It was a warm, greyish morning. Several times already there had been
brief showers of heavy fruitful rain, which makes the young grass
grow before your eyes and the new shoots stretch out. After the rain
the sun peeped out for a moment, pouring its joyous glitter over the
tender green of the lilac bushes, sodden with the rain, which made all
my hedge. The sparrows’ impetuous chirrup grew louder among the lush
gardenbeds, and the scent of the sticky brown poplar buds came sweeter.
I was sitting at the table, drawing a plan of timber to be felled, when
Yarmola entered the room.
‘The sergeant’s here,’ he said gloomily.
At the moment I had completely forgotten that I had ordered him a
couple of days ago to let me know in case the sergeant were to pass. It
was impossible for me to understand immediately what was the connection
between me and the delegate of authority.
‘What?’ I said in confusion.
‘I say the sergeant’s here,’ Yarmola repeated in the same hostile tone
that he normally assumed towards me during the last days. ‘I saw him on
the dam just now. He’s coming here.’
There was a rumble of wheels on the road outside. A long thin
chocolate-coloured gelding with a hanging under lip, and an insulted
look on its face, gravely trotted up with a tall, jolting, basket gig.
There was only a single trace. The place of the other was supplied by
a piece of stout rope. (Malicious tongues asserted that the sergeant
had put this miserable contraption together on purpose to avoid any
undesirable comments.) The sergeant himself held the reins, filling
both seats with his enormous body, which was wrapped in a grey uniform
made of smart military cloth.
‘Good-day to you, Evpsychyi Afrikanovich!’ I called, leaning out of the
window.
‘Ah, good-day! How do you do?’ he answered in a loud, courteous,
official baritone.
He drew up his horse, saluted with straightened palm, and bent his body
forward with elephantine grace.
‘Come in for a moment. I’ve got a little business with you.’
The sergeant spread his hands wide and shook his head.
‘Can’t possibly. I’m on duty. I’ve got to go to Volocha for an
inquest--man drowned.’
But I knew Evpsychyi’s weak points; so I said with assumed indifference:
‘It’s a pity ... a great pity ... and I’ve got a couple of bottles of
the best from Count Vortzel’s cellar....’
‘Can’t manage it.... Duty.’
‘The butler sold them to me, because he’s an acquaintance of mine. He’d
brought them up in the cellar, like his own children.... You ought to
come in.... I’ll tell them to give the horse a feed.’
‘You’re a nice one, you are,’ the sergeant said in reproof. ‘Don’t you
know that duty comes first of all?... What’s in the bottles, though?
Plum wine?’
‘Plum wine!’ I waved my hand. ‘It’s the real old stuff, that’s what it
is, my dear sir!’
‘I must confess I’ve just had a bite and a drop.’ The sergeant
scratched his cheek regretfully, wrinkling his face incredibly.