I was disgusted with Savéliitch, never doubting that it was he who had made known my duel to my parents. After walking up and down awhile in my little room, I suddenly stopped short before him, and said to him, angrily—
"It seems that it did not satisfy you that, thanks to you, I've been wounded and at death's door, but that you must also want to kill my mother as well."
Savéliitch remained motionless, as it struck by a thunderbolt.
"Have pity on me, sir," he exclaimed, almost sobbing. "What is it you deign to tell me—that I am the cause of your wound? But God knows I was only running to stand between you and Alexey Iványtch's sword. Accursed old age alone prevented me. What have I now done to your mother?"
"What did you do?" I retorted. "Who told you to write and denounce me? Were you put in my service to be a spy upon me?"
"I denounce you!" replied Savéliitch, in tears. "Oh, good heavens! Here, be so good as to read what master has written to me, and see if it was I who denounced you."
With this he drew from his pocket a letter, which he offered to me, and I read as follows:—
"Shame on you, you old dog, for never writing and telling me anything about my son, Petr' Andréjïtch, in spite of my strict orders, and that it should be from strangers that I learn his follies! Is it thus you do your duty and act up to your master's wishes? I shall send you to keep the pigs, old rascal, for having hid from me the truth, and for your weak compliance with the lad's whims. On receipt of this letter, I order you to let me know directly the state of his health, which, judging by what I hear, is improving, and to tell me exactly the place where he was hit, and if the wound be well healed."
Evidently Savéliitch had not been the least to blame, and it was I who had insulted him by my suspicions and reproaches. I begged his pardon, but the old man was inconsolable.
"That I should have lived to see it!" repeated he. "These be the thanks that I have deserved of my masters for all my long service. I am an old dog. I'm only fit, to keep pigs, and in addition to all this I am the cause of your wound. No, my father, Petr' Andréjïtch, 'tis not I who am to blame, it is rather the confounded 'mossoo;' it was he who taught you to fight with those iron spits, stamping your foot, as though by ramming and stamping you could defend yourself from a bad man. It was, indeed, worth while spending money upon a 'mossoo' to teach you that."