“What!” he repeated, beside himself. “My son took part in Pugachev’s schemes! Good God, that I should live to see it! The empress spares him execution! Does that make it easier for me? Execution is nothing frightening: a forebear of mine died on the scaffold defending something his conscience held sacred; my father suffered along with Volynsky and Khrushchev.40 But for a nobleman to betray his oath, to join with brigands, murderers, runaway slaves!…Shame and disgrace on our name!…”
Frightened by his despair, mother did not dare to weep in his presence, and tried to restore his good spirits, talking about the inaccuracy of rumors, the shakiness of people’s opinions. My father was inconsolable.
Marya Ivanovna was the most tormented of all. Being certain that I could justify myself if only I wanted to, she guessed the truth and considered herself the cause of my misfortune. She concealed her tears and suffering from everyone, and meanwhile kept thinking of ways to save me.
One evening my father was sitting on the sofa, turning the pages of the Court Almanac; but his thoughts were far away, and the reading did not have its usual effect on him. He was whistling an old marching tune. Mother was silently knitting a woolen vest, and tears occasionally dropped on her work. Suddenly Marya Ivanovna, who was sitting there over her own work, announced that necessity forced her to go to Petersburg and that she asked them to provide her with the means for going. Mother was very upset.
“What is there for you in Petersburg?” she said. “Can it be, Marya Ivanovna, that you, too, want to abandon us?”
Marya Ivanovna replied that her whole future fate depended on this journey, that she was going to seek protection and help from powerful people, as the daughter of a man who had suffered for his loyalty.
My father hung his head: every word that reminded him of his son’s supposed crime weighed heavily on him and seemed like a stinging reproach.
“Go, my dear!” he said with a sigh. “We don’t want to be an obstacle to your happiness. God grant you a good man for a husband, not a dishonored traitor.”
He got up and walked out of the room.
Marya Ivanovna, left alone with my mother, partly explained her intentions. Mother embraced her in tears and prayed to God for a favorable outcome of her plan. They fitted Marya Ivanovna out, and a few days later she set off with faithful Palasha and faithful Savelyich, who, forcibly separated from me, comforted himself with the thought that he was at least serving my bride-to-be.
Marya Ivanovna arrived safely in Sofia, and, learning at the posting station that the court was just then in Tsarskoe Selo, decided to stop there.41 She was given a corner behind a partition. The stationmaster’s wife at once fell to talking with her, told her she was the niece of a court stoker, and initiated her into all the mysteries of court life. She told her at what hour the empress usually awoke, had coffee, went for a stroll; what courtiers attended her then; what she had been pleased to say yesterday at the table, whom she had received in the evening—in short, Anna Vlasyevna’s conversation was worth several pages of historical memoirs and would have been of great value to posterity. Marya Ivanovna listened to her attentively. They went out to the gardens. Anna Vlasyevna told her the story of each alley and each little bridge, and, having had a good walk, they returned to the station very pleased with each other.
Early the next morning Marya Ivanovna woke up, dressed, and quietly went out to the gardens. The morning was beautiful, the sun lit up the tops of the lindens, already turned yellow under the cool breath of autumn. The wide lake shone motionlessly. The just-awakened swans glided majestically from under the bushes overshadowing the bank. Marya Ivanovna walked by a beautiful meadow where a monument had just been set up in honor of Count Pyotr Alexandrovich Rumyantsev’s recent victories.42 Suddenly a little white dog of English breed barked and ran towards her. Marya Ivanovna was frightened and stopped. At that same moment she heard a pleasant woman’s voice:
“Don’t be afraid, she doesn’t bite.”
And Marya Ivanovna saw a lady sitting on a bench opposite the monument. Marya Ivanovna sat down at the other end of the bench. The lady looked at her intently; Marya Ivanovna, for her part, casting several sidelong glances, managed to examine her from head to foot. She was wearing a white morning dress, a nightcap, and a jacket. She seemed about forty. Her face, plump and red-cheeked, expressed dignity and calm, and her light-blue eyes and slight smile had an ineffable charm. The lady was the first to break the silence.
“You’re probably not from here?” she said.
“That’s right, ma’am: I came from the provinces only yesterday.”
“You came with your family?”
“No, ma’am. I came alone.”
“Alone! But you’re still so young.”
“I have no father or mother.”
“You’re here, of course, on some kind of business?”
