The Prose Tales of Alexander Pushkin

THE SERGEANT OF THE GUARDS.

My father, Andrei Petrovitch Grineff, after having served in his youth under Count Münich, quitted the service, in the year 17—, with the rank of senior major. He settled down upon his estate in the district of Simbirsk, where he married Avdotia Vassilevna U——, the daughter of a poor nobleman of the neighbourhood. Nine children were the result of this marriage. All my brothers and sisters died in their infancy. I was enrolled as a sergeant in the Semenovsky Regiment, through the influence of Prince B——, a major in the Guards, and a near relation of our family. I was considered as being on leave of absence until the completion of my course of studies. In those days our system of education was very different from that in vogue at the present time. At five years of age I was given into the hands of our gamekeeper, Savelitch, whose sober conduct had rendered him worthy of being selected to take charge of me. Under his instruction, at the age of twelve I could read and write Russian, and I was by no means a bad judge of the qualities of a greyhound. About that time my father engaged a Frenchman, a Monsieur Beaupré, who had been imported from Moscow, together with the yearly stock of wine and Provence oil. Savelitch was not by any means pleased at his arrival.