No More Learning

I noticed near the gateway an old iron cannon. The streets were narrow
and crooked, nearly all the _izbas_[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 "Otchakof,"[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.

"Ivan 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 down, my little father. "

She called a servant, and bid her tell the "_ouriadnik_"[34] to come.
The little, old man was looking curiously at me with his one eye.

"Might I presume to ask you," said he to me, "in what regiment you have
deigned to serve? "

I satisfied his curiosity.

"And might I ask you," continued he, "why you have condescended to
exchange from the Guard into our garrison? "

I replied that it was by order of the authorities.

"Probably for conduct unbecoming an officer of the Guard?