The Daughter of the Commandant | Page 9

too strictly, to leave him plenty of liberty; that is what holding with gloves of porcupine-skin means."
"Humph! I understand."
"'And not give him any liberty'--No; it seems that porcupine-skin gloves means something quite different.' Enclosed is his commission'--Where is it then? Ah! here it is!--'in the roll of the Séménofsky Regiment'--All right; everything necessary shall be done. 'Allow me to salute you without ceremony, and like an old friend and comrade'--Ah! he has at last remembered it all," etc., etc.
"Well, my little father," said he, after he had finished the letter and put my commission aside, "all shall be done; you shall be an officer in the ----th Regiment, and you shall go to-morrow to Fort Bélogorsk, where you will serve under the orders of Commandant Mironoff, a brave and worthy man. There you will really serve and learn discipline. There is nothing for you to do at Orenburg; amusement is bad for a young man. To-day I invite you to dine with me."
"Worse and worse," thought I to myself. "What good has it done me to have been a sergeant in the Guard from my cradle? Where has it brought me? To the ----th Regiment, and to a fort stranded on the frontier of the Kirghiz-Ka?sak Steppes!"
I dined at Andréj Karlovitch's, in the company of his old aide de camp. Strict German economy was the rule at his table, and I think that the dread of a frequent guest at his bachelor's table contributed not a little to my being so promptly sent away to a distant garrison.
The next day I took leave of the General, and started for my destination.
CHAPTER III.
THE LITTLE POET.
The little fort of Bélogorsk lay about forty versts[28] from Orenburg. From this town the road followed along by the rugged banks of the R. Ya?k. The river was not yet frozen, and its lead-coloured waves looked almost black contrasted with its banks white with snow. Before me stretched the Kirghiz Steppes. I was lost in thought, and my reverie was tinged with melancholy. Garrison life did not offer me much attraction. I tried to imagine what my future chief, Commandant Mironoff, would be like. I saw in my mind's eye a strict, morose old man, with no ideas beyond the service, and prepared to put me under arrest for the smallest trifle.
Twilight was coming on; we were driving rather quickly.
"Is it far from here to the fort?" I asked the driver.
"Why, you can see it from here," replied he.
I began looking all round, expecting to see high bastions, a wall, and a ditch. I saw nothing but a little village, surrounded by a wooden palisade. On one side three or four haystacks, half covered with snow; on another a tumble-down windmill, whose sails, made of coarse limetree bark, hung idly down.
"But where is the fort?" I asked, in surprise.
"There it is yonder, to be sure," rejoined the driver, pointing out to me the village which we had just reached.
I noticed near the gateway an old iron cannon. The streets were narrow and crooked, nearly all the izbás[29] were thatched. I ordered him to take me to the Commandant, and almost directly my kibitka stopped before a wooden house, built on a knoll near the church, which was also in wood.
No one came to meet me. From the steps I entered the ante-room. An old pensioner, seated on a table, was busy sewing a blue patch on the elbow of a green uniform. I begged him to announce me.
"Come in, my little father," he said to me; "we are all at home."
I went into a room, very clean, but furnished in a very homely manner. In one corner there stood a dresser with crockery on it. Against the wall hung, framed and glazed, an officer's commission. Around this were arranged some bark pictures,[30] representing the "Taking of Kustrin" and of "Otchakóf,"[31] "The Choice of the Betrothed," and the "Burial of the Cat by the Mice." Near the window sat an old woman wrapped in a shawl, her head tied up in a handkerchief. She was busy winding thread, which a little, old, one-eyed man in an officer's uniform was holding on his outstretched hands.
"What do you want, my little father?" she said to me, continuing her employment.
I answered that I had been ordered to join the service here, and that, therefore, I had hastened to report myself to the Commandant. With these words I turned towards the little, old, one-eyed man, whom I had taken for the Commandant. But the good lady interrupted the speech with which I had prepared myself.
"Iván Kouzmitch[32] is not at home," said she. "He is gone to see Father Garassim. But it's all the same, I am his wife. Be so good as to love us and take us into favour.[33] Sit