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Title: The Cossacks

Author: Leo Tolstoy

Release Date: December, 2003  [EBook #4761]
[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
[This file was first posted on March 13, 2002]

Edition: 10

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE COSSACKS ***




Steve Harris, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.



THE COSSACKS
A Tale of 1852

By Leo Tolstoy (1863)

Translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude




Chapter I


All is quiet in Moscow. The squeak of wheels is seldom heard in
the snow-covered street. There are no lights left in the windows
and the street lamps have been extinguished. Only the sound of
bells, borne over the city from the church towers, suggests the
approach of morning. The streets are deserted. At rare intervals a
night-cabman's sledge kneads up the snow and sand in the street as
the driver makes his way to another corner where he falls asleep
while waiting for a fare. An old woman passes by on her way to
church, where a few wax candles burn with a red light reflected on
the gilt mountings of the icons. Workmen are already getting up
after the long winter night and going to their work--but for the
gentlefolk it is still evening.

From a window in Chevalier's Restaurant a light--illegal at that
hour--is still to be seen through a chink in the shutter. At the
entrance a carriage, a sledge, and a cabman's sledge, stand close
together with their backs to the curbstone. A three-horse sledge
from the post-station is there also. A yard-porter muffled up and
pinched with cold is sheltering behind the corner of the house.

'And what's the good of all this jawing?' thinks the footman who
sits in the hall weary and haggard. 'This always happens when I'm
on duty.' From the adjoining room are heard the voices of three
young men, sitting there at a table on which are wine and the
remains of supper. One, a rather plain, thin, neat little man,
sits looking with tired kindly eyes at his friend, who is about to
start on a journey. Another, a tall man, lies on a sofa beside a
table on which are empty bottles, and plays with his watch-key. A
third, wearing a short, fur-lined coat, is pacing up and down the
room stopping now and then to crack an almond between his strong,
rather thick, but well-tended fingers. He keeps smiling at
something and his face and eyes are all aglow. He speaks warmly
and gesticulates, but evidently does not find the words he wants
and those that occur to him seem to him inadequate to express what
has risen to his heart.


'Now I can speak out fully,' said the traveller. 'I don't want to
defend myself, but I should like you at least to understand me as
I understand myself, and not look at the matter superficially. You
say I have treated her badly,' he continued, addressing the man
with the kindly eyes who was watching him.

'Yes, you are to blame,' said the latter, and his look seemed to
express still more kindliness and weariness.

'I know why you say that,' rejoined the one who was leaving. 'To
be loved is in your opinion as great a happiness as to love, and
if a man obtains it, it is enough for his whole life.'

'Yes, quite enough, my dear fellow, more than enough!' confirmed
the plain little man, opening and shutting his eyes.

'But why shouldn't the man love too?' said the traveller
thoughtfully, looking at his friend with something like pity. 'Why
shouldn't one love? Because love doesn't come ... No, to be
beloved is a misfortune. It is a misfortune to feel guilty because
you do not give something you cannot give. O my God!' he added,
with a gesture of his arm. 'If it all happened reasonably, and not
all topsy-turvy--not in our way but in a way of its own! Why, it's
as if I had stolen that love! You think so too, don't deny it. You
must think so. But will you believe it, of all the horrid and
stupid things I have found time to do in my life--and there are
many--this is one I do not and cannot repent of. Neither at the
beginning nor afterwards did I lie to myself or to her. It seemed
to me that I had at last fallen in love, but then I saw that it
was an involuntary falsehood, and that that was not the way to
love, and I could not go on, but she did. Am I to blame that I
couldn't? What was I to do?'

'Well, it's ended now!' said his friend, lighting a cigar to
master his sleepiness. 'The fact is that you have not yet loved
and do not know what love is.'

The man in the fur-lined coat was going to speak again, and put
his hands to his head, but could not express what he wanted to
say.

'Never loved! ... Yes, quite true, I never have! But after all, I
have within me a desire to love, and nothing could be stronger
than that desire! But then, again, does such love exist? There
always remains something incomplete. Ah well! What's the use of
talking? I've made an awful mess of life! But anyhow it's all over
now; you are quite right. And I feel that I am beginning a new
life.'

'Which you will again make a mess of,' said the man who lay on the
sofa playing with his watch-key. But the traveller did not listen
to him.

'I am sad and yet glad to go,' he continued. 'Why I am sad I don't
know.'

And the traveller went on talking about himself, without noticing
that this did not interest the others as much as it did him. A man
is never such an egotist as at moments of spiritual ecstasy. At
such times it seems to him that there is nothing on earth more
splendid and interesting than himself.

'Dmitri Andreich! The coachman won't wait any longer!' said a
young serf, entering the room in a sheepskin coat, with a scarf
tied round his head. 'The horses have been standing since twelve,
and it's now four o'clock!'

Dmitri Andreich looked at his serf, Vanyusha. The scarf round
Vanyusha's head, his felt boots and sleepy face, seemed to be
calling his master to a new life of labour, hardship, and
activity.

'True enough! Good-bye!' said he, feeling for the unfastened hook
and eye on his coat.

In spite of advice to mollify the coachman by another tip, he put
on his cap and stood in the middle of the room. The friends kissed
once, then again, and after a pause, a third time. The man in the
fur-lined coat approached the table and emptied a champagne glass,
then took the plain little man's hand and blushed.

'Ah well, I will speak out all the same ... I must and will be
frank with you because I am fond of you ... Of course you love
her--I always thought so--don't you?'

'Yes,' answered his friend, smiling still more gently.

'And perhaps...'

'Please sir, I have orders to put out the candles,' said the
sleepy attendant, who had been listening to the last part of the
conversation and wondering why gentlefolk always talk about one
and the same thing. 'To whom shall I make out the bill? To you,
sir?' he added, knowing whom to address and turning to the tall
man.

'To me,' replied the tall man. 'How much?'

'Twenty-six rubles.'

The tall man considered for a moment, but said nothing and put the
bill in his pocket.

The other two continued their talk.

'Good-bye, you are a capital fellow!' said the short plain man
with the mild eyes. Tears filled the eyes of both. They stepped
into the porch.

'Oh, by the by,' said the traveller, turning with a blush to the
tall man, 'will you settle Chevalier's bill and write and let me
know?'

'All right, all right!' said the tall man, pulling on his gloves.
'How I envy you!' he added quite unexpectedly when they were out
in the porch.

The traveller got into his sledge, wrapped his coat about him, and
said: 'Well then, come along!' He even moved a little to make room
in the sledge for the man who said he envied him--his voice
trembled.

'Good-bye, Mitya! I hope that with God's help you...' said the
tall one. But his wish was that the other would go away quickly,
and so he could not finish the sentence.

They were silent a moment. Then someone again said, 'Good-bye,'
and a voice cried, 'Ready,' and the coachman touched up the
horses.

'Hy, Elisar!' One of the friends called out, and the other
coachman and the sledge-drivers began moving, clicking their
tongues and pulling at the reins. Then the stiffened carriage-
wheels rolled squeaking over the frozen snow.

'A fine fellow, that Olenin!' said one of the friends. 'But what
an idea to go to the Caucasus--as a cadet, too! I wouldn't do it
for anything. ... Are you dining at the club to-morrow?'

'Yes.'

They separated.

The traveller felt warm, his fur coat seemed too hot. He sat on
the bottom of the sledge and unfastened his coat, and the three
shaggy post-horses dragged themselves out of one dark street into
another, past houses he had never before seen. It seemed to Olenin
that only travellers starting on a long journey went through those
streets. All was dark and silent and dull around him, but his soul
was full of memories, love, regrets, and a pleasant tearful
feeling.




Chapter II


'I'm fond of them, very fond! ... First-rate fellows! ... Fine!'
he kept repeating, and felt ready to cry. But why he wanted to
cry, who were the first-rate fellows he was so fond of--was more
than he quite knew. Now and then he looked round at some house and
wondered why it was so curiously built; sometimes he began
wondering why the post-boy and Vanyusha, who were so different
from himself, sat so near, and together with him were being jerked
about and swayed by the tugs the side-horses gave at the frozen
traces, and again he repeated: 'First rate ... very fond!' and
once he even said: 'And how it seizes one ... excellent!' and
wondered what made him say it. 'Dear me, am I drunk?' he asked
himself. He had had a couple of bottles of wine, but it was not
the wine alone that was having this effect on Olenin. He
remembered all the words of friendship heartily, bashfully,
spontaneously (as he believed) addressed to him on his departure.
He remembered the clasp of hands, glances, the moments of silence,
and the sound of a voice saying, 'Good-bye, Mitya!' when he was
already in the sledge. He remembered his own deliberate frankness.
And all this had a touching significance for him. Not only friends
and relatives, not only people who had been indifferent to him,
but even those who did not like him, seemed to have agreed to
become fonder of him, or to forgive him, before his departure, as
people do before confession or death. 'Perhaps I shall not return
from the Caucasus,' he thought. And he felt that he loved his
friends and some one besides. He was sorry for himself. But it was
not love for his friends that so stirred and uplifted his heart
that he could not repress the meaningless words that seemed to
rise of themselves to his lips; nor was it love for a woman (he
had never yet been in love) that had brought on this mood. Love
for himself, love full of hope--warm young love for all that was
good in his own soul (and at that moment it seemed to him that
there was nothing but good in it)--compelled him to weep and to
mutter incoherent words.

Olenin was a youth who had never completed his university course,
never served anywhere (having only a nominal post in some
government office or other), who had squandered half his fortune
and had reached the age of twenty-four without having done
anything or even chosen a career. He was what in Moscow society is
termed un jeune homme.

At the age of eighteen he was free--as only rich young Russians in
the 'forties who had lost their parents at an early age could be.
Neither physical nor moral fetters of any kind existed for him; he
could do as he liked, lacking nothing and bound by nothing.
Neither relatives, nor fatherland, nor religion, nor wants,
existed for him. He believed in nothing and admitted nothing. But
although he believed in nothing he was not a morose or blase young
man, nor self-opinionated, but on the contrary continually let
himself be carried away. He had come to the conclusion that there
is no such thing as love, yet his heart always overflowed in the
presence of any young and attractive woman. He had long been aware
that honours and position were nonsense, yet involuntarily he felt
pleased when at a ball Prince Sergius came up and spoke to him
affably. But he yielded to his impulses only in so far as they did
not limit his freedom. As soon as he had yielded to any influence
and became conscious of its leading on to labour and struggle, he
instinctively hastened to free himself from the feeling or
activity into which he was being drawn and to regain his freedom.
In this way he experimented with society-life, the civil service,
farming, music--to which at one time he intended to devote his
life--and even with the love of women in which he did not believe.
He meditated on the use to which he should devote that power of
youth which is granted to man only once in a lifetime: that force
which gives a man the power of making himself, or even--as it
seemed to him--of making the universe, into anything he wishes:
should it be to art, to science, to love of woman, or to practical
activities? It is true that some people are devoid of this
impulse, and on entering life at once place their necks under the
first yoke that offers itself and honestly labour under it for the
rest of their lives. But Olenin was too strongly conscious of the
presence of that all-powerful God of Youth--of that capacity to be
entirely transformed into an aspiration or idea--the capacity to
wish and to do--to throw oneself headlong into a bottomless abyss
without knowing why or wherefore. He bore this consciousness
within himself, was proud of it and, without knowing it, was happy
in that consciousness. Up to that time he had loved only himself,
and could not help loving himself, for he expected nothing but
good of himself and had not yet had time to be disillusioned. On
leaving Moscow he was in that happy state of mind in which a young
man, conscious of past mistakes, suddenly says to himself, 'That
was not the real thing.' All that had gone before was accidental
and unimportant. Till then he had not really tried to live, but
now with his departure from Moscow a new life was beginning--a
life in which there would be no mistakes, no remorse, and
certainly nothing but happiness.

It is always the case on a long journey that till the first two or
three stages have been passed imagination continues to dwell on
the place left behind, but with the first morning on the road it
leaps to the end of the journey and there begins building castles
in the air. So it happened to Olenin.

After leaving the town behind, he gazed at the snowy fields and
felt glad to be alone in their midst. Wrapping himself in his fur
coat, he lay at the bottom of the sledge, became tranquil, and
fell into a doze. The parting with his friends had touched him
deeply, and memories of that last winter spent in Moscow and
images of the past, mingled with vague thoughts and regrets, rose
unbidden in his imagination.

He remembered the friend who had seen him off and his relations
with the girl they had talked about. The girl was rich. "How could
he love her knowing that she loved me?" thought he, and evil
suspicions crossed his mind. "There is much dishonesty in men when
one comes to reflect." Then he was confronted by the question:
"But really, how is it I have never been in love? Every one tells
me that I never have. Can it be that I am a moral monstrosity?"
And he began to recall all his infatuations. He recalled his entry
into society, and a friend's sister with whom he spent several
evenings at a table with a lamp on it which lit up her slender
fingers busy with needlework, and the lower part of her pretty
delicate face. He recalled their conversations that dragged on
like the game in which one passes on a stick which one keeps
alight as long as possible, and the general awkwardness and
restraint and his continual feeling of rebellion at all that
conventionality. Some voice had always whispered: "That's not it,
that's not it," and so it had proved. Then he remembered a ball
and the mazurka he danced with the beautiful D----. "How much in
love I was that night and how happy! And how hurt and vexed I was
next morning when I woke and felt myself still free! Why does not
love come and bind me hand and foot?" thought he. "No, there is no
such thing as love! That neighbour who used to tell me, as she
told Dubrovin and the Marshal, that she loved the stars, was not
IT either." And now his farming and work in the country recurred
to his mind, and in those recollections also there was nothing to
dwell on with pleasure. "Will they talk long of my departure?"
came into his head; but who "they" were he did not quite know.
Next came a thought that made him wince and mutter incoherently.
It was the recollection of M. Cappele the tailor, and the six
hundred and seventy-eight rubles he still owed him, and he
recalled the words in which he had begged him to wait another
year, and the look of perplexity and resignation which had
appeared on the tailor's face. 'Oh, my God, my God!' he repeated,
wincing and trying to drive away the intolerable thought. 'All the
same and in spite of everything she loved me,' thought he of the
girl they had talked about at the farewell supper. 'Yes, had I
married her I should not now be owing anything, and as it is I am
in debt to Vasilyev.' Then he remembered the last night he had
played with Vasilyev at the club (just after leaving her), and he
recalled his humiliating requests for another game and the other's
cold refusal. 'A year's economizing and they will all be paid, and
the devil take them!'... But despite this assurance he again began
calculating his outstanding debts, their dates, and when he could
hope to pay them off. 'And I owe something to Morell as well as to
Chevalier,' thought he, recalling the night when he had run up so
large a debt. It was at a carousel at the gipsies arranged by some
fellows from Petersburg: Sashka B---, an aide-de-camp to the Tsar,
Prince D---, and that pompous old----. 'How is it those gentlemen
are so self-satisfied?' thought he, 'and by what right do they
form a clique to which they think others must be highly flattered
to be admitted? Can it be because they are on the Emperor's staff?
Why, it's awful what fools and scoundrels they consider other
people to be! But I showed them that I at any rate, on the
contrary, do not at all want their intimacy. All the same, I fancy
Andrew, the steward, would be amazed to know that I am on familiar
terms with a man like Sashka B---, a colonel and an aide-de-camp
to the Tsar! Yes, and no one drank more than I did that evening,
and I taught the gipsies a new song and everyone listened to it.
Though I have done many foolish things, all the same I am a very
good fellow,' thought he.

Morning found him at the third post-stage. He drank tea, and
himself helped Vanyusha to move his bundles and trunks and sat
down among them, sensible, erect, and precise, knowing where all
his belongings were, how much money he had and where it was, where
he had put his passport and the post-horse requisition and toll-
gate papers, and it all seemed to him so well arranged that he
grew quite cheerful and the long journey before him seemed an
extended pleasure-trip.

All that morning and noon he was deep in calculations of how many
versts he had travelled, how many remained to the next stage, how
many to the next town, to the place where he would dine, to the
place where he would drink tea, and to Stavropol, and what
fraction of the whole journey was already accomplished. He also
calculated how much money he had with him, how much would be left
over, how much would pay off all his debts, and what proportion of
his income he would spend each month. Towards evening, after tea,
he calculated that to Stavropol there still remained seven-
elevenths of the whole journey, that his debts would require seven
months' economy and one-eighth of his whole fortune; and then,
tranquillized, he wrapped himself up, lay down in the sledge, and
again dozed off. His imagination was now turned to the future: to
the Caucasus. All his dreams of the future were mingled with
pictures of Amalat-Beks, Circassian women, mountains, precipices,
terrible torrents, and perils. All these things were vague and
dim, but the love of fame and the danger of death furnished the
interest of that future. Now, with unprecedented courage and a
strength that amazed everyone, he slew and subdued an innumerable
host of hillsmen; now he was himself a hillsman and with them was
maintaining their independence against the Russians. As soon as he
pictured anything definite, familiar Moscow figures always
appeared on the scene. Sashka B---fights with the Russians or the
hillsmen against him. Even the tailor Cappele in some strange way
takes part in the conqueror's triumph. Amid all this he remembered
his former humiliations, weaknesses, and mistakes, and the
recollection was not disagreeable. It was clear that there among
the mountains, waterfalls, fair Circassians, and dangers, such
mistakes could not recur. Having once made full confession to
himself there was an end of it all. One other vision, the sweetest
of them all, mingled with the young man's every thought of the
future--the vision of a woman.

And there, among the mountains, she appeared to his imagination as
a Circassian slave, a fine figure with a long plait of hair and
deep submissive eyes. He pictured a lonely hut in the mountains,
and on the threshold she stands awaiting him when, tired and
covered with dust, blood, and fame, he returns to her. He is
conscious of her kisses, her shoulders, her sweet voice, and her
submissiveness. She is enchanting, but uneducated, wild, and
rough. In the long winter evenings he begins her education. She is
clever and gifted and quickly acquires all the knowledge
essential. Why not? She can quite easily learn foreign languages,
read the French masterpieces and understand them: Notre Dame de
Paris, for instance, is sure to please her. She can also speak
French. In a drawing-room she can show more innate dignity than a
lady of the highest society. She can sing, simply, powerfully, and
passionately.... 'Oh, what nonsense!' said he to himself. But here
they reached a post-station and he had to change into another
sledge and give some tips. But his fancy again began searching for
the 'nonsense' he had relinquished, and again fair Circassians,
glory, and his return to Russia with an appointment as aide-de-
camp and a lovely wife rose before his imagination. 'But there's
no such thing as love,' said he to himself. 'Fame is all rubbish.
But the six hundred and seventy-eight rubles? ... And the
conquered land that will bring me more wealth than I need for a
lifetime? It will not be right though to keep all that wealth for
myself. I shall have to distribute it. But to whom? Well, six
hundred and seventy-eight rubles to Cappele and then we'll see.'
.. Quite vague visions now cloud his mind, and only Vanyusha's
voice and the interrupted motion of the sledge break his healthy
youthful slumber. Scarcely conscious, he changes into another
sledge at the next stage and continues his journey.

Next morning everything goes on just the same: the same kind of
post-stations and tea-drinking, the same moving horses' cruppers,
the same short talks with Vanyusha, the same vague dreams and
drowsiness, and the same tired, healthy, youthful sleep at night.




Chapter III


The farther Olenin travelled from Central Russia the farther he
left his memories behind, and the nearer he drew to the Caucasus
the lighter his heart became. "I'll stay away for good and never
return to show myself in society," was a thought that sometimes
occurred to him. "These people whom I see here are NOT people.
None of them know me and none of them can ever enter the Moscow
society I was in or find out about my past. And no one in that
society will ever know what I am doing, living among these
people." And quite a new feeling of freedom from his whole past
came over him among the rough beings he met on the road whom he
did not consider to be PEOPLE in the sense that his Moscow
acquaintances were. The rougher the people and the fewer the signs
of civilization the freer he felt. Stavropol, through which he had
to pass, irked him. The signboards, some of them even in French,
ladies in carriages, cabs in the marketplace, and a gentleman
wearing a fur cloak and tall hat who was walking along the
boulevard and staring at the passersby, quite upset him. "Perhaps
these people know some of my acquaintances," he thought; and the
club, his tailor, cards, society ... came back to his mind. But
after Stavropol everything was satisfactory--wild and also
beautiful and warlike, and Olenin felt happier and happier. All
the Cossacks, post-boys, and post-station masters seemed to him
simple folk with whom he could jest and converse simply, without
having to consider to what class they belonged. They all belonged
to the human race which, without his thinking about it, all
appeared dear to Olenin, and they all treated him in a friendly
way.

Already in the province of the Don Cossacks his sledge had been
exchanged for a cart, and beyond Stavropol it became so warm that
Olenin travelled without wearing his fur coat. It was already
spring--an unexpected joyous spring for Olenin. At night he was no
longer allowed to leave the Cossack villages, and they said it was
dangerous to travel in the evening. Vanyusha began to be uneasy,
and they carried a loaded gun in the cart. Olenin became still
happier. At one of the post-stations the post-master told of a
terrible murder that had been committed recently on the high road.
They began to meet armed men. "So this is where it begins!"
thought Olenin, and kept expecting to see the snowy mountains of
which mention was so often made. Once, towards evening, the Nogay
driver pointed with his whip to the mountains shrouded in clouds.
Olenin looked eagerly, but it was dull and the mountains were
almost hidden by the clouds. Olenin made out something grey and
white and fleecy, but try as he would he could find nothing
beautiful in the mountains of which he had so often read and
heard. The mountains and the clouds appeared to him quite alike,
and he thought the special beauty of the snow peaks, of which he
had so often been told, was as much an invention as Bach's music
and the love of women, in which he did not believe. So he gave up
looking forward to seeing the mountains. But early next morning,
being awakened in his cart by the freshness of the air, he glanced
carelessly to the right. The morning was perfectly clear. Suddenly
he saw, about twenty paces away as it seemed to him at first
glance, pure white gigantic masses with delicate contours, the
distinct fantastic outlines of their summits showing sharply
against the far-off sky. When he had realized the distance between
himself and them and the sky and the whole immensity of the
mountains, and felt the infinitude of all that beauty, he became
afraid that it was but a phantasm or a dream. He gave himself a
shake to rouse himself, but the mountains were still the same.

"What's that! What is it?" he said to the driver.

"Why, the mountains," answered the Nogay driver with indifference.

"And I too have been looking at them for a long while," said
Vanyusha. "Aren't they fine? They won't believe it at home."

The quick progress of the three-horsed cart along the smooth road
caused the mountains to appear to be running along the horizon,
while their rosy crests glittered in the light of the rising sun.
At first Olenin was only astonished at the sight, then gladdened
by it; but later on, gazing more and more intently at that snow-
peaked chain that seemed to rise not from among other black
mountains, but straight out of the plain, and to glide away into
the distance, he began by slow degrees to be penetrated by their
beauty and at length to FEEL the mountains. From that moment all
he saw, all he thought, and all he felt, acquired for him a new
character, sternly majestic like the mountains! All his Moscow
reminiscences, shame, and repentance, and his trivial dreams about
the Caucasus, vanished and did not return. 'Now it has begun,' a
solemn voice seemed to say to him. The road and the Terek, just
becoming visible in the distance, and the Cossack villages and the
people, all no longer appeared to him as a joke. He looked at
himself or Vanyusha, and again thought of the mountains. ... Two
Cossacks ride by, their guns in their cases swinging rhythmically
behind their backs, the white and bay legs of their horses
mingling confusedly ... and the mountains! Beyond the Terek rises
the smoke from a Tartar village... and the mountains! The sun has
risen and glitters on the Terek, now visible beyond the reeds ...
and the mountains! From the village comes a Tartar wagon, and
women, beautiful young women, pass by... and the mountains!
'Abreks canter about the plain, and here am I driving along and do
not fear them! I have a gun, and strength, and youth... and the
mountains!'




Chapter IV


That whole part of the Terek line (about fifty miles) along which
lie the villages of the Grebensk Cossacks is uniform in character
both as to country and inhabitants. The Terek, which separates the
Cossacks from the mountaineers, still flows turbid and rapid
though already broad and smooth, always depositing greyish sand on
its low reedy right bank and washing away the steep, though not
high, left bank, with its roots of century-old oaks, its rotting
plane trees, and young brushwood. On the right bank lie the
villages of pro-Russian, though still somewhat restless, Tartars.
Along the left bank, back half a mile from the river and standing
five or six miles apart from one another, are Cossack villages. In
olden times most of these villages were situated on the banks of
the river; but the Terek, shifting northward from the mountains
year by year, washed away those banks, and now there remain only
the ruins of the old villages and of the gardens of pear and plum
trees and poplars, all overgrown with blackberry bushes and wild
vines. No one lives there now, and one only sees the tracks of the
deer, the wolves, the hares, and the pheasants, who have learned
to love these places. From village to village runs a road cut
through the forest as a cannon-shot might fly. Along the roads are
cordons of Cossacks and watch-towers with sentinels in them. Only
a narrow strip about seven hundred yards wide of fertile wooded
soil belongs to the Cossacks. To the north of it begin the sand-
drifts of the Nogay or Mozdok steppes, which fetch far to the
north and run, Heaven knows where, into the Trukhmen, Astrakhan,
and Kirghiz-Kaisatsk steppes. To the south, beyond the Terek, are
the Great Chechnya river, the Kochkalov range, the Black
Mountains, yet another range, and at last the snowy mountains,
which can just be seen but have never yet been scaled. In this
fertile wooded strip, rich in vegetation, has dwelt as far back as
memory runs the fine warlike and prosperous Russian tribe
belonging to the sect of Old Believers, and called the Grebensk
Cossacks.

