"Can they be coming here?" the mistress of the house thought. "Ah, my God! they've actually turned onto the bridge!" She cried out, clasped her hands, and ran across flower beds and flowers straight to her husband's bedroom. He lay in a dead sleep.
"Get up, get up! Get up quickly!" she cried, pulling him by the arm.
"Ah?" said Chertokutsky, stretching without opening his eyes.
"Get up, poopsy! Do you hear? Guests!"
"Guests? What guests?" Having said which, he uttered a little moo, like a calf feeling for its mother's teats with its muzzle. "Mm…" he grunted, "give me your little neck, moomsy! I'll kiss you."
"Sweetie, get up quickly, for God's sake. The general and the officers! Ah, my God, you've got a burr on your mustache!"
"The general? Ah, so he's coming already? But why the devil didn't anybody wake me up? And the dinner, what about the dinner-is everything properly prepared?"
"What dinner?" "Didn't I order it?"
"You? You came home at four o'clock in the morning and never told me anything, no matter how I asked. I didn't wake you up, poopsy, because I felt sorry for you-you hadn't had any sleep…" These last words she pronounced in an extremely languid and pleading voice.
Chertokutsky, his eyes popping out, lay in bed for a moment as if thunderstruck. Finally he jumped up in nothing but his shirt, forgetting that it was quite indecent.
"Ah, what a horse I am!" he said, slapping himself on the forehead. "I invited them for dinner. What can we do? Are they far off?"
"I don't know… they must be here by now."
"Sweetie… hide somewhere!… Hey, who's there? Go, my girl-what, fool, are you afraid? The officers will come any minute. Tell them the master isn't here, tell them he won't be home today, that he left in the morning, do you hear? And tell all the servants. Go quickly!"
Having said that, he hastily grabbed his dressing gown and ran to hide in the carriage shed, supposing he would be completely safe there. But, after installing himself in a corner of the shed, he saw that even there he might somehow be visible. "Now, this will be better," flashed in his head, and he instantly folded down the steps of a nearby carriage, jumped in, closed the doors, covered himself with the apron and the rug for greater safety, and became perfectly still, crouched there in his dressing gown.
Meanwhile the carriages drove up to the porch.
The general stepped out and shook himself, followed by the colonel, straightening the plumes on his hat. Then the fat major jumped down from the droshky, holding his saber under his arm. Then the slim lieutenants who had been holding the sublieutenant on their laps leaped down from the bonvoyage, and finally the horse-prancing officers dismounted.
"The master's not at home," said a lackey, coming out to the porch.
"How, not at home? But, in any case, he'll be home by dinnertime?"
"No, sir, he's gone for the whole day. He may be back around this time tomorrow."
"Well, look at that!" said the general. "How can it be?…"
"Some stunt, I must say!" the colonel said, laughing.
"Ah, no, it isn't done," the general went on with displeasure. "Pah… the devil… If you can't receive, why go inviting?"
"I don't understand how anyone could do it, Your Excellency," said one young officer.
"What?" said the general, who was in the habit of always uttering this interrogative word when speaking with his officers.
"I said, Your Excellency, how can anyone act in such a way?"
"Naturally… Well, if something's happened, let people know, at least, or don't invite them."
"So, Your Excellency, there's no help for it, let's go back!" said the colonel.
"Certainly, nothing else to be done. However, we can have a look at the carriage even without him. He surely hasn't taken it with him. Hey, you there, come here, brother!"
"What's your pleasure?"
"You're a stable boy?"
"I am, Your Excellency."
"Show us the new carriage your master acquired recently."
"It's here in the shed, sir."
The general went into the shed together with the officers.
"If you wish, I'll move it out a little, it's a bit dark in here."
"Enough, enough, that's good!"
The general and the officers walked around the carriage, thoroughly examining the wheels and springs.
"Well, nothing special," said the general, "a most ordinary carriage."
"Most ungainly," said the colonel, "absolutely nothing good about it."
"It seems to me, Your Excellency, that it's hardly worth four thousand," said one of the young officers.
"What?"
"I said, Your Excellency, that it seems to me it's not worth four thousand."
"Four thousand, hah! It's not even worth two. There's simply nothing to it. Unless there's something special inside… Be so kind, my good fellow, as to undo the cover…"
And before the officers' eyes Chertokutsky appeared, sitting in his dressing gown and crouched in an extraordinary fashion.
"Ah, you're here!…" said the amazed general.
Having said which, the general at once slammed the doors, covered Chertokutsky with the apron again, and drove off with the other gendemen officers.
The Portrait
PART I Nowhere did so many people stop as in front of the art shop in the Shchukin market. This shop, indeed, presented the most heterogeneous collection of marvels: the pictures were for the most part painted in oils and covered with a dark green varnish, in gaudy, dark-yellow frames. Winter with white trees, a completely red evening like the glow of a fire, a Flemish peasant with a pipe and a dislocated arm, looking more like a turkey with cuffs than a human being-these were their usual subjects. To them should be added a few engraved prints: the portrait of Khozrev-Mirza 1 in a lambskin hat, the portraits of some generals in three-cornered hats, with crooked noses. Moreover, the doors of such a shop are usually hung with sheaves of popular prints on large sheets, which witness to the innate giftedness of the Russian man. On one was the tsarevna Miliktrisa Kirbitievna, 2 on another the city of Jerusalem, whose houses and churches were unceremoniously rolled over with red paint, which invaded part of the ground and two praying Russian peasants in mittens. These works usually have few purchasers, but a heap of viewers. Some bibulous lackey is sure to be there gaping at them, holding covered dishes from the restaurant for his master, who without doubt will sup a none-too-hot soup. In front of them there is sure to be standing a soldier in an overcoat, that cavalier of the flea market, with a couple of penknives to sell, and an Okhta 3 market woman with a box full of shoes. Each admires in his own way: the peasants usually poke their fingers; gentlemen study seriously; lackey boys and boy artisans laugh and tease each other with caricatures; old lackeys in frieze overcoats look on only so as to stand somewhere and gape; and young Russian market women hasten there by instinct, to hear what people are gabbing about and look at what they are looking at.