Novels, Tales, Journeys полностью

In fact, I saw a whole pile of books with green and blue paper covers. It was a collection of old almanacs. This discovery cooled my rapture, but even so I was glad of the unexpected find, even so they were books, and I generously rewarded the laundress’s zeal with fifty silver kopecks. Left alone, I started to examine my almanacs, and soon my attention was strongly engaged by them. They made up a continuous sequence of years from 1744 to 1799, that is, exactly fifty-five years. The blue pages usually bound into almanacs were covered with old-fashioned handwriting. Casting a glance at these lines, I saw with amazement that they contained not only observations about the weather and household accounts, but also brief historical notices about the village of Goryukhino. I immediately began sorting through these precious notes and soon found that they presented a complete history of my paternal seat over the course of almost an entire century in the most strict chronological order. On top of that they contained an inexhaustible store of economic, statistical, meteorological, and other learned observations. Since then the study of these notes has occupied me exclusively, for I saw the possibility of extracting from them a well-ordered, interesting, and instructive narrative. After familiarizing myself sufficiently with these precious memorials, I began to search for new sources for the history of the village of Goryukhino. And the abundance of them soon amazed me. Having devoted a whole six months to preliminary research, I finally took up the long-desired work and with God’s help completed it this November 3rd of the year 1827.

Now, like a certain historian similar to me, whose name I cannot recall, having finished my arduous task, I set down my pen and with sadness go to my garden to reflect upon what I have accomplished. It seems to me, too, that, having written The History of Goryukhino, I am no longer needed in this world, that my duty has been done, and it is time I went to my rest!

Here I append a list of the sources I have used in compiling The History of Goryukhino:

1. The collection of old almanacs. Fifty-four parts. The first twenty parts written in an old-fashioned hand with contractions. This chronicle was composed by my great-grandfather, Andrei Stepanovich Belkin. It is distinguished by clarity and brevity of style; for instance: “May 4—Snow. Trishka beaten for rudeness. 6—Brown cow died. Senka beaten for drunkenness. 8—Fair weather. 9—Rain and snow. Trishka beaten on account of weather. 11—Fair weather. Fresh snowfall. Hunted down three hares…” and so on, without any reflections. The remaining thirty-five parts are written in various hands, mostly in what is known as “shopkeeper’s style,” with or without contractions, are generally prolix, incoherent, and do not follow the rules of orthography. Here and there a woman’s hand is noticeable. This portion includes the notes of my grandfather, Ivan Andreevich Belkin, and my grandmother, his spouse, Evpraxia Alexeevna, as well as the notes of the clerk Garbovitsky.

2. The chronicle of the Goryukhino sexton. This curious manuscript I dug up at my priest’s, who is married to the chronicler’s daughter. The first pages had been torn out by the priest’s children and used for so-called kites. One of them fell in the middle of my courtyard. I picked it up and was about to give it back to the children, when I noticed that it was covered with writing. From the first lines I saw that the kite had been made from a chronicle, the rest of which I luckily managed to save. This chronicle, which I acquired for a quarter measure of oats, is distinguished by its profundity and uncommon grandiloquence.

3. Oral tradition. I did not neglect any sources. But I am especially indebted to Agrafena Trifonova, mother of the headman Avdei, and, it was said, the mistress of the clerk Garbovitsky.

4. Census records, with observations by previous headmen (ledgers and expense accounts) concerning the morality and living conditions of the peasants.