Long long ago their Old Believer ancestors fled from Russia and
settled beyond the Terek among the Chechens on the Greben, the
first range of wooded mountains of Chechnya. Living among the
Chechens the Cossacks intermarried with them and adopted the
manners and customs of the hill tribes, though they still retained
the Russian language in all its purity, as well as their Old
Faith. A tradition, still fresh among them, declares that Tsar
Ivan the Terrible came to the Terek, sent for their Elders, and
gave them the land on this side of the river, exhorting them to
remain friendly to Russia and promising not to enforce his rule
upon them nor oblige them to change their faith. Even now the
Cossack families claim relationship with the Chechens, and the
love of freedom, of leisure, of plunder and of war, still form
their chief characteristics. Only the harmful side of Russian
influence shows itself--by interference at elections, by
confiscation of church bells, and by the troops who are quartered
in the country or march through it. A Cossack is inclined to hate
less the dzhigit hillsman who maybe has killed his brother, than
the soldier quartered on him to defend his village, but who has
defiled his hut with tobacco-smoke. He respects his enemy the
hillsman and despises the soldier, who is in his eyes an alien and
an oppressor. In reality, from a Cossack's point of view a Russian
peasant is a foreign, savage, despicable creature, of whom he sees
a sample in the hawkers who come to the country and in the
Ukrainian immigrants whom the Cossack contemptuously calls
'woolbeaters'. For him, to be smartly dressed means to be dressed
like a Circassian. The best weapons are obtained from the hillsmen
and the best horses are bought, or stolen, from them. A dashing
young Cossack likes to show off his knowledge of Tartar, and when
carousing talks Tartar even to his fellow Cossack. In spite of all
these things this small Christian clan stranded in a tiny comer of
the earth, surrounded by half-savage Mohammedan tribes and by
soldiers, considers itself highly advanced, acknowledges none but
Cossacks as human beings, and despises everybody else. The Cossack
spends most of his time in the cordon, in action, or in hunting
and fishing. He hardly ever works at home. When he stays in the
village it is an exception to the general rule and then he is
holiday-making. All Cossacks make their own wine, and drunkenness
is not so much a general tendency as a rite, the non-fulfilment of
which would be considered apostasy. The Cossack looks upon a woman
as an instrument for his welfare; only the unmarried girls are
allowed to amuse themselves. A married woman has to work for her
husband from youth to very old age: his demands on her are the
Oriental ones of submission and labour. In consequence of this
outlook women are strongly developed both physically and mentally,
and though they are--as everywhere in the East--nominally in
subjection, they possess far greater influence and importance in
family-life than Western women. Their exclusion from public life
and inurement to heavy male labour give the women all the more
power and importance in the household. A Cossack, who before
strangers considers it improper to speak affectionately or
needlessly to his wife, when alone with her is involuntarily
conscious of her superiority. His house and all his property, in
fact the entire homestead, has been acquired and is kept together
solely by her labour and care. Though firmly convinced that labour
is degrading to a Cossack and is only proper for a Nogay labourer
or a woman, he is vaguely aware of the fact that all he makes use
of and calls his own is the result of that toil, and that it is in
the power of the woman (his mother or his wife) whom he considers
his slave, to deprive him of all he possesses. Besides, the
continuous performance of man's heavy work and the
responsibilities entrusted to her have endowed the Grebensk women
with a peculiarly independent masculine character and have
remarkably developed their physical powers, common sense,
resolution, and stability. The women are in most cases stronger,
more intelligent, more developed, and handsomer than the men. A
striking feature of a Grebensk woman's beauty is the combination
of the purest Circassian type of face with the broad and powerful
build of Northern women. Cossack women wear the Circassian dress--
a Tartar smock, beshmet, and soft slippers--but they tie their
kerchiefs round their heads in the Russian fashion. Smartness,
cleanliness and elegance in dress and in the arrangement of their
huts, are with them a custom and a necessity. In their relations
with men the women, and especially the unmarried girls, enjoy
perfect freedom.

Novomlinsk village was considered the very heart of Grebensk
Cossackdom. In it more than elsewhere the customs of the old
Grebensk population have been preserved, and its women have from
time immemorial been renowned all over the Caucasus for their
beauty. A Cossack's livelihood is derived from vineyards, fruit-
gardens, water melon and pumpkin plantations, from fishing,
hunting, maize and millet growing, and from war plunder.
Novomlinsk village lies about two and a half miles away from the
Terek, from which it is separated by a dense forest. On one side
of the road which runs through the village is the river; on the
other, green vineyards and orchards, beyond which are seen the
driftsands of the Nogay Steppe. The village is surrounded by
earth-banks and prickly bramble hedges, and is entered by tall
gates hung between posts and covered with little reed-thatched
roofs. Beside them on a wooden gun-carriage stands an unwieldy
cannon captured by the Cossacks at some time or other, and which
has not been fired for a hundred years. A uniformed Cossack
sentinel with dagger and gun sometimes stands, and sometimes does
not stand, on guard beside the gates, and sometimes presents arms
to a passing officer and sometimes does not. Below the roof of the
gateway is written in black letters on a white board: 'Houses 266:
male inhabitants 897: female 1012.' The Cossacks' houses are all
raised on pillars two and a half feet from the ground. They are
carefully thatched with reeds and have large carved gables. If not
new they are at least all straight and clean, with high porches of
different shapes; and they are not built close together but have
ample space around them, and are all picturesquely placed along
broad streets and lanes. In front of the large bright windows of
many of the houses, beyond the kitchen gardens, dark green poplars
and acacias with their delicate pale verdure and scented white
blossoms overtop the houses, and beside them grow flaunting yellow
sunflowers, creepers, and grape vines. In the broad open square
are three shops where drapery, sunflower and pumpkin seeds, locust
beans and gingerbreads are sold; and surrounded by a tall fence,
loftier and larger than the other houses, stands the Regimental
Commander's dwelling with its casement windows, behind a row of
tall poplars. Few people are to be seen in the streets of the
village on weekdays, especially in summer. The young men are on
duty in the cordons or on military expeditions; the old ones are
fishing or helping the women in the orchards and gardens. Only the
very old, the sick, and the children, remain at home.




Chapter V


It was one of those wonderful evenings that occur only in the
Caucasus. The sun had sunk behind the mountains but it was still
light. The evening glow had spread over a third of the sky, and
against its brilliancy the dull white immensity of the mountains
was sharply defined. The air was rarefied, motionless, and full of
sound. The shadow of the mountains reached for several miles over
the steppe. The steppe, the opposite side of the river, and the
roads, were all deserted. If very occasionally mounted men
appeared, the Cossacks in the cordon and the Chechens in their
aouls (villages) watched them with surprised curiosity and tried
to guess who those questionable men could be. At nightfall people
from fear of one another flock to their dwellings, and only birds
and beasts fearless of man prowl in those deserted spaces. Talking
merrily, the women who have been tying up the vines hurry away
from the gardens before sunset. The vineyards, like all the
surrounding district, are deserted, but the villages become very
animated at that time of the evening. From all sides, walking,
riding, or driving in their creaking carts, people move towards
the village. Girls with their smocks tucked up and twigs in their
hands run chatting merrily to the village gates to meet the cattle
that are crowding together in a cloud of dust and mosquitoes which
they bring with them from the steppe. The well-fed cows and
buffaloes disperse at a run all over the streets and Cossack women
in coloured beshmets go to and fro among them. You can hear their
merry laughter and shrieks mingling with the lowing of the cattle.
There an armed and mounted Cossack, on leave from the cordon,
rides up to a hut and, leaning towards the window, knocks. In
answer to the knock the handsome head of a young woman appears at
the window and you can hear caressing, laughing voices. There a
tattered Nogay labourer, with prominent cheekbones, brings a load
of reeds from the steppes, turns his creaking cart into the
Cossack captain's broad and clean courtyard, and lifts the yoke
off the oxen that stand tossing their heads while he and his
master shout to one another in Tartar. Past a puddle that reaches
nearly across the street, a barefooted Cossack woman with a bundle
of firewood on her back makes her laborious way by clinging to the
fences, holding her smock high and exposing her white legs. A
Cossack returning from shooting calls out in jest: 'Lift it
higher, shameless thing!' and points his gun at her. The woman
lets down her smock and drops the wood. An old Cossack, returning
home from fishing with his trousers tucked up and his hairy grey
chest uncovered, has a net across his shoulder containing silvery
fish that are still struggling; and to take a short cut climbs
over his neighbour's broken fence and gives a tug to his coat
which has caught on the fence. There a woman is dragging a dry
branch along and from round the corner comes the sound of an axe.
Cossack children, spinning their tops wherever there is a smooth
place in the street, are shrieking; women are climbing over fences
to avoid going round. From every chimney rises the odorous kisyak
smoke. From every homestead comes the sound of increased bustle,
precursor to the stillness of night.

Granny Ulitka, the wife of the Cossack cornet who is also teacher
in the regimental school, goes out to the gates of her yard like
the other women, and waits for the cattle which her daughter
Maryanka is driving along the street. Before she has had time
fully to open the wattle gate in the fence, an enormous buffalo
cow surrounded by mosquitoes rushes up bellowing and squeezes in.
Several well-fed cows slowly follow her, their large eyes gazing
with recognition at their mistress as they swish their sides with
their tails. The beautiful and shapely Maryanka enters at the gate
and throwing away her switch quickly slams the gate to and rushes
with all the speed of her nimble feet to separate and drive the
cattle into their sheds. 'Take off your slippers, you devil's
wench!' shouts her mother, 'you've worn them into holes!' Maryanka
is not at all offended at being called a 'devil's wench', but
accepting it as a term of endearment cheerfully goes on with her
task. Her face is covered with a kerchief tied round her head. She
is wearing a pink smock and a green beshmet. She disappears inside
the lean-to shed in the yard, following the big fat cattle; and
from the shed comes her voice as she speaks gently and
persuasively to the buffalo: 'Won't she stand still? What a
creature! Come now, come old dear!' Soon the girl and the old
woman pass from the shed to the dairy carrying two large pots of
milk, the day's yield. From the dairy chimney rises a thin cloud
of kisyak smoke: the milk is being used to make into clotted
cream. The girl makes up the fire while her mother goes to the
gate. Twilight has fallen on the village. The air is full of the
smell of vegetables, cattle, and scented kisyak smoke. From the
gates and along the streets Cossack women come running, carrying
lighted rags. From the yards one hears the snorting and quiet
chewing of the cattle eased of their milk, while in the street
only the voices of women and children sound as they call to one
another. It is rare on a week-day to hear the drunken voice of a
man.

One of the Cossack wives, a tall, masculine old woman, approaches
Granny Ulitka from the homestead opposite and asks her for a
light. In her hand she holds a rag.

'Have you cleared up. Granny?'

'The girl is lighting the fire. Is it fire you want?' says Granny
Ulitka, proud of being able to oblige her neighbour.

Both women enter the hut, and coarse hands unused to dealing with
small articles tremblingly lift the lid of a matchbox, which is a
rarity in the Caucasus. The masculine-looking new-comer sits down
on the doorstep with the evident intention of having a chat.

'And is your man at the school. Mother?' she asked.

'He's always teaching the youngsters. Mother. But he writes that
he'll come home for the holidays,' said the cornet's wife.

'Yes, he's a clever man, one sees; it all comes useful.'

'Of course it does.'

'And my Lukashka is at the cordon; they won't let him come home,'
said the visitor, though the cornet's wife had known all this long
ago. She wanted to talk about her Lukashka whom she had lately
fitted out for service in the Cossack regiment, and whom she
wished to marry to the cornet's daughter, Maryanka.

'So he's at the cordon?'

'He is. Mother. He's not been home since last holidays. The other
day I sent him some shirts by Fomushkin. He says he's all right,
and that his superiors are satisfied. He says they are looking out
for abreks again. Lukashka is quite happy, he says.'

'Ah well, thank God,' said the cornet's wife.' "Snatcher" is
certainly the only word for him.' Lukashka was surnamed 'the
Snatcher' because of his bravery in snatching a boy from a watery
grave, and the cornet's wife alluded to this, wishing in her turn
to say something agreeable to Lukashka's mother.

'I thank God, Mother, that he's a good son! He's a fine fellow,
everyone praises him,' says Lukashka's mother. 'All I wish is to
get him married; then I could die in peace.'

'Well, aren't there plenty of young women in the village?'
answered the cornet's wife slyly as she carefully replaced the lid
of the matchbox with her horny hands.

'Plenty, Mother, plenty,' remarked Lukashka's mother, shaking her
head. 'There's your girl now, your Maryanka--that's the sort of
girl! You'd have to search through the whole place to find such
another!' The cornet's wife knows what Lukashka's mother is after,
but though she believes him to be a good Cossack she hangs back:
first because she is a cornet's wife and rich, while Lukashka is
the son of a simple Cossack and fatherless, secondly because she
does not want to part with her daughter yet, but chiefly because
propriety demands it.

'Well, when Maryanka grows up she'll be marriageable too,' she
answers soberly and modestly.

'I'll send the matchmakers to you--I'll send them! Only let me get
the vineyard done and then we'll come and make our bows to you,'
says Lukashka's mother. 'And we'll make our bows to Elias Vasilich
too.'

'Elias, indeed!' says the cornet's wife proudly. 'It's to me you
must speak! All in its own good time.'

Lukashka's mother sees by the stern face of the cornet's wife that
it is not the time to say anything more just now, so she lights
her rag with the match and says, rising: 'Don't refuse us, think
of my words. I'll go, it is time to light the fire.'

As she crosses the road swinging the burning rag, she meets
Maryanka, who bows.

'Ah, she's a regular queen, a splendid worker, that girl!' she
thinks, looking at the beautiful maiden. 'What need for her to
grow any more? It's time she was married and to a good home;
married to Lukashka!'

But Granny Ulitka had her own cares and she remained sitting on
the threshold thinking hard about something, till the girl called
her.




Chapter VI


The male population of the village spend their time on military
expeditions and in the cordon--or 'at their posts', as the
Cossacks say. Towards evening, that same Lukashka the Snatcher,
about whom the old women had been talking, was standing on a
watch-tower of the Nizhni-Prototsk post situated on the very banks
of the Terek. Leaning on the railing of the tower and screwing up
his eyes, he looked now far into the distance beyond the Terek,
now down at his fellow Cossacks, and occasionally he addressed the
latter. The sun was already approaching the snowy range that
gleamed white above the fleecy clouds. The clouds undulating at
the base of the mountains grew darker and darker. The clearness of
evening was noticeable in the air. A sense of freshness came from
the woods, though round the post it was still hot. The voices of
the talking Cossacks vibrated more sonorously than before. The
moving mass of the Terek's rapid brown waters contrasted more
vividly with its motionless banks. The waters were beginning to
subside and here and there the wet sands gleamed drab on the banks
and in the shallows. The other side of the river, just opposite
the cordon, was deserted; only an immense waste of low-growing
reeds stretched far away to the very foot of the mountains. On the
low bank, a little to one side, could be seen the flat-roofed clay
houses and the funnel-shaped chimneys of a Chechen village. The
sharp eyes of the Cossack who stood on the watch-tower followed,
through the evening smoke of the pro-Russian village, the tiny
moving figures of the Chechen women visible in the distance in
their red and blue garments.

Although the Cossacks expected abreks to cross over and attack
them from the Tartar side at any moment, especially as it was May
when the woods by the Terek are so dense that it is difficult to
pass through them on foot and the river is shallow enough in
places for a horseman to ford it, and despite the fact that a
couple of days before a Cossack had arrived with a circular from
the commander of the regiment announcing that spies had reported
the intention of a party of some eight men to cross the Terek, and
ordering special vigilance--no special vigilance was being
observed in the cordon. The Cossacks, unarmed and with their
horses unsaddled just as if they were at home, spent their time
some in fishing, some in drinking, and some in hunting. Only the
horse of the man on duty was saddled, and with its feet hobbled
was moving about by the brambles near the wood, and only the
sentinel had his Circassian coat on and carried a gun and sword.
The corporal, a tall thin Cossack with an exceptionally long back
and small hands and feet, was sitting on the earth-bank of a hut
with his beshmet unbuttoned. On his face was the lazy, bored
expression of a superior, and having shut his eyes he dropped his
head upon the palm first of one hand and then of the other. An
elderly Cossack with a broad greyish-black beard was lying in his
shirt, girdled with a black strap, close to the river and gazing
lazily at the waves of the Terek as they monotonously foamed and
swirled. Others, also overcome by the heat and half naked, were
rinsing clothes in the Terek, plaiting a fishing line, or humming
tunes as they lay on the hot sand of the river bank. One Cossack,
with a thin face much burnt by the sun, lay near the hut evidently
dead drunk, by a wall which though it had been in shadow some two
hours previously was now exposed to the sun's fierce slanting
rays.

Lukashka, who stood on the watch-tower, was a tall handsome lad
about twenty years old and very like his mother. His face and
whole build, in spite of the angularity of youth, indicated great
strength, both physical and moral. Though he had only lately
joined the Cossacks at the front, it was evident from the
expression of his face and the calm assurance of his attitude that
he had already acquired the somewhat proud and warlike bearing
peculiar to Cossacks and to men generally who continually carry
arms, and that he felt he was a Cossack and fully knew his own
value. His ample Circassian coat was torn in some places, his cap
was on the back of his head Chechen fashion, and his leggings had
slipped below his knees. His clothing was not rich, but he wore it
with that peculiar Cossack foppishness which consists in imitating
the Chechen brave. Everything on a real brave is ample, ragged,
and neglected, only his weapons are costly. But these ragged
clothes and these weapons are belted and worn with a certain air
and matched in a certain manner, neither of which can be acquired
by everybody and which at once strike the eye of a Cossack or a
hillsman. Lukashka had this resemblance to a brave. With his hands
folded under his sword, and his eyes nearly closed, he kept
looking at the distant Tartar village. Taken separately his
features were not beautiful, but anyone who saw his stately
carriage and his dark-browed intelligent face would involuntarily
say, 'What a fine fellow!'

'Look at the women, what a lot of them are walking about in the
village,' said he in a sharp voice, languidly showing his
brilliant white teeth and not addressing anyone in particular.

Nazarka who was lying below immediately lifted his head and
remarked:

'They must be going for water.'

'Supposing one scared them with a gun?' said Lukashka, laughing,
'Wouldn't they be frightened?'

'It wouldn't reach.'

'What! Mine would carry beyond. Just wait a bit, and when their
feast comes round I'll go and visit Girey Khan and drink buza
there,' said Lukashka, angrily swishing away the mosquitoes which
attached themselves to him.

A rustling in the thicket drew the Cossack's attention. A pied
mongrel half-setter, searching for a scent and violently wagging
its scantily furred tail, came running to the cordon. Lukashka
recognized the dog as one belonging to his neighbour, Uncle
Eroshka, a hunter, and saw, following it through the thicket, the
approaching figure of the hunter himself.

Uncle Eroshka was a gigantic Cossack with a broad, snow-white
beard and such broad shoulders and chest that in the wood, where
there was no one to compare him with, he did not look particularly
tall, so well proportioned were his powerful limbs. He wore a
tattered coat and, over the bands with which his legs were
swathed, sandals made of undressed deer's hide tied on with
strings; while on his head he had a rough little white cap. He
carried over one shoulder a screen to hide behind when shooting
pheasants, and a bag containing a hen for luring hawks, and a
small falcon; over the other shoulder, attached by a strap, was a
wild cat he had killed; and stuck in his belt behind were some
little bags containing bullets, gunpowder, and bread, a horse's
tail to swish away the mosquitoes, a large dagger in a torn
scabbard smeared with old bloodstains, and two dead pheasants.
Having glanced at the cordon he stopped.

'Hy, Lyam!' he called to the dog in such a ringing bass that it
awoke an echo far away in the wood; and throwing over his shoulder
his big gun, of the kind the Cossacks call a 'flint', he raised
his cap.

'Had a good day, good people, eh?' he said, addressing the
Cossacks in the same strong and cheerful voice, quite without
effort, but as loudly as if he were shouting to someone on the
other bank of the river.

'Yes, yes. Uncle!' answered from all sides the voices of the young
Cossacks.

'What have you seen? Tell us!' shouted Uncle Eroshka, wiping the
sweat from his broad red face with the sleeve of his coat.

'Ah, there's a vulture living in the plane tree here, Uncle. As
soon as night comes he begins hovering round,' said Nazarka,
winking and jerking his shoulder and leg.

'Come, come!' said the old man incredulously.

'Really, Uncle! You must keep watch,' replied Nazarka with a
laugh.

The other Cossacks began laughing.

The wag had not seen any vulture at all, but it had long been the
custom of the young Cossacks in the cordon to tease and mislead
Uncle Eroshka every time he came to them.

'Eh, you fool, always lying!' exclaimed Lukashka from the tower to
Nazarka.

Nazarka was immediately silenced.

'It must be watched. I'll watch,' answered the old man to the
great delight of all the Cossacks. 'But have you seen any boars?'

'Watching for boars, are you?' said the corporal, bending forward
and scratching his back with both hands, very pleased at the
chance of some distraction. 'It's abreks one has to hunt here and
not boars! You've not heard anything, Uncle, have you?' he added,
needlessly screwing up his eyes and showing his close-set white
teeth.

'Abreks,' said the old man. 'No, I haven't. I say, have you any
chikhir? Let me have a drink, there's a good man. I'm really quite
done up. When the time comes I'll bring you some fresh meat, I
really will. Give me a drink!' he added.

'Well, and are you going to watch?' inquired the corporal, as
though he had not heard what the other said.

'I did mean to watch tonight,' replied Uncle Eroshka. 'Maybe, with
God's help, I shall kill something for the holiday. Then you shall
have a share, you shall indeed!'

'Uncle! Hallo, Uncle!' called out Lukashka sharply from above,
attracting everybody's attention. All the Cossacks looked up at
him. 'Just go to the upper water-course, there's a fine herd of
boars there. I'm not inventing, really! The other day one of our
Cossacks shot one there. I'm telling you the truth,' added he,
readjusting the musket at his back and in a tone that showed he
was not joking.

'Ah! Lukashka the Snatcher is here!' said the old man, looking up.
'Where has he been shooting?'

'Haven't you seen? I suppose you're too young!' said Lukashka.
'Close by the ditch,' he went on seriously with a shake of the
head. 'We were just going along the ditch when all at once we
heard something crackling, but my gun was in its case. Elias fired
suddenly ... But I'll show you the place, it's not far. You just
wait a bit. I know every one of their footpaths ... Daddy Mosev,'
said he, turning resolutely and almost commandingly to the
corporal, 'it's time to relieve guard!' and holding aloft his gun
he began to descend from the watch-tower without waiting for the
order.

'Come down!' said the corporal, after Lukashka had started, and
glanced round. 'Is it your turn, Gurka? Then go ... True enough
your Lukashka has become very skilful,' he went on, addressing the
old man. 'He keeps going about just like you, he doesn't stay at
home. The other day he killed a boar.'




Chapter VII


The sun had already set and the shades of night were rapidly
spreading from the edge of the wood. The Cossacks finished their
task round the cordon and gathered in the hut for supper. Only the
old man still stayed under the plane tree watching for the vulture
and pulling the string tied to the falcon's leg, but though a
vulture was really perching on the plane tree it declined to swoop
down on the lure. Lukashka, singing one song after another, was
leisurely placing nets among the very thickest brambles to trap
pheasants. In spite of his tall stature and big hands every kind
of work, both rough and delicate, prospered under Lukashka's
fingers.

'Hallo, Luke!' came Nazarka's shrill, sharp voice calling him from
the thicket close by. 'The Cossacks have gone in to supper.'

Nazarka, with a live pheasant under his arm, forced his way
through the brambles and emerged on the footpath.

'Oh!' said Lukashka, breaking off in his song, 'where did you get
that cock pheasant? I suppose it was in my trap?'

Nazarka was of the same age as Lukashka and had also only been at
the front since the previous spring.

He was plain, thin and puny, with a shrill voice that rang in
one's ears. They were neighbours and comrades. Lukashka was
sitting on the grass crosslegged like a Tartar, adjusting his
nets.

'I don't know whose it was--yours, I expect.'

'Was it beyond the pit by the plane tree? Then it is mine! I set
the nets last night.'

Lukashka rose and examined the captured pheasant. After stroking
the dark burnished head of the bird, which rolled its eyes and
stretched out its neck in terror, Lukashka took the pheasant in
his hands.

'We'll have it in a pilau tonight. You go and kill and pluck it.'

'And shall we eat it ourselves or give it to the corporal?'

'He has plenty!'

'I don't like killing them,' said Nazarka.

'Give it here!'

Lukashka drew a little knife from under his dagger and gave it a
swift jerk. The bird fluttered, but before it could spread its
wings the bleeding head bent and quivered.

'That's how one should do it!' said Lukashka, throwing down the
pheasant. 'It will make a fat pilau.'

Nazarka shuddered as he looked at the bird.

'I say, Lukashka, that fiend will be sending us to the ambush
again tonight,' he said, taking up the bird. (He was alluding to
the corporal.) 'He has sent Fomushkin to get wine, and it ought to
be his turn. He always puts it on us.'

Lukashka went whistling along the cordon.

'Take the string with you,' he shouted.

