Novels, Tales, Journeys

THE STATIONMASTER

A collegiate registrator,

A post-station dictator.

PRINCE VYAZEMSKY1

Who has not cursed stationmasters, who has not quarreled with them? Who, in a moment of anger, has not demanded the fatal book from them, in order to set down in it his useless complaint about their oppression, rudeness, and negligence? Who does not consider them monsters of the human race, on a par with defunct scriveners or, at the very least, the bandits of Murom?2 Let us be fair, however, let us try to enter into their situation, and perhaps we will judge them much more leniently. What is a stationmaster? A veritable martyr of the fourteenth class,3 protected by his rank only from beatings, and that not always (I call my reader’s conscience to witness). What are the duties of this dictator, as Prince Vyazemsky jokingly calls him? Is it not real penal servitude? No peace day or night. It is on the stationmaster that the traveler vents all the vexation accumulated during his boring journey. The weather is unbearable, the road bad, the coachman pig-headed, the horses don’t pull—and it’s the stationmaster’s fault. Going into his poor dwelling, the traveler looks upon him as an enemy; it’s good if he manages to rid himself of the uninvited guest quickly; but if there happen to be no horses?…God, what curses, what threats pour down on his head! In rain and slush he is forced to run around outside; in storm, in midwinter frost, he steps out to the entryway, to rest for at least a moment from the shouting and shoving of an irate wayfarer. A general arrives; the trembling stationmaster gives him the last two troikas, including the one reserved for couriers. The general drives off without even thanking him. Five minutes later—the bell!…and a government messenger throws his travel papers on the table in front of him!…Let us get a good grasp on all of this, and instead of indignation, our hearts will be filled with sincere compassion. A few more words: in the course of twenty years, I have driven over Russia in all directions; I know almost all the post roads; I am acquainted with several generations of coachmen; rare is the stationmaster I don’t know by sight, rare are those I have not dealt with; I hope to publish a curious store of my travel observations before too long; meanwhile I will say only that the stationmasters’ estate is presented to general opinion in a most false guise. These much-maligned stationmasters are generally peaceable people, obliging by nature, inclined to be sociable, modest in their claim to honors, and not overly fond of money. From their conversation (so unduly scorned by gentleman travelers) one can learn much that is curious and instructive. As for me, I confess that I would rather talk with them than with some functionary of the sixth class traveling on official business.

It can easily be guessed that I have friends among the honorable estate of the stationmasters. In fact, the memory of one of them is precious to me. Circumstances once brought us together, and it is of him that I now intend to speak with my gentle readers.

In 1816, in the month of May, I happened to pass through––sky province, by a highway since abandoned. I was of low rank, went by post, and had a traveling allowance for two horses. As a result, stationmasters did not stand on ceremony with me, and I often had to fight for what, in my opinion, was mine by right. Being young and hotheaded, I was indignant at the baseness and pusillanimity of a stationmaster, when the latter had the troika prepared for me hitched to the carriage of a high-ranking gentleman. It took me just as long to get used to being passed over by a discriminating flunkey at a governor’s dinner. Now I find both the one and the other in the order of things. What, in fact, would happen to us if, instead of the all-convenient rule Let rank honor rank, something else were introduced, for instance Let mind honor mind. What arguments would arise! And with whom would the waiters begin their serving? But I return to my story.

It was a hot day. Two miles from the * * * posting station it started to sprinkle, and a moment later a downpour soaked me to the skin. On reaching the station, my first concern was to change my clothes quickly, the second was to ask for tea.

“Hey, Dunya,” shouted the stationmaster, “prepare the samovar and go for cream!”

At these words, a girl of about fourteen came from behind a partition and ran to the front hall. I was struck by her beauty.

“Is that your daughter?” I asked the stationmaster.

“That she is, sir,” he answered with an air of contented pride. “And she’s such a smart one, such a quick one, just like her late mother.”

