Page:Pushkin - Russian Romance (King, 1875).djvu/41

Rh has let his horse loose into my vegetable garden. Well, Maksymitch, is everything in order?"

"All's correct, God be praised," answered the Cossack, quietly; "only Corporal Próhoroff has had a fight with Oustynya Pezoulin in the bath house about a pail of hot water."

"Ivan Ignatitch!" said the captain's wife, to the one-eyed little man; "find out which one of them is right, and who is wrong, and mind that thou punishest them both. Very well, Maksymitch, God be with thee. Piotr Andrevitch, Maksymitch will show you to your billet."

I took my leave. The orderly led me to a hut, situated on the upper part of the river's bank, at the very limits of the fortress. One half the hut was occupied by the family of Semion Koúzoff, the other half was given up to me. It consisted of one room, which was tolerably clean, and divided in two by a partition. Savelitch began to put things in order. I looked out of the narrow window. Before me lay a dreary steppe; on one side stood a few huts; some hens were wandering about the streets. In the porch was an old woman with a pail, calling her pigs, who responded with friendly grunts. And this was the place in which I was doomed to spend my youth! I felt sadly depressed. I left the window and laid myself down to sleep supperless, notwithstanding Savelitch's entreaties, who repeated mournfully—

"Good God! he will not eat! What will my mistress say, if the child gets ill?"

I had only just begun to dress on the following