'Anvthing else?' shouted the commander.
'At yesterday's re-shoeing Boy's foot was injured, your honour. The vet put on day and vinegar. He's being led separately now. Also, craftsman Artemyev got drunk yesterday, your honour, and the Lieutenant ordered him to be put on the limber of the reserve gun-carriage.'
The sergeant-major went on to report that Karpov had forgotten the new cords for the trumpets, and the tent-poles, and that yester- day evening the officers had been the guests of General von Rabbek. In the course of the conversation Lebedetsky's ginger-bearded face showed up at the window. He peered shortsightedly at the officers' sleepy faces and said good-morning.
'Everything in order?' he asked.
'The left wheeler's rubbed hcr withers sore on her new collar,' Lobytko answered, yawning.
The commander sighed, thought for a moment, then bellowed:
'I think 1*11 go on and visit Alexandra Yevgrafovna. Must look her up. Cheerio then. 1*11 catch you up this evening.'
A quarter of an hour later the brigade moved off. As they were going along the road past the estate granaries, Ryabovich looked over to his right at the house. The b1inds were down in the windows. They must all still be asleep indoors. She was asleep too: the girl who had kissed Ryabovich the evening before. He tried to imagine her sleeping. The wide open bedroom window with green branches peeping in, the early morning freshness, the scent ofpoplar, lilac and roses, her bed, a chair with the rustling dress of yesterday draped over it, her slippers, her little watch on the bedside table - all this he pictured clearly and distinctly to himself; but those things that were really vital and individual to her- her features and her sweet, drowsy smile - eluded his imagination like quicksilver before your touch. When they had covered half a verst, he glanced back: the yellow church, the house, the river and the garden were bathed in light; the river with its bright green banks looked very beautiful, reflecting the blue sky, and here and there gleaming silver in the sunlight. Ryabovich took a last look at Mestechki and felt as sad as if he were parting with something very near and dear to him.
As for the sights that lay before him on the journey, they were all only too dull and familiar . . . To right and to left fields ofyoung rye and buckwheat with rooks hopping about; ahead of him - dust and the backs ofheads, behind him - the same dust and faces ... Out in front march four men with sabres: the vanguard. Behind them in a crowd come the singers, and behind the singers the trumpeters on horseback. The vanguard and the singers, 1ike torch-bearers in a funeral procession, forget every so often about the regulation dis- tance and open up a huge gap . . . Ryabovich is with the first gun of the fifth battery. He can see all four batteries ahead of him. To a 1ayman the 1ong, 1umbering co1umn of a brigade on the move appears to be a complicated and confusing muddle; it does not make sense for one gun to have somany people round it and to be drawn by so many horses entangled in strange harness, as if it really were that heavy and terrifying. But to Ryabovich it all makes sense and is therefore extremely boring. He has known for ages why a sturdy bombardier rides alongside the officer at the head of each battery and why he is given a special name; behind this bombardier's back he can see the drivers of the first and then the middle trace; Ryabovich knows that the horses on the left, on which the drivers ride, have one name, and those on the right another - and it is all very boring. Behind the driver come the rwo wheel-horses. On one ofthem rides a driver with yesterday's dust still on his back and a very clumsy, funny-looking piece of wood on his right leg; Ryabovich knows the purpose of this piece of wood and does not find it funny at all. Every single driver brandishes his whip mechanically and from time to time gives a shout. The gun itself is ugly. Sacks of oats covered by a tarpaulin lie on the limber, while the actual gun has tea-pots, sol- diers' packs and haversacks hanging all over it, and gives the appear- ance of a small harmless creature which for some unknown reason has been surrounded by human beings and horses. On its leeward side, swinging their arms, march the six members of the guncrew. Behind the gun begins another set of leaders, drivers and wheelers, behind which another gun is being pulled, as ugly and unimpressive as the first. The second is followed by a third and a fourth; the fourth has an officer to it, and so on. The brigade has six batteries in all, and each battery has four guns. The column stretches for half a verst. Bringing up the rear is the baggage-train, and walking thoughtfully beside it, drooping his long-eared head, marches a highly sympathe- tic character: the donkey Magar, brought back from Turkey by one of the battery commanders.
Ryabovich stared with indifference in front and behind, at the backs of heads and the faces; at any other time he would have become drowsy, but now he was totally immersed in his pleasant new thoughts. At first, when the brigade had only just moved off, he tried to convince himself that the incident with the kiss could be of interest only as a mysterious linle adventure, that basically it was trivial and to give it serious thought was absurd, to say the least; but he sooncastlogicasideand abandoned himselfto dreams ... Firsthe imagined himself in Rabbek's drawing-room, next to a young girl who was like rhe girl in lilac and the little blonde in black; then he closed his eyes and saw himself with another girl, a total stranger whose features were very shadowy, imagined himself talking to her, caressing her, leaning on her shoulder, pictured war and separation, then reunion, supper with his wife, children . ..
'Brakes!' the command rang out every time they went downhill.
He too shouted 'Brakes!' and was afraid lest his shout should interrupt his dreams and bring him back to reality ...
As they were going past some large estate, Ryabovich glanced across the fencing into the grounds. His eye was met by a long avenue straight as a ruler, strewn with yellow sand and planted with young birch-trees . .. With the avidity of a man lost in daydreams he picrured small feminine feet walking on thc yellow sand, and quite unexpectedly a clear impression arose in his imagination of the girl who had kissed him and whose image he had succeeded in conjuring up at supper the day bcfore. This image fixed itself in his brain and did not leave him.
At midday a shout rang out in the rear by the baggage-train:
'Atten-tion! Eyes left! Stand by, officers!'
The Brigade General drove past in a barouche drawn by a pair of white horses. He stopped by the second battery and shouted some- thing which no one could understand. Several officers, including Ryabovich, galloped up to him.
'How goes it then?' the General asked, blinking his red eyes. 'Any sick?'
After receiving answers to his questions, the General, a skinny little man, chewed his lips thoughtfully, then turned to one of the officers and said:
'The wheel-horse driver on your third gun has taken off his knee- guard and hung it on the limber. Punish the rascal.'
He looked up at Ryabovich and went on:
'Your breechings look too slack .. .'
After making several other tedious observations, the General looked at Lobytko and grinned.
'And you're looking very down in the mouth today, Lieutenant Lobytko,' he said. 'Missing Lopukhova, are you? Eh? Gentlemen, he's pining for Lopukhova!'
Lopukhova was a very stout and very tall lady, well past forty. The General, who was partial to substantial females of whatever age, suspected a similar predilection in his officers. The officers smiled respectfully. The General, pleascd with his bitingly witty remark, guffawed, touched his coachman on the back and saluted. The