and the lodge stood a huge bull. With his head down to the ground, and a malignant gleam in his eyes, he was snorting heavily and furiously, and with a rapid movement of one fore-leg, he tossed the dust up in the air with his broad cleft hoof, lashed his sides with his tail, and suddenly backing a little, shook his shaggy neck stubbornly, and bellowed—not loud, but plaintively, and at the same time menacingly. I was, I confess, alarmed; but Vassily Fomitch stepped forward with perfect composure, and saying in a stern voice, 'Now then, country bumpkin,' shook his handkerchief at him. The bull backed again, bowed his horns . . . suddenly rushed to one side and ran away, wagging his head from side to side.
'There's no doubt he took Prague,' I thought.
We went into the room. The brigadier pulled his cap off his hair, which was soaked with perspiration, ejaculated, 'Fa!' . . . squatted down on the edge of a chair . . . bowed his head gloomily. . .
'I have come to you, Vassily Fomitch,' I began my diplomatic approaches, 'because, as you have served under the leadership of the great Suvorov—have taken part altogether in such important events—it would be very interesting for me to hear some particulars of your past.'
The brigadier stared at me. . . His face
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