It was still rather warm, though the sun was already set, when the
battalion arrived at Morozovka. In front of them, along the dusty village
street, trotted a brindled cow, separated from the herd, bellowing, and
occasionally stopping to look round, and never once perceiving that all she
had to do was to turn out and let the battalion pass.
Peasants, old men, women, children, and domestic serfs, crowding both sides
of the road, gazed curiously at the hussars.
Through a thick cloud of dust the hussars rode along on raven-black horses,
curvetting and occasionally snorting.
At the right of the battalion, gracefully mounted on beautiful black
steeds, rode two officers. One was the commander, Count Turbin; the other a
very young man, who had recently been promoted from the yunkers; his name
was Polózof.
A hussar, in a white kittel, came from the best of the cottages, and,
taking off his cap, approached the officers.
"What quarters have been assigned to us?" asked the count.
"For your excellency?" replied the quartermaster, his whole body
shuddering. "Here at the _stárosta's_; he has put his cottage in order. I
tried to get a room at the mansion,[79] but they said no; the proprietress
is so ill-tempered."
[Footnote 79: _barsky dvor._]
"Well, all right," said the count, dismounting and stretching his legs as
he reached the _stárosta's_ cottage. "Tell me, has my carriage come?"
"It has deigned to arrive, your excellency," replied the quartermaster,
indicating with his cap the leathern carriage-top which was to be seen
inside the gate, and then hastening ahead into the entry of the cottage,
which was crowded with the family of serfs, gathered to have a look at the
officer.
He even tripped over an old woman, as he hastily opened the door of the
neatly cleaned cottage, and stood aside to let the count pass.
The cottage was large and commodious, but not perfectly clean. The German
body-servant,[80] dressed like a bárin, was standing in the cottage, and,
having just finished setting up the iron bed, was taking out clean linen
from a trunk.
[Footnote 80: _kammerdiener._]
"_Phu!_ what a nasty lodging!" exclaimed the count in vexation. "Diádenko!
Is it impossible to find me better quarters at the proprietor's or
somewhere?"
"If your excellency command, I will go up to the mansion," replied
Diádenko; "but the house is small and wretched, and seems not much better
than the cottage."
"Well, that's all now. You can go."
And the count threw himself down on the bed, supporting his head with his
hands.
"Johann!" he cried to his body-servant; "again you have made a hump in the
middle. Why can't you learn to make a bed decently?"
Johann was anxious to make it over again.
"No, you need not trouble about it now!... Where's my dressing-gown?" he
proceeded to ask in a petulant voice. The servant gave him the
dressing-gown.
The count, before he put it on, examined the skirt. "There it is! You have
not taken that spot out! Could it be possible for any one to be a worse
servant than you are?" he added, snatching the garment from the servant's
hands, and putting it on. "Now tell me, do you do this way on purpose? Is
tea ready?"
"I haven't had time to make it," replied Johann.
"Fool!"
After this, the count took a French novel which was at hand, and read for
some time without speaking; but Johann went out into the entry to blow up
the coals in the samovár.
It was plain to see that the count was in a bad humor; it must have been
owing to weariness, to the dust on his face, to his tightly-fitting
clothes, and to his empty stomach. "Johann!" he cried again, "give me an
account of those ten rubles. What did you get in town?"
The count looked over the account which the servant handed him, and made
some dissatisfied remarks about the high prices paid.
"Give me the rum for the tea."
"I did not get any rum," said Johann.
"Delightful! How many times have I told you always to have rum?"
"I didn't have money enough."
"Why didn't Polózof buy it? You might have got some from his man."
"The cornet Polózof? I do not know. He bought tea and sugar."
"Beast! Get you gone. You are the only man who has the power to exhaust my
patience! You know that I always take rum in my tea when I am on the
march."
"Here are two letters one of the staff brought for you," said the
body-servant.
The count, as he lay on the bed, tore open the letters, and began to read
them. At this moment the cornet came in with gay countenance, having
quartered the battalion.
"Well, how is it, Turbin? It's first-rate here, seems to me. I am tired
out, I confess it. It has been a warm day."
"First-rate! I should think so! A dirty, stinking hut! and no rum, thanks
to you. Your stupid did not buy any, nor this one either. You might have
said something anyway!"
