“The first offence shall be forgiven,” answered Eróshka, “but if you oversleep another time you’ll be fined a pail of chikhir. When it gets warmer you won’t find the deer.”
“And even if we do find him he is wiser than we are,” said Olénin, repeating the words spoken by the old man the evening before, “and you can’t deceive him!”
“Yes, laugh away! You kill one first, and then you may talk. Now then, hurry up! Look, there’s the master himself coming to see you,” added Eróshka, looking out of the window. “Just see how he’s got himself up. He’s put on a new coat so that you should see that he’s an officer. Ah, these people, these people!”
Sure enough Vanyúsha came in and announced that the master of the house wished to see Olénin.
“L’arjan!” he remarked profoundly, to forewarn his master of the meaning of this visitation. Following him, the master of the house in a new Circassian coat with an officer’s stripes on the shoulders and with polished boots (quite exceptional among Cossacks) entered the room, swaying from side to side, and congratulated his lodger on his safe arrival.
The cornet, Elias Vasílich, was an educated Cossack. He had been to Russia proper, was a regimental schoolteacher, and above all he was noble. He wished to appear noble, but one could not help feeling beneath his grotesque pretence of polish, his affectation, his self-confidence, and his absurd way of speaking, he was just the same as Daddy Eróshka. This could also be clearly seen by his sunburnt face and his hands and his red nose. Olénin asked him to sit down.
“Good morning, Father Elias Vasílich,” said Eróshka, rising with (or so it seemed to Olénin) an ironically low bow.
“Good morning. Daddy. So you’re here already,” said the cornet, with a careless nod.
The cornet was a man of about forty, with a grey pointed beard, skinny and lean, but handsome and very fresh-looking for his age. Having come to see Olénin he was evidently afraid of being taken for an ordinary Cossack, and wanted to let Olénin feel his importance from the first.
“That’s our Egyptian Nimrod,” he remarked, addressing Olénin and pointing to the old man with a self-satisfied smile. “A mighty hunter before the Lord! He’s our foremost man on every hand. You’ve already been pleased to get acquainted with him.”