"You can see very well that this young man
is tired with his journey. He has something else to do than to answer
your questions. Hold your hands better. And you, my little father," she
continued, turning to me, "do not bemoan yourself too much because you
have been shoved into our little hole of a place; you are not the first,
and you will not be the last. One may suffer, but one gets accustomed to
it. For instance, Chvabrine, Alexey Ivanytch,[35] was transferred to us
four years ago on account of a murder. Heaven knows what ill-luck befel
him. It happened one day he went out of the town with a lieutenant, and
they had taken swords, and they set to pinking one another, and Alexey
Ivanytch killed the lieutenant, and before a couple of witnesses. Well,
well, there's no heading ill-luck!"
At this moment the "_ouriadnik_," a young and handsome Cossack, came in.
"Maximitch," the Commandant's wife said to him, "find a quarter for this
officer, and a clean one."
"I obey, Vassilissa Igorofna,"[36] replied the "_ouriadnik_." "Ought not
his excellency to go to Iwan Polejaieff?"
"You are doting, Maximitch," retorted the Commandant's wife; "Polejaieff
has already little enough room; and, besides, he is my gossip; and then
he does not forget that we are his superiors.
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