Anton Pafnutych, very pleased with his knowledge of French, went at once to make the arrangements.
The guests started saying good night to each other, and each went to the room assigned to him. Anton Pafnutych went off to the wing with the tutor. The night was dark. Desforges lit the way with a lantern, Anton Pafnutych followed him quite cheerfully, every now and then pressing the secret pouch to his breast to make sure the money was still there.
They came to the wing, the tutor lit a candle, and they both started to undress; at the same time, Anton Pafnutych strolled around the room, examining the locks and windows and shaking his head at the inauspicious inspection. The door had only one latch, the windows did not yet have double frames. He tried to complain about it to Desforges, but his knowledge of French was too limited for such a complicated explanation; the Frenchman did not understand him, and Anton Pafnutych was forced to abandon his complaints. Their beds stood opposite each other, they both lay down, and the tutor snuffed out the candle.
“Poorkwa voo snuffay, poorkwa voo snuffay,”*4 cried Anton Pafnutych, barely managing to conjugate the verb “to snuff” in the French way. “I can’t
Desforges did not understand his exclamations and wished him good night.
“Cursed heathen,” Spitsyn grumbled, wrapping himself in the blanket. “As if he needed to snuff out the candle. The worse for him. I can’t sleep without a light. Moosieu, moosieu,” he went on, “zhe veuh avek voo parlay.”*6 But the Frenchman did not reply and soon began to snore.
“The beastly Frenchman’s snoring away,” Anton Pafnutych thought, “and I can’t even conceive of sleeping. At any moment thieves might come in the open door or climb through the window, and him, the beast, even gunshots won’t wake him up.”
“Moosieu, hey, moosieu, devil take you!”
Anton Pafnutych fell silent—fatigue and alcoholic vapors gradually overcame his fearfulness, he began to doze off, and soon deep sleep enveloped him completely.
A strange awakening was in store for him. Through sleep he felt someone gently pulling at his shirt collar. Anton Pafnutych opened his eyes and in the pale light of the autumn morning saw Desforges before him; the Frenchman held a pocket pistol in one hand, and with the other was unfastening the cherished pouch. Anton Pafnutych went numb.
“Kess ke say, moosieu, kess ke say?”*7 he said in a trembling voice.
“Shh, keep still,” the tutor replied in pure Russian, “keep still, or you’re lost. I am Dubrovsky.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Now we ask the reader’s permission to explain the latest events in our story by prior circumstances, which we have not yet had time to relate.
At the * * * posting station, in the house of the stationmaster, whom we have already mentioned, a traveler sat in a corner with a humble and patient air, betokening a commoner or a foreigner, that is, someone who has no voice on the post road. His britzka stood in the yard waiting to be greased. In it lay a small suitcase, meager evidence of a none-too-substantial fortune. The traveler did not ask for tea or coffee; he kept glancing out the window and whistling, to the great displeasure of the stationmaster’s wife, who was sitting behind the partition.
“The Lord God’s sent us a whistler,” she said in a half whisper. “Just keeps on whistling, blast him, the cursed heathen.”
“So what?” said the stationmaster. “Where’s the harm in it, let him whistle.”
“Where’s the harm?” his angry spouse retorted. “Don’t you know about the omen?”
“What omen? That whistling drives out money? Ahh, Pakhomovna, with us, whistle or not, there’s never any anyway!”
“Send him on his way, Sidorych. Why on earth keep him? Give him horses and let him go to the devil.”
“He can wait, Pakhomovna, we’ve only got three troikas in the stables, the fourth one’s resting. Good travelers may turn up in a wink; I don’t want to answer for the Frenchman with my neck. There! Hear that? Somebody’s galloping up. Oh-ho-ho, quite a clip! A general, maybe?”
A carriage stopped at the porch. A servant jumped off the box, opened the doors, and a moment later a young man in a military greatcoat and a white visored cap came into the stationmaster’s house. After him the servant brought in a box and set it on the windowsill.
“Horses,” the officer said peremptorily.
“This minute,” the stationmaster replied. “Your travel papers, please.”
“I have no papers. I’m turning off for…Don’t you recognize me?”
The stationmaster got into a bustle and ran out to hurry the coachmen. The young man started pacing up and down the room, went behind the partition, and quietly asked the stationmaster’s wife who the traveler was.
“God knows,” the woman replied. “Some Frenchman. He’s been waiting five hours for horses and keeps whistling. He’s a damned nuisance.”
The young man addressed the traveler in French.
“Where might you be going?” he asked him.
