him. “Never mind, old chap! I was just like you once, and now look what a fine fellow I am. You let a young fellow straight from Russia in here—haven’t we seen them?—and he gets spasms or rheumatism or something; and here am I settled here, and it’s my house and my bed and all, d’you see?”
And thereupon he drank another glass of vodka, and looking fixedly at Kraft, said, “Eh?”
“That is what I respect! Here’s a genuine old Caucasian! Permit me to shake hands.”
And Kraft, pushing us all aside, forced his way to Trosenko, and catching hold of his hand shook it with peculiar emotion.
“Yes,” continued Kraft, “we may say we have gone through every kind of experience here. In ’45 you were present, Captain, were you not?—you remember the night between the 12th and 13th, when we spent the night knee-deep in mud and next day captured the barricades they had made of felled trees. I was attached to the commander-in-chief at the time, and we took fifteen barricades that one day—you remember, Captain?”
Trosenko nodded affirmatively, stuck out his nether lip and screwed up his eyes.
“You see …” began Kraft, with great animation, making unsuitable gestures with his hands, and addressing the Major.
But the Major, who had, in all probability, heard the story more than once, suddenly looked at the speaker with such dim, dull eyes, that Kraft turned away from him and addressed me and Bolhov, looking alternately at one and the other. But he did not give a single glance at Trosenko during the whole of his narration.