A most lengthy conversation went on at the table, yet it was conducted somehow strangely. One landowner who had served back in the campaign of 1812 2 told about a battle such as never took place, and then, for completely unknown reasons, removed the stopper from a decanter and stuck it into a pastry. In short, when they began to leave, it was already three o'clock in the morning, and the coachmen had to gather up some persons in their arms like shopping parcels, and Chertokutsky, for all his aris-tocratism, bowed so low and swung his head so much as he sat in his carriage that he brought two burrs home with him on his mustache.

In the house all was completely asleep; the coachman had great difficulty finding the valet, who brought his master through the drawing room and handed him over to the chambermaid, following whom Chertokutsky somehow reached his bedroom and lay down next to his young and pretty wife, who was lying there looking lovely in her white-as-snow nightgown. The movement produced by her husband falling into bed woke her up. She stretched herself, raised her eyelashes, and, quickly squinting three times, opened her eyes with a half-angry smile; but seeing that he was decidedly unwilling to show her any tenderness just then, she vexedly turned on her other side and, putting her fresh cheek on her hand, fell asleep soon after he did.

It was already that time which on country estates is not called early, when the young mistress woke up beside her snoring husband. Recalling that he had come home past three o'clock last night, she was sorry to rouse him, and having put on her slippers, which her husband had ordered from Petersburg, with a white jacket draping her like flowing water, she went out to her dressing room, washed with water fresh as her own self, and approached the mirror. Glancing at herself a couple of times, she saw that she was not at all bad looking that day. This apparently insignificant circumstance made her sit for precisely two extra hours before the mirror. At last she dressed herself very prettily and went to take some fresh air in the garden. As if by design, the weather was beautiful then, such as only a southern summer day can boast of. The sun, getting toward noon, blazed down with all the force of its rays, but it was cool strolling in the dense shade of the alleys, and the flowers, warmed by the sun, tripled their fragrance. The pretty mistress quite forgot that it was already twelve and her husband was still asleep. There already came to her ears the after-dinner snoring of the two coachmen and one postilion, who slept in the stables beyond the garden. But she went on sitting in the dense alley, from which a view opened onto the high road, and gazing absentmindedly at its unpeopled emptiness, when dust suddenly rising in the distance caught her attention. Looking closer, she soon made out several carriages. At their head drove a light, open two-seater; in it sat the general, his thick epaulettes gleaming in the sun, with the colonel beside him. It was followed by another, a four-seater; in it sat the major, with the general's aide-de-camp and two officers on the facing seats; following that carriage came the regimental droshky known to all the world, owned this time by the corpulent major; after the droshky came a four-place bon-voyage in which four officers sat holding a fifth on their lap… behind the bonvoyage three officers pranced on handsome dapple-bay horses.

"Can they be coming here?" the mistress of the house thought. "Ah, my God! they've actually turned onto the bridge!" She cried out, clasped her hands, and ran across flower beds and flowers straight to her husband's bedroom. He lay in a dead sleep.

"Get up, get up! Get up quickly!" she cried, pulling him by the arm.

"Ah?" said Chertokutsky, stretching without opening his eyes.

"Get up, poopsy! Do you hear? Guests!"

"Guests? What guests?" Having said which, he uttered a little moo, like a calf feeling for its mother's teats with its muzzle. "Mm…" he grunted, "give me your little neck, moomsy! I'll kiss you."

"Sweetie, get up quickly, for God's sake. The general and the officers! Ah, my God, you've got a burr on your mustache!"

"The general? Ah, so he's coming already? But why the devil didn't anybody wake me up? And the dinner, what about the dinner-is everything properly prepared?"

"What dinner?" "Didn't I order it?"

"You? You came home at four o'clock in the morning and never told me anything, no matter how I asked. I didn't wake you up, poopsy, because I felt sorry for you-you hadn't had any sleep…" These last words she pronounced in an extremely languid and pleading voice.

Chertokutsky, his eyes popping out, lay in bed for a moment as if thunderstruck. Finally he jumped up in nothing but his shirt, forgetting that it was quite indecent.

"Ah, what a horse I am!" he said, slapping himself on the forehead. "I invited them for dinner. What can we do? Are they far off?"

"I don't know… they must be here by now."

"Sweetie… hide somewhere!… Hey, who's there? Go, my girl-what, fool, are you afraid? The officers will come any minute. Tell them the master isn't here, tell them he won't be home today, that he left in the morning, do you hear? And tell all the servants. Go quickly!"

Having said that, he hastily grabbed his dressing gown and ran to hide in the carriage shed, supposing he would be completely safe there. But, after installing himself in a corner of the shed, he saw that even there he might somehow be visible. "Now, this will be better," flashed in his head, and he instantly folded down the steps of a nearby carriage, jumped in, closed the doors, covered himself with the apron and the rug for greater safety, and became perfectly still, crouched there in his dressing gown.

Meanwhile the carriages drove up to the porch.

The general stepped out and shook himself, followed by the colonel, straightening the plumes on his hat. Then the fat major jumped down from the droshky, holding his saber under his arm. Then the slim lieutenants who had been holding the sublieutenant on their laps leaped down from the bonvoyage, and finally the horse-prancing officers dismounted.

"The master's not at home," said a lackey, coming out to the porch.

"How, not at home? But, in any case, he'll be home by dinnertime?"

"No, sir, he's gone for the whole day. He may be back around this time tomorrow."

"Well, look at that!" said the general. "How can it be?…"

"Some stunt, I must say!" the colonel said, laughing.

"Ah, no, it isn't done," the general went on with displeasure. "Pah… the devil… If you can't receive, why go inviting?"

"I don't understand how anyone could do it, Your Excellency," said one young officer.

"What?" said the general, who was in the habit of always uttering this interrogative word when speaking with his officers.

"I said, Your Excellency, how can anyone act in such a way?"

"Naturally… Well, if something's happened, let people know, at least, or don't invite them."

"So, Your Excellency, there's no help for it, let's go back!" said the colonel.

"Certainly, nothing else to be done. However, we can have a look at the carriage even without him. He surely hasn't taken it with him. Hey, you there, come here, brother!"

"What's your pleasure?"

"You're a stable boy?"

"I am, Your Excellency."

"Show us the new carriage your master acquired recently."

"It's here in the shed, sir."

The general went into the shed together with the officers.