Nazirka obeyed.

'I'll give him a bit of my mind today, I really will,' continued
Nazarka. 'Let's say we won't go; we're tired out and there's an
end of it! No, really, you tell him, he'll listen to you. It's too
bad!'

'Get along with you! What a thing to make a fuss about!' said
Lukashka, evidently thinking of something else. 'What bosh! If he
made us turn out of the village at night now, that would be
annoying: there one can have some fun, but here what is there?
It's all one whether we're in the cordon or in ambush. What a
fellow you are!'

'And are you going to the village?'

'I'll go for the holidays.'

'Gurka says your Dunayka is carrying on with Fomushkin,' said
Nazarka suddenly.

'Well, let her go to the devil,' said Lukashka, showing his
regular white teeth, though he did not laugh. 'As if I couldn't
find another!'

'Gurka says he went to her house. Her husband was out and there
was Fomushkin sitting and eating pie. Gurka stopped awhile and
then went away, and passing by the window he heard her say, "He's
gone, the fiend.... Why don't you eat your pie, my own? You
needn't go home for the night," she says. And Gurka under the
window says to himself, "That's fine!"'

'You're making it up.'

'No, quite true, by Heaven!'

'Well, if she's found another let her go to the devil,' said
Lukashka, after a pause. 'There's no lack of girls and I was sick
of her anyway.'

'Well, see what a devil you are!' said Nazarka. 'You should make
up to the cornet's girl, Maryanka. Why doesn't she walk out with
any one?'

Lukashka frowned. 'What of Maryanka? They're all alike,' said he.

'Well, you just try... '

'What do you think? Are girls so scarce in the village?'

And Lukashka recommenced whistling, and went along the cordon
pulling leaves and branches from the bushes as he went. Suddenly,
catching sight of a smooth sapling, he drew the knife from the
handle of his dagger and cut it down. 'What a ramrod it will
make,' he said, swinging the sapling till it whistled through the
air.

The Cossacks were sitting round a low Tartar table on the earthen
floor of the clay-plastered outer room of the hut, when the
question of whose turn it was to lie in ambush was raised. 'Who is
to go tonight?' shouted one of the Cossacks through the open door
to the corporal in the next room.

'Who is to go?' the corporal shouted back. 'Uncle Burlak has been
and Fomushkin too,' said he, not quite confidently. 'You two had
better go, you and Nazarka,' he went on, addressing Lukashka. 'And
Ergushov must go too; surely he has slept it off?'

'You don't sleep it off yourself so why should he?' said Nazarka
in a subdued voice.

The Cossacks laughed.

Ergushov was the Cossack who had been lying drunk and asleep near
the hut. He had only that moment staggered into the room rubbing
his eyes.

Lukashka had already risen and was getting his gun ready.

'Be quick and go! Finish your supper and go!' said the corporal;
and without waiting for an expression of consent he shut the door,
evidently not expecting the Cossack to obey. 'Of course,' thought
he, 'if I hadn't been ordered to I wouldn't send anyone, but an
officer might turn up at any moment. As it is, they say eight
abreks have crossed over.'

'Well, I suppose I must go,' remarked Ergushov, 'it's the
regulation. Can't be helped! The times are such. I say, we must
go.'

Meanwhile Lukashka, holding a big piece of pheasant to his mouth
with both hands and glancing now at Nazarka, now at Ergushov,
seemed quite indifferent to what passed and only laughed at them
both. Before the Cossacks were ready to go into ambush. Uncle
Eroshka, who had been vainly waiting under the plane tree till
night fell, entered the dark outer room.

'Well, lads,' his loud bass resounded through the low-roofed room
drowning all the other voices, 'I'm going with you. You'll watch
for Chechens and I for boars!'




Chapter VIII


It was quite dark when Uncle Eroshka and the three Cossacks, in
their cloaks and shouldering their guns, left the cordon and went
towards the place on the Terek where they were to lie in ambush.
Nazarka did not want to go at all, but Lukashka shouted at him and
they soon started. After they had gone a few steps in silence the
Cossacks turned aside from the ditch and went along a path almost
hidden by reeds till they reached the river. On its bank lay a
thick black log cast up by the water. The reeds around it had been
recently beaten down.

'Shall we lie here?' asked Nazarka.

'Why not?' answered Lukashka. 'Sit down here and I'll be back in a
minute. I'll only show Daddy where to go.'

'This is the best place; here we can see and not be seen,' said
Ergushov, 'so it's here we'll lie. It's a first-rate place!'

Nazarka and Ergushov spread out their cloaks and settled down
behind the log, while Lukashka went on with Uncle Eroshka.

'It's not far from here. Daddy,' said Lukashka, stepping softly in
front of the old man; 'I'll show you where they've been--I'm the
only one that knows. Daddy.'

'Show me! You're a fine fellow, a regular Snatcher!' replied the
old man, also whispering.

Having gone a few steps Lukashka stopped, stooped down over a
puddle, and whistled. 'That's where they come to drink, d'you
see?' He spoke in a scarcely audible voice, pointing to fresh
hoof-prints.

'Christ bless you,' answered the old man. 'The boar will be in the
hollow beyond the ditch,' he added. Til watch, and you can go.'

Lukashka pulled his cloak up higher and walked back alone,
throwing swift glances now to the left at the wall of reeds, now
to the Terek rushing by below the bank. 'I daresay he's watching
or creeping along somewhere,' thought he of a possible Chechen
hillsman. Suddenly a loud rustling and a splash in the water made
him start and seize his musket. From under the bank a boar leapt
up--his dark outline showing for a moment against the glassy
surface of the water and then disappearing among the reeds.
Lukashka pulled out his gun and aimed, but before he could fire
the boar had disappeared in the thicket. Lukashka spat with
vexation and went on. On approaching the ambuscade he halted again
and whistled softly. His whistle was answered and he stepped up to
his comrades.

Nazarka, all curled up, was already asleep. Ergushov sat with his
legs crossed and moved slightly to make room for Lukashka.

'How jolly it is to sit here! It's really a good place,' said he.
'Did you take him there?'

'Showed him where,' answered Lukashka, spreading out his cloak.
'But what a big boar I roused just now close to the water! I
expect it was the very one! You must have heard the crash?'

'I did hear a beast crashing through. I knew at once it was a
beast. I thought to myself: "Lukashka has roused a beast,"'
Ergushov said, wrapping himself up in his cloak. 'Now I'll go to
sleep,' he added. 'Wake me when the cocks crow. We must have
discipline. I'll lie down and have a nap, and then you will have a
nap and I'll watch--that's the way.'

'Luckily I don't want to sleep,' answered Lukashka.

The night was dark, warm, and still. Only on one side of the sky
the stars were shining, the other and greater part was overcast by
one huge cloud stretching from the mountaintops. The black cloud,
blending in the absence of any wind with the mountains, moved
slowly onwards, its curved edges sharply denned against the deep
starry sky. Only in front of him could the Cossack discern the
Terek and the distance beyond. Behind and on both sides he was
surrounded by a wall of reeds. Occasionally the reeds would sway
and rustle against one another apparently without cause. Seen from
down below, against the clear part of the sky, their waving tufts
looked like the feathery branches of trees. Close in front at his
very feet was the bank, and at its base the rushing torrent. A
little farther on was the moving mass of glassy brown water which
eddied rhythmically along the bank and round the shallows. Farther
still, water, banks, and cloud all merged together in impenetrable
gloom. Along the surface of the water floated black shadows, in
which the experienced eyes of the Cossack detected trees carried
down by the current. Only very rarely sheet-lightning, mirrored in
the water as in a black glass, disclosed the sloping bank
opposite. The rhythmic sounds of night--the rustling of the reeds,
the snoring of the Cossacks, the hum of mosquitoes, and the
rushing water, were every now and then broken by a shot fired in
the distance, or by the gurgling of water when a piece of bank
slipped down, the splash of a big fish, or the crashing of an
animal breaking through the thick undergrowth in the wood. Once an
owl flew past along the Terek, flapping one wing against the other
rhythmically at every second beat. Just above the Cossack's head
it turned towards the wood and then, striking its wings no longer
after every other flap but at every flap, it flew to an old plane
tree where it rustled about for a long time before settling down
among the branches. At every one of these unexpected sounds the
watching Cossack listened intently, straining his hearing, and
screwing up his eyes while he deliberately felt for his musket.

The greater part of the night was past. The black cloud that had
moved westward revealed the clear starry sky from under its torn
edge, and the golden upturned crescent of the moon shone above the
mountains with a reddish light. The cold began to be penetrating.
Nazarka awoke, spoke a little, and fell asleep again. Lukashka
feeling bored got up, drew the knife from his dagger-handle and
began to fashion his stick into a ramrod. His head was full of the
Chechens who lived over there in the mountains, and of how their
brave lads came across and were not afraid of the Cossacks, and
might even now be crossing the river at some other spot. He thrust
himself out of his hiding-place and looked along the river but
could see nothing. And as he continued looking out at intervals
upon the river and at the opposite bank, now dimly distinguishable
from the water in the faint moonlight, he no longer thought about
the Chechens but only of when it would be time to wake his
comrades, and of going home to the village. In the village he
imagined Dunayka, his 'little soul', as the Cossacks call a man's
mistress, and thought of her with vexation. Silvery mists, a sign
of coming morning, glittered white above the water, and not far
from him young eagles were whistling and flapping their wings. At
last the crowing of a cock reached him from the distant village,
followed by the long-sustained note of another, which was again
answered by yet other voices.

'Time to wake them,' thought Lukashka, who had finished his ramrod
and felt his eyes growing heavy. Turning to his comrades he
managed to make out which pair of legs belonged to whom, when it
suddenly seemed to him that he heard something splash on the other
side of the Terek. He turned again towards the horizon beyond the
hills, where day was breaking under the upturned crescent, glanced
at the outline of the opposite bank, at the Terek, and at the now
distinctly visible driftwood upon it. For one instant it seemed to
him that he was moving and that the Terek with the drifting wood
remained stationary. Again he peered out. One large black log with
a branch particularly attracted his attention. The tree was
floating in a strange way right down the middle of the stream,
neither rocking nor whirling. It even appeared not to be floating
altogether with the current, but to be crossing it in the
direction of the shallows. Lukashka stretching out his neck
watched it intently. The tree floated to the shallows, stopped,
and shifted in a peculiar manner. Lukashka thought he saw an arm
stretched out from beneath the tree. 'Supposing I killed an abrek
all by myself!' he thought, and seized his gun with a swift,
unhurried movement, putting up his gun-rest, placing the gun upon
it, and holding it noiselessly in position. Cocking the trigger,
with bated breath he took aim, still peering out intently. 'I
won't wake them,' he thought. But his heart began beating so fast
that he remained motionless, listening. Suddenly the trunk gave a
plunge and again began to float across the stream towards our
bank. 'Only not to miss ...' thought he, and now by the faint
light of the moon he caught a glimpse of a Tartar's head in front
of the floating wood. He aimed straight at the head which appeared
to be quite near--just at the end of his rifle's barrel. He
glanced cross. 'Right enough it is an abrek! he thought joyfully,
and suddenly rising to his knees he again took aim. Having found
the sight, barely visible at the end of the long gun, he said: 'In
the name of the Father and of the Son,' in the Cossack way learnt
in his childhood, and pulled the trigger. A flash of lightning lit
up for an instant the reeds and the water, and the sharp, abrupt
report of the shot was carried across the river, changing into a
prolonged roll somewhere in the far distance. The piece of
driftwood now floated not across, but with the current, rocking
and whirling.

'Stop, I say!' exclaimed Ergushov, seizing his musket and raising
himself behind the log near which he was lying.

'Shut up, you devil!' whispered Lukashka, grinding his teeth.
'abreks!'

'Whom have you shot?' asked Nazarka. 'Who was it, Lukashka?'

Lukashka did not answer. He was reloading his gun and watching the
floating wood. A little way off it stopped on a sand-bank, and
from behind it something large that rocked in the water came into
view.

'What did you shoot? Why don't you speak?' insisted the Cossacks.

'Abreks, I tell you!' said Lukashka.

'Don't humbug! Did the gun go off? ...'

'I've killed an abrek, that's what I fired at,' muttered Lukashka
in a voice choked by emotion, as he jumped to his feet. 'A man was
swimming...' he said, pointing to the sandbank. 'I killed him.
Just look there.'

'Have done with your humbugging!' said Ergushov again, rubbing his
eyes.

'Have done with what? Look there,' said Lukashka, seizing him by
the shoulders and pulling him with such force that Ergushov
groaned.

He looked in the direction in which Lukashka pointed, and
discerning a body immediately changed his tone.

'O Lord! But I say, more will come! I tell you the truth,' said he
softly, and began examining his musket. 'That was a scout swimming
across: either the others are here already or are not far off on
the other side--I tell you for sure!' Lukashka was unfastening his
belt and taking off his Circassian coat.

'What are you up to, you idiot?' exclaimed Ergushov. 'Only show
yourself and you've lost all for nothing, I tell you true! If
you've killed him he won't escape. Let me have a little powder for
my musket-pan--you have some? Nazarka, you go back to the cordon
and look alive; but don't go along the bank or you'll be killed--I
tell you true.'

'Catch me going alone! Go yourself!' said Nazarka angrily.

Having taken off his coat, Lukashka went down to the bank.

'Don't go in, I tell you!' said Ergushov, putting some powder on
the pan. 'Look, he's not moving. I can see. It's nearly morning;
wait till they come from the cordon. You go, Nazarka. You're
afraid! Don't be afraid, I tell you.'

'Luke, I say, Lukashka! Tell us how you did it!' said Nazarka.

Lukashka changed his mind about going into the water just then.
'Go quick to the cordon and I will watch. Tell the Cossacks to
send out the patrol. If the ABREKS are on this side they must be
caught,' said he.

'That's what I say. They'll get off,' said Ergushov, rising.
'True, they must be caught!'

Ergushov and Nazarka rose and, crossing themselves, started off
for the cordon--not along the riverbank but breaking their way
through the brambles to reach a path in the wood.

'Now mind, Lukashka--they may cut you down here, so you'd best
keep a sharp look-out, I tell you!'

'Go along; I know,' muttered Lukashka; and having examined his gun
again he sat down behind the log.

He remained alone and sat gazing at the shallows and listening for
the Cossacks; but it was some distance to the cordon and he was
tormented by impatience. He kept thinking that the other ABREKS
who were with the one he had killed would escape. He was vexed
with the ABREKS who were going to escape just as he had been with
the boar that had escaped the evening before. He glanced round and
at the opposite bank, expecting every moment to see a man, and
having arranged his gun-rest he was ready to fire. The idea that
he might himself be killed never entered his head.




Chapter IX


It was growing light. The Chechen's body which was gently rocking
in the shallow water was now clearly visible. Suddenly the reeds
rustled not far from Luke and he heard steps and saw the feathery
tops of the reeds moving. He set his gun at full cock and
muttered: 'In the name of the Father and of the Son,' but when the
cock clicked the sound of steps ceased.

'Hallo, Cossacks! Don't kill your Daddy!' said a deep bass voice
calmly; and moving the reeds apart Daddy Eroshka came up close to
Luke.

'I very nearly killed you, by God I did!' said Lukashka.

'What have you shot?' asked the old man.

His sonorous voice resounded through the wood and downward along
the river, suddenly dispelling the mysterious quiet of night
around the Cossack. It was as if everything had suddenly become
lighter and more distinct.

'There now. Uncle, you have not seen anything, but I've killed a
beast,' said Lukashka, uncocking his gun and getting up with
unnatural calmness.

The old man was staring intently at the white back, now clearly
visible, against which the Terek rippled.

'He was swimming with a log on his back. I spied him out! ... Look
there. There! He's got blue trousers, and a gun I think.... Do you
see?' inquired Luke.

'How can one help seeing?' said the old man angrily, and a
serious and stern expression appeared on his face. 'You've killed
a brave,' he said, apparently with regret.

'Well, I sat here and suddenly saw something dark on the other
side. I spied him when he was still over there. It was as if a man
had come there and fallen in. Strange! And a piece of driftwood, a
good-sized piece, comes floating, not with the stream but across
it; and what do I see but a head appearing from under it! Strange!
I stretched out of the reeds but could see nothing; then I rose
and he must have heard, the beast, and crept out into the shallow
and looked about. "No, you don't!" I said, as soon as he landed
and looked round, "you won't get away!" Oh, there was something
choking me! I got my gun ready but did not stir, and looked out.
He waited a little and then swam out again; and when he came into
the moonlight I could see his whole back. "In the name of the
Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost"... and through the
smoke I see him struggling. He moaned, or so it seemed to me.
"Ah," I thought, "the Lord be thanked, I've killed him!" And when
he drifted onto the sand-bank I could see him distinctly: he tried
to get up but couldn't. He struggled a bit and then lay down.
Everything could be seen. Look, he does not move--he must be dead!
The Cossacks have gone back to the cordon in case there should be
any more of them.'

'And so you got him!' said the old man. 'He is far away now, my
lad! ...' And again he shook his head sadly.

Just then the sound reached them of breaking bushes and the loud
voices of Cossacks approaching along the bank on horseback and on
foot. 'Are you bringing the skiff?' shouted Lukashka.

'You're a trump, Luke! Lug it to the bank!' shouted one of the
Cossacks.

Without waiting for the skiff Lukashka began to undress, keeping
an eye all the while on his prey.

'Wait a bit, Nazarka is bringing the skiff,' shouted the corporal.

'You fool! Maybe he is alive and only pretending! Take your dagger
with you!' shouted another Cossack.

'Get along,' cried Luke, pulling off his trousers. He quickly
undressed and, crossing himself, jumped, plunging with a splash
into the river. Then with long strokes of his white arms, lifting
his back high out of the water and breathing deeply, he swam
across the current of the Terek towards the shallows. A crowd of
Cossacks stood on the bank talking loudly. Three horsemen rode off
to patrol. The skiff appeared round a bend. Lukashka stood up on
the sandbank, leaned over the body, and gave it a couple of
shakes.

'Quite dead!' he shouted in a shrill voice.

The Chechen had been shot in the head. He had on a pair of blue
trousers, a shirt, and a Circassian coat, and a gun and dagger
were tied to his back. Above all these a large branch was tied,
and it was this which at first had misled Lukashka.

'What a carp you've landed!' cried one of the Cossacks who had
assembled in a circle, as the body, lifted out of the skiff, was
laid on the bank, pressing down the grass.

'How yellow he is!' said another.

'Where have our fellows gone to search? I expect the rest of them
are on the other bank. If this one had not been a scout he would
not have swum that way. Why else should he swim alone?' said a
third.

'Must have been a smart one to offer himself before the others; a
regular brave!' said Lukashka mockingly, shivering as he wrung out
his clothes that had got wet on the bank.

'His beard is dyed and cropped.'

'And he has tied a bag with a coat in it to his back.'

'That would make it easier for him to swim,' said some one.

'I say, Lukashka,' said the corporal, who was holding the dagger
and gun taken from the dead man. 'Keep the dagger for yourself and
the coat too; but I'll give you three rubles for the gun. You see
it has a hole in it,' said he, blowing into the muzzle. 'I want it
just for a souvenir.'

Lukashka did not answer. Evidently this sort of begging vexed him
but he knew it could not be avoided.

'See, what a devil!' said he, frowning and throwing down the
Chechen's coat. 'If at least it were a good coat, but it's a mere
rag.'

'It'll do to fetch firewood in,' said one of the Cossacks.

'Mosev, I'll go home,' said Lukashka, evidently forgetting his
vexation and wishing to get some advantage out of having to give a
present to his superior.

'All right, you may go!'

'Take the body beyond the cordon, lads,' said the corporal, still
examining the gun, 'and put a shelter over him from the sun.
Perhaps they'll send from the mountains to ransom it.'

'It isn't hot yet,' said someone.

'And supposing a jackal tears him? Would that be well?' remarked
another Cossack.

'We'll set a watch; if they should come to ransom him it won't do
for him to have been torn.'

'Well, Lukashka, whatever you do you must stand a pail of vodka
for the lads,' said the corporal gaily.

'Of course! That's the custom,' chimed in the Cossacks. 'See what
luck God has sent you! Without ever having seen anything of the
kind before, you've killed a brave!'

'Buy the dagger and coat and don't be stingy, and I'll let you
have the trousers too,' said Lukashka. 'They're too tight for me;
he was a thin devil.'

One Cossack bought the coat for a ruble and another gave the price
of two pails of vodka for the dagger.

'Drink, lads! I'll stand you a pail!' said Luke. 'I'll bring it
myself from the village.'

'And cut up the trousers into kerchiefs for the girls!' said
Nazarka.

The Cossacks burst out laughing.

'Have done laughing!' said the corporal. 'And take the body away.
Why have you put the nasty thing by the hut?'

'What are you standing there for? Haul him along, lads!' shouted
Lukashka in a commanding voice to the Cossacks, who reluctantly
took hold of the body, obeying him as though he were their chief.
After dragging the body along for a few steps the Cossacks let
fall the legs, which dropped with a lifeless jerk, and stepping
apart they then stood silent for a few moments. Nazarka came up
and straightened the head, which was turned to one side so that
the round wound above the temple and the whole of the dead man's
face were visible. 'See what a mark he has made right in the
brain,' he said. 'He won't get lost. His owners will always know
him!' No one answered, and again the Angel of Silence flew over
the Cossacks.

The sun had risen high and its diverging beams were lighting up
the dewy grass. Near by, the Terek murmured in the awakened wood
and, greeting the morning, the pheasants called to one another.
The Cossacks stood still and silent around the dead man, gazing at
him. The brown body, with nothing on but the wet blue trousers
held by a girdle over the sunken stomach, was well shaped and
handsome. The muscular arms lay stretched straight out by his
sides; the blue, freshly shaven, round head with the clotted wound
on one side of it was thrown back. The smooth tanned forehead
contrasted sharply with the shaven part of the head. The open
glassy eyes with lowered pupils stared upwards, seeming to gaze
past everything. Under the red trimmed moustache the fine lips,
drawn at the corners, seemed stiffened into a smile of good-
natured subtle raillery. The fingers of the small hands covered
with red hairs were bent inward, and the nails were dyed red.

Lukashka had not yet dressed. He was wet. His neck was redder and
his eyes brighter than usual, his broad jaws twitched, and from
his healthy body a hardly perceptible steam rose in the fresh
morning air.

'He too was a man!' he muttered, evidently admiring the corpse.

'Yes, if you had fallen into his hands you would have had short
shrift,' said one of the Cossacks.

The Angel of Silence had taken wing. The Cossacks began bustling
about and talking. Two of them went to cut brushwood for a
shelter, others strolled towards the cordon. Luke and Nazarka ran
to get ready to go to the village.

Half an hour later they were both on their way homewards, talking
incessantly and almost running through the dense woods which
separated the Terek from the village.

'Mind, don't tell her I sent you, but just go and find out if her
husband is at home,' Luke was saying in his shrill voice.

'And I'll go round to Yamka too,' said the devoted Nazarka. 'We'll
have a spree, shall we?'

'When should we have one if not to-day?' replied Luke.

When they reached the village the two Cossacks drank, and lay down
to sleep till evening.




Chapter X


On the third day after the events above described, two companies
of a Caucasian infantry regiment arrived at the Cossack village of
Novomlinsk. The horses had been unharnessed and the companies'
wagons were standing in the square. The cooks had dug a pit, and
with logs gathered from various yards (where they had not been
sufficiently securely stored) were now cooking the food; the pay-
sergeants were settling accounts with the soldiers. The Service
Corps men were driving piles in the ground to which to tie the
horses, and the quartermasters were going about the streets just
as if they were at home, showing officers and men to their
quarters. Here were green ammunition boxes in a line, the
company's carts, horses, and cauldrons in which buckwheat porridge
was being cooked. Here were the captain and the lieutenant and the
sergeant-major, Onisim Mikhaylovich, and all this was in the
Cossack village where it was reported that the companies were
ordered to take up their quarters: therefore they were at home
here. But why they were stationed there, who the Cossacks were,
and whether they wanted the troops to be there, and whether they
were Old Believers or not--was all quite immaterial. Having
received their pay and been dismissed, tired out and covered with
dust, the soldiers noisily and in disorder, like a swarm of bees
about to settle, spread over the squares and streets; quite
regardless of the Cossacks' ill will, chattering merrily and with
their muskets clinking, by twos and threes they entered the huts
and hung up their accoutrements, unpacked their bags, and bantered
the women. At their favourite spot, round the porridge-cauldrons,
a large group of soldiers assembled and with little pipes between
their teeth they gazed, now at the smoke which rose into the hot
sky, becoming visible when it thickened into white clouds as it
rose, and now at the camp fires which were quivering in the pure
air like molten glass, and bantered and made fun of the Cossack
men and women because they do not live at all like Russians. In
all the yards one could see soldiers and hear their laughter and
the exasperated and shrill cries of Cossack women defending their
houses and refusing to give the soldiers water or cooking
utensils. Little boys and girls, clinging to their mothers and to
each other, followed all the movements of the troopers (never
before seen by them) with frightened curiosity, or ran after them
at a respectful distance. The old Cossacks came out silently and
dismally and sat on the earthen embankments of their huts, and
watched the soldiers' activity with an air of leaving it all to
the will of God without understanding what would come of it.

Olenin, who had joined the Caucasian Army as a cadet three months
before, was quartered in one of the best houses in the village,
the house of the cornet, Elias Vasilich--that is to say at Granny
Ulitka's.

