“ Bonsoir, Madame la Comtesse ,” he said, offering his hand through the carriage-window.
A small hand in a kid glove pressed his, and a pretty smiling face in a yellow bonnet appeared at the carriage-window.
Of the conversation, which lasted several minutes, I only overheard the general say laughingly, as I passed by:
“ Vous savez que j’ai fait vœu de combattre les infidèles: prenez donc garde de le devenir. ”
A laugh answered from inside the carriage.
“ Adieu donc, cher Général! ”
“ Non, à revoir ,” said the general, ascending the steps of the porch. “ N’oubliez pas, que je m’invite pour la soirée de demain. ”
The carriage rattled off.
“Here again,” I thought as I walked home, “is a man who possesses all that Russians strive after: rank, riches, distinction; and this man, on the day before an engagement, the outcome of which is known only to God, jokes with a pretty woman and promises to have tea with her next day, just as if they had met at a ball!”
At that same adjutant’s, I met a young man who surprised me even more. It was a young lieutenant of the K⸺ regiment, who was noted for his almost feminine meekness and timidity, and who had come to the adjutant to pour out his vexation and resentment against those who, he said, had intrigued against him to keep him from taking part in the impending action. He said it was mean to behave in that way, that it was