CHAPTER I.

Sergeant of the guards.

My father, Andrej Petrovitch Grineff, after serving in his youth under Count Muenich,[1] had retired in 17—­with the rank of senior major.  Since that time he had always lived on his estate in the district of Simbirsk, where he married Avdotia, the eldest daughter of a poor gentleman in the neighbourhood.  Of the nine children born of this union I alone survived; all my brothers and sisters died young.  I had been enrolled as sergeant in the Semenofsky regiment by favour of the major of the Guard, Prince Banojik, our near relation.  I was supposed to be away on leave till my education was finished.  At that time we were brought up in another manner than is usual now.

From five years old I was given over to the care of the huntsman, Saveliitch,[2] who from his steadiness and sobriety was considered worthy of becoming my attendant.  Thanks to his care, at twelve years old I could read and write, and was considered a good judge of the points of a greyhound.  At this time, to complete my education, my father hired a Frenchman, M. Beaupre, who was imported from Moscow at the same time as the annual provision of wine and Provence oil.  His arrival displeased Saveliitch very much.

“It seems to me, thank heaven,” murmured he, “the child was washed, combed, and fed.  What was the good of spending money and hiring a ‘moussie,’ as if there were not enough servants in the house?”

Beaupre, in his native country, had been a hairdresser, then a soldier in Prussia, and then had come to Russia to be “outchitel,” without very well knowing the meaning of this word.[3] He was a good creature, but wonderfully absent and hare-brained.  His greatest weakness was a love of the fair sex.  Neither, as he said himself, was he averse to the bottle, that is, as we say in Russia, that his passion was drink.  But, as in our house the wine only appeared at table, and then only in liqueur glasses, and as on these occasions it somehow never came to the turn of the “outchitel” to be served at all, my Beaupre soon accustomed himself to the Russian brandy, and ended by even preferring it to all the wines of his native country as much better for the stomach.  We became great friends, and though, according to the contract, he had engaged himself to teach me French, German, and all the sciences, he liked better learning of me to chatter Russian indifferently.  Each of us busied himself with our own affairs; our friendship was firm, and I did not wish for a better mentor.  But Fate soon parted us, and it was through an event which I am going to relate.