"Thank God, all is quiet, except that Corporal Kourzoff quarreled with
the woman Augustina about a pail of warm water."

"Ignatius," said the Captain's wife to the one-eyed man, "judge between
the two--decide which one is guilty, and punish both. Go, Maxim, God
be with you. Peter Grineff, Maxim will conduct you to your lodgings."

I took my leave; the Corporal led me to a cabin placed on the high bank
near the river's edge, at the end of the fortress. Half of the cabin
was occupied by the family of Simeon Kieff, the other was given up to
me. My half of the cabin was a large apartment divided by a partition.
Saveliitch began at once to install us, whilst I looked out of the
narrow window. Before me stretched the bleak and barren steppe; nearer
rose some cabins; at the threshold of one stood a woman with a bowl in
her hand calling the pigs to feed; no other objects met my sight, save
a few chickens scratching for stray kernels of corn in the street. And
this was the country to which I was condemned to pass my youth! I
turned from the window, seized by bitter sadness, and went to bed
without supper, notwithstanding the supplications of Saveliitch, who
with anguish cried aloud: "Oh! he will not deign to eat! O Lord! what
will my mistress say, if the child should fall ill!"

The next morning I had scarcely begun to dress, when a young officer
entered my room. He was of small size, with irregular features, but
his sun-burned face had remarkable vivacity. "Pardon me," said he in
French, "that I come so unceremoniously to make your acquaintance. I
learned yesterday of your arrival, and the desire of seeing at last a
human face so took possession of me that I could wait no longer. You
will understand this when you shall have lived here some time!"