THE GENERAL'S
DAUGHTER
BY THE AUTHOR OF
"A RUSSIAN PRIEST"
LONDON
T. FISHER UNWIN
PATERNOSTER SQUARE
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CONTENTS
I..................................................................................................................................................................3
II ................................................................................................................................................................7
III ............................................................................................................................................................. 11
IV.............................................................................................................................................................15
V..............................................................................................................................................................18
VI.............................................................................................................................................................22
VII ........................................................................................................................................................... 26
VIII ..........................................................................................................................................................31
IX.............................................................................................................................................................34
X..............................................................................................................................................................39
XI.............................................................................................................................................................43
XII ........................................................................................................................................................... 48
XIII .......................................................................................................................................................... 53
XIV.......................................................................................................................................................... 59
XV........................................................................................................................................................... 64
XVI..........................................................................................................................................................69
XVII.........................................................................................................................................................73
XVIII .......................................................................................................................................................77
XIX.......................................................................................................................................................... 81
XX........................................................................................................................................................... 85
XXI..........................................................................................................................................................91
XXII.........................................................................................................................................................98
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THE GENERAL’S DAUGHTER
3
THE GENERAL'S DAUGHTER
I
S our journey nearly ended, Mánitchka?"1 asked Zinaïda2 Petrovna, in a weary
tone, casting her gaze over the fields spread out on both sides of the road, from
which the corn had long since been cut and carted.
"I don't know, mama!" answered the girl, crossly, contracting her brows
and continuing to keep her eyes steadily on the driver's back, as though she could
read the solution of all those problems which had so violently and unexpectedly
agitated her mind during the last few days, on this flat back covered with a dirty
cotton shirt, stained with large patches of sweat.
The fields seemed to be interminable. In front, behind, and on either side—
nothing but fields. For two hours no village nor homestead, nor even a brokendown
hut had been visible. Everything seemed dead; the crops that had lately
enlivened the plain, at first with every conceivable shade of green, and then with
the gold of the ripened ears, and lastly with the peculiar architecture of hastily piled-up sheaves, were
all carried off to the stack-yards, and the plain was bare. At intervals here and there, strips of late watermelons
might still be noticed, but even from such places the temporary reed-hut had been taken away,
and the ague-bent old man energetically waving his arms, and trying by such movements and by his
hoarse cough to frighten away harmful birds such as jackdaws and starlings, was no longer to be seen.
A dull, grey blot may be indistinctly made out on the horizon. This proves to be a flock of sheep, and
near by, motionless as a monument, stands the shepherd with a very long pole, on the end of which a
hook is fastened.
Meanwhile the southern sun continues to scorch, notwithstanding that it is already the end of
September, so that the driver in his cotton shirt finds it hot, and his miserable jade is in a violent
perspiration. The driver hearing his passengers' conversation, considers it his duty to set their doubts at
rest.
1 Mánitchka is a familiar or diminutive name for Maria.
2 Zinaïda is the Christian name, and Petrovna the patronymic, meaning the daughter of Peter. The surname is not much used
in Russia, the Christian name and patronymic being generally employed; and between near relations the diminutive name.
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THE GENERAL’S DAUGHTER
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"There's not so far to go now," said he, in a consoling voice; " we've gone more than half way—"
" How far is it altogether? " inquired Zinaida Petrovna, in that tone of despair with which she
had expressed all her thoughts latterly.
'' Who knows! Some people think it's forty versts, but I don't believe it. No one has ever
measured the distance; but they may be right—who can tell! We reckon this way: see, there is a well
with a bucket over it. As soon as we have got to the well it means we've done more than half the
journey. That's the way we reckon."
" Three hours more to crawl along, then! " thought Zinaida Petrovna.
She was dressed entirely in black. A satin jacket, fastened with many buttons, fitted closely
around her full figure, which, to judge by its appearance, seemed well nourished. Her head was covered
with a round hat, with a long, crape veil, which was freely fluttering in the wind. Her tawny face, with
hard, sharp features, reminded one of those people who in youth seem interesting and attractive, but
who with the lapse of years acquire an unsympathetic and even repellent shade. It wore an expression
of cold, stony grief, mixed with one of profound perplexity. Her large, dark eyes, with an almost
motionless gaze, seemed to say — '' This is dreadful! This is inhuman! But how comes it to pass?
Why? Wherefore? It seems inexplicable!"
Strange to relate that side by side with this woman, whose face and dress both betokened
profound grief, sat a girl, calling her mother; but in this girl's dress there was no sign of mourning. Well
proportioned and thin, and with a face as dark as her mother's, although the features were of a totally
different type, she held herself erect, and wore a grave and even stern expression, knitting her brows
and screwing up her eyes, which had a look of bad temper rather than of grief. She was dressed in a
yellow straw hat decorated with a small bunch of flowers, and a grey waterproof, from under which
could be seen a brown woollen petticoat.
The capacious box of the peasant's conveyance was stuffed full of bandboxes and bundles. The
driver was unceremoniously leaning his left arm on one of these bundles, and at times whistled at his
horse, who, however, paid no attention to this encouragement, and continued to waddle listlessly along.
