hout.

"What else?" shouted the commander.

"When they were shoeing yesterday, your high nobility, they drove
a nail into Pigeon's hoof. The vet. put on clay and vinegar; they
are leading him apart now. And also, your honour, Artemyev got drunk
yesterday, and the lieutenant ordered him to be put in the limber
of a spare gun-carriage."

The sergeant reported that Karpov had forgotten the new cords for
the trumpets and the rings for the tents, and that their honours,
the officers, had spent the previous evening visiting General Von
Rabbek. In the middle of this conversation the red-bearded face of
Lebedetsky appeared in the window. He screwed up his short-sighted
eyes, looking at the sleepy faces of the officers, and said
good-morning to them.

"Is everything all right?" he asked.

"One of the horses has a sore neck from the new collar," answered
Lobytko, yawning.

The commander sighed, thought a moment, and said in a loud voice:

"I am thinking of going to see Alexandra Yevgrafovna. I must call
on her. Well, good-bye. I shall catch you up in the evening."

A quarter of an hour later the brigade set off on its way. When it
was moving along the road by the granaries, Ryabovitch looked at
the house on the right. The blinds were down in all the windows.
Evidently the household was still asleep. The one who had kissed
Ryabovitch the day before was asleep, too. He tried to imagine her
asleep. The wide-open windows of the bedroom, the green branches
peeping in, the morning freshness, the scent of the poplars, lilac,
and roses, the bed, a chair, and on it the skirts that had rustled
the day before, the little slippers, the little watch on the table
--all this he pictured to himself clearly and distinctly, but the
features of the face, the sweet sleepy smile, just what was
characteristic and important, slipped through his imagination like
quicksilver through the fingers. When he had ridden on half a mile,
he looked back: the yellow church, the house, and the river, were
all bathed in light; the river with its bright green banks, with
the blue sky reflected in it and glints of silver in the sunshine
here and there, was very beautiful. Ryabovitch gazed for the last
time at Myestetchki, and he felt as sad as though he were parting
with something very near and dear to him.

And before him on the road lay nothing but long familiar, uninteresting
pictures. . . . To right and to left, fields of young rye and
buckwheat with