One hot summer day I was coming home from hunting in a light cart;
Yermolaï sat beside me dozing and scratching his nose. The sleeping dogs
were jolted up and down like lifeless bodies under our feet. The
coachman kept flicking gadflies off the horses with his whip. The white
dust rose in a light cloud behind the cart. We drove in between bushes.
The road here was full of ruts, and the wheels began catching in the
twigs. Yermolaï started up and looked round.... 'Hullo!' he said; 'there
ought to be grouse here. Let's get out.' We stopped and went into the
thicket. My dog hit upon a covey. I took a shot and was beginning to
reload, when suddenly there was a loud crackling behind me, and a man on
horseback came towards me, pushing the bushes apart with his hands.
'Sir... pe-ermit me to ask,' he began in a haughty voice, 'by what right
you are--er--shooting here, sir?' The stranger spoke extraordinarily
quickly, jerkily and condescendingly. I looked at his face; never in my
life have I seen anything like it. Picture to yourselves, gentle
readers, a little flaxen-haired man, with a little turn-up red nose and
long red moustaches. A pointed Persian cap with a crimson cloth crown
covered his forehead right down to his eyebrows. He was dressed in a
shabby yellow Caucasian overcoat, with black velveteen cartridge pockets
on the breast, and tarnish silver braid on all the seams; over his
shoulder was slung a horn; in his sash was sticking a dagger. A
raw-boned, hook-nosed chestnut horse shambled unsteadily under his
weight; two lean, crook-pawed greyhounds kept turning round just under
the horse's legs. The face, the glance, the voice, every action, the
whole being of the stranger, was expressive of a wild daring and an
unbounded, incredible pride; his pale-blue glassy eyes strayed about
with a sideway squint like a drunkard's; he flung back his head, puffed
out his cheeks, snorted and quivered all over, as though bursting with
dignity--for all the world like a turkey-cock. He repeated his question.
'I didn't know it was forbidden to shoot here,' I replied.
'You are here, sir,' he continued, 'on my land.'
'With your permission, I will go off it.'
'But pe-ermit me to ask,' he rejoined, 'is it a nobleman I have the
honour of addressing?'