CHAPTER XII

HOW A FORTRESS WAS TAKEN

"Lock and bolt the doors, and see that you let no one in! To him who doubts that I am not at home, say I am dead!"

"And suppose it's some one to bring you money?"

"There's no man living who would do that."

"And if it's a love letter?"

"Let him push it under the door; but don't let him in! For it might prove to be some rascal of a creditor."

Unnecessary to state that this dialogue took place between a young officer and his servant. It may, however, be as well to add that the said young officer was Pushkin.

With heavy head and light pockets he had reached home in the small hours, and, dressed as he was, had thrown himself on his bed, feeling as if each individual hair in his head were being torn out by a devil with red-hot pincers.

Suddenly he was aroused from his uneasy slumbers by a hideous noise of scuffling and quarrelling in the street. A man beneath his windows, seemingly set upon by ruffians, was screaming loudly for help, and no one going to his aid. Why should they--when the police did not trouble themselves about private disturbances?

Pushkin could stand it no longer; going to his window, he breathed upon the frozen pane to clear a space, and looked out. Two men were belaboring a third, who was vainly endeavoring to defend himself, his face covered with blood. One of his assailants gave a tug at the long beard, worn divided in the middle, plucking out a handful. That was too much for Pushkin; the sight of such brutality made his blood boil. Snatching his dog-whip from the wall, he tore down into the street. In vain his man cried after him, "Don't open the door, sir;" he was out like a shot, and, plunging into the middle of the trio, began laying his whip upon the two offenders right merrily, upon which they quickly took to their heels; and Pushkin, raising in his arms the injured, groaning victim of their brutality, carried him into his house. Reaching his room, he sent for cold water and a basin, that the poor fellow might bathe his face. This he proceeded to do so effectually that not only the vermilion dye stained the water deep red, but also the beard, which was only stuck on, entirely disappeared from his face. Drying his face, he turned with a smile to Pushkin, drew out a folded paper from the sleeve of his caftan, and said:

"Very glad to have the opportunity of speaking to you again. Will you not pay me this little account?"

And now, for the first time, did Pushkin perceive that it was his worst creditor, the usurer Zsabakoff, who stood before him.

"Was it the devil brought you here?"

"No, sir, you brought me yourself."

His servant interposed--

"Didn't I tell you, sir, not to open the door?"

"But they were pulling out his beard."

"It was only stuck on," confessed Zsabakoff, with a grin.

"And the two men who were laying their sticks about you?"

"Are my two brothers-in-law. That was all a pre-arranged thing. I knew that you were too much a gentleman to see a man ill-treated before your very door. There seemed no other way of getting at you."

Pushkin saw that he had been thoroughly sold, and that it was best to put a good face on it.

"Well, and what's your business?"

"Only humbly to ask you, sir, to pay this miserable one thousand rubles. You know how long they have been owing."

"Yes, I have already paid them twice over in interest."

"Ah, if it were my own money! But I had to borrow it, in order to lend it to you; and the horse-leech from whom I borrowed it has put on the screw each time you renewed it, so that I have had to pay him the same rate of interest that you have been paying me. And now he swears he will grant me no more time; that he will have the caftan off my back if I do not raise the thousand rubles. And here, in the depths of winter, shall I have to go about in shirt-sleeves, and my seven children--beautiful as angels--will have no bread! To pay your debts the very pillow under their heads will be taken from them. I shall have nothing left; everything I had I have turned into money to satisfy those blood-sucking usurers; even my wife's last gown has been pawned in Appraxin-Dwor. What will become of me, miserable man that I am?" And the usurer wept like a water-spout.

"But I cannot help you," said Pushkin, irritably. "Where the devil am I to get the money from? I do not coin bank-notes."

"When will you pay me?"

"I am no prophet."

"But what is a poor devil like me to do, then?" said the usurer, trembling.

"County court me."

"Ah, dear, kind sir, don't make a joke of it. I should only be thrown into prison for lending money to an officer in the army. Have pity on me! Nine people will pray daily for your soul's good if you will only pay me."

"Where am I to get the money from, if I have none?"

"Just reflect a little, sir. You have some wealthy aunts--one of them may make you her heir. There are no end of rich, beautiful princesses in St. Petersburg who would be only too glad to help such a brave gentleman did they but know that he was in temporary difficulty. I could tell you this moment of an excellent match--a good, handsome, well-behaved young lady, with half a million rubles for her dowry. I will undertake the affair for you, if you wish it. Then you have such a fine estate at Pleskow. There are plenty of honest bankers here who, not knowing that your property is confiscated by the Crown, would lend you money on it. Such a man is rolling in gold, he would not miss it; and, of course, you would give back his money when you got back your lands, and that would be sure to be the case when you have done some brave soldiering, and the Czar rewards you for it."

Pushkin held his sides with laughing as he listened to this view of his affairs.

Zsabakoff grew desperate at the way Pushkin took his suggestions.

"Do not make light of it, sir," cried he. "I assure you, it is a matter of life and death with me. If I have to go home like this to those angels who are crying out for bread, I will take a razor and cut their seven throats, then their mother's, and then my own. That I have made up my mind to. You may depend, if you go on laughing at me, I will prepare you a comedy that will turn your laughter into something very different. A desperate man sticks at nothing. When you have it on your conscience that a father of seven hanged himself, before your very eyes, upon your window-frame--"

"Try it," said Pushkin, laughing; "but be quick about it, for it's uncommonly late, and I want to go to sleep." And with these words he threw himself upon his camp-bedstead.

"Well, then, you shall see, before you have time to sleep."

And the money-lender, dragging a chair to the window, got on it, made a noose of his scarf, fastened it to the window-frame, passed his head through it, and kicked away the chair. And suddenly Pushkin saw his creditor struggling in the air, his eyes starting out of his head.

So then it was more than a joke! Springing from his bed, he snatched up his dagger to cut the noose; then saw that his would-be suicide was wearing a kind of cravat of stout leather under his shirt, which effectually prevented any possibility of strangulation. Furious at the deception, he threatened the man with a sound thrashing.

"Thrash as hard as you like, but pay. I would willingly sacrifice my life to get back my thousand rubles. Don't tell me you have no money. I know you have. Did you not pay back Nyemozsin, that shameless usurer, last week? He's a thorough horse-leech! Takes two hundred per cent. And yet you could pay him, though he held no written acknowledgment of yours."

"Just why I did pay him. It was a debt of honor."

Zsabakoff, as he heard this, took his I.O.U. and tore it into shreds.

"Now I have no written security either--and mine is a debt of honor!" he said, placing both hands in his girdle.

This was too much for Pushkin.

"Devil take you!" he cried. "Here is my pocket-book. What you find in it you may take."

And the money-lender did find something in it--a poem called _The Gypsy Girl_. He began to dance round with glee, now stopping, now starting off afresh, like a merry Cossack.

"Ho, ho, what a find! _The Gypsy Girl_! Heaven bless you for it! I am off with it."

"Where to?"

"To Severin. He was only just telling me how all the world of fashion was besieging his doors to know when Pushkin's poem of _The Gypsy Girl_, that he had read at Fräulein Ilmarinen's, was coming out. He said he would give any amount for it. So my thousand rubles are safe. If I can, I will squeeze something more out of him, and honorably share the surplus with you. I kiss your hand, sir. Pardon any annoyance I may have caused you. Command me when you are in want of more money. I shall be only too happy to be at your service."

The money-lender had said the half of this speech as he looked back on the threshold. Pushkin thought the man had gone mad. Angrily throwing himself back on his bed, he forbade his man-servant to admit the fellow again; then slept till noon. When he awoke he rang for his man.

"That fellow came again, sir."

"But you did not let him in?"

"No. But he pushed this packet under the door. Shall I throw it into the fire, sir?"

"No. Give it me."

And, opening the packet, Pushkin found in it a copy of his romance, _The Gypsy Girl_, two bank-notes for one hundred rubles each, and a letter from the publisher, Severin, informing him that he had bought his poem for twelve hundred rubles, of which he herewith enclosed two hundred, and had paid the rest to the person who brought the manuscript. He forwarded a copy to Pushkin that he might obtain the necessary permission to publish.

It was a queer story; and especially that he should have made money for what he had merely scribbled down for his own amusement. Absurd! A gambler had more right to the accumulated gains of a gambling club than a man to extort money from the multitude for permission to read what he had written! An author's fee! Surely a hybrid betwixt the degrading and the ridiculous! Did it most savor of theft or deception? or was it but a loan?

These thoughts passed through Pushkin's head as he read the letter. Now he had to go to the Censor--he, a military man, to humiliate himself to a scurvy civil official, and acknowledge him to be his judge and superior! In all else the army has its own court-martial. Poetry is truly an unsavory implement when it so demeans a smart officer to defer to a civilian. Pushkin decided to make this sacrifice to Apollo.