this moment an officer of infantry entered the room.
“I … I was ordered … may I present myself to the gen … to His Excellency from General N.?” he inquired, bowing with an air of embarrassment.
Kalugin rose, but, without returning the officer's salute, he asked him, with insulting courtesy and strained official smile, whether they6 would not wait awhile; and, without inviting him to be seated or paying any further attention to him, he turned to Prince Galtsin and began to speak to him in French, so that the unhappy officer, who remained standing in the middle of the room, absolutely did not know what to do with himself.
“It is on very important business, sir,” said the officer, after a momentary pause.
“Ah! very well, then,” said Kalugin, putting on his cloak, and accompanying him to the door.
“Eh bien, messieurs, I think there will be hot work to-night,” said Kalugin in French, on his return from the general's.
“Hey? What? A sortie?” They all began to question him.
“I don't know yet – you will see for yourselves,” replied Kalugin, with a mysterious smile.
“And my commander is on the bastion – of course, I shall have to go,” said Praskukhin, buckling on his sword.
But no one answered him: he must know for himself whether he had to go or not.
Praskukhin and Neferdoff went off, in order to betake themselves to their posts. “Farewell, gentlemen!” “Au revoir, gentlemen! We shall meet again to-night!” shouted Kalugin from the window when Praskukhin and Neferdoff trotted down the street, bending over the bows of their Cossack saddles. The trampling of their Cossack horses soon died away in the dusky street.
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