The harsh expressions which my father had not spared, wounded me sorely; the contempt with which he treated Marie seemed to me as unjust as it was undignified. Then the mere idea of being sent from this fortress alarmed me; but above all, I grieved for my mother's illness. Saveliitch came in for a share of my indignation, not doubting but that he informed my parents of the duel. After having paced up and down my little chamber, I stopped suddenly before the old man and said: "It seems that it is not enough that you caused my wound, and brought me almost to the brink of the grave, but that you want to kill my mother too!"
Saveliitch was as motionless as if lightning had struck him. "Have mercy on me! my lord," said he, "what do you deign to tell me? I caused your wound? God sees that I was running to put my breast before you, to receive the sword of Alexis. This cursed age of mine hindered me. But what have I done to your mother?"
"What have you done? Who charged you to write an accusation against me? Were you taken into my service to play the spy on me?"
"I write an accusation?" replied the old man, quite broken down, "O God! King of heaven! Here, read what the master writes me, and you shall see if I denounced thee." At the same time he drew from his pocket a letter which he gave me, and I read what follows: "Shame upon you, you old dog, that notwithstanding my strict orders you wrote me nothing regarding my son, leaving to strangers the duty of telling me of his follies. Is it thus you do your duty and fulfill your master's will? I shall send you to keep the pigs, for having concealed the truth, and for your condescension to the young man. Upon receipt of this letter inform me immediately of the state of his health, which is, I hear, improving, and tell me precisely the place of his wound, and whether he has well attended."
Evidently Saveliitch was not in the wrong, and I had offended him by my suspicions and reproaches. I asked him to forgive me, but the old man was inconsolable. "See to what I have lived!" he repeated; "see what thanks I have merited from my masters for all my long services! I am an old dog! I am a swine-herd, and more than all that, I caused your wound. No, no, Peter, I am not in fault, it is the cursed Frenchman who taught thee to play with these steel blades, and to stamp and dance, as if by thrusting and dancing you could defend yourself from a bad man."