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Updated: May 18, 2025
He was about to embark on new explanations when Pugatchéf interrupted him. "How dare you bother me with such nonsense?" cried he, snatching the paper out of the hands of the Secretary and throwing it in Savéliitch's face. "Foolish old man, you have been despoiled; well, what does it signify.
But on our arrival Chvabrine mentioned that Marya was the daughter of Mironoff, and immediately the countenance of the robber chief clouded over. "Listen," I said, knowing Pugatchéf was well disposed towards me. "Do not ask of me anything against my honour or my conscience.
Many of the Poles who had been banished from their country also sought his ranks, and the people of Moscow and its vicinity, who had from the first been opposed to Catharine's reign, waited his approach that they might break out in open rebellion. The outbreak had thus become serious, and had Pugatchef been skilled as a leader he might have won the throne.
Pugatchef continued to fight till his army was destroyed, then made his escape, as so often before, swimming the Volga and vanishing in the desert. Only about sixty of his most faithful partisans accompanied him in his flight. Michelson, failing to reach him in his retreat, took care that he should not emerge into the cultivated districts.
Marya told me all that had befallen her since the taking of the fort; painted me the horrors of her position, all the torment the infamous Chvabrine had made her suffer. We recalled to each other the happy past, both of us shedding tears the while. At last I could tell her my plans. It was impossible for her to stay in a fort which had submitted to Pugatchéf, and where Chvabrine was in command.
In such a difficult position she could not venture to apply her humane principles to the question of serfage. Even during the first years of her reign, when she had no reason to fear agrarian disturbances, she increased rather than diminished the power of the proprietors over their serfs, and the Pugatchef affair confirmed her in this line of policy.
He lay down in the dark, and for a long while I heard him moan and lament. At last, however, he began to snore, and as for me, I gave myself up to thoughts which did not allow me to close my eyes for a moment all night. On the morrow morning Pugatchéf sent someone to call me. I went to his house. Before his door stood a "kibitka" with three Tartar horses. The crowd filled the street.
Then, to my inexpressible surprise, I saw among the rebels Chvabrine, who had found time to cut his hair short and to put on a Cossack caftan. He approached Pugatchéf, and whispered a few words in his ear. "Hang him!" said Pugatchéf, without deigning to throw me a look. The rope was passed about my neck.
And his lordship assures us there is abundance of all. If you wish to hang Chvabrine, hang on the same gallows this lad, so that they need have naught wherewith to reproach each other." The words of the confounded old man seemed to have shaken Pugatchéf. Happily, Khlopúsha began to contradict his companion. "Hold your tongue, Naúmitch," said he; "you only think of hanging and strangling.
The news spread quickly, and then came a disquieting report that a neighbouring fort some sixteen miles away had been taken by Pugatchéf, and its officers hanged. Neither Mironoff nor Vassilissa showed any fear, and the latter declined to leave Bélogorsk, though willing that Marya should be sent to Orenburg for safety.
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