The town of B
had become very lively since a cavalry regiment had
taken up its quarters in it. Up to that date it
had been mortally wearisome there. When you happened
to pass through the town and glanced at its little
mud houses with their incredibly gloomy aspect, the
pen refuses to express what you felt. You suffered
a terrible uneasiness as if you had just lost all
your money at play, or had committed some terrible
blunder in company. The plaster covering the houses,
soaked by the rain, had fallen away in many places
from their walls, which from white had become streaked
and spotted, whilst old reeds served to thatch them.
Following a custom very common in
the towns of South Russia, the chief of police has
long since had all the trees in the gardens cut down
to improve the view. One never meets anything
in the town, unless it is a cock crossing the road,
full of dust and soft as a pillow. At the slightest
rain this dust is turned into mud, and then all the
streets are filled with pigs. Displaying to all
their grave faces, they utter such grunts that travellers
only think of pressing their horses to get away from
them as soon as possible. Sometimes some country
gentleman of the neighbourhood, the owner of a dozen
serfs, passes in a vehicle which is a kind of compromise
between a carriage and a cart, surrounded by sacks
of flour, and whipping up his bay mare with her colt
trotting by her side. The aspect of the marketplace
is mournful enough. The tailor’s house
sticks out very stupidly, not squarely to the front
but sideways. Facing it is a brick house with
two windows, unfinished for fifteen years past, and
further on a large wooden market-stall standing by
itself and painted mud-colour. This stall, which
was to serve as a model, was built by the chief of
police in the time of his youth, before he got into
the habit of falling asleep directly after dinner,
and of drinking a kind of decoction of dried goose-berries
every evening. All around the rest of the market-place
are nothing but palings. But in the centre are
some little sheds where a packet of round cakes, a
stout woman in a red dress, a bar of soap, some pounds
of bitter almonds, some lead, some cotton, and two
shopmen playing at “svaika,” a game resembling
quoits, are always to be seen.
But on the arrival of the cavalry
regiment everything changed. The streets became
more lively and wore quite another aspect. Often
from their little houses the inhabitants would see
a tall and well-made officer with a plumed hat pass
by, on his way to the quarters of one of his comrades
to discuss the chances of promotion or the qualities
of a new tobacco, or perhaps to risk at play his carriage,
which might indeed be called the carriage of all the
regiment, since it belonged in turn to every one of
them. To-day it was the major who drove out in
it, to-morrow it was seen in the lieutenant’s
coach-house, and a week later the major’s servant
was again greasing its wheels. The long hedges
separating the houses were suddenly covered with soldiers’
caps exposed to the sun, grey frieze cloaks hung in
the doorways, and moustaches harsh and bristling as
clothes brushes were to be met with in all the streets.
These moustaches showed themselves everywhere, but
above all at the market, over the shoulders of the
women of the place who flocked there from all sides
to make their purchases. The officers lent great
animation to society at B .
Society consisted up till then of
the judge who was living with a deacon’s wife,
and of the chief of police, a very sensible man, but
one who slept all day long from dinner till evening,
and from evening till dinner-time.
This general liveliness was still
further increased when the town of B
became the residence of the general commanding the
brigade to which the regiment belonged. Many
gentlemen of the neighbourhood, whose very existence
no one had even suspected, began to come into the town
with the intention of calling on the officers, or,
perhaps, of playing bank, a game concerning which
they had up till then only a very confused notion,
occupied as they were with their crops and the commissions
of their wives and their hare-hunting. I am very
sorry that I cannot recollect for what reason the
general made up his mind one fine day to give a grand
dinner. The preparations were overwhelming.
The clatter of knives in the kitchen was heard as
far as the town gates. The whole of the market
was laid under contributions, so much so that the judge
and the deacon’s wife found themselves obliged
that day to be satisfied with hasty puddings and cakes
of flour. The little courtyard of the house occupied
by the general was crowded with vehicles. The
company only consisted of men, officers and gentlemen
of the neighbourhood.