Here he began to copy out my travel papers, and I set myself to examining the pictures that adorned his humble but well-kept abode. They illustrated the story of the prodigal son.4 In the first a venerable old man in a nightcap and dressing gown is seeing off a restless young man, who hastily receives his blessing and a bag of money. In the next the young man’s dissipated behavior is portrayed in vivid strokes: he sits at a table surrounded by false friends and shameless women. Further on, the ruined young man, in rags and a cocked hat, is tending swine and sharing their meal; his face shows profound sorrow and repentance. Finally, his return to his father is portrayed: the good old man has run out to meet him in the same nightcap and dressing gown; the prodigal son is on his knees; in the background the cook is killing the fatted calf, and the older son is questioning the servants about the cause of such rejoicing. Under each picture I read the appropriate German verses. All of that is preserved in my memory to this day, along with the pots of impatiens, and the bed with the motley canopy, and other objects that surrounded me at that time. I can see, as if it were now, the host himself, a man of about fifty, hale and hearty, and his long green frock coat with three medals on faded ribbons.

No sooner had I paid my old coachman than Dunya returned with the samovar. The little coquette had noticed at second glance the impression she had made on me; she lowered her big blue eyes; I started to converse with her, she replied without any timidity, like a girl who has seen the world. I offered her father a glass of punch, gave Dunya a cup of tea, and the three of us began talking as if we had known each other for ages.

The horses had long been ready, but I still did not feel like parting from the stationmaster and his daughter. At last I took leave of them; the father wished me a good journey, and the daughter saw me off to the carriage. In the entryway I stopped and asked permission to kiss her. Dunya consented…I can count many kisses,

Since I first took up that occupation,

but not one of them left me with so lasting, so pleasant a memory.

Several years passed, and circumstance brought me to that same highway, to those same parts. I remembered the old stationmaster’s daughter and rejoiced to think that I would see her again. But, I reflected, maybe the old stationmaster has been replaced; Dunya is probably already married. The thought of the death of the one or the other also flashed in my mind, and I approached the * * * station with sad foreboding.

The horses stopped by the little station house. On entering the room, I immediately recognized the pictures illustrating the story of the prodigal son; the table and the bed stood in their former places; but there were no plants in the windows now, and everything around had a look of decline and neglect. The stationmaster was asleep under a sheepskin coat; my arrival awakened him; he got up…This was indeed Samson Vyrin; but how he had aged! While he was preparing to copy my travel papers, I kept looking at his gray hair, his deeply wrinkled, long-unshaven face, his bent back—and could not stop marveling at how three or four years could turn a hearty fellow into a feeble old man.

“Do you recognize me?” I asked him. “You and I are old acquaintances.”

“Maybe so,” he answered gloomily. “It’s a big road out there; many travelers have passed my way.”

“Is your Dunya well?” I went on. The old man frowned.

“God knows,” he answered.

“So she’s evidently married?” I said. The old man pretended not to hear my question and went on reading my papers in a whisper. I stopped my questions and asked him to put the kettle on. Curiosity was beginning to stir in me, and I hoped that punch would loosen my old acquaintance’s tongue.

I was not mistaken: the old man did not refuse the offered glass. I noticed that rum brightened his gloominess. At the second glass he became talkative; he remembered me, or made as if he did, and I learned a story from him which at the time greatly interested and moved me.

“So you knew my Dunya?” he began. “Well, who didn’t? Ah, Dunya, Dunya! What a girl she was! It used to be, whoever passed through, they all praised her, nobody said a bad word about her. Ladies gave her presents, one a little shawl, another a pair of earrings. Gentleman travelers stayed longer on purpose, supposedly to have dinner or supper, but really only so as to go on looking at her. It used to be, however angry a master was, he’d calm down with her there and talk kindly to me. Would you believe it, sir: couriers, government messengers, sat talking to her for half an hour at a time. She ran the household: what to tidy up, what to prepare, she kept it all going. And I, old fool that I am, couldn’t admire her enough, couldn’t rejoice enough. Didn’t I love my Dunya, didn’t I cherish my little one; wasn’t that the life for her? But no, you can’t pray trouble away; what’s fated won’t pass you by.”

Here he began telling me his grief in detail.

