Before the tavern stands the doctor's covered cart. Some five officers are already inside. Mary Hendríkhovna, a plump little blonde German in a dressing jacket and nightcap, sits on a broad bench in the front corner; her husband sleeps behind her. Rostóv and Ilyín are welcomed with shouts that they must not wet the drawing room or mess her dress. They try a recess behind a partition, find three officers playing cards by a candle on an empty box who will not yield, and she obliges them with a petticoat as a curtain. Behind it, helped by Lavrúshka, they change into dry clothes.
A fire is made in the dilapidated brick stove. A board on two saddles, a horsecloth, a small samovar, a cellaret, and half a bottle of rum appear. They ask her to preside. One offers a clean handkerchief for her hands, another a jacket under her feet, another hangs a coat over the window, another waves flies off the sleeping doctor lest he wake. She smiles timidly and happily and tells them to leave him; he is sleeping well after a sleepless night. An officer says one must look after the doctor, who may someday take pity when it comes to cutting off a leg. There are only three tumblers; the water is so muddy one cannot tell if the tea is strong; the samovar holds six tumblers; this makes it pleasanter to take turns from her plump hands with short, not overclean nails. All the officers appear to be, and really are, in love with her that evening. Even the card players come over. It is decided she shall stir the sugar for everyone, the only spoon being hunted. Rostóv asks her to stir his rum and tea; it is not the sugar he wants, but that her little hand should stir it. Too hot, she says, blushing with pleasure, when told to use her finger. Ilyín puts rum in a bucket of water and asks her only to dip a finger.
Rostóv proposes Kings, with the right for the King to kiss her hand and the Booby to reheat the samovar for the doctor. They have hardly begun when the doctor's disheveled head appears; he has been awake some time, found nothing amusing, and asks to pass without greeting them. When he has gone, the officers burst into laughter and she blushes till her eyes fill with tears, which makes her still more attractive. Returning, he tells her the rain has ceased and they must sleep in the cart or everything will be stolen. Rostóv and Ilyín offer orderlies and a guard. He has not slept for two nights, sits morosely waiting for the game to end, then takes her away. The officers lie down under wet cloaks and for a long time cannot sleep, exchanging remarks about his uneasiness and her delight, running out to the porch to report what is happening in the covered trap, and breaking into unreasoning, merry, childlike laughter.
Coming Up in Chapter 181
It is nearly three o'clock but no one is yet asleep when the quartermaster appears with an order to move on to the little town of Ostrovna. Still laughing and talking, the officers begin hurriedly getting ready and again boil some muddy water in the samovar. Rostov goes off to his squadron without waiting for tea.
