“Roslavlev, or Russian in 1812,” Zagoskin’s summary
At the end of May 1812 in St. Petersburg, on Nevsky Boulevard met two friends – Vladimir Roslavlev and Alexander Zaretsky. Roslavlev mope, and cheerful Zaretsky worried about his friend’s condition. Roslavlev is in love with Polina Lidin. But not love is the cause of melancholy: at the request of the future teshi, he resigned, and meanwhile, according to him, “the storm is gathering over our fatherland,” the war with Napoleon is inevitable, and as a Russian patriot, Roslavlev is extremely worried. The slavish devotion of Russian society to all French and, as a consequence, neglect of Russian customs, language, and history, also upsets him. The only thought that warms his soul and makes him happy is an early date with the bride.
Roslavlev goes to the village of Uteshino near Moscow to Lidin. He is full of impatience – after all the wedding day has already been appointed. But the expectation of “heavenly bliss” does not make him deaf to
Approaching the village, Roslavlev meets hunters, among them Polina’s uncle Nikolai Stepanovich Izhorskiy. He reports that the Lidins went to the city on a visit and in an hour and a half should return.
The Lidins’ return was overshadowed by an episode that almost ended tragically: when their crew moved across a small bridge across the river, the landau doors opened, and Olenka, Polina’s younger sister, fell into the water. If it were not for Roslavlev, who rushed straight on the horse into the water after the drowning, Olenka would surely perish.
The accident with her sister and her subsequent illness gave Polina an excuse to ask Roslavlev to postpone the wedding. Vladimir is desperate, but he adores his bride and therefore can not help giving in to her request.
Olenka does not recognize her sister, who “has since become so strange, so bizarre,” and then her decision to postpone the wedding.
In the house of Izhora there is a revival. A lot of guests came to dinner. Among the invited are Lidin and his daughters and Roslavlev. The main theme of the conversation is an early war with Napoleon. Roslavlev is sure that if Napoleon decides to go to Russia, the war will inevitably become a people’s war, and then “every Russian will have to defend his fatherland.”
But the war, it turns out, is already on. About this Roslavlev learns from a letter Zaretsky, who was transferred to him by a police officer who came to Izhora: on June 12, the French troops crossed the Neman, and the hussar captain Zaretsky, whose regiment was not far from Bialystok, was already engaged in a battle with the French. In this battle, Alexander further informed his friend, he managed to capture the French colonel Count Senikura, or more precisely – to save him from death, since, severely wounded, Senikur did not give up, but “fought like a desperate one.” For Roslavlev everything is decided – the other day he goes to the army.
Two months have passed. After another battle, the Russian rear guard was located two versts from Drohobuzh. Among the resting soldiers are Roslavlev and Zaretsky. Recalling the painful impression Zaretsky’s letter made on Polina, Vladimir tells us that on his way to the active army he was met by captured Frenchmen, among whom was Adolf Senicour wounded in the head. The difficult condition of the French colonel allowed Roslavlev to persuade the escort officer to send Senikura to be cured in the village to the Lidins, as it turned out, to a well-known wounded officer, two years ago he met Lidina in Paris and often visited her.
Two days later, in another battle with the French, Roslavl was wounded in the arm. After receiving a vacation for treatment, he goes to Uteshino to visit Pauline. Rana delays Roslavlev on the road, and only two weeks later he was able to leave Serpukhov.
The road to Uteshino was blurred by rain. I had to go to the detour, through the cemetery. A thunderstorm begins. The carriage Roslavlev finally gets stuck in the mud. Singing sounds from the cemetery church, and intrigued Vladimir goes there, counting on someone’s help. Looking in the window, he sees the wedding ceremony and, to his horror, in the bride and groom, recognizes Senikura and Polina. From the greatest shock Roslavl’s wound is opened, and he, pouring blood, right on the threshold of the church, is deprived of feelings.
Roslavlev woke up the next morning in the house of Izhorskiy. His only desire is to move away from these places, to where he can “drown in the blood of French villains.” Learning that the French are not far from Moscow, Vladimir decides to go to Moscow, because “there, on the ruins of her will decide the fate of Russia.”
In Moscow, a servant brings Roslavlev, who was demented, in a fever. The merchant of the Sesems hides him at home, betraying for his son, – from day to day the French will enter Moscow, and then the Russian officer is not well.
In early September, along with the retreating troops, Zaretsky arrives in Moscow. He decides first to visit his friend in the village, and then to catch up with his regiment. But on the way to Uteshino among militiamen Alexander meets Izhorskiy, from whom he learns about the tragic history of the marriage of Polina. And then another servant of Izhorskiy reports that he met Roslavlev’s servant in Moscow – Vladimir Sergeevich in a fever and is in the house of the merchant Sezemov. Zaretsky and Izhorskiy are shocked – the news has just come, set on fire by the inhabitants of Moscow. It was surrendered without a fight, the French in the Kremlin. “Unhappy Moscow!”, “Poor Roslavlev!” they exclaim almost simultaneously.
In search of his regiment Zaretsky gets into the partisan detachment commanded by an artillery officer familiar to him. Until the end of September, he wanders with a flying partisan detachment, participating in raids on French convoys. Moscow is surrounded, there are no food left in the city, and despite all the military precautions of the French, entire parties of foraging are missing. The war with Napoleon takes a nation-wide character.
Zaretsky is troubled by the fate of a friend. Having changed into the uniform of the murdered French officer, he goes to Moscow in search of Roslavlev. A chance meeting with the captain of the gendarmes, Renault, threatens him with exposure: the Frenchman identified the horse and the sword of Zaretsky, who belonged to the sister of Reno. From the imminent arrest Zaretsky rescues Colonel Senikur – returning the debt of honor, he confirms that he is really French captain Danville.