'Goodness knows what it will be like, Dmitri Andreich,' said the
panting Vanyusha to Olenin, who, dressed in a Circassian coat and
mounted on a Kabarda horse which he had bought in Groznoe, was
after a five-hours' march gaily entering the yard of the quarters
assigned to him.

'Why, what's the matter?' he asked, caressing his horse and
looking merrily at the perspiring, dishevelled, and worried
Vanyusha, who had arrived with the baggage wagons and was
unpacking.

Olenin looked quite a different man. In place of his clean-shaven
lips and chin he had a youthful moustache and a small beard.
Instead of a sallow complexion, the result of nights turned into
day, his cheeks, his forehead, and the skin behind his ears were
now red with healthy sunburn. In place of a clean new black suit
he wore a dirty white Circassian coat with a deeply pleated skirt,
and he bore arms. Instead of a freshly starched collar, his neck
was tightly clasped by the red band of his silk BESHMET. He wore
Circassian dress but did not wear it well, and anyone would have
known him for a Russian and not a Tartar brave. It was the thing--
but not the real thing. But for all that, his whole person
breathed health, joy, and satisfaction.

'Yes, it seems funny to you,' said Vanyusha, 'but just try to talk
to these people yourself: they set themselves against one and
there's an end of it. You can't get as much as a word out of
them.' Vanyusha angrily threw down a pail on the threshold.
'Somehow they don't seem like Russians.'

'You should speak to the Chief of the Village!'

'But I don't know where he lives,' said Vanyusha in an offended
tone.

'Who has upset you so?' asked Olenin, looking round.

'The devil only knows. Faugh! There is no real master here. They
say he has gone to some kind of KRIGA, and the old woman is a real
devil. God preserve us!' answered Vanyusha, putting his hands to
his head. 'How we shall live here I don't know. They are worse
than Tartars, I do declare--though they consider themselves
Christians! A Tartar is bad enough, but all the same he is more
noble. Gone to the KRIGA indeed! What this KRIGA they have
invented is, I don't know!' concluded Vanyusha, and turned aside.

'It's not as it is in the serfs' quarters at home, eh?' chaffed
Olenin without dismounting.

'Please sir, may I have your horse?' said Vanyusha, evidently
perplexed by this new order of things but resigning himself to his
fate.

'So a Tartar is more noble, eh, Vanyusha?' repeated Olenin,
dismounting and slapping the saddle.

'Yes, you're laughing! You think it funny,' muttered Vanyusha
angrily.

'Come, don't be angry, Vanyusha,' replied Olenin, still smiling.
'Wait a minute, I'll go and speak to the people of the house;
you'll see I shall arrange everything. You don't know what a jolly
life we shall have here. Only don't get upset.'

Vanyusha did not answer. Screwing up his eyes he looked
contemptuously after his master, and shook his head. Vanyusha
regarded Olenin as only his master, and Olenin regarded Vanyusha
as only his servant; and they would both have been much surprised
if anyone had told them that they were friends, as they really
were without knowing it themselves. Vanyusha had been taken into
his proprietor's house when he was only eleven and when Olenin was
the same age. When Olenin was fifteen he gave Vanyusha lessons for
a time and taught him to read French, of which the latter was
inordinately proud; and when in specially good spirits he still
let off French words, always laughing stupidly when he did so.

Olenin ran up the steps of the porch and pushed open the door of
the hut. Maryanka, wearing nothing but a pink smock, as all
Cossack women do in the house, jumped away from the door,
frightened, and pressing herself against the wall covered the
lower part other face with the broad sleeve of her Tartar smock.
Having opened the door wider, Olenin in the semi-darkness of the
passage saw the whole tall, shapely figure of the young Cossack
girl. With the quick and eager curiosity of youth he involuntarily
noticed the firm maidenly form revealed by the fine print smock,
and the beautiful black eyes fixed on him with childlike terror
and wild curiosity. 'This is SHE,' thought Olenin. 'But there will
be many others like her' came at once into his head, and he opened
the inner door. Old Granny Ulitka, also dressed only in a smock,
was stooping with her back turned to him, sweeping the floor.

'Good-day to you. Mother! I've come about my lodgings,' he began.

The Cossack woman, without unbending, turned her severe but still
handsome face towards him.

'What have you come here for? Want to mock at us, eh? I'll teach
you to mock; may the black plague seize you!' she shouted, looking
askance from under her frowning brow at the new-comer.

Olenin had at first imagined that the way-worn, gallant Caucasian
Army (of which he was a member) would be everywhere received
joyfully, and especially by the Cossacks, our comrades in the war;
and he therefore felt perplexed by this reception. Without losing
presence of mind however he tried to explain that he meant to pay
for his lodgings, but the old woman would not give him a hearing.

'What have you come for? Who wants a pest like you, with your
scraped face? You just wait a bit; when the master returns he'll
show you your place. I don't want your dirty money! A likely
thing--just as if we had never seen any! You'll stink the house
out with your beastly tobacco and want to put it right with money!
Think we've never seen a pest! May you be shot in your bowels and
your heart!' shrieked the old woman in a piercing voice,
interrupting Olenin.

'It seems Vanyusha was right!' thought Olenin. "A Tartar would be
nobler",' and followed by Granny Ulitka's abuse he went out of the
hut. As he was leaving, Maryanka, still wearing only her pink
smock, but with her forehead covered down to her eyes by a white
kerchief, suddenly slipped out from the passage past him.
Pattering rapidly down the steps with her bare feet she ran from
the porch, stopped, and looking round hastily with laughing eyes
at the young man, vanished round the corner of the hut.

Her firm youthful step, the untamed look of the eyes glistening
from under the white kerchief, and the firm stately build of the
young beauty, struck Olenin even more powerfully than before.
'Yes, it must be SHE,' he thought, and troubling his head still
less about the lodgings, he kept looking round at Maryanka as he
approached Vanyusha.

'There you see, the girl too is quite savage, just like a wild
filly!' said Vanyusha, who though still busy with the luggage
wagon had now cheered up a bit. 'LA FAME!' he added in a loud
triumphant voice and burst out laughing.




Chapter XI


Towards evening the master of the house returned from his fishing,
and having learnt that the cadet would pay for the lodging,
pacified the old woman and satisfied Vanyusha's demands.

Everything was arranged in the new quarters. Their hosts moved
into the winter hut and let their summer hut to the cadet for
three rubles a month. Olenin had something to eat and went to
sleep. Towards evening he woke up, washed and made himself tidy,
dined, and having lit a cigarette sat down by the window that
looked onto the street. It was cooler. The slanting shadow of the
hut with its ornamental gables fell across the dusty road and even
bent upwards at the base of the wall of the house opposite. The
steep reed-thatched roof of that house shone in the rays of the
setting sun. The air grew fresher. Everything was peaceful in the
village. The soldiers had settled down and become quiet. The herds
had not yet been driven home and the people had not returned from
their work.

Olenin's lodging was situated almost at the end of the village. At
rare intervals, from somewhere far beyond the Terek in those parts
whence Olenin had just come (the Chechen or the Kumytsk plain),
came muffled sounds of firing. Olenin was feeling very well
contented after three months of bivouac life. His newly washed
face was fresh and his powerful body clean (an unaccustomed
sensation after the campaign) and in all his rested limbs he was
conscious of a feeling of tranquillity and strength. His mind,
too, felt fresh and clear. He thought of the campaign and of past
dangers. He remembered that he had faced them no worse than other
men, and that he was accepted as a comrade among valiant
Caucasians. His Moscow recollections were left behind Heaven knows
how far! The old life was wiped out and a quite new life had begun
in which there were as yet no mistakes. Here as a new man among
new men he could gain a new and good reputation. He was conscious
of a youthful and unreasoning joy of life. Looking now out of the
window at the boys spinning their tops in the shadow of the house,
now round his neat new lodging, he thought how pleasantly he would
settle down to this new Cossack village life. Now and then he
glanced at the mountains and the blue sky, and an appreciation of
the solemn grandeur of nature mingled with his reminiscences and
dreams. His new life had begun, not as he imagined it would when
he left Moscow, but unexpectedly well. 'The mountains, the
mountains, the mountains!' they permeated all his thoughts and
feelings.

'He's kissed his dog and licked the jug! ... Daddy Eroshka has
kissed his dog!' suddenly the little Cossacks who had been
spinning their tops under the window shouted, looking towards the
side street. 'He's drunk his bitch, and his dagger!' shouted the
boys, crowding together and stepping backwards.

These shouts were addressed to Daddy Eroshka, who with his gun on
his shoulder and some pheasants hanging at his girdle was
returning from his shooting expedition.

'I have done wrong, lads, I have!' he said, vigorously swinging
his arms and looking up at the windows on both sides of the
street. 'I have drunk the bitch; it was wrong,' he repeated,
evidently vexed but pretending not to care.

Olenin was surprised by the boys' behavior towards the old hunter,
but was still more struck by the expressive, intelligent face and
the powerful build of the man whom they called Daddy Eroshka.

'Here Daddy, here Cossack!' he called. 'Come here!'

The old man looked into the window and stopped.

'Good evening, good man,' he said, lifting his little cap off his
cropped head.

'Good evening, good man,' replied Olenin. 'What is it the
youngsters are shouting at you?'

Daddy Eroshka came up to the window. 'Why, they're teasing the old
man. No matter, I like it. Let them joke about their old daddy,'
he said with those firm musical intonations with which old and
venerable people speak. 'Are you an army commander?' he added.

'No, I am a cadet. But where did you kill those pheasants?' asked
Olenin.

'I dispatched these three hens in the forest,' answered the old
man, turning his broad back towards the window to show the hen
pheasants which were hanging with their heads tucked into his belt
and staining his coat with blood. 'Haven't you seen any?' he
asked. 'Take a brace if you like! Here you are,' and he handed two
of the pheasants in at the window. 'Are you a sportsman yourself?'
he asked.

'I am. During the campaign I killed four myself.'

'Four? What a lot!' said the old man sarcastically. 'And are you a
drinker? Do you drink CHIKHIR?'

'Why not? I like a drink.'

'Ah, I see you are a trump! We shall be KUNAKS, you and I,' said
Daddy Eroshka.

'Step in,' said Olenin. 'We'll have a drop of CHIKHIR.'

'I might as well,' said the old man, 'but take the pheasants.' The
old man's face showed that he liked the cadet. He had seen at once
that he could get free drinks from him, and that therefore it
would be all right to give him a brace of pheasants.

Soon Daddy Eroshka's figure appeared in the doorway of the hut,
and it was only then that Olenin became fully conscious of the
enormous size and sturdy build of this man, whose red-brown face
with its perfectly white broad beard was all furrowed by deep
lines produced by age and toil. For an old man, the muscles of his
legs, arms, and shoulders were quite exceptionally large and
prominent. There were deep scars on his head under the short-
cropped hair. His thick sinewy neck was covered with deep
intersecting folds like a bull's. His horny hands were bruised and
scratched. He stepped lightly and easily over the threshold,
unslung his gun and placed it in a corner, and casting a rapid
glance round the room noted the value of the goods and chattels
deposited in the hut, and with out-turned toes stepped softly, in
his sandals of raw hide, into the middle of the room. He brought
with him a penetrating but not unpleasant smell of CHIKHIR wine,
vodka, gunpowder, and congealed blood.

Daddy Eroshka bowed down before the icons, smoothed his beard, and
approaching Olenin held out his thick brown hand. 'Koshkildy,'
said he; That is Tartar for "Good-day"--"Peace be unto you," it
means in their tongue.'

'Koshkildy, I know,' answered Olenin, shaking hands.

'Eh, but you don't, you won't know the right order! Fool!' said
Daddy Eroshka, shaking his head reproachfully. 'If anyone says
"Koshkildy" to you, you must say "Allah rasi bo sun," that is,
"God save you." That's the way, my dear fellow, and not
"Koshkildy." But I'll teach you all about it. We had a fellow
here, Elias Mosevich, one of your Russians, he and I were kunaks.
He was a trump, a drunkard, a thief, a sportsman--and what a
sportsman! I taught him everything.'

'And what will you teach me?' asked Olenin, who was becoming more
and more interested in the old man.

'I'll take you hunting and teach you to fish. I'll show you
Chechens and find a girl for you, if you like--even that! That's
the sort I am! I'm a wag!'--and the old man laughed. 'I'll sit
down. I'm tired. Karga?' he added inquiringly.

'And what does "Karga" mean?' asked Olenin.

'Why, that means "All right" in Georgian. But I say it just so. It
is a way I have, it's my favourite word. Karga, Karga. I say it
just so; in fun I mean. Well, lad, won't you order the chikhir?
You've got an orderly, haven't you? Hey, Ivan!' shouted the old
man. 'All your soldiers are Ivans. Is yours Ivan?'

'True enough, his name is Ivan--Vanyusha. Here Vanyusha! Please
get some chikhir from our landlady and bring it here.'

'Ivan or Vanyusha, that's all one. Why are all your soldiers
Ivans? Ivan, old fellow,' said the old man, 'you tell them to give
you some from the barrel they have begun. They have the best
chikhir in the village. But don't give more than thirty kopeks for
the quart, mind, because that witch would be only too glad.... Our
people are anathema people; stupid people,' Daddy Eroshka
continued in a confidential tone after Vanyusha had gone out.
'They do not look upon you as on men, you are worse than a Tartar
in their eyes. "Worldly Russians" they say. But as for me, though
you are a soldier you are still a man, and have a soul in you.
Isn't that right? Elias Mosevich was a soldier, yet what a
treasure of a man he was! Isn't that so, my dear fellow? That's
why our people don't like me; but I don't care! I'm a merry
fellow, and I like everybody. I'm Eroshka; yes, my dear fellow.'

And the old Cossack patted the young man affectionately on the
shoulder.




Chapter XII


Vanyusha, who meanwhile had finished his housekeeping arrangements
and had even been shaved by the company's barber and had pulled
his trousers out of his high boots as a sign that the company was
stationed in comfortable quarters, was in excellent spirits. He
looked attentively but not benevolently at Eroshka, as at a wild
beast he had never seen before, shook his head at the floor which
the old man had dirtied and, having taken two bottles from under a
bench, went to the landlady.

'Good evening, kind people,' he said, having made up his mind to
be very gentle. 'My master has sent me to get some chikhir. Will
you draw some for me, good folk?'

The old woman gave no answer. The girl, who was arranging the
kerchief on her head before a little Tartar mirror, looked round
at Vanyusha in silence.

'I'll pay money for it, honoured people,' said Vanyusha, jingling
the coppers in his pocket. 'Be kind to us and we, too will be kind
to you,' he added.

'How much?' asked the old woman abruptly. 'A quart.'

'Go, my own, draw some for them,' said Granny Ulitka to her
daughter. 'Take it from the cask that's begun, my precious.'

The girl took the keys and a decanter and went out of the hut with
Vanyusha.

'Tell me, who is that young woman?' asked Olenin, pointing to
Maryanka, who was passing the window. The old man winked and
nudged the young man with his elbow.

'Wait a bit,' said he and reached out of the window. 'Khm,' he
coughed, and bellowed, 'Maryanka dear. Hallo, Maryanka, my girlie,
won't you love me, darling? I'm a wag,' he added in a whisper to
Olenin. The girl, not turning her head and swinging her arms
regularly and vigorously, passed the window with the peculiarly
smart and bold gait of a Cossack woman and only turned her dark
shaded eyes slowly towards the old man.

'Love me and you'll be happy,' shouted Eroshka, winking, and he
looked questioningly at the cadet.

'I'm a fine fellow, I'm a wag!' he added. 'She's a regular queen,
that girl. Eh?'

'She is lovely,' said Olenin. 'Call her here!'

'No, no,' said the old man. 'For that one a match is being
arranged with Lukashka, Luke, a fine Cossack, a brave, who killed
an abrek the other day. I'll find you a better one. I'll find you
one that will be all dressed up in silk and silver. Once I've said
it I'll do it. I'll get you a regular beauty!'

'You, an old man--and say such things,' replied Olenin. 'Why, it's
a sin!'

'A sin? Where's the sin?' said the old man emphatically. 'A sin to
look at a nice girl? A sin to have some fun with her? Or is it a
sin to love her? Is that so in your parts? ... No, my dear fellow,
it's not a sin, it's salvation! God made you and God made the girl
too. He made it all; so it is no sin to look at a nice girl.
That's what she was made for; to be loved and to give joy. That's
how I judge it, my good fellow.'

Having crossed the yard and entered a cool dark storeroom filled
with barrels, Maryanka went up to one of them and repeating the
usual prayer plunged a dipper into it. Vanyusha standing in the
doorway smiled as he looked at her. He thought it very funny that
she had only a smock on, close-fitting behind and tucked up in
front, and still funnier that she wore a necklace of silver coins.
He thought this quite un-Russian and that they would all laugh in
the serfs' quarters at home if they saw a girl like that. 'La
fille comme c'est tres bien, for a change,' he thought. 'I'll tell
that to my master.'

'What are you standing in the light for, you devil!' the girl
suddenly shouted. 'Why don't you pass me the decanter!'

Having filled the decanter with cool red wine, Maryanka handed it
to Vanyusha.

'Give the money to Mother,' she said, pushing away the hand in
which he held the money.

Vanyusha laughed.

'Why are you so cross, little dear?' he said good-naturedly,
irresolutely shuffling with his feet while the girl was covering
the barrel.

She began to laugh.

'And you! Are you kind?'

'We, my master and I, are very kind,' Vanyusha answered decidedly.
'We are so kind that wherever we have stayed our hosts were always
very grateful. It's because he's generous.'

The girl stood listening.

'And is your master married?' she asked.

'No. The master is young and unmarried, because noble gentlemen
can never marry young,' said Vanyusha didactically.

'A likely thing! See what a fed-up buffalo he is--and too young to
marry! Is he the chief of you all?' she asked.

'My master is a cadet; that means he's not yet an officer, but
he's more important than a general--he's an important man! Because
not only our colonel, but the Tsar himself, knows him,' proudly
explained Vanyusha. 'We are not like those other beggars in the
line regiment, and our papa himself was a Senator. He had more
than a thousand serfs, all his own, and they send us a thousand
rubles at a time. That's why everyone likes us. Another may be a
captain but have no money. What's the use of that?'

'Go away. I'll lock up,' said the girl, interrupting him.

Vanyusha brought Olenin the wine and announced that 'La fille
c'est tres joulie,' and, laughing stupidly, at once went out.




Chapter XIII


Meanwhile the tattoo had sounded in the village square. The people
had returned from their work. The herd lowed as in clouds of
golden dust it crowded at the village gate. The girls and the
women hurried through the streets and yards, turning in their
cattle. The sun had quite hidden itself behind the distant snowy
peaks. One pale bluish shadow spread over land and sky. Above the
darkened gardens stars just discernible were kindling, and the
sounds were gradually hushed in the village. The cattle having
been attended to and left for the night, the women came out and
gathered at the corners of the streets and, cracking sunflower
seeds with their teeth, settled down on the earthen embankments of
the houses. Later on Maryanka, having finished milking the buffalo
and the other two cows, also joined one of these groups.

The group consisted of several women and girls and one old Cossack
man.

They were talking about the abrek who had been killed.

The Cossack was narrating and the women questioning him.

'I expect he'll get a handsome reward,' said one of the women.

'Of course. It's said that they'll send him a cross.'

'Mosev did try to wrong him. Took the gun away from him, but the
authorities at Kizlyar heard of it.'

'A mean creature that Mosev is!'

'They say Lukashka has come home,' remarked one of the girls.

'He and Nazarka are merry-making at Yamka's.' (Yamka was an
unmarried, disreputable Cossack woman who kept an illicit pot-
house.) 'I heard say they had drunk half a pailful.'

'What luck that Snatcher has,' somebody remarked. 'A real
snatcher. But there's no denying he's a fine lad, smart enough for
anything, a right-minded lad! His father was just such another.
Daddy Kiryak was: he takes after his father. When he was killed
the whole village howled. Look, there they are,' added the
speaker, pointing to the Cossacks who were coming down the street
towards them.

'And Ergushov has managed to come along with them too! The
drunkard!'

Lukashka, Nazarka, and Ergushov, having emptied half a pail of
vodka, were coming towards the girls. The faces of all three, but
especially that of the old Cossack, were redder than usual.
Ergushov was reeling and kept laughing and nudging Nazarka in the
ribs.

'Why are you not singing?' he shouted to the girls. 'Sing to our
merry-making, I tell you!'

They were welcomed with the words, 'Had a good day? Had a good
day?'

'Why sing? It's not a holiday,' said one of the women. 'You're
tight, so you go and sing.'

Ergushov roared with laughter and nudged Nazarka. 'You'd better
sing. And I'll begin too. I'm clever, I tell you.'

'Are you asleep, fair ones?' said Nazarka. 'We've come from the
cordon to drink your health. We've already drunk Lukashka's
health.'

Lukashka, when he reached the group, slowly raised his cap and
stopped in front of the girls. His broad cheekbones and neck were
red. He stood and spoke softly and sedately, but in his
tranquillity and sedateness there was more of animation and
strength than in all Nazarka's loquacity and bustle. He reminded
one of a playful colt that with a snort and a flourish of its tail
suddenly stops short and stands as though nailed to the ground
with all four feet. Lukashka stood quietly in front of the girls,
his eyes laughed, and he spoke but little as he glanced now at his
drunken companions and now at the girls. When Maryanka joined the
group he raised his cap with a firm deliberate movement, moved out
of her way and then stepped in front of her with one foot a little
forward and with his thumbs in his belt, fingering his dagger.
Maryanka answered his greeting with a leisurely bow of her head,
settled down on the earth-bank, and took some seeds out of the
bosom of her smock. Lukashka, keeping his eyes fixed on Maryanka,
slowly cracked seeds and spat out the shells. All were quiet when
Maryanka joined the group.

'Have you come for long?' asked a woman, breaking the silence.

'Till to-morrow morning,' quietly replied Lukashka.

'Well, God grant you get something good,' said the Cossack; 'I'm
glad of it, as I've just been saying.'

'And I say so too,' put in the tipsy Ergushov, laughing. 'What a
lot of visitors have come,' he added, pointing to a soldier who
was passing by. 'The soldiers' vodka is good--I like it.'

'They've sent three of the devils to us,' said one of the women.
'Grandad went to the village Elders, but they say nothing can be
done.'

'Ah, ha! Have you met with trouble?' said Ergushov.

'I expect they have smoked you out with their tobacco?' asked
another woman. 'Smoke as much as you like in the yard, I say, but
we won't allow it inside the hut. Not if the Elder himself comes,
I won't allow it. Besides, they may rob you. He's not quartered
any of them on himself, no fear, that devil's son of an Elder.'

'You don't like it?' Ergushov began again.

'And I've also heard say that the girls will have to make the
soldiers' beds and offer them chikhir and honey,' said Nazarka,
putting one foot forward and tilting his cap like Lukashka.

Ergushov burst into a roar of laughter, and seizing the girl
nearest to him, he embraced her. 'I tell you true.'

'Now then, you black pitch!' squealed the girl, 'I'll tell your
old woman.'

'Tell her,' shouted he. 'That's quite right what Nazarka says; a
circular has been sent round. He can read, you know. Quite true!'
And he began embracing the next girl.

'What are you up to, you beast?' squealed the rosy, round-faced
Ustenka, laughing and lifting her arm to hit him.

The Cossack stepped aside and nearly fell.

'There, they say girls have no strength, and you nearly killed
me.'

'Get away, you black pitch, what devil has brought you from the
cordon?' said Ustenka, and turning away from him she again burst
out laughing. 'You were asleep and missed the abrek, didn't you?
Suppose he had done for you it would have been all the better.'

'You'd have howled, I expect,' said Nazarka, laughing.

'Howled! A likely thing.'

'Just look, she doesn't care. She'd howl, Nazarka, eh? Would she?'
said Ergushov.

Lukishka all this time had stood silently looking at Maryanka. His
gaze evidently confused the girl.

'Well, Maryanka! I hear they've quartered one of the chiefs on
you?' he said, drawing nearer.

Maryanka, as was her wont, waited before she replied, and slowly
raising her eyes looked at the Cossack. Lukashka's eyes were
laughing as if something special, apart from what was said, was
taking place between himself and the girl.

'Yes, it's all right for them as they have two huts,' replied an
old woman on Maryanka's behalf, 'but at Fomushkin's now they also
have one of the chiefs quartered on them and they say one whole
corner is packed full with his things, and the family have no room
left. Was such a thing ever heard of as that they should turn a
whole horde loose in the village?' she said. 'And what the plague
are they going to do here?'

'I've heard say they'll build a bridge across the Terek,' said one
of the girls.

'And I've been told that they will dig a pit to put the girls in
because they don't love the lads,' said Nazarka, approaching
Ustenka; and he again made a whimsical gesture which set everybody
laughing, and Ergushov, passing by Maryanka, who was next in turn,
began to embrace an old woman.

'Why don't you hug Maryanka? You should do it to each in turn,'
said Nazarka.

'No, my old one is sweeter,' shouted the Cossack, kissing the
struggling old woman.

'You'll throttle me,' she screamed, laughing.

The tramp of regular footsteps at the other end of the street
interrupted their laughter. Three soldiers in their cloaks, with
their muskets on their shoulders, were marching in step to relieve
guard by the ammunition wagon.