Once, three years ago, on a winter evening, when the stationmaster was drawing lines in a new register and his daughter behind the partition was sewing herself a dress, a troika drove up and a traveler in a Circassian hat, a military greatcoat, wrapped in a scarf, came into the room and demanded horses. The horses were all gone. At that news, the traveler raised his voice and his whip; but Dunya, who was used to such scenes, ran out from behind the partition and sweetly addressed him with a question: Wouldn’t he like something to eat? Dunya’s appearance produced its usual effect. The traveler’s anger went away; he agreed to wait for horses and ordered supper. Having taken off the wet, shaggy hat, unwound the scarf, and pulled off the greatcoat, the traveler emerged as a young, trim hussar with a small black moustache. He made himself comfortable at the stationmaster’s and began conversing gaily with him and his daughter. Supper was served. Meanwhile horses arrived, and the stationmaster ordered them hitched to the traveler’s kibitka at once, without being fed; but, on going back inside, he found the young man lying nearly unconscious on a bench: he felt faint, had a headache, it was impossible to go on…What could they do! The stationmaster yielded his bed to him, and it was decided that, if the sick man did not feel better, they would send to S–– the next morning for a doctor.

The next day the hussar was worse. His man rode to town for the doctor. Dunya tied a handkerchief moistened with vinegar around his head and sat down by his bed with her sewing. In front of the stationmaster, the sick man groaned and said scarcely a word; however, he drank two cups of coffee and, groaning, ordered dinner for himself. Dunya never left his side. He kept asking to drink, and Dunya offered him a mug of her specially prepared lemonade. The sick man moistened his lips, and each time he handed back the mug, he pressed Dunyushka’s hand with his own weak hand in token of gratitude. Towards dinnertime the doctor came. He took the sick man’s pulse, talked with him in German, and announced in Russian that all he needed was peace and quiet, and that he could set out on his way in a couple of days. The hussar handed him twenty-five roubles for the visit and invited him for dinner; the doctor accepted; the two ate with great appetite, drank a bottle of wine, and parted very pleased with each other.

Another day went by, and the hussar recovered completely. He was extremely cheerful, joked incessantly now with Dunya, now with the stationmaster, whistled tunes, talked with the travelers, copied their papers into the register, and was so much to the good stationmaster’s liking that on the third day he was sorry to part with his amiable guest. It was Sunday; Dunya was about to go to church. The hussar’s kibitka was ready. He said good-bye to the stationmaster, rewarded him generously for his bed and board; said good-bye to Dunya as well, and volunteered to take her to the church, which was at the edge of the village. Dunya stood in perplexity…

“What are you afraid of?” her father said to her. “His honor’s not a wolf, he’s not going eat you: ride to church with him.”

Dunya got into the kibitka beside the hussar, the servant leaped up onto the box, the coachman whistled, and the horses galloped off.

The poor stationmaster could not understand how on earth he could have allowed his Dunya to go off with the hussar, how such blindness could have come over him, and what had happened then to his reason. Before half an hour went by, his heart began to ache, to ache, and anxiety took such hold of him that he could not bear it and went to church himself. Coming to the church, he saw that people were already leaving, but Dunya was neither within the fence nor on the porch. He hurriedly went into the church: the priest was coming out of the sanctuary; the sexton was putting out the candles; two old women were still praying in one corner; but there was no Dunya in the church. The poor father barely brought himself to ask the sexton if she had been at the service. The sexton replied that she had not. The stationmaster went home more dead than alive. One hope remained for him: Dunya, with the flightiness of youth, might have taken it into her head to go on to the next station, where her godmother lived. In painful agitation he waited for the return of the troika in which he had sent her off. The coachman did not return. Finally, in the evening, he came back alone and drunk, with devastating news: “Dunya went on from that station with the hussar.”

The old man could not bear his misfortune; he took at once to that same bed in which the young deceiver had lain the day before. Now, considering all the circumstances, the stationmaster figured out that the illness had been feigned. The poor man came down with a high fever; he was taken to S–– and another man temporarily filled his place. He was treated by the same doctor who had visited the young hussar. He assured the stationmaster that the young man had been perfectly well and that even then he had guessed his evil intentions, but had said nothing for fear of his whip. Whether the German was telling the truth, or merely wished to boast of his prescience, he did not comfort his poor patient in the least. Having barely recovered from his illness, the stationmaster obtained a two-month leave from his superior in S–– and, telling no one of his intentions, set out on foot after his daughter. From the travel papers he knew that cavalry captain Minsky was going from Smolensk to Petersburg. The coachman who had driven him said that Dunya had wept all the time on the way, though she seemed to be going of her own will.

