worthless officer! ill weeds are cleared out of the field!'
Only at the very end of the letter there was a sincere note from
Tyeglev's heart. 'Ah, Your Excellency,' he concluded his epistle, 'I
am an orphan, I had no one to love me as a child--and all held aloof
from me ... and I myself destroyed the only heart that gave itself to
me!'
Semyon found in the pocket of Tyeglev's great-coat a little album from
which his master was never separated. But almost all the pages had
been torn out; only one was left on which there was the following
calculation:
Napoleon was born Ilya Tyeglev was born
on August 15th, 1769. on January 7th, 1811.
1769 1811
15 7
8* 1+
----- -----
Total 1792 Total 1819
* August--the 8th month + January--the 1st month
of the year. of the year.
1 1
7 8
9 1
2 9
--- ---
Total 19! Total 19!
Napoleon died on May Ilya Tyeglev died on
5th, 1825. April 21st, 1834.
1825 1834
5 21
5* 7+
----- -----
Total 1835 Total 1862
* May--the 5th month + July--the 7th month
of the year. of the year.
1 1
8 8
3 6
5 23
-- --
Total 17! Total 17!
Poor fellow! Was not this perhaps why he became an artillery officer?
As a suicide he was buried outside the cemetery--and he was
immediately forgotten.
XVIII
The day after Tyeglev's burial (I was still in the village waiting for
my brother) Semyon came into the hut and announced that Ilya wanted to
see me.
'What Ilya?' I asked.
'Our pedlar.'