While a man went to call the landlord, Pierre used his leisure, under the pretext of aiding his consort, in crushing a garment of hers and in stumbling against an empty box. Steadying himself with his hand against the wall, the Decembrist looked around with a smile; but Sónya was looking at him with such smiling eyes that she seemed to be waiting for permission to laugh. He readily granted her that permission, and himself burst out into such a good-natured laugh that all those who were in the room, his wife, the maids, and the peasants, laughed with him. This laughter animated the old man still more. He discovered that the divan in the room for his wife and daughter was not standing very conveniently for them, although they affirmed the opposite, and asked him to calm himself. Just as he was trying with his own hands to help a peasant to change the position of that piece of furniture, the landlord, a Frenchman, entered the room. "You sent for me," the landlord asked sternly and, in proof of his indifference, if not contempt, slowly drew out his handkerchief, slowly unfolded it, and slowly cleared his nose. "Yes, my dear sir," said Peter Ivánovich, stepping up toward him, "you see, we do not know ourselves how long we are going to stay here, I and my wife--" and Peter Ivánovich, who had the weakness of seeing a neighbour in every man, began to expound his plans and affairs to him. M. Chevalier did not share that view of people and was not interested in the information communicated to him by Peter Ivánovich, but the good French which Peter Ivánovich spoke (the French language, as is known, is something like rank in Russia) and his lordly manner somewhat raised the landlord's opinion about the newcomers. "What can I do for you?" he asked. This question did not embarrass Peter Ivánovich. He expressed his desire to have rooms, tea, a samovár, supper, dinner, food for the servants, in short, all those things for which hotels exist, and when M. Chevalier, marvelling at the innocence of the old man, who apparently imagined that he was in the Trukhmén steppe, or supposed that all these things would be given him without pay, informed him that he could have all those things, Peter Ivánovich was in ecstasy. "Now that is nice! Very nice! And so we shall get things all fixed. Well, then please--" but he felt embarrassed to be speaking all the time about himself, and he began to ask M. Chevalier about his family and his business. When Sergyéy Petróvich returned to the room, he did not seem to approve of his father's address; he observed the landlord's dissatisfaction, and reminded his father of the bath. But Peter Ivánovich was interested in the question of how a French hotel could be run in Moscow in the year '56, and of how Madame Chevalier passed her time. Finally the landlord himself bowed and asked him whether he was not pleased to order anything.