The Queen of Spades, and other stories

by Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin

The foundation of Gorohina and the history of its original inhabitants are lost in obscurity. Dark legend tells how that Gorohina was once a large and wealthy village, that all its inhabitants were rich, that the obrok (the land proprietor's tithes) was collected once a year and carted off in loads no one knew to whom. At that time everything was bought cheap and sold dear. There were no stewards, and the elders dealt fairly by all. The inhabitants worked little and lived merrily. The shepherds as they watched their flocks wore boots. We must not be deceived by this charming picture. The notion of a golden age is common to all nations, and only proves that as people are never contented with the present, and derive from experience small hope for the future, they adorn the irrevocable past with all the hues of fancy. What is certain, however, is that the village of Gorohina from ancient times has belonged to the distinguished race of Belkins. But these ancestors of mine had many other estates, and paid but little attention to this remote village. Gorohina paid small tithe and was managed by elders elected by the people in common council.

At that early period the inheritance of the Belkins was broken up, and fell in value. The impoverished grandchildren of the rich grandsire, unable to give up their luxurious habits, required from an estate now only producing one tenth of its former revenue the full income of former times. Threats followed threats. The starosta read them out in common council. The elders declaimed, the commune agitated, and the masters, instead of the double tithes, received tiresome excuses and humble complaints written on dirty paper and sealed with a polushka (less than a farthing).

A sombre cloud hung over Gorohina; but no one heeded it. In the last year of Tryphon's power, the last of the starostas chosen by the people, the day of the church festival, when the whole population either crowded noisily round the house of entertainment (the public-house) or wandered through the streets embracing one another or loudly singing the songs of Arhip the Bald, there drove into the courtyard a covered hired britchka drawn by a couple of half-dead screws, with a ragged Jew upon the box. From the britchka a head in a cap looked out and seemed to peer curiously at the merry-making crowd. The inhabitants greeted the carriage with laughter and rude jokes. With the flaps of their coats turned up the madmen mocked the Jewish driver, shouting in doggrell rhyme, "Jew, Jew, eat a pig's ear." But how great was their astonishment (wrote the clerk) when the carriage stopped in the middle of the village and the occupant jumped out, and in an authoritative voice called for the starosta Tryphon. This officer was in the house of pleasure, whence two elders led him forth holding him under the arms. The stranger looked at him sternly, handed him a letter, and told him to read it at once. The starostas of Gorohina were in the habit of never reading anything themselves. The rural clerk Avdei was sent for. He was found asleep under a hedge and was brought before the stranger. But either from the sudden fright or from a sad fore-boding, the words distinctly written in the letter appeared to him in a mist, and he could not read them. The stranger sent the starosta Tryphon and the rural clerk Avdei with terrible curses to bed, postponing the reading of the letter till the morrow and entered the office hut, whither the Jew carried his small trunk. The people of Gorohina looked in amazement at this unusual incident, but the carriage, the stranger, and the Jew were quickly forgotten. They ended their day with noise and merriment, and Gorohina went to sleep without presentiments of the future.

At sunrise the inhabitants were awakened with knockings at the windows and a call to a meeting of the commune. The citizens one after the other appeared in the courtyard round the office hut, which served as a council ground. Their eyes were dim and red, their faces swollen; yawning and scratching their heads, they stared at the man with the cap, in an old blue caftan, standing pompously on the steps of the office hut, while they tried to recollect his features, which they seemed to have seen some time or another.

The starosta and his clerk Avdei stood by his side, bareheaded, with the same expression of dejection and sorrow.

"Are all here?" inquired the stranger.

"Are all here?" repeated the starosta.

"The whole hundred," replied the citizens, when, the starosta informed them that he had received a letter from the master, and, directed the clerk to read it aloud to the commune. Avdei stepped forward and read as follows:

N.B. This alarming document, which he kept carefully shut up in the icon-case, together with other memorandum of his authority over the people of Gorohina, I copied at the house of Tryphon, our starosta.

"TRYPHON IVANOFF,

"The bearer of this letter, my agent.... is going to my patrimony, the village of Gorohina, to assume the management of it. Directly he arrives assemble the peasants and make known to them their master's wishes; namely, that they are to obey my agent as they would myself, and attend to his orders without demur; otherwise he is empowered to treat them with great severity. I have been forced to take this step by their shameless disobedience and your, Tryphon Ivanoff, roguish indulgence.

"(Signed) NIKOLAI N....