Amongst these latter was above all
conspicuous Pythagoras Pythagoravitch Tchertokoutski,
one of the leading aristocrats of the district of B ,
the most fiery orator at the nobiliary elections and
the owner of a very elegant turn-out. He had
served in a cavalry regiment and had even passed for
one of its most accomplished officers, having constantly
shown himself at all the balls and parties wherever
his regiment was quartered. Information respecting
him may be asked of all the young ladies in the districts
of Tamboff and Simbirsk. He would very probably
have further extended his reputation in other districts
if he had not been obliged to leave the service in
consequence of one of those affairs which are spoken
of as “a very unpleasant business.”
Had he given or received a blow? I cannot say
with certainty, but what is indisputable is that he
was asked to send in his resignation. However,
this accident had no unpleasant effect upon the esteem
in which he had been held up till then.
Tchertokoutski always wore a coat
of a military cut, spurs and moustache, in order not
to have it supposed that he had served in the infantry,
a branch of the service upon which he lavished the
most contemptuous expressions. He frequented
the numerous fairs to which flock the whole of the
population of Southern Russia, consisting of nursemaids,
tall girls, and burly gentlemen who go there in vehicles
of such strange aspect that no one has ever seen their
match even in a dream. He instinctively guessed
the spot in which a regiment of cavalry was to be
found and never failed to introduce himself to the
officers. On perceiving them he bounded gracefully
from his light phaeton and soon made acquaintance
with them. At the last election he had given to
the whole of the nobility a grand dinner during which
he declared that if he were elected marshal he would
put all gentlemen on the best possible footing.
He usually behaved after the fashion of a great noble.
He had married a rather pretty lady with a dowry of
two hundred serfs and some thousands of rubles.
This money was at once employed in the purchase of
six fine horses, some gilt bronze locks, and a tame
monkey. He further engaged a French cook.
The two hundred peasants of the lady, as well as two
hundred more belonging to the gentleman, were mortgaged
to the bank. In a word, he was a regular nobleman.
Besides himself, several other gentlemen were amongst
the general’s guests, but it is not worth while
speaking of them. The officers of the regiment,
amongst whom were the colonel and the fat major, formed
the majority of those present. The general himself
was rather stout; a good officer, nevertheless, according
to his subordinates. He had a rather deep bass
voice.
The dinner was magnificent; there
were sturgeons, sterlets, bustards, asparagus,
quail, partridges, mushrooms. The flavour of all
these dishes supplied an irrefutable proof of the
sobriety of the cook during the twenty-four hours
preceding the dinner. Four soldiers, who had been
given him as assistants, had not ceased working all
night, knife in hand, at the composition of ragoûts
and jellies. The immense quantity of long-necked
bottles, mingled with shorter ones, holding claret
and madeira; the fine summer day, the wide-open windows,
the plates piled up with ice on the table, the crumpled
shirt-fronts of the gentlemen in plain clothes, and
a brisk and noisy conversation, now dominated by the
general’s voice, and now besprinkled with champagne,
were all in perfect harmony. The guests rose
from the table with a pleasant feeling of repletion,
and, after having lit their pipes, all stepped out,
coffee-cups in hand, on to the verandah.
“We can see her now,”
said the general. “Here, my dear fellow,”
added he, addressing his aide-de-camp, an active well-made
young officer, “have the bay mare brought here.
You shall see for yourselves, gentlemen.”
At these words the general took a long pull at his
pipe.
“She is not quite recovered
yet; there is not a decent stable in this cursed little
place. But she is not bad looking ”
puff puff, the general here let out the
smoke which he had kept in his mouth till then “the
little mare.”
“It is long since your excellency ”
puff puff puff “condescended
to buy her?” asked Tchertokoutski.
Puff puff puff puff.
“Not very long, I had her from the breeding
establishment two years ago.”
“And did your excellency condescend
to take her ready broken, or to have her broken in
here yourself?”
Puff puff puff puff.
“Here.”
As he spoke the general disappeared behind a cloud
of smoke.
At that moment a soldier jumped out
of the stable. The trampling of a horse’s
hoofs was heard, and another soldier with immense moustaches,
and wearing a long white tunic, appeared, leading by
the bridle the terrified and quivering mare, which,
suddenly rearing, lifted him off his feet.
“Come, come, Agrafena Ivanovna,”
said he, leading her towards the verandah.
