I interceded for Shvabrin, and the kind Commandant, with his wife’s consent, decided to release him. Shvabrin called on me; he expressed a profound regret for what had passed between us; he admitted that he had been entirely to blame and asked me to forget the past. It was not in my nature to harbor malice and I sincerely forgave him both our quarrel and the wound he had inflicted on me. I ascribed his slander to the vexation of wounded vanity and rejected love, and generously excused my unhappy rival.

I was soon quite well again and able to move into my lodgings. I awaited with impatience the answer to my last letter, not daring to hope, and trying to stifle melancholy forebodings. I had not yet declared my intentions to Vasilisa Yegorovna and her husband; but my offer was not likely to surprise them. Neither Marya Ivanovna nor I attempted to conceal our feelings from them, and we were certain of their consent beforehand.

At last, one morning Savelyich came in to me holding a letter. I seized it with a tremor. The address was written in my father’s hand. This prepared me for something important, for as a rule it was my mother who wrote to me and my father only added a few lines at the end of the letter. Several minutes passed before I unsealed the envelope, reading over again and again the solemnly worded address: “To my son Pyotr Andreyich Grinyov, at the Belogorsky fortress in the Province of Orenburg.” I tried to guess from the handwriting in what mood my father wrote the letter; at last I brought myself to open it and saw from the very first lines that all was lost. The letter was as follows:

My Son Pyotr!

On the 15th of this month we received the letter in which you ask for our parental blessing and consent to your marriage with Marya Ivanovna, Mironov’s daughter; I do not intend to give you either my blessing or my consent, and, indeed, I mean to get at you and give you a thorough lesson as to a naughty boy for your pranks, not regarding your officer’s rank, for you have proved that you are not yet worthy to wear the sword which has been given to you to defend your fatherland, and not to fight duels with scapegraces like yourself. I will write at once to Andrey Karlovich asking him to transfer you from the Belogorsky fortress to some remote place where you can get over your foolishness. When your mother heard of your duel and of your being wounded, she was taken ill with grief and is now in bed. What will become of you? I pray to God that you may be reformed although I dare not hope for this great mercy.

Your father,
A. G.

The perusal of this letter stirred various feelings in me. The cruel expressions, which my father did not stint, wounded me deeply. The contemptuous way in which he referred to Marya Ivanovna appeared to me as unseemly as it was unjust. The thought of my being transferred from the Belogorsky fortress terrified me; but most of all I was grieved by the news of my mother’s illness. I felt indignant with Savelyich, never doubting it was he who had informed my parents of the duel. As I paced up and down in my tiny room I stopped before him and said, looking at him angrily: “So it’s not enough for you that I have been wounded because of you, and lain for a whole month at death’s door—you want to kill my mother as well.”

Savelyich was thunderstruck.

“Good heavens, sir, what are you saying?” he said, almost sobbing. “You have been wounded because of me! God knows I was running to shield you with my own breast from Alexey Ivanych’s sword! It was old age, curse it, that hindered me. But what have I done to your mother?”

“What have you done?” I repeated. “Who asked you to inform against me? Are you here to spy on me?”

“I informed against you?” Savelyich answered with tears. “O Lord, King of Heaven! Very well, read then what Master writes to me: you will see how I informed against you.”

He pulled a letter out of his pocket and I read the following:

You should be ashamed, you old dog, not to have written to me about my son, Pyotr Andreyich, in spite of my strict orders; strangers have to inform me of his misdoings. So this is how you carry out your duties and your master’s will? I will send you to look after pigs, you old dog, for concealing the truth, and conniving with the young man. As soon as you receive this I command you to write to me at once about his health, which, I am told, is better, in what place exactly he was wounded, and whether his wound has healed properly.

It was obvious that Savelyich was innocent and I had insulted him for nothing by my reproaches and suspicion. I begged his pardon; but the old man was inconsolable.

“This is what I have come to,” he kept repeating; “this is the favor my masters show me for my services! I am an old dog and a swineherd, and I am the cause of your wound!… No, my dear Pyotr Andreyich, not I, but the damned Frenchman is at the bottom of it: he taught you to prod people with iron spits, and to stamp with your feet, as though prodding and stamping could save one from an evil man! Much need there was to hire the Frenchman and spend money for nothing!”

But who, then, had taken the trouble to inform my father of my conduct? The General? But he did not seem to show much interest in me, and Ivan Kuzmich did not think it necessary to report my duel to him. I was lost in conjectures. My suspicions fixed upon Shvabrin.