" It must be that this is one of their very fine officers, whom every one respects. Really, he is simple, but hospitable and brave," he thought, seating himself in a timid and modest manner on the sofa.
" Where is our regiment stationed, then.-* " called out his elder brother into the board hut.
" What? "
He repeated his query.
" Zeifer has been here to-day. He told me that they had removed to the fifth bastion."
" Is that true? "
" If I say so, it must be true; but the deuce only knows anyway! He would think nothing of telling a lie. Won't you have some porter } " said the commissary officer, still from the tent.
1
** I will if you please," said Kozeltzoff.
"And will you have a drink, Osip Ignatievitch? " went on the voice in the tent, apparently addressing the sleeping commiss'ioner. *' You have slept enough; it's five o'clock."
" Why do you worry me? I am not asleep," answered a shrill, languid little voice.
" Come, get up! we find it stupid without you."
And the commissary officer came out to his guests.
" Fetch some Simferopol porter! " he shouted.
A servant entered the booth, with a haughty expression of countenance, as it seemed to Volodya, and, having jostled Volodya, he drew forth the porter from beneath the bench.
The bottle of porter was soon emptied, and the conversation had proceeded in the same style for rather a long time when the flap of the tent flew open and out stepped a short, fresh-colored man, in a blue dressing-gown with tassels, in a cap with a red rim and a cockade. At the moment of his appearance, he was smoothing his small black moustache, and, with his gaze fixed on the rugs, he replied to the greetings of the officer with a barely perceptible movement of the shoulders.
" I will drink a small glassful too! " said he, seating himself by the table. " What is this, have you come from Petersburg, young man? " he said, turning courteously to Volodya.
" Yes, sir, I am on my way to Sevastopol."
" Did you make the application yourself } "
" Yes, sir."
" What queer tastes you have, gentlemen! I do not understand it! " continued the commissioner. " It strikes me that I should be ready just now to travel on foot to Petersburg, if I could get away. By Heavens, I am tired of this cursed life! "
"What is there about it that does not suit you } " said the elder Kozeltzoff, turning to him. " You're the very last person to complain of life here! "
The commissioner cast a look upon him, and then turned away.
"This danger, these privations, it is impossible to get anything here,*' he continued, addressing Volodya. " And why you should take such a freak, gentlemen, I really cannot understand. If there were any advantages to be derived from it, but there is nothing of the sort. It would be a nice thing, now, wouldn't it, if you, at your age, were to be left a cripple for life! "
" Some need the money, and some serve for honor's sake! " said the elder Kozeltzoff, in a tone of vexation, joining the discussion once more.
" What's the good of honor, when there's nothing to eat! " said the commissioner with a scornful laugh, turning to the commissary, who also laughed at this. " Give us something from 'Lucia'; we will listen," he said, pointing to the music-box. *' I love it."
"Well, is that Vasily Mikhailitch a fine man > " Volodya asked his brother when they emerged, at dusk, from the booth, and pursued their way to Sevastopol.
" Not at all; but such a niggard that it is a perfect terror! And I can't bear the sight of that commissioner, and I shall give him a thrashing one of these days."
IX.
Volodya was not precisely out of sorts when, nearly at nightfall, they reached the great bridge over the bay, but he felt a certain heaviness at his heart. All that he had heard and seen was so little in consonance with the impressions which had recently passed away; the huge, light examination hall, with its polished floor, the kind and merry voices and laughter of his comrades, the new uniform, his beloved tsar, whom he had been accustomed to see for the last seven years, and who, when he took leave of them, had called them his children, with tears in his eyes, — and everything that he had seen so little resembled his very beautiful, rainbow-hued, magnificent dreams.