The Brigadier Page #7

"The Brigadier" by Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev is a novella that explores themes of honor, duty, and the complexities of human relationships within a military context. Set against the backdrop of 19th-century Russia, the story follows the experiences of a retired brigadier who grapples with memories of his past service and the impact of those experiences on his current life. Turgenev's nuanced characterizations and keen observations provide insight into the struggles of identity and social status, ultimately revealing the deep emotional currents that shape the lives of his characters.

• Novel

								

such disclosures against the dead in bad part; and also, seeing that God
has called her before His judgment seat--and all that I suffered at her
hands is blotted out from my heart--and I, as a Christian, forgave her
long ago, and pray to God to forgive her!

'But, honoured madam, Raïssa Pavlovna! Surely you will not blame me for
that I was a true and loyal friend of your family, and that I loved
Agrippina Ivanovna with a love so great and so insurmountable that I
sacrificed to her my life, my honour, and all my fortune! that I was
utterly in her hands, and hence could not dispose of myself nor of my
property, and she disposed at her will of me and also of my estate! It
is known to you also that, owing to her action with her servant, I
suffer, though innocent, a deadly wrong--this affair I brought after her
death before the senate, before the sixth department--it is still
unsettled now--in consequence of which I was made accomplice with her,
my estate put under guardianship, and I am still lying under a criminal
charge! In my position, at my age, such disgrace is intolerable to me;
and it is only left me to console my heart with the mournful reflection
that thus, even after Agrippina Ivanovna's death, I suffer for her sake,
and so prove my immutable love and loyal gratitude to her!

'In my letters, above mentioned, to you, I gave you an account with
every detail of Agrippina Ivanovna's funeral, and what masses were read
for her--my affection and love for her spared no outlay! For all the
aforesaid, and for the forty days' requiems, and the reading of the
psalter six weeks after for her (in addition to above, fifty roubles
of mine were lost, which were given as security for payment for
the stone, of which I sent you a description)--on all the aforesaid
was spent of my money seven hundred and fifty roubles, in which is
included, by way of donation to the church, a hundred and fifty roubles.

'In the goodness of your heart, hear the cry of a desperate man, crushed
beneath a load of the crudest calamities! Only your commiseration and
humanity can restore the life of a ruined man! Though living--in the
suffering of my heart and soul I am as one dead; dead when I think what
I was, and what I am; I was a soldier, and served my country in all
fidelity and uprightness, as is the bounden duty of a loyal Russian and
faithful subject, and was rewarded with the highest honours, and had a
fortune befitting my birth and station; and now I must cringe and beg
for a morsel of dry bread; dead above all I am when I think what a
friend I have lost ... and what is life to me after that? But there is
no hastening one's end, and the earth will not open, but rather seems
turned to stone! And so I call upon you, in the benevolence of your
heart, hush the talk of the people, do not expose yourself to universal
censure, that for all my unbounded devotion I have not where to lay my
head; confound them by your bounty to me, turn the tongues of the evil
speakers and slanderers to glorifying your good works--and I make bold
in all humility to add, comfort in the grave your most precious aunt,
Agrippina Ivanovna, who can never be forgotten, and who for your speedy
succour, in answer to my sinful prayers, will spread her protecting
wings about your head, and comfort in his declining days a lonely old
man, who had every reason to expect a different fate! ... And, with the
most profound respect, I have the honour to be, dear madam, your most
devoted servant,

VASSILY GUSKOV,

Brigadier and cavalier.'

Several years later I paid another visit to my friend's little place....
Vassily Fomitch had long been dead; he died soon after I made his
acquaintance. Cucumber was still flourishing. He conducted me to the
tomb of Agrafena Ivanovna. An iron railing enclosed a large slab with a
detailed and enthusiastically laudatory epitaph on the deceased woman;
and there, beside it, as it were at her feet, could be seen a little
mound with a slanting cross on it; the servant of God, the brigadier and
cavalier, Vassily Guskov, lay under this mound.... His ashes found rest
at last beside the ashes of the creature he had loved with such
unbounded, almost undying, love.

1867.
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