“Then don't give anybody horses, if there are none! But why furnish them to some lackey or other with baggage?” shouted the elder of the two officers, with a glass of tea in his hand, and plainly avoiding the use of pronouns,[J] but giving it to be understood that he might very easily address the superintendent as “thou.”
“Judge for yourself, now, Mr. Superintendent,” said the younger officer, with some hesitation. “We don't want to go for our own pleasure. We must certainly be needed, since we have been called for. And I certainly shall report to the general. But this, of course,—you know that you are not paying proper respect to the military profession.”
“You are always spoiling things,” the elder man interrupted, with vexation. “You only hinder me; you must know how to talk to them. Here, now, he has lost his respect. Horses this very instant, I say!”
“I should be glad to give them to you, bátiushka,[K] but where am I to get them?”
After a brief silence, the superintendent began to grow irritated, and to talk, flourishing his hands the while.
“I understand, bátiushka. And I know all about it myself. But what are you going to do? Only give me”—here a ray of hope gleamed across the faces of the officers—“only give me a chance to live until the end of the month, and you won't see me here any longer. I'd rather go on the Malakhoff tower, by Heavens! than stay here. Let them do what they please about it! There's not a single sound team in the station this day, and the horses haven't seen a wisp of hay these three days.” And the superintendent disappeared behind the gate.
Kozeltzoff entered the room in company with the officers.
“Well,” said the elder officer, quite calmly, to the younger one, although but a second before he had appeared to be greatly irritated, “we have been travelling these three weeks, and we will wait a little longer. There's no harm done. We shall get there at last.”
The dirty, smoky apartment was so filled with officers and trunks that it was with difficulty that Kozeltzoff found a place near the window, where he seated himself; he began to roll himself a cigarette, as he glanced at the faces and lent an ear to the conversations.