king of Prussia vie with me?”
I found the brigand’s boasting amusing.
“What do you think yourself?” I said to him. “Could you handle Frederick?”36
“Fyodor Fyodorovich? Why not? I’ve handled your yennerals all right, and they beat him. So far my arms have been lucky. Wait and see, there’ll be more still, when I march on Moscow.”
“So you suppose you’ll march on Moscow?”
The impostor thought a little and said in a low voice:
“God knows. My street’s narrow; I’ve got little freedom. My boys play it too smart. They’re thieves. I have to keep my ears pricked up; at the first setback they’ll save their necks with my head.”
“So there!” I said to Pugachev. “Wouldn’t it be better for you to break with them yourself, in good time, and throw yourself on the empress’s mercy?”
Pugachev smiled bitterly.
“No,” he replied, “it’s too late for me to repent. There will be no pardon for me. I’ll keep on as I started. Who knows? Maybe I’ll bring it off! After all, Grishka Otrepev did reign over Moscow.”
“And do you know how he ended? They threw him out the window, slaughtered him, burned him, loaded a cannon with his ashes, and fired it off!”
“Listen,” said Pugachev with a sort of wild inspiration. “I’ll tell you a tale that I heard as a child from an old Kalmyk woman. Once an eagle asked a raven: ‘Tell me, raven-bird, why do you live three hundred years in the wide world, and I all in all only thirty-three?’ ‘Because, my dear friend,’ the raven answered him, ‘you drink living blood, while I feed on dead meat.’ The eagle thought: ‘Let’s us try feeding on the same.’ Good. So the eagle and the raven flew off. They saw a dead horse; they flew down and alighted. The raven started pecking and praising. The eagle pecked once, pecked twice, waved his wing, and said to the raven: ‘No, brother raven, rather than feed on carrion for three hundred years, it’s better to drink living blood once, and then take what God sends!’ How’s that for a Kalmyk tale?”
“Ingenious,” I replied. “But to live by murder and robbery for me means to peck at dead meat.”
