‘Look at them! Dripping all over the place! Do you want to flood us out? Don’t drip all over Marya Genrikhovna’s clothes,’ came the various voices.
Rostov and Ilyin looked round quickly for some little corner where they could get out of their wet clothes without offending the modesty of Marya Genrikhovna. They headed for a little partition to go behind it and change, but the tiny space was completely filled by three officers who sat there playing cards by the light of a single candle on an empty box and refused to budge. Marya Genrikhovna yielded up a petticoat for use as a curtain and with that for a screen Rostov and Ilyin, assisted by Lavrushka, who had followed on with their kit-bags, got out of their wet things and came out in dry clothes.
A fire had been lit in the broken-down stove. They got hold of a board, rigged it up across a couple of saddles, covered it with a horse-cloth and then produced a small samovar, a hamper and half a bottle of rum. They all crowded round Marya Genrikhovna, asking her to be mother. One of them offered her a clean handkerchief to wipe her pretty little hands; somebody else spread his tunic under her little feet to keep them out of the damp; a third man hung his cape over the window to keep the draught out; a fourth wafted the flies away from her husband’s face so he wouldn’t wake up.
‘Leave him alone,’ said Marya Genrikhovna with a shy, happy smile. ‘He won’t have any trouble sleeping – he’s been up all night.’
‘Oh no, Marya Genrikhovna,’ answered the officer, ‘we’ve got to look after the doctor! Anything could happen, and I want him to be nice to me when he cuts my leg off, or my arm.’
There were only three glasses, the water was so dirty you couldn’t tell whether the tea was strong or weak, and the samovar only held enough water for six glasses, but all this added to the pleasure of waiting, in order of rank, until it was your turn to receive a glass from Marya Genrikhovna’s chubby little hands with their short and not too clean nails. All the officers seemed to have really fallen in love with Marya Genrikhovna for one evening. Even the officers who had been playing cards behind the screen soon abandoned their game and came to gather round the samovar, catching the general mood and flirting with Marya Genrikhovna. She, seeing herself surrounded by such brilliant and solicitous young men, was beaming with delight despite her best efforts to conceal it, and the obvious way she jumped every time her husband stirred in his sleep behind her. There was plenty of sugar but only one spoon, so no one could have a proper stir. It was decided that Marya Genrikhovna would stir everybody’s glass in turn. Rostov received his glass, topped it up with rum and asked Marya Genrikhovna to do the stirring.
‘But you don’t take sugar, do you?’ she said, and the smile never left her face, seeming to suggest that everything she said and everybody else said was wildly amusing and had a double meaning.
‘I’m not bothered about the sugar, I just want you to stir it with your little hand.’
Marya Genrikhovna accepted this and looked round for the spoon, but someone had snatched it away.
‘Use one of your little fingers, Marya Genrikhovna,’ said Rostov. ‘It’ll taste nicer.’
‘Too hot,’ said Marya Genrikhovna, colouring up with pleasure.
Ilyin fetched a bucketful of water, topped it up with a little rum, walked over to Marya Genrikhovna and asked her to stir it with her finger.
‘This is my cup,’ he said. ‘Dip your finger in and I’ll drink the lot.’
When the samovar had been emptied Rostov reached for the cards and proposed a game of ‘kings’ with Marya Genrikhovna. They drew lots to decide who was going to be her partner. Rostov proposed new rules: whoever was ‘king’ would have the right to kiss Marya Genrikhovna’s hand, and the ‘knave’ would have to get the samovar going again for the doctor when he woke up.
‘Yes, but what if Marya Genrikhovna is king?’ asked Ilyin.
‘She’s already our queen! And her word is law.’ The game had hardly started when the doctor’s dishevelled head suddenly loomed up behind his wife. He had been awake for some time, listening to what they were saying, and it was clear that he could see nothing enjoyable, diverting or the least bit funny in what was being said and done. His face was a picture of sorrow and anguish. Without greeting the officers he scratched himself and asked them to let him through because they were standing in his way. The moment he had left the room all the officers erupted in great bellows of laughter, and Marya Genrikhovna blushed till her eyes watered, which made her even more alluring to all the officers. When he came back in from the yard the doctor turned to his wife (who had wiped the radiant smile off her face and was now watching him apprehensively, waiting to see what his verdict would be) and told her it had stopped raining and they would have to spend the night in their covered cart if they didn’t want all their things to be stolen.