The corporal, an old cavalry man, looked angrily at the Cossacks
and led his men straight along the road where Lukashka and Nazarka
were standing, so that they should have to get out of the way.
Nazarka moved, but Lukashka only screwed up his eyes and turned
his broad back without moving from his place.

'People are standing here, so you go round,' he muttered, half
turning his head and tossing it contemptuously in the direction of
the soldiers.

The soldiers passed by in silence, keeping step regularly along
the dusty road.

Maryanka began laughing and all the other girls chimed in.

'What swells!' said Nazarka, 'Just like long-skirted choristers,'
and he walked a few steps down the road imitating the soldiers.

Again everyone broke into peals of laughter.

Lukashka came slowly up to Maryanka.

'And where have you put up the chief?' he asked.

Maryanka thought for a moment.

'We've let him have the new hut,' she said.

'And is he old or young,' asked Lukashka, sitting down beside her.

'Do you think I've asked?' answered the girl. 'I went to get him
some chikhir and saw him sitting at the window with Daddy Eroshka.
Red-headed he seemed. They've brought a whole cartload of things.'

And she dropped her eyes.

'Oh, how glad I am that I got leave from the cordon!' said
Lukashka, moving closer to the girl and looking straight in her
eyes all the time.

'And have you come for long?' asked Maryanka, smiling slightly.

'Till the morning. Give me some sunflower seeds,' he said, holding
out his hand.

Maryanka now smiled outright and unfastened the neckband of her
smock.

'Don't take them all,' she said.

'Really I felt so dull all the time without you, I swear I did,'
he said in a calm, restrained whisper, helping himself to some
seeds out of the bosom of the girl's smock, and stooping still
closer over her he continued with laughing eyes to talk to her in
low tones.

'I won't come, I tell you,' Maryanka suddenly said aloud, leaning
away from him.

'No really ... what I wanted to say to you, ...' whispered Lukashka.
'By the Heavens! Do come!'

Maryanka shook her head, but did so with a smile.

'Nursey Maryanka! Hallo Nursey! Mammy is calling! Supper time!'
shouted Maryanka's little brother, running towards the group.

'I'm coming,' replied the girl. 'Go, my dear, go alone--I'll come
in a minute.'

Lukashka rose and raised his cap.

'I expect I had better go home too, that will be best,' he said,
trying to appear unconcerned but hardly able to repress a smile,
and he disappeared behind the corner of the house.

Meanwhile night had entirely enveloped the village. Bright stars
were scattered over the dark sky. The streets became dark and
empty. Nazarka remained with the women on the earth-bank and their
laughter was still heard, but Lukashka, having slowly moved away
from the girls, crouched down like a cat and then suddenly started
running lightly, holding his dagger to steady it: not homeward,
however, but towards the cornet's house. Having passed two streets
he turned into a lane and lifting the skirt of his coat sat down
on the ground in the shadow of a fence. 'A regular cornet's
daughter!' he thought about Maryanka. 'Won't even have a lark--the
devil! But just wait a bit.'

The approaching footsteps of a woman attracted his attention. He
began listening, and laughed all by himself. Maryanka with bowed
head, striking the pales of the fences with a switch, was walking
with rapid regular strides straight towards him. Lukashka rose.
Maryanka started and stopped.

'What an accursed devil! You frightened me! So you have not gone
home?' she said, and laughed aloud.

Lukashka put one arm round her and with the other hand raised her
face. 'What I wanted to tell you, by Heaven!' his voice trembled
and broke.

'What are you talking of, at night time!' answered Maryanka.
'Mother is waiting for me, and you'd better go to your
sweetheart.'

And freeing herself from his arms she ran away a few steps. When
she had reached the wattle fence of her home she stopped and
turned to the Cossack who was running beside her and still trying
to persuade her to stay a while with him.

'Well, what do you want to say, midnight-gadabout?' and she again
began laughing.

'Don't laugh at me, Maryanka! By the Heaven! Well, what if I have
a sweetheart? May the devil take her! Only say the word and now
I'll love you--I'll do anything you wish. Here they are!' and he
jingled the money in his pocket. 'Now we can live splendidly.
Others have pleasures, and I? I get no pleasure from you, Maryanka
dear!'

The girl did not answer. She stood before him breaking her switch
into little bits with a rapid movement other fingers.

Lukashka suddenly clenched his teeth and fists.

'And why keep waiting and waiting? Don't I love you, darling? You
can do what you like with me,' said he suddenly, frowning angrily
and seizing both her hands.

The calm expression of Maryanka's face and voice did not change.

'Don't bluster, Lukashka, but listen to me,' she answered, not
pulling away her hands but holding the Cossack at arm's length.
'It's true I am a girl, but you listen to me! It does not depend
on me, but if you love me I'll tell you this. Let go my hands,
I'll tell you without.--I'll marry you, but you'll never get any
nonsense from me,' said Maryanka without turning her face.

'What, you'll marry me? Marriage does not depend on us. Love me
yourself, Maryanka dear,' said Lukashka, from sullen and furious
becoming again gentle, submissive, and tender, and smiling as he
looked closely into her eyes.

Maryanka clung to him and kissed him firmly on the lips.

'Brother dear!' she whispered, pressing him convulsively to her.
Then, suddenly tearing herself away, she ran into the gate of her
house without looking round.

In spite of the Cossack's entreaties to wait another minute to
hear what he had to say, Maryanka did not stop.

'Go,' she cried, 'you'll be seen! I do believe that devil, our
lodger, is walking about the yard.'

'Cornet's daughter,' thought Lukashka. 'She will marry me.
Marriage is all very well, but you just love me!'

He found Nazarka at Yamka's house, and after having a spree with
him went to Dunayka's house, where, in spite of her not being
faithful to him, he spent the night.




Chapter XIV


It was quite true that Olenin had been walking about the yard when
Maryanka entered the gate, and had heard her say, 'That devil, our
lodger, is walking about.' He had spent that evening with Daddy
Eroshka in the porch of his new lodging. He had had a table, a
samovar, wine, and a candle brought out, and over a cup of tea and
a cigar he listened to the tales the old man told seated on the
threshold at his feet. Though the air was still, the candle
dripped and flickered: now lighting up the post of the porch, now
the table and crockery, now the cropped white head of the old man.
Moths circled round the flame and, shedding the dust of their
wings, fluttered on the table and in the glasses, flew into the
candle flame, and disappeared in the black space beyond. Olenin
and Eroshka had emptied five bottles of chikhir. Eroshka filled
the glasses every time, offering one to Olenin, drinking his
health, and talking untiringly. He told of Cossack life in the old
days: of his rather, 'The Broad', who alone had carried on his
back a boar's carcass weighing three hundredweight, and drank two
pails of chikhir at one sitting. He told of his own days and his
chum Girchik, with whom during the plague he used to smuggle felt
cloaks across the Terek. He told how one morning he had killed two
deer, and about his 'little soul' who used to run to him at the
cordon at night. He told all this so eloquently and picturesquely
that Olenin did not notice how time passed. 'Ah yes, my dear
fellow, you did not know me in my golden days; then I'd have shown
you things. Today it's "Eroshka licks the jug", but then Eroshka
was famous in the whole regiment. Whose was the finest horse? Who
had a Gurda sword? To whom should one go to get a drink? With whom
go on the spree? Who should be sent to the mountains to kill Ahmet
Khan? Why, always Eroshka! Whom did the girls love? Always Eroshka
had to answer for it. Because I was a real brave: a drinker, a
thief (I used to seize herds of horses in the mountains), a
singer; I was a master of every art! There are no Cossacks like
that nowadays. It's disgusting to look at them. When they're that
high [Eroshka held his hand three feet from the ground] they put
on idiotic boots and keep looking at them--that's all the pleasure
they know. Or they'll drink themselves foolish, not like men but
all wrong. And who was I? I was Eroshka, the thief; they knew me
not only in this village but up in the mountains. Tartar princes,
my kunaks, used to come to see me! I used to be everybody's kunak.
If he was a Tartar--with a Tartar; an Armenian--with an Armenian;
a soldier--with a soldier; an officer--with an officer! I didn't
care as long as he was a drinker. He says you should cleanse
yourself from intercourse with the world, not drink with soldiers,
not eat with a Tartar.'

'Who says all that?' asked Olenin.

'Why, our teacher! But listen to a Mullah or a Tartar Cadi. He
says, "You unbelieving Giaours, why do you eat pig?" That shows
that everyone has his own law. But I think it's all one. God has
made everything for the joy of man. There is no sin in any of it.
Take example from an animal. It lives in the Tartar's reeds or in
ours. Wherever it happens to go, there is its home! Whatever God
gives it, that it eats! But our people say we have to lick red-hot
plates in hell for that. And I think it's all a fraud,' he added
after a pause.

'What is a fraud?' asked Olenin.

'Why, what the preachers say. We had an army captain in Chervlena
who was my kunak: a fine fellow just like me. He was killed in
Chechnya. Well, he used to say that the preachers invent all that
out of their own heads. "When you die the grass will grow on your
grave and that's all!"' The old man laughed. 'He was a desperate
fellow.'

'And how old are you?' asked Olenin.

'The Lord only knows! I must be about seventy. When a Tsaritsa
reigned in Russia I was no longer very small. So you can reckon it
out. I must be seventy.'

'Yes you must, but you are still a fine fellow.'

'Well, thank Heaven I am healthy, quite healthy, except that a
woman, a witch, has harmed me....'

'How?'

'Oh, just harmed me.'

'And so when you die the grass will grow?' repeated Olenin.

Eroshka evidently did not wish to express his thought clearly. He
was silent for a while.

'And what did you think? Drink!' he shouted suddenly, smiling and
handing Olenin some wine.




Chapter XV


'Well, what was I saying?' he continued, trying to remember. 'Yes,
that's the sort of man I am. I am a hunter. There is no hunter to
equal me in the whole army. I will find and show you any animal
and any bird, and what and where. I know it all! I have dogs, and
two guns, and nets, and a screen and a hawk. I have everything,
thank the Lord! If you are not bragging but are a real sportsman,
I'll show you everything. Do you know what a man I am? When I have
found a track--I know the animal. I know where he will lie down
and where he'll drink or wallow. I make myself a perch and sit
there all night watching. What's the good of staying at home? One
only gets into mischief, gets drunk. And here women come and
chatter, and boys shout at me--enough to drive one mad. It's a
different matter when you go out at nightfall, choose yourself a
place, press down the reeds and sit there and stay waiting, like a
jolly fellow. One knows everything that goes on in the woods. One
looks up at the sky: the stars move, you look at them and find out
from them how the time goes. One looks round--the wood is
rustling; one goes on waiting, now there comes a crackling--a boar
comes to rub himself; one listens to hear the young eaglets
screech and then the cocks give voice in the village, or the
geese. When you hear the geese you know it is not yet midnight.
And I know all about it! Or when a gun is fired somewhere far
away, thoughts come to me. One thinks, who is that firing? Is it
another Cossack like myself who has been watching for some animal?
And has he killed it? Or only wounded it so that now the poor
thing goes through the reeds smearing them with its blood all for
nothing? I don't like that! Oh, how I dislike it! Why injure a
beast? You fool, you fool! Or one thinks, "Maybe an abrek has
killed some silly little Cossack." All this passes through one's
mind. And once as I sat watching by the river I saw a cradle
floating down. It was sound except for one corner which was broken
off. Thoughts did come that time! I thought some of your soldiers,
the devils, must have got into a Tartar village and seized the
Chechen women, and one of the devils has killed the little one:
taken it by its legs, and hit its head against a wall. Don't they
do such things? Ah! Men have no souls! And thoughts came to me
that filled me with pity. I thought: they've thrown away the
cradle and driven the wife out, and her brave has taken his gun
and come across to our side to rob us. One watches and thinks. And
when one hears a litter breaking through the thicket, something
begins to knock inside one. Dear one, come this way! "They'll
scent me," one thinks; and one sits and does not stir while one's
heart goes dun! dun! dun! and simply lifts you. Once this spring a
fine litter came near me, I saw something black. "In the name of
the Father and of the Son," and I was just about to fire when she
grunts to her pigs: "Danger, children," she says, "there's a man
here," and off they all ran, breaking through the bushes. And she
had been so close I could almost have bitten her.'

'How could a sow tell her brood that a man was there?' asked
Olenin.

'What do you think? You think the beast's a fool? No, he is wiser
than a man though you do call him a pig! He knows everything. Take
this for instance. A man will pass along your track and not notice
it; but a pig as soon as it gets onto your track turns and runs at
once: that shows there is wisdom in him, since he scents your
smell and you don't. And there is this to be said too: you wish to
kill it and it wishes to go about the woods alive. You have one
law and it has another. It is a pig, but it is no worse than you--
it too is God's creature. Ah, dear! Man is foolish, foolish,
foolish!' The old man repeated this several times and then,
letting his head drop, he sat thinking.

Olenin also became thoughtful, and descending from the porch with
his hands behind his back began pacing up and down the yard.

Eroshka, rousing himself, raised his head and began gazing
intently at the moths circling round the flickering flame of the
candle and burning themselves in it.

'Fool, fool!' he said. 'Where are you flying to? Fool, fool!' He
rose and with his thick fingers began to drive away the moths.

'You'll burn, little fool! Fly this way, there's plenty of room.'
He spoke tenderly, trying to catch them delicately by their wings
with his thick ringers and then letting them fly again. 'You are
killing yourself and I am sorry for you!'

He sat a long time chattering and sipping out of the bottle.
Olenin paced up and down the yard. Suddenly he was struck by the
sound of whispering outside the gate. Involuntarily holding his
breath, he heard a woman's laughter, a man's voice, and the sound
of a kiss. Intentionally rustling the grass under his feet he
crossed to the opposite side of the yard, but after a while the
wattle fence creaked. A Cossack in a dark Circassian coat and a
white sheepskin cap passed along the other side of the fence (it
was Luke), and a tall woman with a white kerchief on her head went
past Olenin. 'You and I have nothing to do with one another' was
what Maryanka's firm step gave him to understand. He followed her
with his eyes to the porch of the hut, and he even saw her through
the window take off her kerchief and sit down. And suddenly a
feeling of lonely depression and some vague longings and hopes,
and envy of someone or other, overcame the young man's soul.

The last lights had been put out in the huts. The last sounds had
died away in the village. The wattle fences and the cattle
gleaming white in the yards, the roofs of the houses and the
stately poplars, all seemed to be sleeping the labourers' healthy
peaceful sleep. Only the incessant ringing voices of frogs from
the damp distance reached the young man. In the east the stars
were growing fewer and fewer and seemed to be melting in the
increasing light, but overhead they were denser and deeper than
before. The old man was dozing with his head on his hand. A cock
crowed in the yard opposite, but Olenin still paced up and down
thinking of something. The sound of a song sung by several voices
reached him and he stepped up to the fence and listened. The
voices of several young Cossacks carolled a merry song, and one
voice was distinguishable among them all by its firm strength.

'Do you know who is singing there?' said the old man, rousing
himself. 'It is the Brave, Lukashka. He has killed a Chechen and
now he rejoices. And what is there to rejoice at? ... The fool,
the fool!'

'And have you ever killed people?' asked Olenin.

'You devil!' shouted the old man. 'What are you asking? One must
not talk so. It is a serious thing to destroy a human being ...
Ah, a very serious thing! Good-bye, my dear fellow. I've eaten my
fill and am drunk,' he said rising. 'Shall I come to-morrow to go
shooting?'

'Yes, come!'

'Mind, get up early; if you oversleep you will be fined!'

'Never fear, I'll be up before you,' answered Olenin.

The old man left. The song ceased, but one could hear footsteps
and merry talk. A little later the singing broke out again but
farther away, and Eroshka's loud voice chimed in with the other.
'What people, what a life!' thought Olenin with a sigh as he
returned alone to his hut.




Chapter XVI


Daddy Eroshka was a superannuated and solitary Cossack: twenty
years ago his wife had gone over to the Orthodox Church and run
away from him and married a Russian sergeant-major, and he had no
children. He was not bragging when he spoke of himself as having
been the boldest dare-devil in the village when he was young.
Everybody in the regiment knew of his old-time prowess. The death
of more than one Russian, as well as Chechen, lay on his
conscience. He used to go plundering in the mountains, and robbed
the Russians too; and he had twice been in prison. The greater
part of his life was spent in the forests, hunting. There he lived
for days on a crust of bread and drank nothing but water. But on
the other hand, when he was in the village he made merry from
morning to night. After leaving Olenin he slept for a couple of
hours and awoke before it was light. He lay on his bed thinking of
the man he had become acquainted with the evening before. Olenin's
'simplicity' (simplicity in the sense of not grudging him a drink)
pleased him very much, and so did Olenin himself. He wondered why
the Russians were all 'simple' and so rich, and why they were
educated, and yet knew nothing. He pondered on these questions and
also considered what he might get out of Olenin.

Daddy Eroshka's hut was of a good size and not old, but the
absence of a woman was very noticeable in it. Contrary to the
usual cleanliness of the Cossacks, the whole of this hut was
filthy and exceedingly untidy. A blood-stained coat had been
thrown on the table, half a dough-cake lay beside a plucked and
mangled crow with which to feed the hawk. Sandals of raw hide, a
gun, a dagger, a little bag, wet clothes, and sundry rags lay
scattered on the benches. In a comer stood a tub with stinking
water, in which another pair of sandals were being steeped, and
near by was a gun and a hunting-screen. On the floor a net had
been thrown down and several dead pheasants lay there, while a hen
tied by its leg was walking about near the table pecking among the
dirt. In the unheated oven stood a broken pot with some kind of
milky liquid. On the top of the oven a falcon was screeching and
trying to break the cord by which it was tied, and a moulting hawk
sat quietly on the edge of the oven, looking askance at the hen
and occasionally bowing its head to right and left. Daddy Eroshka
himself, in his shirt, lay on his back on a short bed rigged up
between the wall and the oven, with his strong legs raised and his
feet on the oven. He was picking with his thick fingers at the
scratches left on his hands by the hawk, which he was accustomed
to carry without wearing gloves. The whole room, especially near
the old man, was filled with that strong but not unpleasant
mixture of smells that he always carried about with him.

'Uyde-ma, Daddy?' (Is Daddy in?) came through the window in a
sharp voice, which he at once recognized as Lukashka's.

'Uyde, Uyde, Uyde. I am in!' shouted the old man. 'Come in,
neighbour Mark, Luke Mark. Come to see Daddy? On your way to the
cordon?'

At the sound of his master's shout the hawk flapped his wings and
pulled at his cord.

The old man was fond of Lukashka, who was the only man he excepted
from his general contempt for the younger generation of Cossacks.
Besides that, Lukashka and his mother, as near neighbours, often
gave the old man wine, clotted cream, and other home produce which
Eroshka did not possess. Daddy Eroshka, who all his life had
allowed himself to get carried away, always explained his
infatuations from a practical point of view. 'Well, why not?' he
used to say to himself. 'I'll give them some fresh meat, or a
bird, and they won't forget Daddy: they'll sometimes bring a cake
or a piece of pie.'

'Good morning. Mark! I am glad to see you,' shouted the old man
cheerfully, and quickly putting down his bare feet he jumped off
his bed and walked a step or two along the creaking floor, looked
down at his out-turned toes, and suddenly, amused by the
appearance of his feet, smiled, stamped with his bare heel on the
ground, stamped again, and then performed a funny dance-step.
'That's clever, eh?' he asked, his small eyes glistening. Lukashka
smiled faintly. 'Going back to the cordon?' asked the old man.

'I have brought the chikhir I promised you when we were at the
cordon.'

'May Christ save you!' said the old man, and he took up the
extremely wide trousers that were lying on the floor, and his
beshmet, put them on, fastened a strap round his waist, poured
some water from an earthenware pot over his hands, wiped them on
the old trousers, smoothed his beard with a bit of comb, and
stopped in front of Lukashka. 'Ready,' he said.

Lukashka fetched a cup, wiped it and filled it with wine, and then
handed it to the old man.

'Your health! To the Father and the Son!' said the old man,
accepting the wine with solemnity. 'May you have what you desire,
may you always be a hero, and obtain a cross.'

Lukashka also drank a little after repeating a prayer, and then
put the wine on the table. The old man rose and brought out some
dried fish which he laid on the threshold, where he beat it with a
stick to make it tender; then, having put it with his horny hands
on a blue plate (his only one), he placed it on the table.

'I have all I want. I have victuals, thank God!' he said proudly.
'Well, and what of Mosev?' he added.

Lukashka, evidently wishing to know the old man's opinion, told
him how the officer had taken the gun from him.

'Never mind the gun,' said the old man. 'If you don't give the gun
you will get no reward.'

'But they say. Daddy, it's little reward a fellow gets when he is
not yet a mounted Cossack; and the gun is a fine one, a Crimean,
worth eighty rubles.'

'Eh, let it go! I had a dispute like that with an officer, he
wanted my horse. "Give it me and you'll be made a cornet," says
he. I wouldn't, and I got nothing!'

'Yes, Daddy, but you see I have to buy a horse; and they say you
can't get one the other side of the river under fifty rubles, and
mother has not yet sold our wine.'

'Eh, we didn't bother,' said the old man; 'when Daddy Eroshka was
your age he already stole herds of horses from the Nogay folk and
drove them across the Terek. Sometimes we'd give a fine horse for
a quart of vodka or a cloak.'

'Why so cheap?' asked Lukashka.

'You're a fool, a fool, Mark,' said the old man contemptuously.
'Why, that's what one steals for, so as not to be stingy! As for
you, I suppose you haven't so much as seen how one drives off a
herd of horses? Why don't you speak?'

'What's one to say. Daddy?' replied Lukashka. 'It seems we are not
the same sort of men as you were.'

'You're a fool. Mark, a fool! "Not the same sort of men!"'
retorted the old man, mimicking the Cossack lad. 'I was not that
sort of Cossack at your age.'

'How's that?' asked Lukashka.

The old man shook his head contemptuously.

'Daddy Eroshka was simple; he did not grudge anything! That's why
I was kunak with all Chechnya. A kunak would come to visit me and
I'd make him drunk with vodka and make him happy and put him to
sleep with me, and when I went to see him I'd take him a present--
a dagger! That's the way it is done, and not as you do nowadays:
the only amusement lads have now is to crack seeds and spit out
the shells!' the old man finished contemptuously, imitating the
present-day Cossacks cracking seeds and spitting out the shells.

'Yes, I know,' said Lukashka; 'that's so!'

'If you wish to be a fellow of the right sort, be a brave and not
a peasant! Because even a peasant can buy a horse--pay the money
and take the horse.'

They were silent for a while.

'Well, of course it's dull both in the village and the cordon,
Daddy: but there's nowhere one can go for a bit of sport. All our
fellows are so timid. Take Nazarka. The other day when we went to
the Tartar village, Girey Khan asked us to come to Nogay to take
some horses, but no one went, and how was I to go alone?'

'And what of Daddy? Do you think I am quite dried up? ... No, I'm
not dried up. Let me have a horse and I'll be off to Nogay at
once.'

'What's the good of talking nonsense!' said Luke. 'You'd better
tell me what to do about Girey Khan. He says, "Only bring horses
to the Terek, and then even if you bring a whole stud I'll find a
place for them." You see he's also a shaven-headed Tartar--how's
one to believe him?'

'You may trust Girey Khan, all his kin were good people. His
father too was a faithful kunak. But listen to Daddy and I won't
teach you wrong: make him take an oath, then it will be all right.
And if you go with him, have your pistol ready all the same,
especially when it comes to dividing up the horses. I was nearly
killed that way once by a Chechen. I wanted ten rubles from him
for a horse. Trusting is all right, but don't go to sleep without
a gun.' Lukashka listened attentively to the old man.

'I say. Daddy, have you any stone-break grass?' he asked after a
pause.

'No, I haven't any, but I'll teach you how to get it. You're a
good lad and won't forget the old man.... Shall I tell you?'

'Tell me, Daddy.'

'You know a tortoise? She's a devil, the tortoise is!'

'Of course I know!'

'Find her nest and fence it round so that she can't get in. Well,
she'll come, go round it, and then will go off to find the stone-
break grass and will bring some along and destroy the fence.
Anyhow next morning come in good time, and where the fence is
broken there you'll find the stone-break grass lying. Take it
wherever you like. No lock and no bar will be able to stop you.'

'Have you tried it yourself. Daddy?'

'As for trying, I have not tried it, but I was told of it by good
people. I used only one charm: that was to repeat the Pilgrim
rhyme when mounting my horse; and no one ever killed me!'

'What is the Pilgrim rhyme. Daddy?'

'What, don't you know it? Oh, what people! You're right to ask
Daddy. Well, listen, and repeat after me:

'Hail! Ye, living in Sion, This is your King, Our steeds we shall
sit on, Sophonius is weeping. Zacharias is speaking, Father
Pilgrim, Mankind ever loving.'

'Kind ever loving,' the old man repeated. 'Do you know it now? Try
it.'

Lukashka laughed.

'Come, Daddy, was it that that hindered their killing you? Maybe
it just happened so!'

'You've grown too clever! You learn it all, and say it. It will do
you no harm. Well, suppose you have sung "Pilgrim", it's all
right,' and the old man himself began laughing. 'But just one
thing, Luke, don't you go to Nogay!'

'Why?'

'Times have changed. You are not the same men. You've become
rubbishy Cossacks! And see how many Russians have come down on us!
You'd get to prison. Really, give it up! Just as if you could! Now
Girchik and I, we used...'

