I galloped along the high road past sleeping villages. I was afraid of one thing: being stopped on the road. If my night meeting on the Volga had proved the presence of rebels, it had proved at the same time a strong government counteraction. Just in case, I had in my pocket both the pass given to me by Pugachev and the order of Colonel Zurin. But I met no one, and by morning I caught sight of the river and the pine grove beyond which lay our village. The driver whipped up the horses, and a quarter of an hour later I drove into * * *.
The manor house was at the other end of the village. The horses raced along at full speed. Suddenly, in the middle of the village, the driver began to rein them in.
“What’s the matter?” I asked impatiently.
“A barrier,” the driver replied, barely able to stop his furious horses. Indeed, I saw a spiked bar and a sentry with a club. The muzhik came up to me and, taking off his hat, asked for my passport.
“What’s the meaning of this?” I asked him. “What’s this bar doing here? Who are you guarding?”
“You see, good sir, we’re rebelling,” he replied, scratching himself.
“And where are your masters?” I asked with a sinking heart…
“Our masters?” repeated the muzhik. “Our masters are in the granary.”
“What? In the granary?”
“You see, Andryushka, the bailiff, put them in fetters and wants to take them to our father-sovereign.”
“Good God! Raise the barrier, you fool. What are you gaping at?”
The sentry lingered. I leaped from the cart, gave him a clout (sorry) on the ear, and raised the bar myself. My muzhik stared at me in stupid perplexity. I got back into the cart and ordered the driver to gallop to the manor house. The granary was in the yard. At the door stood two muzhiks, also with clubs. The cart stopped right in front of them. I jumped out and rushed straight at them.
“Open the doors!” I said to them. My look probably terrified them. In any case, they both ran away, dropping their clubs. I tried to smash the padlock and to break down the doors, but the doors were of oak and the enormous padlock was indestructible. At that moment a stalwart young muzhik came out of the servants’ cottage and, with an arrogant air, asked me how I dared to make a row.
“Where’s Andryushka the bailiff?” I shouted. “Call him to me.”
“I myself am Andrei Afanasyevich, and not any Andryushka,” he replied, his arms proudly akimbo. “What do you want?”
Instead of an answer, I seized him by the collar and, dragging him to the granary doors, ordered him to open them. The bailiff tried to protest, but a “fatherly” punishment worked on him as well. He took out a key and opened the granary. I threw myself across the threshold and in a dark corner, dimly lit by a narrow slot cut in the ceiling, saw my mother and father. Their hands were bound and their feet were in fetters. I rushed to embrace them and could not utter a single word. They both stared at me with amazement—three years of army life had changed me so much that they could not recognize me. My mother gasped and burst into tears.
Suddenly I heard a dear, familiar voice.
“Pyotr Andreich! It’s you!” I was dumbfounded…looked around and in another corner saw Marya Ivanovna, also bound.
My father looked at me in silence, not daring to believe his own eyes. Joy shone on his face. I hurriedly cut the knots of their ropes with my sword.
“Greetings, greetings, Petrusha,” my father said, pressing me to his heart. “Thank God, we’ve been waiting…”
“Petrusha, my dearest,” my mother said. “So the Lord has brought you to us! Are you well?”
I was hurrying to bring them out of their imprisonment—but, going to the door, I found it locked again.
“Andryushka,” I shouted, “open up!”
“Nohow,” the bailiff answered through the door. “Sit yourself down there. We’ll teach you to make a row and drag state officials around by the collar!”
I started looking over the granary to see if there was some way of getting out.
“Don’t bother,” my father said to me. “I’m not the sort of landowner whose barns have holes for thieves to go in and out.”
My mother, overjoyed for a moment by my appearance, fell into despair, seeing that I, too, was to share in the doom of the whole family. But I was more at peace, since I was with them and with Marya Ivanovna. I had a sword and two pistols with me; I could still withstand a siege. Zurin was supposed to make it by evening, in time to rescue us. I told all that to my parents and managed to calm my mother down. They gave themselves fully to the joy of our reunion.
“Well, Pyotr,” my father said to me, “you got up to plenty of mischief, and I was thoroughly angry with you. But there’s no point in dwelling on the past. I hope you’ve mended your ways now and are done with foolery. I know you served as befits an honorable officer. Thank you. That’s a comfort to my old age. If I owe you my deliverance, life will be doubly agreeable to me.”
In tears I kissed his hand and looked at Marya Ivanovna, who was so overjoyed by my presence that she seemed perfectly happy and calm.