“Maybe I’ll bring my lost sheep home,” thought the stationmaster.

With that thought in mind, he arrived in Petersburg, stopped in the neighborhood of the Izmailovsky regiment, at the house of a retired corporal whom he had once served with, and began his search. He soon found out that cavalry captain Minsky was in Petersburg and living at the Demut Inn.5 The stationmaster decided to go and see him.

Early in the morning he came to the front hall and asked them to inform his honor that an old soldier was asking to see him. The orderly, who was polishing a boot on a boot tree, told him that his master was asleep and that he did not receive anyone before eleven o’clock. The stationmaster went away and came back at the appointed time. Minsky himself came out to him, in a dressing gown and a red skullcap.

“What do you want, brother?” he asked.

The old man’s blood began to boil, tears welled up in his eyes, and in a trembling voice all he said was: “Your Honor!…Show me this divine mercy!…”

Minsky glanced quickly at him, flushed, took him by the hand, led him to his study, and shut the door behind him.

“Your Honor!” the old man went on. “What falls off the cart is lost for good; at least give me back my poor Dunya. You’ve had your fun with her; don’t ruin her for nothing.”

“What’s done can’t be undone,” the young man said in the utmost embarrassment. “I’m guilty before you, and I gladly ask your forgiveness; but don’t think that I could forsake Dunya: she’ll be happy, I give you my word of honor. What do you want her for? She loves me; she’s lost the habit of her former situation. Neither you nor she will forget what’s happened.”

Then, slipping something into the old man’s cuff, he opened the door, and the stationmaster, without knowing how, found himself in the street.

For a long time he stood motionless, but finally he noticed a wad of papers behind the cuff of his sleeve. He took them out and unfolded several crumpled five- and ten-rouble banknotes. Tears welled up in his eyes again, tears of indignation! He rolled the papers into a ball, threw them on the ground, stamped on them with his heel, and walked away…After going several steps, he stopped, reflected…and turned back…but the banknotes were no longer there. A well-dressed young man, seeing him, ran over to a cab, quickly got in, and shouted: “Drive!…” The stationmaster did not chase after him. He decided to go back home to his station, but first he wanted to see his poor Dunya at least once more. For that he went back to Minsky’s a couple of days later; but the orderly told him sternly that the master was not receiving anybody, pushed him out of the front hall with his chest, and slammed the door in his face. The stationmaster stood there, stood there—and then left.

That same day, in the evening, he was walking down Liteiny Street, after having prayers said at the Joy of the Afflicted.6 Suddenly a smart droshky raced past him, and the stationmaster recognized Minsky. The droshky stopped in front of a three-story house, just by the entrance, and the hussar went running up to the porch. A happy thought flashed in the stationmaster’s head. He turned around and coming alongside the coachman, asked:

“Whose horse is that, brother? Is it Minsky’s?”

“That’s right,” replied the coachman. “What’s it to you?”

“It’s this: your master told me to take a note to his Dunya, but I forget where his Dunya lives.”

“Right here, on the second floor. You’re late with your note, brother; he’s already with her now.”

“Never mind,” the stationmaster objected with an inexplicable stirring of the heart. “Thanks for telling me, I’ll do what I’m supposed to.” And with those words he went up the stairs.

The door was locked. He rang and spent several painful seconds waiting. A key jangled, the door opened.

“Does Avdotya Samsonovna live here?” he asked.

“Yes,” a young maid replied. “What do you want with her?”

The stationmaster, without replying, went into the room.

“You mustn’t, you mustn’t!” the maid called after him. “Avdotya Samsonovna has visitors!”

But the stationmaster did not listen and went on. The first two rooms were dark, in the third there was light. He went up to the open door and stopped. In a beautifully decorated room, Minsky sat deep in thought. Dunya, dressed with all the luxury of fashion, was sitting on the arm of his chair like a horsewoman on an English saddle. She looked at Minsky with tenderness, winding his black locks around her sparkling fingers. Poor stationmaster! Never had his daughter seemed so beautiful to him; he admired her despite himself.