The mare’s name was Agrafena
Ivanovna. Strong and bold as a Southern beauty,
she suddenly became motionless.
The general began to look at her with
evident satisfaction, and left off smoking. The
colonel himself went down the steps and patted her
neck. The major ran his hand down her legs, and
all the other officers clicked their tongues at her.
Tchertokoutski left the verandah to
take up a position beside the mare. The soldier
who held her bridle drew himself up and stared fixedly
at the guests.
“She is very fine, very fine,”
said Tchertokoutski, “a very well-shaped beast.
Will your excellency allow me to ask whether she is
a good goer?”
“She goes well, but that idiot
of a doctor, deuce take him, has given her some balls
which have made her sneeze for the last two days.”
“She is a fine beast, a very
fine beast. Has your excellency a turn-out to
match the horse?”
“Turn-out! but she’s a saddle horse.”
“I know. I put the question,
your excellency, to know if you have an equipage worthy
of your other horses?”
“No, I have not much in the
way of équipages; I must admit that, for some
time past, I have been wanting to buy a calash, such
as they build now-a-days. I have written about
it to my brother who is now at St. Petersburg, but
I do not know whether he will be able to send me one.”
“It seems to me, your excellency,”
remarked the colonel, “that there are no better
calashes than those of Vienna.”
“You are right.” Puff puff puff.
“I have an excellent calash,
your excellency, a real Viennese calash,” said
Tchertokoutski.
“That in which you came?”
“Oh no, I make use of that for
ordinary service, but the other is something extraordinary.
It is as light as a feather, and if you sit in it,
it seems as if your nurse was rocking you in a cradle.”
“It is very comfortable then?”
“Extremely comfortable; the
cushions, the springs, and everything else are perfect.”
“Ah! that is good.”
“And what a quantity of things
can be packed away in it. I have never seen anything
like it, your excellency. When I was still in
the service there was room enough in the body to stow
away ten bottles of rum, twenty pounds of tobacco,
six uniforms, and two pipes, the longest pipes imaginable,
your excellency; and in the pockets inside you could
stow away a whole bullock.”
“That is very good.”
“It cost four thousand rubles, your excellency.”
“It ought to be good at that price. Did
you buy it yourself?”
“No, your excellency, I had
it by chance. It was bought by one of my oldest
friends, a fine fellow with whom you would be very
well pleased. We are very intimate. What
is mine is his, and what is his is mine. I won
it of him at cards. Would your excellency have
the kindness to honour me at dinner to-morrow?
You could see my calash.”
“I don’t know what to
say. Alone I could not but if you would
allow me to come with these officers ”
“I beg of them to come too.
I shall esteem it a great honour, gentlemen, to have
the pleasure of seeing you at my house.”
The colonel, the major, and the other
officers thanked Tchertokoutski.
“I am of opinion myself, your
excellency, that if one buys anything it should be
good; it is not worth the trouble of getting, if it
turns out bad. If you do me the honour of calling
on me to-morrow, I will show you some improvements
I have introduced on my estate.”
The general looked at him, and puffed
out a fresh cloud of smoke.
Tchertokoutski was charmed with his
notion of inviting the officers, and mentally ordered
in advance all manner of dishes for their entertainment.
He smiled at these gentlemen, who on their part appeared
to increase their show of attention towards him, as
was noticeable from the expression of their eyes and
the little half-nods they bestowed upon him.
His bearing assumed a certain ease, and his voice expressed
his great satisfaction.
“Your excellency will make the
acquaintance of the mistress of the house.”
“That will be most agreeable
to me,” said the general, twirling his moustache.
Tchertokoutski was firmly resolved
to return home at once in order to make all necessary
preparations in good time. He had already taken
his hat, but a strange fatality caused him to remain
for some time at the general’s. The card
tables had been set out, and all the company, separating
into groups of four, scattered itself about the room.
Lights were brought in. Tchertokoutski did not
know whether he ought to sit down to whist. But
as the officers invited him, he thought that the rules
of good breeding obliged him to accept. He sat
down. I do not know how a glass of punch found
itself at his elbow, but he drank it off without thinking.
After playing two rubbers, he found another glass
close to his hand which he drank off in the same way,
though not without remarking:
“It is really time for me to go, gentlemen.”
