"Eh, you little stupid!" said Selifan; "that is to the right; she does not even know what right and left means."
Although the day was fair, the road was wet and heavy, and so muddy, that the wheels of the britchka were soon thickly covered with it, which considerably increased the weight of the carriage; besides, the soil was of a dayish nature and exceedingly sticky. This was the chief cause that they could not reach the high road before mid-day. Without the assistance of the little girl, they would not have been able to progress so fast, because the narrow paths and turnings were innumerable, and led in all directions, like captured lobsters when thrown out of a bag, and Selifan, if alone, might have driven heaven knows where. Soon after, the little girl pointed to some building at a distance and said, "There is the high road!"
"And what are those buildings?" inquired Selifan.
"That is an inn," answered the child.
"Now we shall be able to find the road ourselves," said Selifan, "you can be off home again." He stopped his horses, and helped her to get down from his seat, murmuring through his teeth, "Eh, you little black-leg!"
Tchichikoff gave her some coppers, the value of about a penny, and she soon disappeared in one of the next turnings. The poor little child seemed overjoyed, not so much about the trifle which she had received, as from the pleasure she had enjoyed in sitting and riding in such a beautiful carriage, drawn by such handsome horses.
[CHAPTER XVII.]
On arriving at the inn, Tchichikoff ordered his coachman to halt, mainly for too reasons; on the one hand, he wished that his jaded horses should have a little rest, and on the other, that he himself should have something to eat, and recruit his exhausted strength.
The author must confess that he very much envies the appetite and the stomach of such men as his hero. He entertains the greatest indifference for all those gentlemen of the haut ton, who inhabit either St. Petersburgh or Moscow, and who waste their time in anxiously thinking about what they would like to eat to-morrow, and what dinner they could imagine for the day after, and preparing themselves for that dinner by undergoing the operation of swallowing a pill on the evening previous; who gulp down oysters and devour lobsters, together with a variety of other marine and land curiosities, and end by going on a journey for health, either to Baden Baden, or the Caucasus.