and
oft-recurring phrase in Russian novels, "drinking tea."

As we were thus occupied in one of the cells, furnished with a table and
two hard stuffed benches, to accommodate waiting passengers, our postboy
thrust his head in at the door and began the subject of the carriage all
over again. I repeated my orders. He said, "_Kharasho_" (Good), and
disappeared. We dallied over our tea. We watched the wharfinger's boys
trying to drown themselves in a cranky boat, like the young male animals
of all lands; we listened to their shrill little songs; we counted the
ducks, gazed at the peasants assembled on the brow of the steep hill
above us, on which the town was situated, and speculated about the
immediate future, until the time fixed and three quarters of an hour
more had elapsed. The wharfinger's reply to my impatient questions was
an unvarying apathetic "We don't know," and, spurred to action by this,
I set out to find the posting-house.

It was not far away, but my repeated and vigorous knocks upon the door
of the _izba_ (cottage), ornamented with the imperial eagle and the
striped pole, received no response. I pushed open the big gate of the
courtyard alongside, and entered. Half the court was roofed over with
thatch. In the far corner, divorced wagon bodies, running-gear, and
harnesses lay heaped on the earth. A horse, which was hitched to
something unsubstantial among those fragments, came forward to welcome
me. A short row of wagon members which had escaped divorce, and were
united in wheeling order, stood along the high board fence. In one of
them, a rough wooden cart, shaped somewhat like a barrel sawed in two
lengthwise, pillowed on straw, but with his legs hanging down in an
uncomfortable attitude, lay my faithless postboy (he was about forty
years of age) fast asleep. The neighboring vehicle, which I divined to
be the one intended for us, was in possession of chickens. A new-laid
egg bore witness to their wakefulness and industry.

While I was engaged in an endeavor to rouse my should-be coachman, by
tugging at his sleeve and pushing his boots in the most painful manner I
could devise, a good-looking peasant woman made her tardy appearance at
the side door of the adjoining _izba_, and seemed to enjoy the situation
in an impartial, impersonal way. The horse thrust his muzzle gently into
his master's face and roused him for me, and, in return, was driven
away.

I demanded an explanation. Extracted by bits in co