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Updated: May 8, 2025
Feeling the necessity of changing the conversation, I turned to Pougatcheff with a smile, and said: "Ah! I forgot to thank you for the horse and touloup. Without your aid I should not have reached the city. I would have died from cold on the journey." My trick succeeded. Pougatcheff regained his good humor. "The beauty of debt is the payment thereof," said he, winking. "Tell me your story.
A youth's touloup given to a vagabond had saved my neck; and this drunkard, capturing fortress, had shaken the very empire. "Will you not deign to eat something?" said Saveliitch, true to his instincts; "there is nothing in the house, it is true, but I will find something and prepare it for you."
"One chintz rug, another of wadded silk, four roubles; one pelisse fox skin lined with red ratteen, forty roubles; and lastly, a small hareskin 'touloup, which was left in the hands of your lordship in the wayside house on the steppe, fifteen roubles." "What's that?" cried Pugatchéf, whose eyes suddenly sparkled. I confess I was in fear for my poor follower.
"Have mercy on me, my father, Petr' Andréjïtch!" exclaimed Savéliitch. "What need has he of your touloup? He will pawn it for drink, the dog, in the first tavern he comes across." "That, my dear old fellow, is no longer your affair," said the vagabond, "whether I drink it or whether I do not. His excellency honours me with a coat off his own back.
I soon forgot the snowstorm, the guide, and my hare-skin touloup, and on arrival at Orenburg hasted to wait on the general, an old comrade-in-arms of my father's. The general received me kindly, examined my commission, told me there was nothing for me to do in Orenburg, and sent me on to Fort Bélogorsk to serve under Commander Mironoff.
I was wrapped up in a short touloup lined with hare-skin, and over that a pelisse lined fox-skin. I took my seat in the kibitka with Saveliitch, and shedding bitter tears, set out for my destination. That night I arrived at Simbirsk, where I was to stay twenty-four hours, in order that Saveliitch might make various purchases entrusted to him.
It is his excellency's will, and it is your duty as a serf not to kick against it, but to obey." "You don't fear heaven, robber that you are," said Savéliitch, angrily. "You see the child is still young and foolish, and you are quite ready to plunder him, thanks to his kind heart. What do you want with a gentleman's touloup? You could not even put it across your cursed broad shoulders."
"Many thanks, your lordship," said he, turning his horse round; "I will pray God for ever for you." With these words, he started off at a gallop, keeping one hand on his pocket, and was soon out of sight. I put on the "touloup" and mounted the horse, taking up Savéliitch behind me.
Do not be angry. The horse has four legs and yet he stumbles. Command that he read to the end." "Well, read," said Pougatcheff. "One Persian blanket, one quilt of wadded silk, four roubles; one pelisse of fox-skin, covered with red ratine, forty roubles; one small touloup of hare-skin left with your grace, on the steppe, fifteen roubles." "What?" cried Pougatcheff, with flashing eyes.
"What, my little father, you have already forgotten the drunkard who did you out of your 'touloup' the day of the snowstorm, a hareskin 'touloup, brand new. And he, the rascal, who split all the seams putting it on." I was dumbfounded. The likeness of Pugatchéf to my guide was indeed striking.
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