The judges, who had hoped for his gratitude, were not honored with a single pleasant word from him. He left for Pokrovskoe that same day. Meanwhile, Dubrovsky lay in bed; the district doctor, fortunately not a total ignoramus, managed to bleed him and treat him with leeches and Spanish flies. Towards evening the sick man became better and regained consciousness. The next day he was driven to Kistenevka, which now almost did not belong to him.
CHAPTER THREE
Some time passed, but poor Dubrovsky’s health was still bad. True, the fits of madness were not renewed, but his forces were noticeably weakened. He forgot his former occupations, rarely left his room, and spent whole days lost in thought. Egorovna, a kindly old woman who had once looked after his son, now became his own nanny. She watched over him as if over a child, reminded him of the times to eat and sleep, fed him, put him to bed. Andrei Gavrilovich quietly obeyed her and aside from her had no relations with anybody. He was in no condition to think about his affairs, to run the estate, and Egorovna saw the necessity of writing about it all to the young Dubrovsky, who served in one of the infantry guards regiments and was in Petersburg at the time. And so, tearing a page from the account book, she dictated a letter to the only literate man in Kistenevka, the cook Khariton, and sent it that same day to the post office in town.
But it is time the reader became acquainted with the real hero of our story.
Vladimir Dubrovsky was educated in the Cadet Corps3 and graduated as an ensign in the guards. His father spared nothing for his proper keeping, and the young man received more from home than he should have expected. Being extravagant and ambitious, he allowed himself luxurious whims, gambled and got into debt, did not worry about the future, and foresaw a rich bride for himself sooner or later—the dream of a poor young man.
One evening, when several officers were sitting around at his place, sprawled on the sofas and smoking his amber-stemmed pipes, Grisha, his valet, handed him a letter, the address and seal of which struck the young man at once. He quickly opened it and read the following:
Dear Master, Vladimir Andreevich –
I, your old nanny, have decided to report to you on your papa’s health! He is very poorly, sometimes rambles in his speech, and sits all day like a stupid child, but in life and death it is as God wills. Come to us here, my bright falcon, we will send horses to Pesochnoe for you. We have heard that the district court will be coming to us to put us under the authority of Kirila Petrovich Troekurov, because we are said to belong to him, but we have been yours time out of mind, and never in our lives heard such. Maybe, living in Petersburg, you could tell that to our dear tsar, and he will not let us be offended. I remain your faithful servant and nanny,
Orina Egorovna Buzyreva.
I send my maternal blessing to Grisha, does he serve you well? It is the second week we are having rain, and the shepherd Rodya died around St. Nicholas’s day.
Vladimir Dubrovsky reread these rather muddled lines several times with extraordinary agitation. He had lost his mother in childhood and, barely knowing his father, had been brought to Petersburg in his eighth year; but for all that he was romantically attached to him and loved family life all the more, the less he had managed to savor its quiet joys.
The thought of losing his father wrung his heart painfully, and the situation of the poor sick man, which he surmised from his nanny’s letter, horrified him. He pictured his father, abandoned in a remote village, in the hands of a stupid old woman and some servants, threatened by some sort of calamity, and fading away without help in the sufferings of body and soul. Vladimir reproached himself for criminal neglect. For a long time he had received no letters from his father and had never thought of inquiring about him, supposing that he was traveling or busy with the estate.
He decided to go to him and even to retire from the service, if his father’s ailing condition required his presence. His comrades, noticing his uneasiness, went home. Vladimir, left alone, wrote a request for a leave of absence, lit his pipe, and fell into deep reflection.
That same day he turned in his request, and three days later he was already on the high road.
