Vassilissa Igorofna received us with simplicity and kindness, and
treated me as if she had known me a long time. The pensioner and
Palashka were laying the cloth.

"What possesses my Iván Kouzmitch to-day to drill his troops so long?"
remarked the Commandant's wife. "Palashka, go and fetch him for dinner.
And what can have become of Masha?"[39]

Hardly had she said the name than a young girl of sixteen came into the
room. She had a fresh, round face, and her hair was smoothly put back
behind her ears, which were red with shyness and modesty. She did not
please me very much at first sight; I looked at her with prejudice.
Chvabrine had described Marya, the Commandant's daughter, to me as being
rather silly. She went and sat down in a corner, and began to sew. Still
the "_chtchi_"[40] had been brought in. Vassilissa Igorofna, not seeing
her husband come back, sent Palashka for the second time to call him.

"Tell the master that the visitors are waiting, and the soup is getting
cold. Thank heaven, the drill will not run away. He will have plenty of
time to shout as much as he likes."

The Commandant soon appeared, accompanied by the little old one-eyed
man.

"What does all this mean, my little father?" said his wife to him.
"Dinner has been ready a long time, and we cannot make you come."

"But don't you see, Vassilissa Igorofna," replied Iván Kouzmitch, "I
was very busy drilling my little soldiers."