And the old man was about to begin one of his endless tales, but
Lukashka glanced at the window and interrupted him.

'It is quite light. Daddy. It's time to be off. Look us up some
day.'

'May Christ save you! I'll go to the officer; I promised to take
him out shooting. He seems a good fellow.'




Chapter XVII


From Eroshka's hut Lukashka went home. As he returned, the dewy
mists were rising from the ground and enveloped the village. In
various places the cattle, though out of sight, could be heard
beginning to stir. The cocks called to one another with increasing
frequency and insistence. The air was becoming more transparent,
and the villagers were getting up. Not till he was close to it
could Lukishka discern the fence of his yard, all wet with dew,
the porch of the hut, and the open shed. From the misty yard he
heard the sound of an axe chopping wood. Lukashka entered the hut.
His mother was up, and stood at the oven throwing wood into it.
His little sister was still lying in bed asleep.

'Well, Lukashka, had enough holiday-making?' asked his mother
softly. 'Where did you spend the night?'

'I was in the village,' replied her son reluctantly, reaching for
his musket, which he drew from its cover and examined carefully.

His mother swayed her head.

Lukashka poured a little gunpowder onto the pan, took out a little
bag from which he drew some empty cartridge cases which he began
filling, carefully plugging each one with a ball wrapped in a rag.
Then, having tested the loaded cartridges with his teeth and
examined them, he put down the bag.

'I say, Mother, I told you the bags wanted mending; have they been
done?' he asked.

'Oh yes, our dumb girl was mending something last night. Why, is
it time for you to be going back to the cordon? I haven't seen
anything of you!'

'Yes, as soon as I have got ready I shall have to go,' answered
Lukashka, tying up the gunpowder. 'And where is our dumb one?
Outside?'

'Chopping wood, I expect. She kept fretting for you. "I shall not
see him at all!" she said. She puts her hand to her face like
this, and clicks her tongue and presses her hands to her heart as
much as to say--"sorry." Shall I call her in? She understood all
about the abrek.'

'Call her,' said Lukashka. 'And I had some tallow there; bring it:
I must grease my sword.'

The old woman went out, and a few minutes later Lukashka's dumb
sister came up the creaking steps and entered the hut. She was six
years older than her brother and would have been extremely like
him had it not been for the dull and coarsely changeable
expression (common to all deaf and dumb people) of her face. She
wore a coarse smock all patched; her feet were bare and muddy, and
on her head she had an old blue kerchief. Her neck, arms, and face
were sinewy like a peasant's. Her clothing and her whole
appearance indicated that she always did the hard work of a man.
She brought in a heap of logs which she threw down by the oven.
Then she went up to her brother, and with a joyful smile which
made her whole face pucker up, touched him on the shoulder and
began making rapid signs to him with her hands, her face, and
whole body.

'That's right, that's right, Stepka is a trump!' answered the
brother, nodding. 'She's fetched everything and mended everything,
she's a trump! Here, take this for it!' He brought out two pieces
of gingerbread from his pocket and gave them to her.

The dumb woman's face flushed with pleasure, and she began making
a weird noise for joy. Having seized the gingerbread she began to
gesticulate still more rapidly, frequently pointing in one
direction and passing her thick finger over her eyebrows and her
face. Lukashka understood her and kept nodding, while he smiled
slightly. She was telling him to give the girls dainties, and that
the girls liked him, and that one girl, Maryanka--the best of them
all--loved him. She indicated Maryanka by rapidly pointing in the
direction of Maryanka's home and to her own eyebrows and face, and
by smacking her lips and swaying her head. 'Loves' she expressed
by pressing her hands to her breast, kissing her hand, and
pretending to embrace someone. Their mother returned to the hut,
and seeing what her dumb daughter was saying, smiled and shook her
head. Her daughter showed her the gingerbread and again made the
noise which expressed joy.

'I told Ulitka the other day that I'd send a matchmaker to them,'
said the mother. 'She took my words well.'

Lukashka looked silently at his mother.

'But how about selling the wine, mother? I need a horse.'

'I'll cart it when I have time. I must get the barrels ready,'
said the mother, evidently not wishing her son to meddle in
domestic matters. 'When you go out you'll find a bag in the
passage. I borrowed from the neighbours and got something for you
to take back to the cordon; or shall I put it in your saddle-bag?'

'All right,' answered Lukashka. 'And if Girey Khan should come
across the river send him to me at the cordon, for I shan't get
leave again for a long time now; I have some business with him.'

He began to get ready to start.

'I will send him on,' said the old women. 'It seems you have been
spreeing at Yamka's all the time. I went out in the night to see
the cattle, and I think it was your voice I heard singing songs.'

Lukashka did not reply, but went out into the passage, threw the
bags over his shoulder, tucked up the skirts of his coat, took his
musket, and then stopped for a moment on the threshold.

'Good-bye, mother!' he said as he closed the gate behind him.
'Send me a small barrel with Nazarka. I promised it to the lads,
and he'll call for it.'

'May Christ keep you, Lukashka. God be with you! I'll send you
some, some from the new barrel,' said the old woman, going to the
fence: 'But listen,' she added, leaning over the fence.

The Cossack stopped.

'You've been making merry here; well, that's all right. Why should
not a young man amuse himself? God has sent you luck and that's
good. But now look out and mind, my son. Don't you go and get into
mischief. Above all, satisfy your superiors: one has to! And I
will sell the wine and find money for a horse and will arrange a
match with the girl for you.'

'All right, all right!' answered her son, frowning.

His deaf sister shouted to attract his attention. She pointed to
her head and the palm of her hand, to indicate the shaved head of
a Chechen. Then she frowned, and pretending to aim with a gun, she
shrieked and began rapidly humming and shaking her head. This
meant that Lukashka should kill another Chechen.

Lukashka understood. He smiled, and shifting the gun at his back
under his cloak stepped lightly and rapidly, and soon disappeared
in the thick mist.

The old woman, having stood a little while at the gate, returned
silently to the hut and immediately began working.




Chapter XVIII


Lukasha returned to the cordon and at the same time Daddy Eroshka
whistled to his dogs and, climbing over his wattle fence, went to
Olenin's lodging, passing by the back of the houses (he disliked
meeting women before going out hunting or shooting). He found
Olenin still asleep, and even Vanyusha, though awake, was still in
bed and looking round the room considering whether it was not time
to get up, when Daddy Eroshka, gun on shoulder and in full
hunter's trappings, opened the door.

'A cudgel!' he shouted in his deep voice. 'An alarm! The Chechens
are upon us! Ivan! get the samovar ready for your master, and get
up yourself--quick,' cried the old man. 'That's our way, my good
man! Why even the girls are already up! Look out of the window.
See, she's going for water and you're still sleeping!'

Olenin awoke and jumped up, feeling fresh and lighthearted at the
sight of the old man and at the sound of his voice.

'Quick, Vanyusha, quick!' he cried.

'Is that the way you go hunting?' said the old man. 'Others are
having their breakfast and you are asleep! Lyam! Here!' he called
to his dog. 'Is your gun ready?' he shouted, as loud as if a whole
crowd were in the hut.

'Well, it's true I'm guilty, but it can't be helped! The powder,
Vanyusha, and the wads!' said Olenin.

'A fine!' shouted the old man.

'Du tay voulay vou?' asked Vanyusha, grinning.

'You're not one of us--your gabble is not like our speech, you
devil!' the old man shouted at Vanyusha, showing the stumps of his
teeth.

'A first offence must be forgiven,' said Olenin playfully, drawing
on his high boots.

'The first offence shall be forgiven,' answered Eroshka, 'but if
you oversleep another time you'll be fined a pail of chikhir. When
it gets warmer you won't find the deer.'

'And even if we do find him he is wiser than we are,' said Olenin,
repeating the words spoken by the old man the evening before, 'and
you can't deceive him!'

'Yes, laugh away! You kill one first, and then you may talk. Now
then, hurry up! Look, there's the master himself coming to see
you,' added Eroshka, looking out of the window. 'Just see how he's
got himself up. He's put on a new coat so that you should see that
he's an officer. Ah, these people, these people!'

Sure enough Vanyusha came in and announced that the master of the
house wished to see Olenin.

'L'arjan!' he remarked profoundly, to forewarn his master of the
meaning of this visitation. Following him, the master of the house
in a new Circassian coat with an officer's stripes on the
shoulders and with polished boots (quite exceptional among
Cossacks) entered the room, swaying from side to side, and
congratulated his lodger on his safe arrival.

The cornet, Elias Vasilich, was an educated Cossack. He had been
to Russia proper, was a regimental schoolteacher, and above all he
was noble. He wished to appear noble, but one could not help
feeling beneath his grotesque pretence of polish, his affectation,
his self-confidence, and his absurd way of speaking, he was just
the same as Daddy Eroshka. This could also be clearly seen by his
sunburnt face and his hands and his red nose. Olenin asked him to
sit down.

'Good morning. Father Elias Vasilich,' said Eroshka, rising with
(or so it seemed to Olenin) an ironically low bow.

'Good morning. Daddy. So you're here already,' said the cornet,
with a careless nod.

The cornet was a man of about forty, with a grey pointed beard,
skinny and lean, but handsome and very fresh-looking for his age.
Having come to see Olenin he was evidently afraid of being taken
for an ordinary Cossack, and wanted to let Olenin feel his
importance from the first.

'That's our Egyptian Nimrod,' he remarked, addressing Olenin and
pointing to the old man with a self-satisfied smile. 'A mighty
hunter before the Lord! He's our foremost man on every hand.
You've already been pleased to get acquainted with him.'

Daddy Eroshka gazed at his feet in their shoes of wet raw hide and
shook his head thoughtfully at the cornet's ability and learning,
and muttered to himself: 'Gyptian Nimvrod! What things he
invents!'

'Yes, you see we mean to go hunting,' answered Olenin.

'Yes, sir, exactly,' said the cornet, 'but I have a small business
with you.'

'What do you want?'

'Seeing that you are a gentleman,' began the cornet, 'and as I may
understand myself to be in the rank of an officer too, and
therefore we may always progressively negotiate, as gentlemen do.'
(He stopped and looked with a smile at Olenin and at the old man.)
'But if you have the desire with my consent, then, as my wife is a
foolish woman of our class, she could not quite comprehend your
words of yesterday's date. Therefore my quarters might be let for
six rubles to the Regimental Adjutant, without the stables; but I
can always avert that from myself free of charge. But, as you
desire, therefore I, being myself of an officer's rank, can come
to an agreement with you in everything personally, as an
inhabitant of this district, not according to our customs, but can
maintain the conditions in every way....'

'Speaks clearly!' muttered the old man.

The cornet continued in the same strain for a long time. At last,
not without difficulty, Olenin gathered that the cornet wished to
let his rooms to him, Olenin, for six rubles a month. The latter
gladly agreed to this, and offered his visitor a glass of tea. The
cornet declined it.

'According to our silly custom we consider it a sort of sin to
drink out of a "worldly" tumbler,' he said. 'Though, of course,
with my education I may understand, but my wife from her human
weakness...'

'Well then, will you have some tea?'

'If you will permit me, I will bring my own particular glass,'
answered the cornet, and stepped out into the porch.

'Bring me my glass!' he cried.

In a few minutes the door opened and a young sunburnt arm in a
print sleeve thrust itself in, holding a tumbler in the hand. The
cornet went up, took it, and whispered something to his daughter.
Olenin poured tea for the cornet into the latter's own
'particular' glass, and for Eroshka into a 'worldly' glass.

'However, I do not desire to detain you,' said the cornet,
scalding his lips and emptying his tumbler. 'I too have a great
liking for fishing, and I am here, so to say, only on leave of
absence for recreation from my duties. I too have the desire to
tempt fortune and see whether some Gifts of the Terek may not fall
to my share. I hope you too will come and see us and have a drink
of our wine, according to the custom of our village,' he added.

The cornet bowed, shook hands with Olenin, and went out. While
Olenin was getting ready, he heard the cornet giving orders to his
family in an authoritative and sensible tone, and a few minutes
later he saw him pass by the window in a tattered coat with his
trousers rolled up to his knees and a fishing net over his
shoulder.

'A rascal!' said Daddy Eroshka, emptying his 'worldly' tumbler.
'And will you really pay him six rubles? Was such a thing ever
heard of? They would let you the best hut in the village for two
rubles. What a beast! Why, I'd let you have mine for three!'

'No, I'll remain here,' said Olenin.

'Six rubles! ... Clearly it's a fool's money. Eh, eh, eh! answered
the old man. 'Let's have some chikhir, Ivan!'

Having had a snack and a drink of vodka to prepare themselves for
the road, Olenin and the old man went out together before eight
o'clock.

At the gate they came up against a wagon to which a pair of oxen
were harnessed. With a white kerchief tied round her head down to
her eyes, a coat over her smock, and wearing high boots, Maryanka
with a long switch in her hand was dragging the oxen by a cord
tied to their horns.

'Mammy,' said the old man, pretending that he was going to seize
her.

Maryanka nourished her switch at him and glanced merrily at them
both with her beautiful eyes.

Olenin felt still more light-hearted.

'Now then, come on, come on,' he said, throwing his gun on his
shoulder and conscious of the girl's eyes upon him.

'Gee up!' sounded Maryanka's voice behind them, followed by the
creak of the moving wagon.

As long as their road lay through the pastures at the back of the
village Eroshka went on talking. He could not forget the cornet
and kept on abusing him.

'Why are you so angry with him?' asked Olenin.

'He's stingy. I don't like it,' answered the old man. 'He'll leave
it all behind when he dies! Then who's he saving up for? He's
built two houses, and he's got a second garden from his brother by
a law-suit. And in the matter of papers what a dog he is! They
come to him from other villages to fill up documents. As he writes
it out, exactly so it happens. He gets it quite exact. But who is
he saving for? He's only got one boy and the girl; when she's
married who'll be left?'

'Well then, he's saving up for her dowry,' said Olenin.

'What dowry? The girl is sought after, she's a fine girl. But he's
such a devil that he must yet marry her to a rich fellow. He wants
to get a big price for her. There's Luke, a Cossack, a neighbour
and a nephew of mine, a fine lad. It's he who killed the Chechen--
he has been wooing her for a long time, but he hasn't let him have
her. He's given one excuse, and another, and a third. "The girl's
too young," he says. But I know what he is thinking. He wants to
keep them bowing to him. He's been acting shamefully about that
girl. Still, they will get her for Lukashka, because he is the
best Cossack in the village, a brave, who has killed an abrek and
will be rewarded with a cross.'

'But how about this? When I was walking up and down the yard last
night, I saw my landlord's daughter and some Cossack kissing,'
said Olenin.

'You're pretending!' cried the old man, stopping.

'On my word,' said Olenin.

'Women are the devil,' said Eroshka pondering. 'But what Cossack
was it?'

'I couldn't see.'

'Well, what sort of a cap had he, a white one?'

'Yes.'

'And a red coat? About your height?'

'No, a bit taller.'

'It's he!' and Eroshka burst out laughing. 'It's himself, it's
Mark. He is Luke, but I call him Mark for a joke. His very self! I
love him. I was just such a one myself. What's the good of minding
them? My sweetheart used to sleep with her mother and her sister-
in-law, but I managed to get in. She used to sleep upstairs; that
witch her mother was a regular demon; it's awful how she hated me.
Well, I used to come with a chum, Girchik his name was. We'd come
under her window and I'd climb on his shoulders, push up the
window and begin groping about. She used to sleep just there on a
bench. Once I woke her up and she nearly called out. She hadn't
recognized me. "Who is there?" she said, and I could not answer.
Her mother was even beginning to stir, but I took off my cap and
shoved it over her mouth; and she at once knew it by a seam in it,
and ran out to me. I used not to want anything then. She'd bring
along clotted cream and grapes and everything,' added Eroshka (who
always explained things practically), 'and she wasn't the only
one. It was a life!'

'And what now?'

'Now we'll follow the dog, get a pheasant to settle on a tree, and
then you may fire.'

'Would you have made up to Maryanka?'

'Attend to the dogs. I'll tell you tonight,' said the old man,
pointing to his favourite dog, Lyam.

After a pause they continued talking, while they went about a
hundred paces. Then the old man stopped again and pointed to a
twig that lay across the path.

'What do you think of that?' he said. 'You think it's nothing?
It's bad that this stick is lying so.'

'Why is it bad?'

He smiled.

'Ah, you don't know anything. Just listen to me. When a stick lies
like that don't you step across it, but go round it or throw it
off the path this way, and say "Father and Son and Holy Ghost,"
and then go on with God's blessing. Nothing will happen to you.
That's what the old men used to teach me.'

'Come, what rubbish!' said Olenin. 'You'd better tell me more
about Maryanka. Does she carry on with Lukashka?'

'Hush ... be quiet now!' the old man again interrupted in a
whisper: 'just listen, we'll go round through the forest.'

And the old man, stepping quietly in his soft shoes, led the way
by a narrow path leading into the dense, wild, overgrown forest.
Now and again with a frown he turned to look at Olenin, who
rustled and clattered with his heavy boots and, carrying his gun
carelessly, several times caught the twigs of trees that grew
across the path.

'Don't make a noise. Step softly, soldier!' the old man whispered
angrily.

There was a feeling in the air that the sun had risen. The mist
was dissolving but it still enveloped the tops of the trees. The
forest looked terribly high. At every step the aspect changed:
what had appeared like a tree proved to be a bush, and a reed
looked like a tree.




Chapter XIX


The mist had partly lifted, showing the wet reed thatches, and was
now turning into dew that moistened the road and the grass beside
the fence. Smoke rose everywhere in clouds from the chimneys. The
people were going out of the village, some to their work, some to
the river, and some to the cordon. The hunters walked together
along the damp, grass-grown path. The dogs, wagging their tails
and looking at their masters, ran on both sides of them. Myriads
of gnats hovered in the air and pursued the hunters, covering
their backs, eyes, and hands. The air was fragrant with the grass
and with the dampness of the forest. Olenin continually looked
round at the ox-cart in which Maryanka sat urging on the oxen with
a long switch.

It was calm. The sounds from the village, audible at first, now no
longer reached the sportsmen. Only the brambles cracked as the
dogs ran under them, and now and then birds called to one another.
Olenin knew that danger lurked in the forest, that abreks always
hid in such places. But he knew too that in the forest, for a man
on foot, a gun is a great protection. Not that he was afraid, but
he felt that another in his place might be; and looking into the
damp misty forest and listening to the rare and faint sounds with
strained attention, he changed his hold on his gun and experienced
a pleasant feeling that was new to him. Daddy Eroshka went in
front, stopping and carefully scanning every puddle where an
animal had left a double track, and pointing it out to Olenin. He
hardly spoke at all and only occasionally made remarks in a
whisper. The track they were following had once been made by
wagons, but the grass had long overgrown it. The elm and plane-
tree forest on both sides of them was so dense and overgrown with
creepers that it was impossible to see anything through it. Nearly
every tree was enveloped from top to bottom with wild grape vines,
and dark bramble bushes covered the ground thickly. Every little
glade was overgrown with blackberry bushes and grey feathery
reeds. In places, large hoof-prints and small funnel-shaped
pheasant-trails led from the path into the thicket. The vigour of
the growth of this forest, untrampled by cattle, struck Olenin at
every turn, for he had never seen anything like it. This forest,
the danger, the old man and his mysterious whispering, Maryanka
with her virile upright bearing, and the mountains--all this
seemed to him like a dream.

'A pheasant has settled,' whispered the old man, looking round and
pulling his cap over his face--'Cover your mug! A pheasant!' he
waved his arm angrily at Olenin and pushed forward almost on all
fours. 'He don't like a man's mug.'

Olenin was still behind him when the old man stopped and began
examining a tree. A cock-pheasant on the tree clucked at the dog
that was barking at it, and Olenin saw the pheasant; but at that
moment a report, as of a cannon, came from Eroshka's enormous gun,
the bird fluttered up and, losing some feathers, fell to the
ground. Coming up to the old man Olenin disturbed another, and
raising his gun he aimed and fired. The pheasant flew swiftly up
and then, catching at the branches as he fell, dropped like a
stone to the ground.

'Good man!' the old man (who could not hit a flying bird) shouted,
laughing.

Having picked up the pheasants they went on. Olenin, excited by
the exercise and the praise, kept addressing remarks to the old
man.

'Stop! Come this way,' the old man interrupted. 'I noticed the
track of deer here yesterday.'

After they had turned into the thicket and gone some three hundred
paces they scrambled through into a glade overgrown with reeds and
partly under water. Olenin failed to keep up with the old huntsman
and presently Daddy Eroshka, some twenty paces in front, stooped
down, nodding and beckoning with his arm. On coming up with him
Olenin saw a man's footprint to which the old man was pointing.

'D'you see?'

'Yes, well?' said Olenin, trying to speak as calmly as he could.
'A man's footstep!'

Involuntarily a thought of Cooper's Pathfinder and of abreks
flashed through Olenin's mind, but noticing the mysterious manner
with which the old man moved on, he hesitated to question him and
remained in doubt whether this mysteriousness was caused by fear
of danger or by the sport.

'No, it's my own footprint,' the old man said quietly, and pointed
to some grass under which the track of an animal was just
perceptible.

The old man went on; and Olenin kept up with him.

Descending to lower ground some twenty paces farther on they came
upon a spreading pear-tree, under which, on the black earth, lay
the fresh dung of some animal.

The spot, all covered over with wild vines, was like a cosy
arbour, dark and cool.

'He's been here this morning,' said the old man with a sigh; 'the
lair is still damp, quite fresh.'

Suddenly they heard a terrible crash in the forest some ten paces
from where they stood. They both started and seized their guns,
but they could see nothing and only heard the branches breaking.
The rhythmical rapid thud of galloping was heard for a moment and
then changed into a hollow rumble which resounded farther and
farther off, re-echoing in wider and wider circles through the
forest. Olenin felt as though something had snapped in his heart.
He peered carefully but vainly into the green thicket and then
turned to the old man. Daddy Eroshka with his gun pressed to his
breast stood motionless; his cap was thrust backwards, his eyes
gleamed with an unwonted glow, and his open mouth, with its worn
yellow teeth, seemed to have stiffened in that position.

'A homed stag!' he muttered, and throwing down his gun in despair
he began pulling at his grey beard, 'Here it stood. We should have
come round by the path.... Fool! fool!' and he gave his beard an
angry tug. Fool! Pig!' he repeated, pulling painfully at his own
beard. Through the forest something seemed to fly away in the
mist, and ever farther and farther off was heard the sound of the
flight of the stag.

It was already dusk when, hungry, tired, but full of vigour,
Olenin returned with the old man. Dinner was ready. He ate and
drank with the old man till he felt warm and merry. Olenin then
went out into the porch. Again, to the west, the mountains rose
before his eyes. Again the old man told his endless stories of
hunting, of abreks, of sweethearts, and of all that free and
reckless life. Again the fair Maryanka went in and out and across
the yard, her beautiful powerful form outlined by her smock.




Chapter XX


The next day Olenin went alone to the spot where he and the old
man startled the stag. Instead of passing round through the gate
he climbed over the prickly hedge, as everybody else did, and
before he had had time to pull out the thorns that had caught in
his coat, his dog, which had run on in front, started two
pheasants. He had hardly stepped among the briers when the
pheasants began to rise at every step (the old man had not shown
him that place the day before as he meant to keep it for shooting
from behind the screen). Olenin fired twelve times and killed five
pheasants, but clambering after them through the briers he got so
fatigued that he was drenched with perspiration. He called off his
dog, uncocked his gun, put in a bullet above the small shot, and
brushing away the mosquitoes with the wide sleeve of his
Circassian coat he went slowly to the spot where they had been the
day before. It was however impossible to keep back the dog, who
found trails on the very path, and Olenin killed two more
pheasants, so that after being detained by this it was getting
towards noon before he began to find the place he was looking for.

The day was perfectly clear, calm, and hot. The morning moisture
had dried up even in the forest, and myriads of mosquitoes
literally covered his face, his back, and his arms. His dog had
turned from black to grey, its back being covered with mosquitoes,
and so had Olenin's coat through which the insects thrust their
stings. Olenin was ready to run away from them and it seemed to
him that it was impossible to live in this country in the summer.
He was about to go home, but remembering that other people managed
to endure such pain he resolved to bear it and gave himself up to
be devoured. And strange to say, by noontime the feeling became
actually pleasant. He even felt that without this mosquito-filled
atmosphere around him, and that mosquito-paste mingled with
perspiration which his hand smeared over his face, and that
unceasing irritation all over his body, the forest would lose for
him some of its character and charm. These myriads of insects were
so well suited to that monstrously lavish wild vegetation, these
multitudes of birds and beasts which filled the forest, this dark
foliage, this hot scented air, these runlets filled with turbid
water which everywhere soaked through from the Terek and gurgled
here and there under the overhanging leaves, that the very thing
which had at first seemed to him dreadful and intolerable now
seemed pleasant. After going round the place where yesterday they
had found the animal and not finding anything, he felt inclined to
rest. The sun stood right above the forest and poured its
perpendicular rays down on his back and head whenever he came out
into a glade or onto the road. The seven heavy pheasants dragged
painfully at his waist. Having found the traces of yesterday's
stag he crept under a bush into the thicket just where the stag
had lain, and lay down in its lair. He examined the dark foliage
around him, the place marked by the stag's perspiration and
yesterday's dung, the imprint of the stag's knees, the bit of
black earth it had kicked up, and his own footprints of the day
before. He felt cool and comfortable and did not think of or wish
for anything. And suddenly he was overcome by such a strange
feeling of causeless joy and of love for everything, that from an
old habit of his childhood he began crossing himself and thanking
someone. Suddenly, with extraordinary clearness, he thought: 'Here
am I, Dmitri Olenin, a being quite distinct from every other
being, now lying all alone Heaven only knows where--where a stag
used to live--an old stag, a beautiful stag who perhaps had never
seen a man, and in a place where no human being has ever sat or
thought these thoughts. Here I sit, and around me stand old and
young trees, one of them festooned with wild grape vines, and
pheasants are fluttering, driving one another about and perhaps
scenting their murdered brothers.' He felt his pheasants, examined
them, and wiped the warm blood off his hand onto his coat.
'Perhaps the jackals scent them and with dissatisfied faces go off
in another direction: above me, flying in among the leaves which
to them seem enormous islands, mosquitoes hang in the air and
buzz: one, two, three, four, a hundred, a thousand, a million
mosquitoes, and all of them buzz something or other and each one
of them is separate from all else and is just such a separate
Dmitri Olenin as I am myself.' He vividly imagined what the
mosquitoes buzzed: 'This way, this way, lads! Here's some one we
can eat!' They buzzed and stuck to him. And it was clear to him
that he was not a Russian nobleman, a member of Moscow society,
the friend and relation of so-and-so and so-and-so, but just such
a mosquito, or pheasant, or deer, as those that were now living
all around him. 'Just as they, just as Daddy Eroshka, I shall live
awhile and die, and as he says truly:

"grass will grow and nothing more".

