“Really, it is strange to think,” said Galtsin, taking a glass, and walking to the window, “that we are in a beleaguered city; tea with cream, and such quarters as I should be only too happy to get in Petersburg.” “Yes, if it were not for that,” said the old lieutenant-colonel, who was dissatisfied with everything, “this constant waiting for something would be simply unendurable ... and to see how men are killed, killed every day,—and there is no end to it, and under such circumstances it would not be comfortable to live in the mud.” “And how about our infantry officers?” said Kalugin. “They live in the bastions with the soldiers in the casemates and eat beet soup with the soldiers—how about them?” “How about them? They don't change their linen for ten days at a time, and they are heroes—wonderful men.” At 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 _they_[F] 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. [F] A polite way of referring to the general in the plural. “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. “No, tell me, is something really going to take place to-night?” said Galtsin, in French, as he leaned with Kalugin on the window-sill, and gazed at the bombs which were flying over the bastions.