Page:Pushkin - Russian Romance (King, 1875).djvu/248

 his moroseness. He became talkative at the second glass, remembered, or pretended to remember me, and I learned from him the story, which at that time interested and touched me deeply.

"And so you knew my Dounia?" he began. "Who did not know her? Oh! Dounia, Dounia! what a girl she was. All who came here praised her; never a word of complaint. Ladies used to give her now a neckerchief, then a pair of earrings. Travellers would stop purposely, as it were, to dine or to sup; but, in truth, only to look at my Dounia a little longer. The gentlemen, however choleric, would calm down in her presence and talk kindly to me. Will you believe it, sir? courtiers, state messengers, used to converse with her for half an hour at a time. She kept the house; she cleaned up, she got things ready, she used to find time for everything. And I, old fool that I am, could not admire her sufficiently, could not appreciate her enough! Did not I love my Dounia? did not I pet my child? Was not her life happiness itself? But no, one cannot flee misfortunes; what is ordained must come to pass." Here he recounted his troubles in detail. Three years had passed since one winter evening, whilst the station-master was ruling out a new book, and his daughter was working at a new dress behind the partition, a troika pulled up, and a traveller, wearing a Circassian cap and military cloak, and wrapped in a shawl, entered the room, calling for horses. All the relays were out. At this piece of intelligence, the traveller was about to raise his voice and his stick, but Dounia, accustomed to such scenes, ran out, and