"I told him all that, Barinia; and I told him about madame your
mother."

"What did he say to that?"

"That he was not madame your mother. He acted angry."

"Well, let him come in without being searched."

"The Chief of Police won't like it."

"Do as I say."

Ermolai bowed and returned to the garden. The "barinia" left the
veranda, where she had come for this conversation with the old
servant of General Trebassof, her husband, and returned to the
dining-room in the datcha des Iles, where the gay Councilor Ivan
Petrovitch was regaling his amused associates with his latest
exploit at Cubat's resort. They were a noisy company, and certainly
the quietest among them was not the general, who nursed on a sofa
the leg which still held him captive after the recent attack, that
to his old coachman and his two piebald horses had proved fatal.
The story of the always-amiable Ivan Petrovitch (a lively, little,
elderly man with his head bald as an egg) was about the evening
before. After having, as he said, "recure la bouche" for these
gentlemen spoke French like their own language and used it among
themselves to keep their servants from understanding - after having
wet his whistle with a large glass of sparkling rosy French wine,
he cried: