looked on all sides, expecting to see high bastions, a wall, and
a ditch. I saw nothing but a little village surrounded by a wooden
palisade. On one side stood some hay-stacks half covered with snow; on
the other a wind-mill, leaning to one side; the wings of the mill, made
of the heavy bark of the linden tree, hung idle.

"Where is the fortress?" I asked, astonished.

"There it is," said the coachman, pointing to the village which we had
just entered. I saw near the gate an old iron cannon. The streets were
narrow and winding, and nearly all the huts were thatched with straw.
I ordered the coachman to drive to the Commandant's, and almost
immediately my kibitka stopped before a wooden house built on an
eminence near the church, which was also of wood. From the front door
I entered the waiting-room. An old pensioner, seated on a table, was
sewing a blue piece on the elbow of a green uniform. I told him to
announce me.

"Enter, my good sir," said he, "our people are at home."

I entered a very neat room, furnished in the fashion of other days. On
one side stood a cabinet containing the silver. Against the wall hung
the diploma of an officer, with colored engravings arranged around its
frame; notably, the "Choice of the Betrothed," the "Taking of Kurstrin,"
and the "Burial of the Cat by the Mice." Near the window sat an old
woman in a mantilla, her head wrapped in a handkerchief. She was winding
a skein of thread held on the separated hands of a little old man, blind
of one eye, who was dressed like an officer.

"What do you desire, my dear sir?" said the woman to me, without
interrupting her occupation. I told her that I had come to enter the
service, and that, according to rule, I hastened to present myself to
the captain. In saying this, I turned to the one-eyed old man, whom I
took for the commandant. The good lady interrupted the speech which I
had prepared in advance:

"Ivan Mironoff is not at home; he is gone to visit Father Garasim;
but it is all the same; I am his wife. Deign to love us and have us in
favor! Take a seat, my dear sir." She ordered a servant to send her the
Corporal. The little old man gazed at me curiously, with his only eye.

"May I dare to ask," said he, "in what regiment you have deigned to
serve?"

I satisfied him on that point.

"And may I dare to ask why you changed from the Guards to our garrison?"

I replied that it was by the orders of authority.

"Probably for actions little