under you not a horse, but the devil incarnate, prancing all about, and you just sit in devil-me-care style. The squadron commander rides up to review: ‘Lieutenant,’ he says, ‘if you please, we can’t get on without you—lead the squadron to parade.’ ‘All right,’ you say, and there you are; you turn round, shout to your moustached fellows. … Ah, devil take it, those were times!”
The Count returned from the bath very red and with wet hair, and went straight to No. 7, where the cavalryman was already sitting in his dressing-gown, smoking a pipe and considering with pleasure, and not without some apprehension, the happiness that had befallen him of sharing a room with the celebrated Toúrbin. “Now, supposing,” he thought, “that he suddenly takes me, strips me naked, drives with me to the town gates and puts me in the snow, or … tars me, or simply … But no,” he consoled himself, “he won’t do it to a comrade.”
“Sáshka, feed Blücher!” shouted the Count.
Sáshka, who had taken a tumbler of vodka to refresh himself after the journey, and was decidedly tipsy, came in.
“What, already! You’ve been drinking, rascal! … Feed Blücher!”
“He won’t starve anyhow; see how sleek he is!” answered Sáshka, stroking the dog.
“Silence! Be off and feed him!”
“You want the dog to be fed, but when a man drinks a glass you reproach him.”
“Hey! I’ll thrash you!” shouted the Count, in a voice that made the window panes rattle and frightened even the cavalryman a bit.
“You should ask if Sáshka has yet had a bite today! Yes, beat me, if you think more of a dog than of a man,” muttered Sáshka.