He began to play a fresh rubber.
However, the conversation which was going on in every
corner of the room took an especial turn. Those
who were playing whist were quiet enough, but the
others talked a great deal. A captain had taken
up his position on a sofa, and leaning against a cushion,
pipe in mouth, he captivated the attention of a circle
of guests gathered about him by his eloquent narrative
of amorous adventures. A very stout gentleman
whose arms were so short that they looked like two
potatoes hanging by his sides, listened to him with
a very satisfied expression, and from time to time
exerted himself to pull his tobacco-pouch out of his
coat-tail pocket. A somewhat brisk discussion
on cavalry drill had arisen in another corner, and
Tchertokoutski, who had twice already played a knave
for a king, mingled in the conversation by calling
out from his place: “In what year?”
or “What regiment?” without noticing that
very often his question had no application whatever.
At length, a few minutes before supper, play came
to an end. Tchertokoutski could remember that
he had won a great deal, but he did not take up his
winnings, and after rising stood for some time in
the position of a man who has no handkerchief in his
pocket.
They sat down to supper. As might
be expected, wine was not lacking, and Tchertokoutski
kept involuntarily filling his glass with it, for he
was surrounded with bottles. A lengthy conversation
took place at table, but the guests carried it on
after a strange fashion. A colonel, who had served
in 1812, described a battle which had never taken place;
and besides, no one ever could make out why he took
a cork and stuck it into a pie. They began to
break-up at three in the morning. The coachmen
were obliged to take several of them in their arms
like bundles; and Tchertokoutski himself, despite
his aristocratic pride, bowed so low to the company,
that he took home two thistles in his moustache.
The coachman who drove him home found
every one asleep. He routed out, after some trouble,
the valet, who, after having ushered his master through
the hall, handed him over to a maid-servant. Tchertokoutski
followed her as well as he could to the best room,
and stretched himself beside his pretty young wife,
who was sleeping in a night-gown as white as snow.
The shock of her husband falling on the bed awoke her she
stretched out her arms, opened her eyes, closed them
quickly, and then opened them again quite wide, with
a half-vexed air. Seeing that her husband did
not pay the slightest attention to her, she turned
over on the other side, rested her fresh and rosy
cheek on her hand, and went to sleep again.
It was late that is, according
to country customs when the lady awoke
again. Her husband was snoring more loudly than
ever. She recollected that he had come home at
four o’clock, and not wishing to awaken him,
got up alone, and put on her slippers, which her husband
had had sent for her from St. Petersburg, and a white
dressing-gown which fell about her like the waters
of a fountain. Then she passed into her dressing-room,
and after washing in water as fresh as herself, went
to her toilet table. She looked at herself twice
in the glass, and thought she looked very pretty that
morning. This circumstance, a very insignificant
one apparently, caused her to stay two hours longer
than usual before her glass. She dressed herself
very tastefully and went into the garden.
The weather was splendid: it
was one of the finest days of the summer. The
sun, which had almost reached the meridian, shed its
most ardent rays; but a pleasant coolness reigned
under the leafy arcades; and the flowers, warmed by
the sun, exhaled their sweetest perfume. The pretty
mistress of the house had quite forgotten that it was
noon at least, and that her husband was still asleep.
Already she heard the snores of two coachmen and a
groom, who were taking their siesta in the stable,
after having dined copiously. But she was still
sitting in a bower from which the deserted high road
could be seen, when all at once her attention was
caught by a light cloud of dust rising in the distance.
After looking at it for some moments, she ended by
making out several vehicles, closely following one
another. First came a light calash, with two places,
in which was the general, wearing his large and glittering
épaulettes, with the colonel. This was followed
by another with four places, containing the captain,
the aide-de-camp and two lieutenants. Further
on, came the celebrated regimental vehicle, the present
owner of which was the major, and behind that another
in which were packed five officers, one on his comrade’s
knees, the procession being closed by three more on
three fine bays.
“Are they coming here?”
thought the mistress of the house. “Good
heavens, yes! they are leaving the main road.”
She gave a cry, clasped her hands,
and ran straight across the flower-beds to her bedroom,
where her husband was still sleeping soundly.
