rtition to change, but found it
completely filled by three officers who sat playing cards by the light
of a solitary candle on an empty box, and these officers would on no
account yield their position. Mary Hendrikhovna obliged them with the
loan of a petticoat to be used as a curtain, and behind that screen
Rostov and Ilyin, helped by Lavrushka who had brought their kits,
changed their wet things for dry ones.

A fire was made up in the dilapidated brick stove. A board was found,
fixed on two saddles and covered with a horsecloth, a small samovar was
produced and a cellaret and half a bottle of rum, and having asked Mary
Hendrikhovna to preside, they all crowded round her. One offered her a
clean handkerchief to wipe her charming hands, another spread a jacket
under her little feet to keep them from the damp, another hung his coat
over the window to keep out the draft, and yet another waved the flies
off her husband's face, lest he should wake up.

"Leave him alone," said Mary Hendrikhovna, smiling timidly and happily.
"He is sleeping well as it is, after a sleepless night."

"Oh, no, Mary Hendrikhovna," replied the officer, "one must look after
the doctor. Perhaps he'll take pity on me someday, when it comes to
cutting off a leg or an arm for me."

There were only three tumblers, the water was so muddy that one could
not make out whether the tea was strong or weak, and the samovar held
only six tumblers of water, but this made it all the pleasanter to
take turns in order of seniority to receive one's tumbler from Mary
Hendrikhovna's plump little hands with their short and not overclean
nails. All the officers appeared to be, and really were, in love with
her that evening. Even those playing cards behind the partition soon
left their game and came over to the samovar, yielding to the general
mood of courting Mary Hendrikhovna. She, seeing herself surrounded by
such brilliant and polite young men, beamed with satisfaction, try as
she might to hide it, and perturbed as she evidently was each time her
husband moved in his sleep behind her.

There was only one spoon, sugar was more plentiful than anything
else, but it took too long to dissolve, so it was decided that Mary
Hendrikhovna should stir the sugar for everyone in turn. Rostov received
his tumbler, and adding some rum to it asked Mary Hendrikhovna to stir
it.

"But you take it without sugar?" she said, smiling all the time, as if
everything she said and ever