The Daughter of the Commandant | Page 9

my father's
letter. Upon reading his name he cast a quick glance at me.
"Ah," said he, "it was but a short time Andréj Petróvitch was your age,
and now he has got a fine fellow of a son. Well, well--time, time."
He opened the letter, and began reading it half aloud, with a running
fire of remarks--
"'Sir, I hope your excellency'--What's all this ceremony? For shame! I
wonder he's not ashamed of himself! Of course, discipline before
everything; but is it thus one writes to an old comrade? 'Your
excellency will not have forgotten'--Humph! 'And when under the late
Field Marshal Münich during the campaign, as well as little
Caroline'--Eh! eh! bruder! So he still remembers our old pranks? 'Now
for business. I send you my rogue'--Hum! 'Hold him with gloves of
porcupine-skin'--What does that mean--'gloves of porcupine-skin?' It

must be a Russian proverb.
"What does it mean, 'hold with gloves of porcupine-skin?'" resumed he,
turning to me.
"It means," I answered him, with the most innocent face in the world,
"to treat someone kindly, not 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-Kaïsak 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.
Yaïk. 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