At eight o'clock on the evening of the twentieth of May all the sixbatteries of the N---- Reserve Artillery Brigade halted for the night inthe village of Myestetchki on their way to camp. When the generalcommotion was at its height, while some office... Read more

At eight o'clock on the evening of the twentieth of May all the sixbatteries of the N---- Reserve Artillery Brigade halted for the night inthe village of Myestetchki on their way to camp. When the generalcommotion was at its height, while some officers were busily occupiedaround the guns, while others, gathered together in the square near thechurch enclosure, were listening to the quartermasters, a man incivilian dress, riding a strange horse, came into sight round thechurch. The little dun-coloured horse with a good neck and a short tailcame, moving not straight forward, but as it were sideways, with a sortof dance step, as though it were being lashed about the legs. When hereached the officers the man on the horse took off his hat and said:His Excellency Lieutenant-General von Rabbek invites the gentlemen todrink tea with him this minute...The horse turned, danced, and retired sideways; the messenger raised hishat once more, and in an instant disappeared with his strange horsebehind the church.What the devil does it mean? grumbled some of the officers, dispersingto their quarters. One is sleepy, and here this Von Rabbek with histea! We know what tea means.The officers of all the six batteries remembered vividly an incident ofthe previous year, when during manoeuvres they, together with theofficers of a Cossack regiment, were in the same way invited to tea by acount who had an estate in the neighbourhood and was a retired armyofficer: the hospitable and genial count made much of them, fed them,and gave them drink, refused to let them go to their quarters in thevillage and made them stay the night. All that, of course, was verynice--nothing better could be desired, but the worst of it was, the oldarmy officer was so carried away by the pleasure of the young men'scompany that till sunrise he was telling the officers anecdotes of hisglorious past, taking them over the house, showing them expensivepictures, old engravings, rare guns, reading them autograph letters fromgreat people, while the weary and exhausted officers looked andlistened, longing for their beds and yawning in their sleeves; when atlast their host let them go, it was too late for sleep.Might not this Von Rabbek be just such another? Whether he were or not,there was no help for it. The officers changed their uniforms, brushedthemselves, and went all together in search of the gentleman's house. Inthe square by the church they were told they could get to HisExcellency's by the lower path--going down behind the church to theriver, going along the bank to the garden, and there an avenue wouldtaken them to the house; or by the upper way--straight from the churchby the road which, half a mile from the village, led right up to HisExcellency's granaries. The officers decided to go by the upper way.What Von Rabbek is it? they wondered on the way. Surely not the onewho was in command of the N---- cavalry division at Plevna?No, that was not Von Rabbek, but simply Rabbe and no 'von.' Less