“Barinia, the young stranger has arrived.”
“Where is he?”
“Oh, he is waiting at the lodge.”
“I told you to show him to Natacha’s sitting-room.
Didn’t you understand me, Ermolai?”
“Pardon, Barinia, but the young stranger, when
I asked to search him, as you directed, flatly refused
to let me.”
“Did you explain to him that everybody is searched
before being allowed to enter, that it is the order,
and that even my mother herself has submitted to it?”
“I told him all that, Barinia; and I told him
about madame your mother.”
“What did he say to that?”
“That he was not madame your mother. He
acted angry.”
“Well, let him come in without being searched.”
“The Chief of Police won’t like it.”
“Do as I say.”
Ermolai bowed and returned to the garden. The
“barinia” left the veranda, where she
had come for this conversation with the old servant
of General Trebassof, her husband, and returned to
the dining-room in the datcha des Iles, where the
gay Councilor Ivan Petrovitch was regaling his amused
associates with his latest exploit at Cubat’s
resort. They were a noisy company, and certainly
the quietest among them was not the general, who nursed
on a sofa the leg which still held him captive after
the recent attack, that to his old coachman and his
two piebald horses had proved fatal. The story
of the always-amiable Ivan Petrovitch (a lively, little,
elderly man with his head bald as an egg) was about
the evening before. After having, as he said,
“recure la bouche” for these gentlemen
spoke French like their own language and used it among
themselves to keep their servants from understanding
— after having wet his whistle with a large
glass of sparkling rosy French wine, he cried:
“You would have laughed, Feodor Feodorovitch.
We had sung songs on the Barque* and then the Bohemians
left with their music and we went out onto the river-bank
to stretch our legs and cool our faces in the freshness
of the dawn, when a company of Cossacks of the Guard
came along. I knew the officer in command and
invited him to come along with us and drink the Emperor’s
health at Cubat’s place. That officer,
Feodor Feodorovitch, is a man who knows vintages and
boasts that he has never swallowed a glass of anything
so common as Crimean wine. When I named champagne
he cried, ‘Vive l’Empereur!’ A true
patriot. So we started, merry as school-children.
The entire company followed, then all the diners
playing little whistles, and all the servants besides,
single file. At Cubat’s I hated to leave
the companion-officers of my friend at the door, so
I invited them in, too. They accepted, naturally.
But the subalterns were thirsty as well. I
understand discipline. You know, Feodor Feodorovitch,
that I am a stickler for discipline. Just because
