‘To have a pipe?’ repeated Pyetushkov.
‘So this is what it’s coming to,’
muttered Onisim. ’It’s gone deep,
it seems.’
The creak of boots resounded in the passage, and then
there was heard the usual suppressed cough which announces
the presence of a person of subordinate position.
Onisim went out and promptly came back, accompanied
by a diminutive soldier with a little, old woman’s
face, in a patched cloak yellow with age, and wearing
neither breeches nor cravat. Pyetushkov was startled;
while the soldier drew himself up, wished him good
day, and handed him a large envelope bearing the government
seal. In this envelope was a note from the major
in command of the garrison: he called upon Pyetushkov
to come to him without fail or delay.
Pyetushkov turned the note over in his hands, and
could not refrain from asking the messenger, did he
know why the major desired his presence, though he
was very well aware of the utter futility of his question.
‘We cannot tell!’ the soldier cried, with
great effort, yet hardly audibly, as though he were
half asleep.
‘Isn’t he summoning the other officers?’
Pyetushkov pursued.
‘We cannot tell,’ the soldier cried a
second time, in just the same voice.
‘All right, you can go,’ pronounced Pyetushkov.
The soldier wheeled round to the left, scraping his
foot as he did so, and slapping himself below the
spine (this was considered smart in the twenties),
withdrew.
Pyetushkov exchanged glances with Onisim, who at once
assumed a look of anxiety. Without a word Ivan
Afanasiitch set off to the major’s.
The major was a man of sixty, corpulent and clumsily
built, with a red and bloated face, a short neck,
and a continual trembling in his fingers, resulting
from excessive indulgence in strong drink. He
belonged to the class of so-called ‘bourbons,’
that’s to say, soldiers risen from the ranks;
had learned to read at thirty, and spoke with difficulty,
partly from shortness of breath, partly from inability
to follow his own thought. His temperament exhibited
all the varieties known to science: in the morning,
before drinking, he was melancholy; in the middle
of the day, choleric; and in the evening, phlegmatic,
that is to say, he did nothing at that time but snore
and grunt till he was put to bed. Ivan Afanasiitch
appeared before him during the choleric period.
He found him sitting on a sofa, in an open dressing-gown,
with a pipe between his teeth. A fat, crop-eared
cat had taken up her position beside him.
‘Aha! he’s come!’ growled the major,
casting a sidelong glance out of his pewtery eyes
upon Pyetushkov, and not stirring from his place.
’Sit down. Well, I’m going to give
you a talking to. I’ve wanted to get hold
of you this long while.’
Pyetushkov sank into a chair.
‘For,’ the major began, with an unexpected
lurch of his whole body, ’you’re an officer,
d’ye see, and so you’ve got to behave yourself
according to rule. If you’d been a soldier,
I’d have flogged you, and that’s all about
it, but, as ’tis, you’re an officer.
Did any one ever see the like of it? Disgracing
yourself—is that a nice thing?’