And he went on with his reading. After he had read the letter through, he
crumpled it up, and threw it on the floor.
"_Why_ didn't you buy some rum?" the cornet in a whisper demanded of his
servant in the entry. "Didn't you have any money?"
"Well, why should we be always the ones to spend the money? I have enough
to spend for without that, and _his_ German does nothing but smoke his
pipe,--that's all."
The second letter was evidently not disagreeable, because the count smiled
as he read it.
"Who's that from?" asked Polózof, returning to the room, and trying to
arrange for himself a couch on the floor, near the oven.
"From Mina," replied the count gayly, handing him the letter. "Would you
like to read it? What a lovely woman she is! Now, she's better than our
young ladies, that's a fact. Just see what feeling and what wit in that
letter! There's only one thing that I don't like,--she asks me for money!"
"No, that's not pleasant," replied the cornet.
"Well it's true I promised to give her some; but this expedition--And
besides, if I am commander of the battalion, at the end of three months I
will send some to her. I should not regret it; she's really a lovely woman.
Isn't she?" he asked with a smile, following with his eyes Polózof's
expression as he read the letter.
"Horribly misspelled, but sweet; it seems to me she really loves you,"
replied the cornet.
"Hm! I should think so! Only these women truly love when they do love."
"But who was that other letter from?" asked the cornet, pointing to the one
which he had read.
"That? Oh, that's from a certain man, very ugly, to whom I owe a gambling
debt, and this is the third time that he has reminded me of it. I can't pay
it to him now. It's a stupid letter," replied the count, evidently nettled
by the recollection of it.
The two officers remained silent for some little time. The cornet, who, it
seemed, had come under Turbin's influence, drank his tea without speaking,
though he occasionally cast a glance at the clouded face of the handsome
count, who gazed steadily out of the window. He did not venture to renew
the conversation.
"Well, then, I think it can be accomplished without difficulty," suddenly
exclaimed the count, turning to Polózof, and gayly nodding his head. "If we
who are in the line get promoted this year, yes, and if we take part in
some engagement, then I can overtake my former captains of the guard."
They were drinking their second cup of tea, and the conversation was still
dwelling on this theme, when the old Danílo came with the message from Anna
Fedorovna.
"And she would also like to know whether you are not pleased to be the son
of Feódor Ivánovitch Turbin," he added, on his own responsibility, as he
had found out the officer's name, and still remembered the late count's
visit to the city of K. "Our mistress,[81] Anna Fedorovna, used to be very
well acquainted with him."
[Footnote 81: _báruinya._]
"He was my father. Now tell the lady that I am very much obliged, but that
I need nothing; only, if it would not be possible to give me a cleaner room
in the mansion, say, or somewhere."
"Now, why did you do that?" asked Polózof after Danílo had gone. "Isn't it
just the same thing? For one night isn't it just as well here? And it will
put them to inconvenience."
"There it is again! It seems to me we have had enough of being sent round
among these smoky hovels.[82] It's easy enough to see that you are not a
practical man. Why shouldn't we seize the opportunity, when we can, of
sleeping, even if it's for only one night, like decent men? And they,
contrary to what you think, will be mighty glad. There's only one thing
objectionable. If this lady used to know my father," continued the count,
with a smile that discovered his white gleaming teeth,--"somehow I always
feel a little ashamed of my late papasha; there's always some scandalous
story, or some debt or other. And so I can't endure to meet any of my
father's acquaintances. However, that was an entirely different age," he
added seriously.
[Footnote 82: _kúrnaya izbá_, a peasant's hut without chimney.]
"Oh! I did not tell you," rejoined Polózof. "I recently met Ilyin, the
brigade commander of uhlans. He is very anxious to see you; he is
passionately fond of your father."
"I think that he is terrible trash, that Ilyin. But the worst is that all
these gentlemen who imagine that they knew my father in order to make
friends with me, insist upon telling me, as though it were very pleasant
for me to hear, about escapades of his that make me blush. It is true I am
not impulsive, and I look upon things dispassionately; while he was too
hot-spirited a man, and sometimes he played exceedingly reprehensible
tricks. However, that was all due to his time. In our day and generation,
maybe, he would have been a very sensible man, for he had tremendous
abilities; one must give him credit for that."
In a quarter of an hour the servant returned, and brought an invitation for
them to come and spend the night at the mansion.