'But what though the grass does grow?' he continued thinking.
'Still I must live and be happy, because happiness is all I
desire. Never mind what I am--an animal like all the rest, above
whom the grass will grow and nothing more; or a frame in which a
bit of the one God has been set,--still I must live in the very
best way. How then must I live to be happy, and why was I not
happy before?' And he began to recall his former life and he felt
disgusted with himself. He appeared to himself to have been
terribly exacting and selfish, though he now saw that all the
while he really needed nothing for himself. And he looked round at
the foliage with the light shining through it, at the setting sun
and the clear sky, and he felt just as happy as before. 'Why am I
happy, and what used I to live for?' thought he. 'How much I
exacted for myself; how I schemed and did not manage to gain
anything but shame and sorrow! and, there now, I require nothing
to be happy;' and suddenly a new light seemed to reveal itself to
him. 'Happiness is this!' he said to himself. 'Happiness lies in
living for others. That is evident. The desire for happiness is
innate in every man; therefore it is legitimate. When trying to
satisfy it selfishly--that is, by seeking for oneself riches,
fame, comforts, or love--it may happen that circumstances arise
which make it impossible to satisfy these desires. It follows that
it is these desires that are illegitimate, but not the need for
happiness. But what desires can always be satisfied despite
external circumstances? What are they? Love, self-sacrifice.' He
was so glad and excited when he had discovered this, as it seemed
to him, new truth, that he jumped up and began impatiently seeking
some one to sacrifice himself for, to do good to and to love.
'Since one wants nothing for oneself,' he kept thinking, 'why not
live for others?' He took up his gun with the intention of
returning home quickly to think this out and to find an
opportunity of doing good. He made his way out of the thicket.
When he had come out into the glade he looked around him; the sun
was no longer visible above the tree-tops. It had grown cooler and
the place seemed to him quite strange and not like the country
round the village. Everything seemed changed--the weather and the
character of the forest; the sky was wrapped in clouds, the wind
was rustling in the tree-tops, and all around nothing was visible
but reeds and dying broken-down trees. He called to his dog who
had run away to follow some animal, and his voice came back as in
a desert. And suddenly he was seized with a terrible sense of
weirdness. He grew frightened. He remembered the abreks and the
murders he had been told about, and he expected every moment that
an abrek would spring from behind every bush and he would have to
defend his life and die, or be a coward. He thought of God and of
the future life as for long he had not thought about them. And all
around was that same gloomy stern wild nature. 'And is it worth
while living for oneself,' thought he, 'when at any moment you may
die, and die without having done any good, and so that no one will
know of it?' He went in the direction where he fancied the village
lay. Of his shooting he had no further thought; but he felt tired
to death and peered round at every bush and tree with particular
attention and almost with terror, expecting every moment to be
called to account for his life. After having wandered about for a
considerable time he came upon a ditch down which was flowing cold
sandy water from the Terek, and, not to go astray any longer, he
decided to follow it. He went on without knowing where the ditch
would lead him. Suddenly the reeds behind him crackled. He
shuddered and seized his gun, and then felt ashamed of himself:
the over-excited dog, panting hard, had thrown itself into the
cold water of the ditch and was lapping it!

He too had a drink, and then followed the dog in the direction it
wished to go, thinking it would lead him to the village. But
despite the dog's company everything around him seemed still more
dreary. The forest grew darker and the wind grew stronger and
stronger in the tops of the broken old trees. Some large birds
circled screeching round their nests in those trees. The
vegetation grew poorer and he came oftener and oftener upon
rustling reeds and bare sandy spaces covered with animal
footprints. To the howling of the wind was added another kind of
cheerless monotonous roar. Altogether his spirits became gloomy.
Putting his hand behind him he felt his pheasants, and found one
missing. It had broken off and was lost, and only the bleeding
head and beak remained sticking in his belt. He felt more
frightened than he had ever done before. He began to pray to God,
and feared above all that he might die without having done
anything good or kind; and he so wanted to live, and to live so as
to perform a feat of self-sacrifice.




Chapter XXI


Suddenly it was as though the sun had shone into his soul. He
heard Russian being spoken, and also heard the rapid smooth flow
of the Terek, and a few steps farther in front of him saw the
brown moving surface of the river, with the dim-coloured wet sand
of its banks and shallows, the distant steppe, the cordon watch-
tower outlined above the water, a saddled and hobbled horse among
the brambles, and then the mountains opening out before him. The
red sun appeared for an instant from under a cloud and its last
rays glittered brightly along the river over the reeds, on the
watch-tower, and on a group of Cossacks, among whom Lukashka's
vigorous figure attracted Olenin's involuntary attention.

Olenin felt that he was again, without any apparent cause,
perfectly happy. He had come upon the Nizhni-Prototsk post on the
Terek, opposite a pro-Russian Tartar village on the other side of
the river. He accosted the Cossacks, but not finding as yet any
excuse for doing anyone a kindness, he entered the hut; nor in the
hut did he find any such opportunity. The Cossacks received him
coldly. On entering the mud hut he lit a cigarette. The Cossacks
paid little attention to him, first because he was smoking a
cigarette, and secondly because they had something else to divert
them that evening. Some hostile Chechens, relatives of the abrek
who had been killed, had come from the hills with a scout to
ransom the body; and the Cossacks were waiting for their
Commanding Officer's arrival from the village. The dead man's
brother, tall and well shaped with a short cropped beard which was
dyed red, despite his very tattered coat and cap was calm and
majestic as a king. His face was very like that of the dead abrek.
He did not deign to look at anyone, and never once glanced at the
dead body, but sitting on his heels in the shade he spat as he
smoked his short pipe, and occasionally uttered some few guttural
sounds of command, which were respectfully listened to by his
companion. He was evidently a brave who had met Russians more than
once before in quite other circumstances, and nothing about them
could astonish or even interest him. Olenin was about to approach
the dead body and had begun to look at it when the brother,
looking up at him from under his brows with calm contempt, said
something sharply and angrily. The scout hastened to cover the
dead man's face with his coat. Olenin was struck by the dignified
and stem expression of the brave's face. He began to speak to him,
asking from what village he came, but the Chechen, scarcely giving
him a glance, spat contemptuously and turned away. Olenin was so
surprised at the Chechen not being interested in him that he could
only put it down to the man's stupidity or ignorance of Russian;
so he turned to the scout, who also acted as interpreter. The
scout was as ragged as the other, but instead of being red-haired
he was black-haired, restless, with extremely white gleaming teeth
and sparkling black eyes. The scout willingly entered into
conversation and asked for a cigarette.

'There were five brothers,' began the scout in his broken Russian.
'This is the third brother the Russians have killed, only two are
left. He is a brave, a great brave!' he said, pointing to the
Chechen. 'When they killed Ahmet Khan (the dead brave) this one
was sitting on the opposite bank among the reeds. He saw it all.
Saw him laid in the skiff and brought to the bank. He sat there
till the night and wished to kill the old man, but the others
would not let him.'

Lukashka went up to the speaker, and sat down. 'Of what village?'
asked he.

'From there in the hills,' replied the scout, pointing to the
misty bluish gorge beyond the Terek. 'Do you know Suuk-su? It is
about eight miles beyond that.'

'Do you know Girey Khan in Suuk-su?' asked Lukashka, evidently
proud of the acquaintance. 'He is my kunak.'

'He is my neighbour,' answered the scout.

'He's a trump!' and Lukashka, evidently much interested, began
talking to the scout in Tartar.

Presently a Cossack captain, with the head of the village, arrived
on horseback with a suite of two Cossacks. The captain--one of the
new type of Cossack officers--wished the Cossacks 'Good health,'
but no one shouted in reply, 'Hail! Good health to your honour,'
as is customary in the Russian Army, and only a few replied with a
bow. Some, and among them Lukashka, rose and stood erect. The
corporal replied that all was well at the outposts. All this
seemed ridiculous: it was as if these Cossacks were playing at
being soldiers. But these formalities soon gave place to ordinary
ways of behaviour, and the captain, who was a smart Cossack just
like the others, began speaking fluently in Tartar to the
interpreter. They filled in some document, gave it to the scout,
and received from him some money. Then they approached the body.

'Which of you is Luke Gavrilov?' asked the captain.

Lukishka took off his cap and came forward.

'I have reported your exploit to the Commander. I don't know what
will come of it. I have recommended you for a cross; you're too
young to be made a sergeant. Can you read?'

'I can't.'

'But what a fine fellow to look at!' said the captain, again
playing the commander. 'Put on your cap. Which of the Gavrilovs
does he come of? ... the Broad, eh?'

'His nephew,' replied the corporal.

'I know, I know. Well, lend a hand, help them,' he said, turning
to the Cossacks.

Lukashka's face shone with joy and seemed handsomer than usual. He
moved away from the corporal, and having put on his cap sat down
beside Olenin.

When the body had been carried to the skiff the brother Chechen
descended to the bank. The Cossacks involuntarily stepped aside to
let him pass. He jumped into the boat and pushed off from the bank
with his powerful leg, and now, as Olenin noticed, for the first
time threw a rapid glance at all the Cossacks and then abruptly
asked his companion a question. The latter answered something and
pointed to Lukashka. The Chechen looked at him and, turning slowly
away, gazed at the opposite bank. That look expressed not hatred
but cold contempt. He again made some remark.

'What is he saying?' Olenin asked of the fidgety scout.

'Yours kill ours, ours slay yours. It's always the same,' replied
the scout, evidently inventing, and he smiled, showing his white
teeth, as he jumped into the skiff.

The dead man's brother sat motionless, gazing at the opposite
bank. He was so full of hatred and contempt that there was nothing
on this side of the river that moved his curiosity. The scout,
standing up at one end of the skiff and dipping his paddle now on
one side now on the other, steered skilfully while talking
incessantly. The skiff became smaller and smaller as it moved
obliquely across the stream, the voices became scarcely audible,
and at last, still within sight, they landed on the opposite bank
where their horses stood waiting. There they lifted out the corpse
and (though the horse shied) laid it across one of the saddles,
mounted, and rode at a foot-pace along the road past a Tartar
village from which a crowd came out to look at them. The Cossacks
on the Russian side of the river were highly satisfied and jovial.
Laughter and jokes were heard on all sides. The captain and the
head of the village entered the mud hut to regale themselves.
Lukashka, vainly striving to impart a sedate expression to his
merry face, sat down with his elbows on his knees beside Olenin
and whittled away at a stick.

'Why do you smoke?' he said with assumed curiosity. 'Is it good?'

He evidently spoke because he noticed Olenin felt ill at ease and
isolated among the Cossacks.

'It's just a habit,' answered Olenin. 'Why?'

'H'm, if one of us were to smoke there would be a row! Look there
now, the mountains are not far off,' continued Lukashka, 'yet you
can't get there! How will you get back alone? It's getting dark.
I'll take you, if you like. You ask the corporal to give me
leave.'

'What a fine fellow!' thought Olenin, looking at the Cossack's
bright face. He remembered Maryanka and the kiss he had heard by
the gate, and he was sorry for Lukashka and his want of culture.
'What confusion it is,' he thought. 'A man kills another and is
happy and satisfied with himself as if he had done something
excellent. Can it be that nothing tells him that it is not a
reason for any rejoicing, and that happiness lies not in killing,
but in sacrificing oneself?'

'Well, you had better not meet him again now, mate!' said one of
the Cossacks who had seen the skiff off, addressing Lukashka. 'Did
you hear him asking about you?'

Lukashka raised his head.

'My godson?' said Lukashka, meaning by that word the dead Chechen.

'Your godson won't rise, but the red one is the godson's brother!'

'Let him thank God that he got off whole himself,' replied
Lukashka.

'What are you glad about?' asked Olenin. 'Supposing your brother
had been killed; would you be glad?'

The Cossack looked at Olenin with laughing eyes. He seemed to have
understood all that Olenin wished to say to him, but to be above
such considerations.

'Well, that happens too! Don't our fellows get killed sometimes?'




Chapter XXII


The Captain and the head of the village rode away, and Olenin, to
please Lukashka as well as to avoid going back alone through the
dark forest, asked the corporal to give Lukashka leave, and the
corporal did so. Olenin thought that Lukashka wanted to see
Maryanka and he was also glad of the companionship of such a
pleasant-looking and sociable Cossack. Lukashka and Maryanka he
involuntarily united in his mind, and he found pleasure in
thinking about them. 'He loves Maryanka,' thought Olenin, 'and I
could love her,' and a new and powerful emotion of tenderness
overcame him as they walked homewards together through the dark
forest. Lukashka too felt happy; something akin to love made
itself felt between these two very different young men. Every time
they glanced at one another they wanted to laugh.

'By which gate do you enter?' asked Olenin.

'By the middle one. But I'll see you as far as the marsh. After
that you have nothing to fear.'

Olenin laughed.

'Do you think I am afraid? Go back, and thank you. I can get on
alone.'

'It's all right! What have I to do? And how can you help being
afraid? Even we are afraid,' said Lukashka to set Olenin's self-
esteem at rest, and he laughed too.

'Then come in with me. We'll have a talk and a drink and in the
morning you can go back.'

'Couldn't I find a place to spend the night?' laughed Lukashka.
'But the corporal asked me to go back.'

'I heard you singing last night, and also saw you.'

'Every one...' and Luke swayed his head.

'Is it true you are getting married?' asked Olenin.

'Mother wants me to marry. But I have not got a horse yet.'

'Aren't you in the regular service?'

'Oh dear no! I've only just joined, and have not got a horse yet,
and don't know how to get one. That's why the marriage does not
come off.'

'And what would a horse cost?'

'We were bargaining for one beyond the river the other day and
they would not take sixty rubles for it, though it is a Nogay
horse.'

'Will you come and be my drabant?' (A drabant was a kind of
orderly attached to an officer when campaigning.) 'I'll get it
arranged and will give you a horse,' said Olenin suddenly. 'Really
now, I have two and I don't want both.'

'How--don't want it?' Lukashka said, laughing. 'Why should you
make me a present? We'll get on by ourselves by God's help.'

'No, really! Or don't you want to be a drabant?' said Olenin, glad
that it had entered his head to give a horse to Lukashka, though,
without knowing why, he felt uncomfortable and confused and did
not know what to say when he tried to speak.

Lukashka was the first to break the silence.

'Have you a house of your own in Russia?' he asked.

Olenin could not refrain from replying that he had not only one,
but several houses.

'A good house? Bigger than ours?' asked Lukashka good-naturedly.

'Much bigger; ten times as big and three storeys high,' replied
Olenin.

'And have you horses such as ours?'

'I have a hundred horses, worth three or four hundred rubles each,
but they are not like yours. They are trotters, you know.... But
still, I like the horses here best.'

'Well, and did you come here of your own free will, or were you
sent?' said Lukashka, laughing at him. 'Look! that's where you
lost your way,' he added, 'you should have turned to the right.'

'I came by my own wish,' replied Olenin. 'I wanted to see your
parts and to join some expeditions.'

'I would go on an expedition any day,' said Lukashka. 'D'you hear
the jackals howling?' he added, listening.

'I say, don't you feel any horror at having killed a man?' asked
Olenin.

'What's there to be frightened about? But I should like to join an
expedition,' Lukashka repeated. 'How I want to! How I want to!'

'Perhaps we may be going together. Our company is going before the
holidays, and your "hundred" too.'

'And what did you want to come here for? You've a house and horses
and serfs. In your place I'd do nothing but make merry! And what
is your rank?'

'I am a cadet, but have been recommended for a commission.'

'Well, if you're not bragging about your home, if I were you I'd
never have left it! Yes, I'd never have gone away anywhere. Do you
find it pleasant living among us?'

'Yes, very pleasant,' answered Olenin.

It had grown quite dark before, talking in this way, they
approached the village. They were still surrounded by the deep
gloom of the forest. The wind howled through the tree-tops. The
jackals suddenly seemed to be crying close beside them, howling,
chuckling, and sobbing; but ahead of them in the village the
sounds of women's voices and the barking of dogs could already be
heard; the outlines of the huts were clearly to be seen; lights
gleamed and the air was filled with the peculiar smell of kisyak
smoke. Olenin felt keenly, that night especially, that here in
this village was his home, his family, all his happiness, and that
he never had and never would live so happily anywhere as he did in
this Cossack village. He was so fond of everybody and especially
of Lukashka that night. On reaching home, to Lukashka's great
surprise, Olenin with his own hands led out of the shed a horse he
had bought in Groznoe--it was not the one he usually rode but
another--not a bad horse though no longer young, and gave it to
Lukashka.

'Why should you give me a present?' said Lukashka, 'I have not yet
done anything for you.'

'Really it is nothing,' answered Olenin. 'Take it, and you will
give me a present, and we'll go on an expedition against the enemy
together.'

Lukashka became confused.

'But what d'you mean by it? As if a horse were of little value,'
he said without looking at the horse.

'Take it, take it! If you don't you will offend me. Vanyusha! Take
the grey horse to his house.'

Lukashka took hold of the halter.

'Well then, thank you! This is something unexpected, undreamt of.'

Olenin was as happy as a boy of twelve.

'Tie it up here. It's a good horse. I bought it in Groznoe; it
gallops splendidly! Vanyusha, bring us some chikhir. Come into the
hut.'

The wine was brought. Lukashka sat down and took the wine-bowl.

'God willing I'll find a way to repay you,' he said, finishing his
wine. 'How are you called?'

'Dmitri Andreich.'

'Well, 'Mitry Andreich, God bless you. We will be kunaks. Now you
must come to see us. Though we are not rich people still we can
treat a kunak, and I will tell mother in case you need anything--
clotted cream or grapes--and if you come to the cordon I'm your
servant to go hunting or to go across the river, anywhere you
like! There now, only the other day, what a boar I killed, and I
divided it among the Cossacks, but if I had only known, I'd have
given it to you.' 'That's all right, thank you! But don't harness
the horse, it has never been in harness.'

'Why harness the horse? And there is something else I'll tell you
if you like,' said Lukashka, bending his head. 'I have a kunak,
Girey Khan. He asked me to lie in ambush by the road where they
come down from the mountains. Shall we go together? I'll not
betray you. I'll be your murid.'

'Yes, we'll go; we'll go some day.'

Lukashka seemed quite to have quieted down and to have understood
Olenin's attitude towards him. His calmness and the ease of his
behaviour surprised Olenin, and he did not even quite like it.
They talked long, and it was late when Lukashka, not tipsy (he
never was tipsy) but having drunk a good deal, left Olenin after
shaking hands.

Olenin looked out of the window to see what he would do. Lukashka
went out, hanging his head. Then, having led the horse out of the
gate, he suddenly shook his head, threw the reins of the halter
over its head, sprang onto its back like a cat, gave a wild shout,
and galloped down the street. Olenin expected that Lukishka would
go to share his joy with Maryanka, but though he did not do so
Olenin still felt his soul more at ease than ever before in his
life. He was as delighted as a boy, and could not refrain from
telling Vanyusha not only that he had given Lukashka the horse,
but also why he had done it, as well as his new theory of
happiness. Vanyusha did not approve of his theory, and announced
that 'l'argent il n'y a pas!' and that therefore it was all
nonsense.

Lukashka rode home, jumped off the horse, and handed it over to
his mother, telling her to let it out with the communal Cossack
herd. He himself had to return to the cordon that same night. His
deaf sister undertook to take the horse, and explained by signs
that when she saw the man who had given the horse, she would bow
down at his feet. The old woman only shook her head at her son's
story, and decided in her own mind that he had stolen it. She
therefore told the deaf girl to take it to the herd before
daybreak.

Lukashka went back alone to the cordon pondering over Olenin's
action. Though he did not consider the horse a good one, yet it
was worth at least forty rubles and Lukashka was very glad to have
the present. But why it had been given him he could not at all
understand, and therefore he did not experience the least feeling
of gratitude. On the contrary, vague suspicions that the cadet had
some evil intentions filled his mind. What those intentions were
he could not decide, but neither could he admit the idea that a
stranger would give him a horse worth forty rubles for nothing,
just out of kindness; it seemed impossible. Had he been drunk one
might understand it! He might have wished to show off. But the
cadet had been sober, and therefore must have wished to bribe him
to do something wrong. 'Eh, humbug!' thought Lukashka. 'Haven't I
got the horse and we'll see later on. I'm not a fool myself and we
shall see who'll get the better of the other,' he thought, feeling
the necessity of being on his guard, and therefore arousing in
himself unfriendly feelings towards Olenin. He told no one how he
had got the horse. To some he said he had bought it, to others he
replied evasively. However, the truth soon got about in the
village, and Lukashka's mother and Maryanka, as well as Elias
Vasilich and other Cossacks, when they heard of Olenin's
unnecessary gift, were perplexed, and began to be on their guard
against the cadet. But despite their fears his action aroused in
them a great respect for his simplicity and wealth.

'Have you heard,' said one, 'that the cadet quartered on Elias
Vasilich has thrown a fifty-ruble horse at Lukashka? He's
rich! ...'

'Yes, I heard of it,' replied another profoundly, 'he must have
done him some great service. We shall see what will come of this
cadet. Eh! what luck that Snatcher has!'

'Those cadets are crafty, awfully crafty,' said a third. 'See if
he don't go setting fire to a building, or doing something!'




Chapter XXIII


Olenin's life went on with monotonous regularity. He had little
intercourse with the commanding officers or with his equals. The
position of a rich cadet in the Caucasus was peculiarly
advantageous in this respect. He was not sent out to work, or for
training. As a reward for going on an expedition he was
recommended for a commission, and meanwhile he was left in peace.
The officers regarded him as an aristocrat and behaved towards him
with dignity. Cardplaying and the officers' carousals accompanied
by the soldier-singers, of which he had had experience when he was
with the detachment, did not seem to him attractive, and he also
avoided the society and life of the officers in the village. The
life of officers stationed in a Cossack village has long had its
own definite form. Just as every cadet or officer when in a fort
regularly drinks porter, plays cards, and discusses the rewards
given for taking part in the expeditions, so in the Cossack
villages he regularly drinks chikhir with his hosts, treats the
girls to sweet-meats and honey, dangles after the Cossack women,
and falls in love, and occasionally marries there. Olenin always
took his own path and had an unconscious objection to the beaten
tracks. And here, too, he did not follow the ruts of a Caucasian
officer's life.

It came quite naturally to him to wake up at daybreak. After
drinking tea and admiring from his porch the mountains, the
morning, and Maryanka, he would put on a tattered ox-hide coat,
sandals of soaked raw hide, buckle on a dagger, take a gun, put
cigarettes and some lunch in a little bag, call his dog, and soon
after five o'clock would start for the forest beyond the village.
Towards seven in the evening he would return tired and hungry with
five or six pheasants hanging from his belt (sometimes with some
other animal) and with his bag of food and cigarettes untouched.
If the thoughts in his head had lain like the lunch and cigarettes
in the bag, one might have seen that during all those fourteen
hours not a single thought had moved in it. He returned morally
fresh, strong, and perfectly happy, and he could not tell what he
had been thinking about all the time. Were they ideas, memories,
or dreams that had been flitting through his mind? They were
frequently all three. He would rouse himself and ask what he had
been thinking about; and would see himself as a Cossack working in
a vineyard with his Cossack wife, or an abrek in the mountains, or
a boar running away from himself. And all the time he kept peering
and watching for a pheasant, a boar, or a deer.

In the evening Daddy Eroshka would be sure to be sitting with him.
Vanyusha would bring a jug of chikhir, and they would converse
quietly, drink, and separate to go quite contentedly to bed. The
next day he would again go shooting, again be healthily weary,
again they would sit conversing and drink their fill, and again be
happy. Sometimes on a holiday or day of rest Olenin spent the
whole day at home. Then his chief occupation was watching
Maryanka, whose every movement, without realizing it himself, he
followed greedily from his window or his porch. He regarded
Maryanka and loved her (so he thought) just as he loved the beauty
of the mountains and the sky, and he had no thought of entering
into any relations with her. It seemed to him that between him and
her such relations as there were between her and the Cossack
Lukashka could not exist, and still less such as often existed
between rich officers and other Cossack girls. It seemed to him
that if he tried to do as his fellow officers did, he would
exchange his complete enjoyment of contemplation for an abyss of
suffering, disillusionment, and remorse. Besides, he had already
achieved a triumph of self-sacrifice in connexion with her which
had given him great pleasure, and above all he was in a way afraid
of Maryanka and would not for anything have ventured to utter a
word of love to her lightly.

