The posting-station was full of people when Kozeltzoff drove up to it.
The first person whom he encountered, on the porch itself, was a thin
and very young man, the superintendent, who continued his altercation
with two officers, who had followed him out.
“It's not three days only, but ten that you will have to wait. Even
generals wait, my good sirs!” said the superintendent, with a desire to
administer a prick to the travellers; “and I am not going to harness up
for you.”
“Then don't give anybody horses, if there are none! But why furnish
them to some lackey or other with baggage?” shouted the elder of the
two officers, with a glass of tea in his hand, and plainly avoiding the
use of pronouns,[J] but giving it to be understood that he might very
easily address the superintendent as “_thou_.”
[J] This effect cannot be reproduced in English.
“Judge for yourself, now, Mr. Superintendent,” said the younger
officer, with some hesitation. “We don't want to go for our own
pleasure. We must certainly be needed, since we have been called for.
And I certainly shall report to the general. But this, of course,—you
know that you are not paying proper respect to the military profession.”
“You are always spoiling things,” the elder man interrupted, with
vexation. “You only hinder me; you must know how to talk to them. Here,
now, he has lost his respect. Horses this very instant, I say!”
“I should be glad to give them to you, _bátiushka_,[K] but where am I
to get them?”
[K] “My good sir,” a familiarly respectful mode of address.
After a brief silence, the superintendent began to grow irritated, and
to talk, flourishing his hands the while.
“I understand, _bátiushka_. And I know all about it myself. But what
are you going to do? Only give me”—here a ray of hope gleamed across
the faces of the officers—“only give me a chance to live until the end
of the month, and you won't see me here any longer. I'd rather go on
the Malakhoff tower, by Heavens! than stay here. Let them do what they
please about it! There's not a single sound team in the station this
day, and the horses haven't seen a wisp of hay these three days.” And
the superintendent disappeared behind the gate.
Kozeltzoff entered the room in company with the officers.
“Well,” said the elder officer, quite calmly, to the younger one,
although but a second before he had appeared to be greatly irritated,
“we have been travelling these three weeks, and we will wait a little
longer. There's no harm done. We shall get there at last.”
The dirty, smoky apartment was so filled with officers and trunks that
it was with difficulty that Kozeltzoff found a place near the window,
where he seated himself; he began to roll himself a cigarette, as he
glanced at the faces and lent an ear to the conversations.
To the right of the door, near a crippled and greasy table, upon which
stood two samovárs, whose copper had turned green in spots, here and
there, and where sugar was portioned out in various papers, sat the
principal group. A young officer, without moustache, in a new, short,
wadded summer coat, was pouring water into the teapot.
Four such young officers were there, in different corners of the room.
One of them had placed a cloak under his head, and was fast asleep on
the sofa. Another, standing by the table, was cutting up some roast
mutton for an officer without an arm, who was seated at the table.
Two officers, one in an adjutant's cloak, the other in an infantry
cloak, a thin one however, and with a satchel strapped over his
shoulder, were sitting near the oven bench, and it was evident, from
the very way in which they stared at the rest, and from the manner in
which the one with the satchel smoked his cigar, that they were not
line officers on duty at the front, and that they were delighted at it.
Not that there was any scorn apparent in their manner, but there was a
certain self-satisfied tranquillity, founded partly on money and partly
on their close intimacy with generals, a certain consciousness of
superiority which even extended to a desire to hide it.
A thick-lipped young doctor and an officer of artillery, with a German
cast of countenance, were seated almost on the feet of the young
officer who was sleeping on the sofa, and counting over their money.
There were four officers' servants, some dozing and others busy with
the trunks and packages near the door.
Among all these faces, Kozeltzoff did not find a single familiar
one; but he began to listen with curiosity to the conversation. The
young officers, who, as he decided from their looks alone, had but
just come out of the military academy, pleased him, and, what was the
principal point, they reminded him that his brother had also come from
the academy, and should have joined recently one of the batteries of
Sevastopol.
But the officer with the satchel, whose face he had seen before
somewhere, seemed bold and repulsive to him. He even left the window,
and, going to the stove-bench, seated himself on it, with the thought
that he would put the fellow down if he took it into his head to say
anything. In general, purely as a brave “line” officer, he did not like
“the staff,” such as he had recognized these two officers to be at the
first glance.