Left alone with the colonel, Alexander reveals to him the reason for his “masquerade”: he came for his friend, who, being wounded, could not leave Moscow when it included French troops. Having learned that this wounded officer Roslavlev, Senikur considers it his duty to help Zaretsky. Recalling the “terrible night” of the wedding, he feels guilty before Roslavlev. “I took more from him than life,” exclaims Senicour. “Go to him, I’m ready for him to do everything – the Frenchman continues – maybe he can not walk. At the outpost, my man with the horse will wait for you, tell him that you are Captain Danville: he will give it to you.. . “
Zaretsky manages to take Roslavlev out of Moscow. Their path lies in their own regiment, and despite all sorts of road adventures – first a meeting with the peasants who mistook them for the French, and then a military skirmish with the French foragers, in which Roslavllev took over the command of the peasant detachment – the friends eventually leave on the bivouac of his regiment.
October 10, the French left Moscow, “having stayed in it for a month and eight days.” Having made several unsuccessful attempts to break through into the richest provinces of Russia, Napoleon was forced to retreat along the same road that he was going to Moscow, leaving behind him thousands of soldiers dying of cold and hunger. On the crossing through Berezina, the body of Ney was destroyed, the last hope of the French army, and after the battle near Borisov, the French retreat turned into a real flight. The friends say goodbye at the border: the general, at which Roslavlev was adjutant, joined his division to the troops besieging Danzig, and Zaretsky’s regiment was still in the vanguard of the army.
The siege of Danzig, where the French garrison is under the command of General Rapp, dragged on. As early as November 1813, there was a famine in the besieged city. The Russian outposts are constantly disturbing the partisan raids of the French garrison. Among them, the “hellish company” of the hussar officer Shambury, who, no matter what night, raids the food in the villages where Russian posts are stationed, is particularly noteworthy. In one of these sorties, Shambyur captured Roslavlev. So he gets to Danzig.
Two weeks pass. Under the pretext of suppressing “unprofitable rumors” about the French army, which allegedly spreads around the city captive officer, Roslavleva is imprisoned. In fact, this is a trick, invented by the chief of staff, General Deric-rum. In the prison there is a Florentine merchant, he is suspected that he is a Russian spy. Roslavlev put together with the merchant, in order to overhear their conversations, because it is so natural to have their desire to speak in their native language.
The merchant really turns out to be a Russian officer. Moreover, they are familiar: shortly before the war Roslavlev became an involuntary witness of a duel between this officer and the Frenchman, who allowed himself extremely insulting remarks about Russia and the Russian people.
Suspecting that they are being eavesdropped, the “merchant” warns Roslavlev with a note about this and in her asks Vladimir, as soon as he is released from prison, to find a woman who lives on Theater Square on the fifth floor of a red house in the sixth room. She is desperately ill, and if Roslavllev finds her alive, she must be told that she burns the papers that Dolcini’s merchant handed to her for preservation.
Roslavlev really released soon, and the next day he goes to the Theater Square. The fifth floor of the red house was a poor attic, the room amazes with its poverty. In a dying woman Roslavlev with horror recognizes Polina. He has long forgiven her. Moreover, having learned that she, having sacrificed everything, went after her husband to share all his miseries and sufferings, he began to feel the greatest respect for her.
Dying Polina tells Vladimir the tragic story of his wanderings. On the baggage train, in which Pauline left Moscow together with the retreating French, Cossacks attacked. She was saved by a friend of Adolf, who took care of her further care. She did not see her husband after this clash, and only later learned that Adolf was no longer alive. Then she gave birth to a son. Her only patron, taking care of her and her child, unable to withstand the adversity of retreat, fell ill with fever and died. While there was money, Polina lived alone, did not communicate with anyone. Then the Russians besieged Danzig, the money ran out, and she turned to the French general for help. And then Polina made a terrible discovery: she left her family, fatherland, sacrificed everything to become the wife of Senikura, and everyone around her is considered his mistress. Then, to feed his son, she begged alms, but her child died of hunger. She was rescued from starvation by Dolcini, who, learning that she was Russian, took part in her fate.
Polina begins delirium. Vladimir leaves her to visit again in a few hours. At this time, the Russian troops begin shelling the city. Roslavl was wounded in the head.
More than two weeks the Russian officer is on the edge of the grave. When he wakes up, he discovers that he is in his bed of Schumbour. Hussar hurries to tell his fellow prisoner the latest news: the first – Rapp is going to sign the surrender, the second – Dolcini was not a merchant, but a Russian partisan. He soon managed to get out of prison, after which Dolcini so got along with General Derykur that he instructed the “merchant” to deliver Napoleon important dispatches. When the “merchant” was taken out for the French outposts, he appeared in his mind in the Cossacks’ real name and politely said goodbye to the gendarme officer.
Chambure, it turns out, knew Dolcini well, and therefore it was through him that the “merchant” handed the letter to Roslavlev. It was a letter from the dying Polina. In it, she, saying goodbye, expressed her last wish: she asked Roslavlev to marry Olenka, who always loved him passionately.
Several years have passed. Roslavlev long retired and lives with his wife Olenka and two children in Uteshino, where after six years of separation Zaretsky comes. They have something to talk about. Recalling the events of the war, Zaretsky asked Polina’s fate: “What has become of this unhappy woman, where is she now?” In response to the question, Roslavlev sadly looked at the white marble monument under the bird cherry: beneath it was buried Polina’s curl, which she handed Roslavlev in a farewell letter…
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