THE LITTLE POET.


The little fort of Bélogorsk lay about forty versts[28] from Orenburg.
From this town the road followed along by the rugged banks of the R.
Yaïk. The river was not yet frozen, and its lead-coloured waves looked
almost black contrasted with its bunks white with snow. Before me
stretched the Kirghiz Steppes. I was lost in thought, and my reverie was
tinged with melancholy. Garrison life did not offer me much attraction.
I tried to imagine what my future chief, Commandant Mironoff, would be
like. I saw in my mind's eye a strict, morose old man, with no ideas
beyond the service, and prepared to put me under arrest for the smallest
trifle.

Twilight was coming on; we were driving rather quickly.

"Is it far from here to the fort?" I asked the driver.

"Why, you can see it from here," replied he.

I began looking all round, expecting to see high bastions, a wall, and a
ditch. I saw nothing but a little village, surrounded by a wooden
palisade. On one side three or four haystacks, half covered with snow;
on another a tumble-down windmill, whose sails, made of coarse limetree
bark, hung idly down.

"But where is the fort?" I asked, in surprise.

"There it is yonder, to be sure," rejoined the driver, pointing out to