Zinaïda Petrovna had moved away the bundle, but this hint evidently had no effect on the driver, for he
pulled the bundle towards himself again, and finding it a convenient support, leant on it more firmly
than before.
"Mon Dieu! what a rude, unmannerly, ill-bred brute!" thought Zinaïda Petrovna to herself, in
despair;" what next? how has this come to pass? and why?"
And for the thousandth time her thoughts followed the same logical train, but each time they
were confronted by the unanswerable questions: "How has this happened? and why?" She could only
grasp the fact that two mental bugbears stood facing each other and gnashing their teeth at one
another—shame for the past, unexpected, unforeseen shame, and dread of the future. It seemed as
though these monsters were disputing, and preparing to devour each other in their struggle for the right
of trampling her to pieces, of mutilating her, of maiming the residue of her existence.
How weary and heavy the way seems when you know that before you there awaits something
painful and cheerless, and that you would fain go in the opposite direction! But go thither you must—
you must, because there is nothing else for it. The man condemned to execution, when the halter is
around his neck, is convinced of the certainty of his fate, and awaits nothing else but death.
Zinaïda Petrovna looked on her situation in this way; and it can be understood that as she
approached her destination her thoughts became more and more gloomy. She made an effort to keep up
conversation with her daughter, but the latter answered so abruptly and indistinctly, and such an eviltempered
look flashed in her eyes, which were directed away from her mother, that Zinaïda Petrovna
thought it wise to relinquish the effort—indeed it was useless to try and unravel the entanglement, and
that it was better not to think of it.
" And here we are at Marlovka, thanks be to Thee, O Lord! " exclaimed the driver, pointing in
front of him with his knout. " You see, there's the cross; that's our church; and that white wall yonder—
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THE GENERAL’S DAUGHTER
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that's the public-house. Isaïka had the walls repainted just before the Feast of the Assumption, because
our church is dedicated to the Feast of the Assumption. I tell you he's a swindler, that Isaïka! A cunning
dog!"
And the driver turned round his sunburnt face with a sly smile on it, with the evident intention
of relating to them some of Isaïka's sharp practices. But the stony expressions written on the faces of
his passengers entirely destroyed his playful disposition. He turned his face to his horse's tail, and
thought: " The Lord only knows what they have on their minds: maybe some grief —or perhaps it's
only pride: who can say?" He hit the horse on the legs with the knout, using all his force; the animal
started forward, galloped a few steps, and then, changing its mind, returned to its former prudent
waddle from leg to leg.
The whole village of Marlovka could now be seen at a glance: uninteresting-looking, grey, with
monotonous black huts; in the place of a river was a half-dried-up bog. There were two wind-mills,
whose dilapidated sails trembled and rattled in the wind.
" This is dreadful! this is dreadful!" muttered Zinaïda Petrovna, almost inaudibly. "This is the
tomb in which we are to be buried alive! Why? My God, why? "
The girl only knitted her brows closer together, and compressed her thin lips.
The sun was descending in the west. An old man and a five-year-old boy, whose sole clothing
consisted of a shirt, were driving the cows belonging to the village home to be milked, and a dense
cloud of dust remained in their wake. Two women on the road examined the newly arrived strangers
with much curiosity; they passed a small but neglected garden on one side of the road; then a well, a
few huts, another well, and reached the church—a low building, whose roof had not been repainted
green for some time, and whose walls had lost much of their original plaster; they nearly ran over a pig,
who disappeared with a wild cry headlong through a hole in a reed fence. As their conveyance passed
each hut dogs ran out and barked furiously at them. At last they arrived at a hut standing apart from the
rest, and distinguishable from the others by having a slate instead of a thatched roof, and devoid of
hedge, shed, or yard; but in front of it was a small broken-down palisade, enclosing a small plot of
ground, with three acacia trees and a few lilac and dahlia bushes.
" Here we are. This is our school!" said the driver, drawing up at this isolated hut.
He jumped down, went up to the window, and knocked against it with his fist.
" Hi, Khivria! Come out! The ladies have arrived. What's the matter with you? are you dead?"
cried he, loudly.
"What ladies are there?" exclaimed a woman's voice from within the hut. " And if I was dead, I
don't believe a single soul would make the sign of the cross for the repose of Khivria's soul. Ah me!
such is life!"
A minute later however, from the hut appeared a certain thin, pale, shrivelled-up individual
named Khivria. Her face was small, and the skin tightly drawn over it, reminding one of the way dough
is drawn out in the process of making pastry. There was nothing to guide one in fixing her age. She
looked at the newcomers in such a way as to make one think she had the right to receive or to refuse to
receive them into the hut.
" The new schoolmistresses, I suppose?" said she, without approaching the conveyance to take
the luggage.
" Of course! take the packages, you idiot!" said the driver, on behalf of his passengers, who
were sitting in the conveyance as though they were chained to it.
" Which one?" continued Khivria, approaching the conveyance.
" Keep your foolish tongue quiet, evil woman!" answered the driver, angrily. " Which one,
which one! Why the young one, of course—is the schoolmistress, and the other one is her mama. Pull
out the bundles, you tailless hag."
"That's what I thought," answered Khivria, with an expression of satisfaction, and approached
the conveyance to take the bundles.
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