I entered a very neat room, furnished in the fashion of other days.
On one side stood a cabinet containing the silver. Against the wall
hung the diploma of an officer, with colored engravings arranged
around its frame; notably, the "Choice of the Betrothed," the "Taking
of Kurstrin," and the "Burial of the Cat by the Mice." Near the window
sat an old woman in a mantilla, her head wrapped in a handkerchief.
She was winding a skein of thread held on the separated hands of a
little old man, blind of one eye, who was dressed like an officer.

"What do you desire, my dear sir?" said the woman to me, without
interrupting her occupation. I told her that I had come to enter the
service, and that, according to rule, I hastened to present myself to
the captain. In saying this, I turned to the one-eyed old man, whom I
took for the commandant. The good lady interrupted the speech which I
had prepared in advance:

"Ivan Mironoff is not at home; he is gone to visit Father Garasim;
but it is all the same; I am his wife. Deign to love us and have us
in favor! Take a seat, my dear sir." She ordered a servant to send
her the Corporal. The little old man gazed at me curiously, with his
only eye.

"May I dare to ask," said he, "in what regiment you have deigned
to serve?"

I satisfied him on that point.

"And may I dare to ask why you changed from the Guards to our
garrison?"