THE PROSE TALES
OF
ALEXANDER POUSHKIN
TRANSLATED FROM THE RUSSIAN BY
T. KEANE
LONDON
G. BELL AND SONS, LTD.
1916
CONTENTS.
THE CAPTAIN’S DAUGHTER
DOUBROVSKY
THE QUEEN OF SPADES
AN AMATEUR PEASANT GIRL
THE SHOT
THE SNOWSTORM
THE POST MASTER
THE COFFIN-MAKER
KIRDJALI
THE EGYPTIAN NIGHTS
PETER THE GREAT’S NEGRO
THE CAPTAIN’S DAUGHTER.
CHAPTER I.
THE SERGEANT OF THE GUARDS.
My father, Andrei Petrovitch Grineff, after having served in hisyouth under Count Münich,[1] quitted the service, in the year 17—,with the rank of senior major. He settled down upon his estate in thedistrict of Simbirsk, where he married Avdotia Vassilevna U——, thedaughter of a poor nobleman of the neighbourhood. Nine children werethe result of this marriage. All my brothers and sisters died in theirinfancy. I was enrolled as a sergeant in the Semenovsky Regiment,through the influence of Prince B——, a major in the Guards, and anear relation of our family. I was considered as being on leave ofabsence until the completion of my course of studies. In those daysour system of education was very different from that in vogue at thepresent time. At five years of age I was given into the hands of ourgamekeeper, Savelitch, whose sober conduct had rendered him worthy ofbeing selected to take charge of me. Under his instruction, at theage of twelve I could read and write Russian, and I was by no means abad judge of the qualities of a greyhound. About that time my fatherengaged a Frenchman, a Monsieur Beaupré, who had been imported fromMoscow, together with the yearly stock of wine and Provence oil.Savelitch was not by any means pleased at his arrival.
“Heaven be thanked!” he muttered to himself; “the child is washed,combed, and well-fed. What need is there for spending money andengaging a Mossoo, as if there were not enough of our own people!”
Beaupré had been a hairdresser in his own country, then a soldier inPrussia, then he had come to Russia pour être outchitel,[2] withoutvery well understanding the meaning of the word. He was a good sort offellow, but extremely flighty and thoughtless. His chief weakness wasa passion for the fair sex; but his tenderness not unfrequently metwith rebuffs, which would cause him to sigh and lament for the wholetwenty-four hours. Moreover, to use his own expression, he was no enemyof the bottle, or, in other words, he loved to drink more than was goodfor him. But as, with us, wine was only served out at dinner, and thenin small glasses only, and as, moreover, the teacher was generallypassed over on these occasions, my Beaupré very soon became accustomedto Russian drinks, and even began to prefer them to the wine