Page:Pushkin - Russian Romance (King, 1875).djvu/256

 duties. " This is now the third year that I live without Dounia, and I have neither heard from her, nor have I seen her. God knows whether she is alive or dead. Anything may happen. She is neither the first nor the last who has been enticed away by a scampish wayfarer, and who has first been cared for, and then deserted.  There are plenty of these young simpletons at St. Petersburg, who are to-day in satins and velvet, and to-morrow you see them sweeping the streets in degraded misery.  When the thought crosses me that Dounia may be ruining herself in the same manner, one sins involuntarily, and wishes she were in the grave."

Such was the story of my friend the old station-master—a story more than once interrupted by tears, which lie picturesquely wiped away with his coat-tails, like zealous Terentitch in Dmitrieff's beautiful ballad. Those tears were partly induced by the punch, of which he emptied five glasses during his recital; but be that as it may, they touched me deeply. Having taken my leave, it was long before I could forget the old station-master, and long did I think of poor Dounia.

Lately again, on passing through * * * I recollected my friend. I learned that the station which he had superintended had been abolished. To my inquiry, "Is the old station-master alive?" I could obtain no satisfactory answer. I made up my mind to visit the familiar locality, and, hiring a private conveyance, I left for the village of N.

It was autumn. Gray clouds obscured the sky; a cold wind swept over the reaped fields, carrying before it the