“Get up! get up! get up at once,”
she cried, pulling him by the arm.
“What what’s
the matter?” murmured Tchertokoutski, stretching
his limbs without opening his eyes.
“Get up, get up. Visitors
have come, do you hear? visitors.”
“Visitors, what visitors?”
After saying these words he uttered a little plaintive
grunt like that of a sucking calf: “M-m-m.
Let me kiss you.”
“My dear, get up at once, for
heaven’s sake. The general has come with
all his officers. Ah! goodness, you have got a
thistle in your moustache.”
“The general! Has he come
already? But why the deuce did not they wake
me? And the dinner, is the dinner ready?”
“What dinner?”
“But haven’t I ordered a dinner?”
“A dinner! You got home
at four o’clock in the morning and you did not
answer a single word to all my questions. I did
not wake you, since you had so little sleep.”
Tchertokoutski, his eyes staring out
of his head, remained motionless for some moments
as though a thunderbolt had struck him. All at
once he jumped out of bed in his shirt.
“Idiot that I am,” he
exclaimed, clasping his hand to his forehead; “I
had invited them to dinner. What is to be done?
are they far off?”
“They will be here in a moment.”
“My dear, hide yourself.
Ho there, somebody. Hi there, you girl. Come
here, you fool; what are you afraid of? The officers
are coming here; tell them I am not at home, that
I went out early this morning, that I am not coming
back. Do you understand? Go and repeat it
to all the servants. Be off, quick.”
Having uttered these words, he hurriedly
slipped on his dressing-gown, and ran off to shut
himself up in the coach-house, which he thought the
safest hiding-place. But he fancied that he might
be noticed in the corner in which he had taken refuge.
“This will be better,”
said he to himself, letting down the steps of the
nearest vehicle, which happened to be the calash.
He jumped inside, closed the door, and, as a further
precaution, covered himself with the leather apron.
There he remained, wrapped in his dressing-gown, in
a doubled-up position.
During this time the équipages
had drawn up before the porch. The general got
out of his carriage and shook himself, followed by
the colonel, arranging the feathers in his hat.
After him came the stout major, his sabre under his
arm, and the slim lieutenants, whilst the mounted
officers also alighted.
“The master is not at home,”
said a servant appearing at the top of a flight of
steps.
“What! not at home; but he is
coming home for dinner, is he not?”
“No, he is not; he has gone
out for the day and will not be back till this time
to-morrow.”
“Bless me,” said the general; “but
what the deuce ”
“What a joke,” said the colonel laughing.
“No, no, such things are inconceivable,”
said the general angrily. “If he could
not receive us, why did he invite us?”
“I cannot understand, your excellency,
how it is possible to act in such a manner,”
observed a young officer.
“What?” said the general,
who always made an officer under the rank of captain
repeat his remarks twice over.
“I wondered, your excellency,
how any one could do such a thing.”
“Quite so; if anything has happened
he ought to have let us know.”
“There is nothing to be done,
your excellency, we had better go back home,”
said the colonel.
“Certainly, there is nothing
to be done. However, we can see the calash without
him; probably he has not taken it with him. Come
here, my man.”
“What does your excellency want?”
“Show us your master’s new calash.”
“Have the kindness to step this way to the coach-house.”
The general entered the coach-house followed by his
officers.
“Let me pull it a little forward,
your excellency,” said the servant, “it
is rather dark here.”
“That will do.”
The general and his officers walked
around the calash, carefully inspecting the wheels
and springs.
“There is nothing remarkable
about it,” said the general; “it is a very
ordinary calash.”
“Nothing to look at,”
added the colonel; “there is absolutely nothing
good about it.”
“It seems to me, your excellency,
that it is not worth four thousand rubles,”
remarked a young officer.
“What?”
“I said, your excellency, that
I do not think that it is worth four thousand rubles.”
“Four thousand! It is not
worth two. Perhaps, however, the inside is well
fitted. Unbutton the apron.”
And Tchertokoutski appeared before
the officers’ eyes, clad in his dressing-gown
and doubled up in a singular fashion.
“Hullo, there you are,” said the astonished
general.
Then he covered Tchertokoutski up again and went off
with his officers.