“Who’s there?” she asked, without raising her head. He kept silent. Receiving no answer, Dunya raised her head…and with a cry fell to the carpet. The frightened Minsky rushed to pick her up, but, suddenly seeing the old stationmaster in the doorway, he left Dunya and went over to him, trembling with wrath.

“What do you want?” he said, clenching his teeth. “Why are you slinking after me everywhere like a robber? Do you want to put a knife in me? Get out!” And seizing the old man by the collar with his strong hand, he pushed him out to the stairs.

The old man went back to his quarters. His friend advised him to lodge a complaint; but the stationmaster reflected, waved his hand, and decided to give up. Two days later he left Petersburg, went back to his station, and took up his duties again.

“For three years now,” he concluded, “I’ve lived without Dunya and without any news of her. God knows whether she’s still alive or not. All sorts of things happen. She’s neither the first nor the last to be seduced by a passing rake, who’ll keep a girl and then abandon her. There’s lots of those young fools in Petersburg, in satin and velvet today, and tomorrow, just look, they’re sweeping the streets along with some drunken riffraff. When you think sometimes that Dunya, too, may be perishing like that, you can’t help sinning by wishing her in her grave…”

Such was the story of my friend, the old stationmaster, a story interrupted more than once by tears, which he picturesquely wiped with the skirt of his coat, like the zealous Terentyich in Dmitriev’s wonderful ballad.7 Those tears were provoked in part by the punch, of which he drained five glasses in the course of his narrative; but, however it was, they touched my heart strongly. Having parted from him, for a long time I could not forget the old stationmaster, for a long time I thought about poor Dunya…

Just recently, passing through the little town of * * *, I remembered about my friend; I learned that the station he had been in charge of had since been abolished. To my question “Is the old stationmaster still alive?”—no one could give me a satisfactory answer. I decided to visit those familiar parts, hired some private horses, and set out for the village of N––.

This happened in the autumn. Grayish clouds covered the sky; a cold wind blew from the harvested fields, carrying off red and yellow leaves from the trees it met on its way. I reached the village at sunset and stopped by the little station house. A fat peasant woman came out to the front hall (where poor Dunya once gave me a kiss), and to my questions replied that the old stationmaster had died about a year before, that a brewer now lived there, and that she was the brewer’s wife. I began to regret my useless trip and the seven roubles I had spent for nothing.

“What did he die of?” I asked the brewer’s wife.

“Of drink, my good sir,” she replied.

“Where was he buried?”

“At the edge of the village, next to his late wife.”

“Couldn’t someone take me to his grave?”

“Why not? Hey, Vanka! Enough fooling with the cat. Take the mister to the cemetery and show him the stationmaster’s grave.”

At these words a raggedy boy, redheaded and one-eyed, ran out to me and immediately led me to edge of the village.

“Did you know the deceased?” I asked him on the way.

“How could I not! He taught me to whittle pipes. He used to come from the pot-house (God rest his soul!), and we’d follow after him: ‘Grandpa, grandpa! Give us some nuts!’ And he’d give us nuts. He used to play with us all the time.”

“Do travelers remember him?”

“There’s not many travelers nowadays; the assessor drops by sometimes, but he can’t be bothered with dead people. There was a lady passed by last summer, and she did ask about the old stationmaster and went to his grave.”

“What kind of lady?” I asked with curiosity.

“A beautiful lady,” the boy replied. “She rode in a coach-and-six, with three little sirs, and a wet nurse, and a black pug; and when they told her the old stationmaster had died, she wept and said to the children: ‘Sit quietly, while I go to the cemetery.’ I volunteered to take her there. But the lady said: ‘I know the way myself.’ And she gave me five silver kopecks—such a kind lady!…”

We came to the cemetery, a bare place, no fence around it, studded with wooden crosses, not shaded by a single tree. In all my born days I had never seen such a desolate cemetery.

“Here’s the old stationmaster’s grave,” said the boy, jumping onto a pile of sand in which a black cross with a brass icon was planted.

“And the lady came here?” I asked.

“Yes, she did,” replied Vanka, “I watched her from further off. She lay down here and went on lying for a long time. Then the lady went to the village and summoned the priest, gave him money, and drove away, and me she gave five silver kopecks—such a nice lady!”

I, too, gave the boy five kopecks and no longer regretted either the trip or the seven roubles it had cost me.