‘Shameless fellows! Shameless, upon my word!’ they heard behinc them the voice of Mavra Kuzminishna, who had softly entered. ‘Th< fat-faced fellow grinning at himself! So this is what you are at! It’s no all cleared away down there, and Vassilitch fairly knocked up. You wai a bit! ’
Ignat, setting his belt straight, left off smiling, and with eyes submis sively downcast, walked out of the room.
‘Auntie, I was only just touching . . .’ said the boy.
‘I’ll teach you only just to touch. Little rascal!’ cried Mavra Kuzmin ishna, waving her hand at him. ‘Go and set the samovar for your granddad.’
Brushing the dust off, she closed the clavichord, and sighing heavily /ent out of the drawing-room and closed the door. Going out into the ard Mavra Kuzminishna mused where she would go next: whether to [rink tea in the lodge with Vassilitch, or to the storeroom to put away /hat still remained to be stored away.
There was a sound of rapid footsteps in the still street. The steps paused t the gate, the latch rattled as some hand tried to open it.
Mavra Kuzminishna went up to the little gate.
‘Whom do you want?’
‘The count, Count Ilya Andreitch Rostov.’
‘But who are you?’
‘I am an officer. I want to see him,’ said a genial voice, the voice of a tussian gentleman.
Mavra Kuzminishna opened the gate. And there walked into the court- ard a round-faced officer, a lad of eighteen, whose type of face strikingly ssembled the Rostovs’.
‘They have gone away, sir. Yesterday, in the evening, their honours 2t off,’ said Mavra Kuzminishna cordially. The young officer standing 1 the gateway, as though hesitating whether to go in or not, gave a click 'ith his tongue expressive of disappointment.
‘Ah, how annoying!’ he said. ‘Yesterday I ought to . . . Ah, what a ity . . .’
Meanwhile Mavra Kuzminishna was intently and sympathetically zrutinising the familiar features of the Rostov family in the young man’s jce, and the tattered cloak and trodden-down boots he was wearing. Yhat was it you wanted to see the count for?’ she asked.
‘Well . . . what am I to do now!’ the officer cried, with vexation in is voice, and he took hold of the gate as though intending to go away, le stopped short again in uncertainty.
‘You see,’ he said all at once, ‘I am a kinsman of the count’s, and he as always been very kind to me. So do you see’ (he looked with a merry nd good-humoured smile at his cloak and boots) ‘I am in rags, and aven’t a farthing; so I had meant to ask the count . . .’
Marva Kuzminishna did not let him finish.
‘Would you wait just a minute, sir? Only one minute,’ she said. And js soon as the officer let go of the gate, Mavra Kuzminishna turned, and 'ith her rapid, elderly step hurried into the back court to her lodge.
While she was running to her room, the officer, with downcast head nd a faint smile, was pacing up and down the yard, gazing at his ittered boots.
‘ ‘What a pity I have missed uncle! What a nice old body! Where has he run off to? And how am I to find out the nearest way for me to over- ike the regiment, which must be at Rogozhsky by now?’ the young fficer was musing meanwhile. Mavra Kuzminishna came round the corner r ith a frightened and, at the same time, resolute face, carrying in her ands a knotted check handkerchief. A few steps from him, she untied
830 W A R A N D P E A C E
the handkerchief, took out of it a white twenty-five rouble note, and gav< it hurriedly to the officer.
‘Had his excellency been at horqe, to be sure, he would have done f kinsman’s part, but as it is . . . see, may be . . Mavra Kuzminishne was overcome with shyness and confusion. But the officer, with no hash nor reluctance, took the note, and thanked Mavra Kuzminishna. ‘If only the count had been at home,’ murmured Mavra Kuzminishna, as it were! apologetically. ‘Christ be with you, sir. God keep you safe,’ she said bowing and showing him out. The officer, smiling and shaking his head as though laughing at himself, ran almost at a trot along the empty streets to overtake his regiment at Yauzsky bridge.
But for some time Mavra Kuzminishna remained standing with wel eyes before the closed gate, pensively shaking her head, and feeling a sudden rush of motherly tenderness and pity for the unknown boy- officer.
XXIII
