Count B—— was not there, "but would be coming soon." I felt that I could wait. The salon was of the kind that one often sees in houses where the mistress, having no children and plenty of time, embroiders things. Every possible object had a coat of arms and huge crowns embroidered on it, so that you could never forget that you were in the house of ancient nobility, which had the right to impose its crowns on you. All the chairs, tables, sideboards, and things on the walls were made out of the horns of stags and other animals the Count had shot. Sometimes the chairs were covered with the skin of the same, minus the hair, which was missing and moth-eaten in spots.
I was taken up-stairs to my bedroom, and I was thankful to see that the horns and crowns had nearly given out before they finished furnishing the first story, and that I had an ordinary middle-class chair to sit on. There were many pictures of Madonnas and saints, from which I inferred that our hosts were Catholics, and a prie-dieu, which, strange to say, was made of horns; and the mat in front of my bed was a blaze of the united coats of arms and two crowns! So she was a Countess born, which accounted for the doubleness.
We were obliged to make le tour du propriétaire, and, of course, as there was no other place to take us to, we went to the stables. There we admired the two cows (Stella and Bella) with horns. They had their names painted in blue and white over their respective heads, but they had no crowns.
Then the Count appeared in very nice clothes. I fancy, while we had been admiring Stella and Bella, he had been changing his boots. Owing to these fresh boots we were spared the pigsties. On our return to the house Countess B—— said, "You know, we don't dress for dinner." I thought with dismay of my trunk laden with all its superfluous contents, and what a bore the bringing of it had been, and the opinion my maid would pass on our noble hosts, who "don't dress for dinner," when she unpacked the undisturbed finery which she had thought indispensable.
After dinner the conversation was chiefly pastoral, of the kind I do not join in because I hate it. How many chickens had died, how Bella and Stella had borne last winter's cold, how many sacks of potatoes had been spoiled, etc. My Countess enjoyed it immensely, and sat on a horny chair and sympathized. Our host took pity on me and taught me a patience. I had known it all my life as "the idiot's delight," but I pretended I had never heard of it before, and he had the satisfaction of thinking he was entertaining me—which he wasn't! On the contrary, Job's patience never could have equaled this one; the Count talked French fluently. The dinner was not good, nor was it frugal.
The Count said, "Nous n'avons que le stricte nécessaire, rien de plus."
The Countess said, in English, "One can't have in the country all that one wants."
I could not help feeling that one could not have even the half of what one wanted, and more than once I caught myself thinking, "None but the brave deserve this fare." They noticed if you took a second helping, and you felt that they made a mental note if your glass was filled more than once with wine. However, it was all very nice, and they were very kind, good people. It was not the Count's fault if the stags he killed had too many horns, neither was it the Countess's fault that time hung heavy on her hands and embroidery occupied them.
Fortunately we would go away next day, so what did it matter? But getting away was a very different thing from coming. When the Countess Westphal suggested it, and said that we intended to take a certain train, the faces of our hosts presented a blank look of apprehension! Their horses were plowing! What should we do? The doctor, they said, who lived in the village, had a carriage, but the horse was sick; there was, however, the schimmel of the baker, which, fortunately, was in good health, and perhaps, in conjunction with the wagon of the doctor, one could manage. It sounded like a gigantic exercise of Ollendorff:
"Avez-vous le cheval du boulanger?"