What do you want with a gentleman’s coat? You can’t squeeze your hulking great shoulders into it, however you try!”

“Please don’t argue,” I said to the old man; “bring the coat at once.”

“Good Lord!” my Savelyich groaned. “Why, the coat is almost new! To give it away, and not to a decent man either, but to a shameless drunkard!”

Nevertheless the hareskin coat appeared. The peasant immediately tried it on. The coat that I had slightly outgrown was certainly a little tight for him. He succeeded, however, in getting into it, bursting the seams as he did so. Savelyich almost howled when he heard the threads breaking. The tramp was extremely pleased with my present. He saw me to the chaise and said, with a low bow: “Thank you, your honor! May God reward you for your goodness; I shall not forget your kindness so long as I live.”

He went his way and I drove on, taking no notice of Savelyich, and soon forgot the snowstorm of the day before, my guide, and the hareskin coat.

Arriving in Orenburg I went straight to the General. I saw a tall man, already bent by age. His long hair was perfectly white. An old and faded uniform reminded one of the soldiers of Empress Anna’s time; he spoke with a strong German accent. I gave him my father’s letter. When I mentioned my name, he threw a quick glance at me.

“Du lieber Gott!” he said. “It does not seem long since Andrey Petrovich was your age, and now, see, what a big son he has! Oh, how time flies!”

He opened the letter and began reading it in an undertone, interposing his own remarks: “ ‘My dear Sir, Andrey Karlovich, I hope that Your Excellency’… Why so formal? Fie, he should be ashamed of himself! Discipline is, of course, a thing of the first importance, but is this the way to write to an old Kamerad?… ‘Your Excellency has not forgotten’… H’m … ‘and … when … the late Field Marshal Münnich … the march … and also … Carolinchen’… Ehe, Bruder! so he still remembers our old escapades! ‘Now to business … I am sending my young rascal to you’… H’m … ‘hold him in hedgehog gloves’… What are hedgehog gloves! It must be a Russian saying…. What does it mean?” he asked me.

“That means,” I answered, looking as innocent as possible, “to treat one kindly, not to be too stern, to give one plenty of freedom.”

“H’m, I see … ‘and do not give him too much rope.’ No, evidently ‘hedgehog gloves’ means something different…. ‘Herewith his passport’… Where is it? Ah, here…. ‘Write to the Semyonovsky regiment.’… Very good, very good; it shall be done…. ‘Allow me, forgetting your rank, to embrace you like an old friend and comrade’… Ah, at last he thought of it … and so on and so on….”

“Well, my dear,” he said, having finished the letter and put my passport aside, “it shall be done as your father wishes; you will be transferred, with the rank of an officer, to the N. regiment, and, not to lose time, you shall go tomorrow to the Belogorsky fortress to serve under Captain Mironov, a good and honorable man. You will see real service there and learn discipline. There is nothing for you to do at Orenburg; dissipation is bad for a young man. And tonight I shall be pleased to have you dine with me.”

“I am going from bad to worse!” I thought. “What is the good of my having been a sergeant in the Guards almost before I was born! Where has it brought me? To the N. regiment and a desolate fortress on the border of the Kirghiz Steppes!”

I had dinner with Andrey Karlovich and his old aide-de-camp. Strict German economy reigned at his table, and I think the fear of seeing occasionally an additional guest at his bachelor meal had something to do with my hasty removal to the garrison. The following day I took leave of the General and set off for my destination.

III
THE FORTRESS

In this fortress fine we live;

Bread and water is our fare.

And when ferocious foes

Come to our table bare,

To a real feast we treat them.

Load the cannon and then beat them.

SOLDIERS’ SONG

Old-fashioned people, sir.

FONVIZIN

THE BELOGORSKY FORTRESS was twenty-five miles from Orenburg. The road ran along the steep bank of the Yaïk. The river was not yet frozen and its leaden waves looked dark and mournful between the monotonous banks covered with white snow. Beyond it the Kirghiz Steppes stretched into the distance. I was absorbed in reflections, for the most part of a melancholy nature.