Once during the summer, when Olenin had not gone out shooting but
was sitting at home, quite unexpectedly a Moscow acquaintance, a
very young man whom he had met in society, came in.

'Ah, mon cher, my dear fellow, how glad I was when I heard that
you were here!' he began in his Moscow French, and he went on
intermingling French words in his remarks. 'They said, "Olenin".
What Olenin? and I was so pleased.... Fancy fate bringing us
together here! Well, and how are you? How? Why?' and Prince
Beletski told his whole story: how he had temporarily entered the
regiment, how the. Commander-in-Chief had offered to take him as
an adjutant, and how he would take up the post after this campaign
although personally he felt quite indifferent about it.

'Living here in this hole one must at least make a career--get a
cross--or a rank--be transferred to the Guards. That is quite
indispensable, not for myself but for the sake of my relations and
friends. The prince received me very well; he is a very decent
fellow,' said Beletski, and went on unceasingly. 'I have been
recommended for the St. Anna Cross for the expedition. Now I shall
stay here a bit until we start on the campaign. It's capital here.
What women! Well, and how are you getting on? I was told by our
captain, Startsev you know, a kind-hearted stupid creature....
Well, he said you were living like an awful savage, seeing no one!
I quite understand you don't want to be mixed up with the set of
officers we have here. I am so glad now you and I will be able to
see something of one another. I have put up at the Cossack
corporal's house. There is such a girl there. Ustenka! I tell you
she's just charming.'

And more and more French and Russian words came pouring forth from
that world which Olenin thought he had left for ever. The general
opinion about Beletski was that he was a nice, good-natured
fellow. Perhaps he really was; but in spite of his pretty, good-
natured face, Olenin thought him extremely unpleasant. He seemed
just to exhale that filthiness which Olenin had forsworn. What
vexed him most was that he could not--had not the strength--
abruptly to repulse this man who came from that world: as if that
old world he used to belong to had an irresistible claim on him.
Olenin felt angry with Beletski and with himself, yet against his
wish he introduced French phrases into his own conversation, was
interested in the Commander-in-Chief and in their Moscow
acquaintances, and because in this Cossack village he and Beletski
both spoke French, he spoke contemptuously of their fellow
officers and of the Cossacks, and was friendly with Beletski,
promising to visit him and inviting him to drop in to see him.
Olenin however did not himself go to see Beletski. Vanyusha for
his part approved of Beletski, remarking that he was a real
gentleman.

Beletski at once adopted the customary life of a rich officer in a
Cossack village. Before Olenin's eyes, in one month he came to be
like an old resident of the village; he made the old men drunk,
arranged evening parties, and himself went to parties arranged by
the girls--bragged of his conquests, and even got so far that, for
some unknown reason, the women and girls began calling him
grandad, and the Cossacks, to whom a man who loved wine and women
was clearly understandable, got used to him and even liked him
better than they did Olenin, who was a puzzle to them.




Chapter XXIV


It was five in the morning. Vanyusha was in the porch heating the
samovar, and using the leg of a long boot instead of bellows.
Olenin had already ridden off to bathe in the Terek. (He had
recently invented a new amusement: to swim his horse in the
river.) His landlady was in her outhouse, and the dense smoke of
the kindling fire rose from the chimney. The girl was milking the
buffalo cow in the shed. 'Can't keep quiet, the damned thing!'
came her impatient voice, followed by the rhythmical sound of
milking.

From the street in front of the house horses' hoofs were heard
clattering briskly, and Olenin, riding bareback on a handsome
dark-grey horse which was still wet and shining, rode up to the
gate. Maryanka's handsome head, tied round with a red kerchief,
appeared from the shed and again disappeared. Olenin was wearing a
red silk shirt, a white Circassian coat girdled with a strap which
carried a dagger, and a tall cap. He sat his well-fed wet horse
with a slightly conscious elegance and, holding his gun at his
back, stooped to open the gate. His hair was still wet, and his
face shone with youth and health. He thought himself handsome,
agile, and like a brave; but he was mistaken. To any experienced
Caucasian he was still only a soldier. When he noticed that the
girl had put out her head he stooped with particular rested on the
ground without altering their shape; how her strong arms with the
sleeves rolled up, exerting the muscles, used the spade almost as
if in anger, and how her deep dark eyes sometimes glanced at him.
Though the delicate brows frowned, yet her eyes expressed pleasure
and a knowledge of her own beauty.

'I say, Olenin, have you been up long?' said Beletski as he
entered the yard dressed in the coat of a Caucasian officer.

'Ah, Beletski,' replied Olenin, holding out his hand. 'How is it
you are out so early?'

'I had to. I was driven out; we are having a ball tonight.
Maryanka, of course you'll come to Ustenka's?' he added, turning
to the girl.

Olenin felt surprised that Beletski could address this woman so
easily. But Maryanka, as though she had not heard him, bent her
head, and throwing the spade across her shoulder went with her
firm masculine tread towards the outhouse.

'She's shy, the wench is shy,' Beletski called after her. 'Shy of
you,' he added as, smiling gaily, he ran up the steps of the
porch.

'How is it you are having a ball and have been driven out?'

'It's at Ustenka's, at my landlady's, that the ball is, and you
two are invited. A ball consists of a pie and a gathering of
girls.'

'What should we do there?'

Beletski smiled knowingly and winked, jerking his head in the
direction of the outhouse into which Maryanka had disappeared.

Olenin shrugged his shoulders and blushed.

'Well, really you are a strange fellow!' said he.

'Come now, don't pretend'

Olenin frowned, and Beletski noticing this smiled insinuatingly.
'Oh, come, what do you mean?' he said, 'living in the same house--
and such a fine girl, a splendid girl, a perfect beauty'

'Wonderfully beautiful! I never saw such a woman before,' replied
Olenin.

'Well then?' said Beletski, quite unable to understand the
situation.

'It may be strange,' replied Olenin, 'but why should I not say
what is true? Since I have lived here women don't seem to exist
for me. And it is so good, really! Now what can there be in common
between us and women like these? Eroshka--that's a different
matter! He and I have a passion in common--sport.'

'There now! In common! And what have I in common with Amalia
Ivanovna? It's the same thing! You may say they're not very clean-
-that's another matter... A la guerre, comme a la guerre! ...'

'But I have never known any Amalia Ivanovas, and have never known
how to behave with women of that sort,' replied Olenin. 'One
cannot respect them, but these I do respect.'

'Well go on respecting them! Who wants to prevent you?'

Olenin did not reply. He evidently wanted to complete. what he had
begun to say. It was very near his heart.

'I know I am an exception...' He was visibly confused. 'But my
life has so shaped itself that I not only see no necessity to
renounce my rules, but I could not live here, let alone live as
happily as I am doing, were I to live as you do. Therefore I look
for something quite different from what you look for.'

Beletski raised his eyebrows incredulously. 'Anyhow, come to me
this evening; Maryanka will be there and I will make you
acquainted. Do come, please! If you feel dull you can go away.
Will you come?'

'I would come, but to speak frankly I am afraid of being'
seriously carried away.'

'Oh, oh, oh!' shouted Beletski. 'Only come, and I'll see that you
aren't. Will you? On your word?'

'I would come, but really I don't understand what we shall do;
what part we shall play!'

'Please, I beg of you. You will come?'

'Yes, perhaps I'll come,' said Olenin.

'Really now! Charming women such as one sees nowhere else, and to
live like a monk! What an idea! Why spoil your life and not make
use of what is at hand? Have you heard that our company is ordered
to Vozdvizhensk?'

'Hardly. I was told the 8th Company would be sent there,' said
Olenin.

'No. I have had a letter from the adjutant there. He writes that
the Prince himself will take part in the campaign. I am very glad
I shall see something of him. I'm beginning to get tired of this
place.'

'I hear we shall start on a raid soon.'

'I have not heard of it; but I have heard that Krinovitsin has
received the Order of St. Anna for a raid. He expected a
lieutenancy,' said Beletski laughing. 'He was let in! He has set
off for headquarters.'

It was growing dusk and Olenin began thinking about the party. The
invitation he had received worried him. He felt inclined to go,
but what might take place there seemed strange, absurd, and even
rather alarming. He knew that neither Cossack men nor older women,
nor anyone besides the girls, were to be there. What was going to
happen? How was he to behave? What would they talk about? What
connexion was there between him and those wild Cossack girls?
Beletski had told him of such curious, cynical, and yet rigid
relations. It seemed strange to think that he would be there in
the same hut with Maryanka and perhaps might have to talk to her.
It seemed to him impossible when he remembered her majestic
bearing. But Beletski spoke of it as if it were all perfectly
simple. 'Is it possible that Beletski will treat Maryanka in the
same way? That is interesting,' thought he. 'No, better not go.
It's all so horrid, so vulgar, and above all--it leads to
nothing!' But again he was worried by the question of what would
take place; and besides he felt as if bound by a promise. He went
out without having made up his mind one way or the other, but he
walked as far as Beletski's, and went in there.

The hut in which Beletski lived was like Olenin's. It was raised
nearly five feet from the ground on wooden piles, and had two
rooms. In the first (which Olenin entered by the steep flight of
steps) feather beds, rugs, blankets, and cushions were tastefully
and handsomely arranged, Cossack fashion, along the main wall. On
the side wall hung brass basins and weapons, while on the floor,
under a bench, lay watermelons and pumpkins. In the second room
there was a big brick oven, a table, and sectarian icons. It was
here that Beletski was quartered, with his camp-bed and his pack
and trunks. His weapons hung on the wall with a little rug behind
them, and on the table were his toilet appliances and some
portraits. A silk dressing-gown had been thrown on the bench.
Beletski himself, clean and good-looking, lay on the bed in his
underclothing, reading Les Trois Mousquetaires.

He jumped up.

'There, you see how I have arranged things. Fine! Well, it's good
that you have come. They are working furiously. Do you know what
the pie is made of? Dough with a stuffing of pork and grapes. But
that's not the point. You just look at the commotion out there!'

And really, on looking out of the window they saw an unusual
bustle going on in the hut. Girls ran in and out, now for one
thing and now for another.

'Will it soon be ready?' cried Beletski.

'Very soon! Why? Is Grandad hungry?' and from the hut came the
sound of ringing laughter.

Ustenka, plump, small, rosy, and pretty, with her sleeves turned
up, ran into Beletski's hut to fetch some plates.

'Get away or I shall smash the plates!' she squeaked, escaping
from Beletski. 'You'd better come and help,' she shouted to
Olenin, laughing. 'And don't forget to get some refreshments for
the girls.' ('Refreshments' meaning spicebread and sweets.)

'And has Maryanka come?'

'Of course! She brought some dough.'

'Do you know,' said Beletski, 'if one were to dress Ustenka up and
clean and polish her up a bit, she'd be better than all our
beauties. Have you ever seen that Cossack woman who married a
colonel; she was charming! Borsheva? What dignity! Where do they
get it...'

'I have not seen Borsheva, but I think nothing could be better
than the costume they wear here.'

'Ah, I'm first-rate at fitting into any kind of life,' said
Beletski with a sigh of pleasure. 'I'll go and see what they are
up to.'

He threw his dressing-gown over his shoulders and ran out,
shouting, 'And you look after the "refreshments".'

Olenin sent Beletski's orderly to buy spice-bread and honey; but
it suddenly seemed to him so disgusting to give money (as if he
were bribing someone) that he gave no definite reply to the
orderly's question: 'How much spice-bread with peppermint, and how
much with honey?'

'Just as you please.'

'Shall I spend all the money,' asked the old soldier impressively.
'The peppermint is dearer. It's sixteen kopeks.'

'Yes, yes, spend it all,' answered Olenin and sat down by the
window, surprised that his heart was thumping as if he were
preparing himself for something serious and wicked.

He heard screaming and shrieking in the girls' hut when Beletski
went there, and a few moments later saw how he jumped out and ran
down the steps, accompanied by shrieks, bustle, and laughter.

'Turned out,' he said.

A little later Ustenka entered and solemnly invited her visitors
to come in: announcing that all was ready.

When they came into the room they saw that everything was really
ready. Ustenka was rearranging the cushions along the wall. On the
table, which was covered by a disproportionately small cloth, was
a decanter of chikhir and some dried fish. The room smelt of dough
and grapes. Some half dozen girls in smart tunics, with their
heads not covered as usual with kerchiefs, were huddled together
in a corner behind the oven, whispering, giggling, and spluttering
with laughter.

'I humbly beg you to do honour to my patron saint,' said Ustenka,
inviting her guests to the table.

Olenin noticed Maryanka among the group of girls, who without
exception were all handsome, and he felt vexed and hurt that he
met her in such vulgar and awkward circumstances. He felt stupid
and awkward, and made up his mind to do what Beletski did.
Beletski stepped to the table somewhat solemnly yet with
confidence and ease, drank a glass of wine to Ustenka's health,
and invited the others to do the same. Ustenka announced that
girls don't drink. 'We might with a little honey,' exclaimed a
voice from among the group of girls. The orderly, who had just
returned with the honey and spice-cakes, was called in. He looked
askance (whether with envy or with contempt) at the gentlemen, who
in his opinion were on the spree; and carefully and
conscientiously handed over to them a piece of honeycomb and the
cakes wrapped up in a piece of greyish paper, and began explaining
circumstantially all about the price and the change, but Beletski
sent him away. Having mixed honey with wine in the glasses, and
having lavishly scattered the three pounds of spice-cakes on the
table, Beletski dragged the girls from their comers by force, made
them sit down at the table, and began distributing the cakes among
them. Olenin involuntarily noticed how Maryanka's sunburnt but
small hand closed on two round peppermint nuts and one brown one,
and that she did not know what to do with them. The conversation
was halting and constrained, in spite of Ustenka's and Beletski's
free and easy manner and their wish to enliven the company. Olenin
faltered, and tried to think of something to say, feeling that he
was exciting curiosity and perhaps provoking ridicule and
infecting the others with his shyness. He blushed, and it seemed
to him that Maryanka in particular was feeling uncomfortable.
'Most likely they are expecting us to give them some money,'
thought he. 'How are we to do it? And how can we manage quickest
to give it and get away?'




Chapter XXV


'How is it you don't know your own lodger?' said Beletski,
addressing Maryanka.

'How is one to know him if he never comes to see us?' answered
Maryanka, with a look at Olenin.

Olenin felt frightened, he did not know of what. He flushed and,
hardly knowing what he was saying, remarked: 'I'm afraid of your
mother. She gave me such a scolding the first time I went in.'

Maryanka burst out laughing. 'And so you were frightened?' she
said, and glanced at him and turned away.

It was the first time Olenin had seen the whole of her beautiful
face. Till then he had seen her with her kerchief covering her to
the eyes. It was not for nothing that she was reckoned the beauty
of the village. Ustenka was a pretty girl, small, plump, rosy,
with merry brown eyes, and red lips which were perpetually smiling
and chattering. Maryanka on the contrary was certainly not pretty
but beautiful. Her features might have been considered too
masculine and almost harsh had it not been for her tall stately
figure, her powerful chest and shoulders, and especially the
severe yet tender expression of her long dark eyes which were
darkly shadowed beneath their black brows, and for the gentle
expression of her mouth and smile. She rarely smiled, but her
smile was always striking. She seemed to radiate virginal strength
and health. All the girls were good-looking, but they themselves
and Beletski, and the orderly when he brought in the spice-cakes,
all involuntarily gazed at Maryanka, and anyone addressing the
girls was sure to address her. She seemed a proud and happy queen
among them.

Beletski, trying to keep up the spirit of the party, chattered
incessantly, made the girls hand round chikhir, fooled about with
them, and kept making improper remarks in French about Maryanka's
beauty to Olenin, calling her 'yours' (la votre), and advising him
to behave as he did himself. Olenin felt more and more
uncomfortable. He was devising an excuse to get out and run away
when Beletski announced that Ustenka, whose saint's day it was,
must offer chikhir to everybody with a kiss. She consented on
condition that they should put money on her plate, as is the
custom at weddings.

'What fiend brought me to this disgusting feast?' thought Olenin,
rising to go away.

'Where are you off to?'

'I'll fetch some tobacco,' he said, meaning to escape, but
Beletski seized his hand.

'I have some money,' he said to him in French.

'One can't go away, one has to pay here,' thought Olenin bitterly,
vexed at his own awkwardness. 'Can't I really behave like
Beletski? I ought not to have come, but once I am here I must not
spoil their fun. I must drink like a Cossack,' and taking the
wooden bowl (holding about eight tumblers) he almost filled it
with chikhir and drank it almost all. The girls looked at him,
surprised and almost frightened, as he drank. It seemed to them
strange and not right. Ustenka brought them another glass each,
and kissed them both. 'There girls, now we'll have some fun,' she
said, clinking on the plate the four rubles the men had put there.

Olenin no longer felt awkward, but became talkative.

'Now, Maryanka, it's your turn to offer us wine and a kiss,' said
Beletski, seizing her hand.

'Yes, I'll give you such a kiss!' she said playfully, preparing to
strike at him.

'One can kiss Grandad without payment,' said another girl.

'There's a sensible girl,' said Beletski, kissing the struggling
girl. 'No, you must offer it,' he insisted, addressing Maryanka.
'Offer a glass to your lodger.'

And taking her by the hand he led her to the bench and sat her
down beside Olenin.

'What a beauty,' he said, turning her head to see it in profile.

Maryanka did not resist but proudly smiling turned her long eyes
towards Olenin.

'A beautiful girl,' repeated Beletski.

'Yes, see what a beauty I am,' Maryanka's look seemed to endorse.
Without considering what he was doing Olenin embraced Maryanka and
was going to kiss her, but she suddenly extricated herself,
upsetting Beletski and pushing the top off the table, and sprang
away towards the oven. There was much shouting and laughter. Then
Beletski whispered something to the girls and suddenly they all
ran out into the passage and locked the door behind them.

'Why did you kiss Beletski and won't kiss me?' asked Olenin.

'Oh, just so. I don't want to, that's all!' she answered, pouting
and frowning. 'He's Grandad,' she added with a smile. She went to
the door and began to bang at it. 'Why have you locked the door,
you devils?'

'Well, let them be there and us here,' said Olenin, drawing closer
to her.

She frowned, and sternly pushed him away with her hand. And again
she appeared so majestically handsome to Olenin that he came to
his senses and felt ashamed of what he was doing. He went to the
door and began pulling at it himself.

'Beletski! Open the door! What a stupid joke!'

Maryanka again gave a bright happy laugh. 'Ah, you're afraid of
me?' she said.

'Yes, you know you're as cross as your mother.'

'Spend more of your time with Eroshka; that will make the girls
love you!' And she smiled, looking straight and close into his
eyes.

He did not know what to reply. 'And if I were to come to see you--
' he let fall.

'That would be a different matter,' she replied, tossing her head.

At that moment Beletski pushed the door open, and Maryanka sprang
away from Olenin and in doing so her thigh struck his leg.

'It's all nonsense what I have been thinking about--love and self-
sacrifice and Lukashka. Happiness is the one thing. He who is
happy is right,' flashed through Olenin's mind, and with a
strength unexpected to himself he seized and kissed the beautiful
Maryanka on her temple and her cheek. Maryanka was not angry, but
only burst into a loud laugh and ran out to the other girls.

That was the end of the party. Ustenka's mother, returned from her
work, gave all the girls a scolding, and turned them all out.




Chapter XXVI


'Yes,' thought Olenin, as he walked home. 'I need only slacken the
reins a bit and I might fall desperately in love with this Cossack
girl.' He went to bed with these thoughts, but expected it all to
blow over and that he would continue to live as before.

But the old life did not return. His relations to Maryanka were
changed. The wall that had separated them was broken down. Olenin
now greeted her every time they met.

The master of the house having returned to collect the rent, on
hearing of Olenin's wealth and generosity invited him to his hut.
The old woman received him kindly, and from the day of the party
onwards Olenin often went in of an evening and sat with them till
late at night. He seemed to be living in the village just as he
used to, but within him everything had changed. He spent his days
in the forest, and towards eight o'clock, when it began to grow
dusk, he would go to see his hosts, alone or with Daddy Eroshka.
They grew so used to him that they were surprised when he stayed
away. He paid well for his wine and was a quiet fellow. Vanyusha
would bring him his tea and he would sit down in a comer near the
oven. The old woman did not mind him but went on with her work,
and over their tea or their chikhir they talked about Cossack
affairs, about the neighbours, or about Russia: Olenin relating
and the others inquiring. Sometimes he brought a book and read to
himself. Maryanka crouched like a wild goat with her feet drawn up
under her, sometimes on the top of the oven, sometimes in a dark
comer. She did not take part in the conversations, but Olenin saw
her eyes and face and heard her moving or cracking sunflower
seeds, and he felt that she listened with her whole being when he
spoke, and was aware of his presence while he silently read to
himself. Sometimes he thought her eyes were fixed on him, and
meeting their radiance he involuntarily became silent and gazed at
her. Then she would instantly hide her face and he would pretend
to be deep in conversation with the old woman, while he listened
all the time to her breathing and to her every movement and waited
for her to look at him again. In the presence of others she was
generally bright and friendly with him, but when they were alone
together she was shy and rough. Sometimes he came in before
Maryanka had returned home. Suddenly he would hear her firm
footsteps and catch a glimmer of her blue cotton smock at the open
door. Then she would step into the middle of the hut, catch sight
of him, and her eyes would give a scarcely perceptible kindly
smile, and he would feel happy and frightened.

He neither sought for nor wished for anything from her, but every
day her presence became more and more necessary to him.

Olenin had entered into the life of the Cossack village so fully
that his past seemed quite foreign to him. As to the future,
especially a future outside the world in which he was now living,
it did not interest him at all. When he received letters from
home, from relatives and friends, he was offended by the evident
distress with which they regarded him as a lost man, while he in
his village considered those as lost who did not live as he was
living. He felt sure he would never repent of having broken away
from his former surroundings and of having settled down in this
village to such a solitary and original life. When out on
expeditions, and when quartered at one of the forts, he felt happy
too; but it was here, from under Daddy Eroshka's wing, from the
forest and from his hut at the end of the village, and especially
when he thought of Maryanka and Lukashka, that he seemed to see
the falseness of his former life. That falseness used to rouse his
indignation even before, but now it seemed inexpressibly vile and
ridiculous. Here he felt freer and freer every day and more and
more of a man. The Caucasus now appeared entirely different to
what his imagination had painted it. He had found nothing at all
like his dreams, nor like the descriptions of the Caucasus he had
heard and read. 'There are none of all those chestnut steeds,
precipices, Amalet Beks, heroes or villains,' thought he. 'The
people live as nature lives: they die, are born, unite, and more
are born--they fight, eat and drink, rejoice and die, without any
restrictions but those that nature imposes on sun and grass, on
animal and tree. They have no other laws.' Therefore these people,
compared to himself, appeared to him beautiful, strong, and free,
and the sight of them made him feel ashamed and sorry for himself.
Often it seriously occurred to him to throw up everything, to get
registered as a Cossack, to buy a hut and cattle and marry a
Cossack woman (only not Maryanka, whom he conceded to Lukashka),
and to live with Daddy Eroshka and go shooting and fishing with
him, and go with the Cossacks on their expeditions. 'Why ever
don't I do it? What am I waiting for?' he asked himself, and he
egged himself on and shamed himself. 'Am I afraid of doing what I
hold to be reasonable and right? Is the wish to be a simple
Cossack, to live close to nature, not to injure anyone but even to
do good to others, more stupid than my former dreams, such as
those of becoming a minister of state or a colonel?' but a voice
seemed to say that he should wait, and not take any decision. He
was held back by a dim consciousness that he could not live
altogether like Eroshka and Lukashka because he had a different
idea of happiness--he was held back by the thought that happiness
lies in self-sacrifice. What he had done for Lukashka continued to
give him joy. He kept looking for occasions to sacrifice himself
for others, but did not meet with them. Sometimes he forgot this
newly discovered recipe for happiness and considered himself
capable of identifying his life with Daddy Eroshka's, but then he
quickly bethought himself and promptly clutched at the idea of
conscious self-sacrifice, and from that basis looked calmly and
proudly at all men and at their happiness.




Chapter XXVII


Just before the vintage Lukashka came on horseback to see Olenin.
He looked more dashing than ever. 'Well? Are you getting married?'
asked Olenin, greeting him merrily.

Lukashka gave no direct reply.

'There, I've exchanged your horse across the river. This is a
horse! A Kabarda horse from the Lov stud. I know horses.'

They examined the new horse and made him caracole about the yard.
The horse really was an exceptionally fine one, a broad and long
gelding, with glossy coat, thick silky tail, and the soft fine
mane and crest of a thoroughbred. He was so well fed that 'you
might go to sleep on his back' as Lukashka expressed it. His
hoofs, eyes, teeth, were exquisitely shaped and sharply outlined,
as one only finds them in very pure-bred horses. Olenin could not
help admiring the horse, he had not yet met with such a beauty in
the Caucasus.

'And how it goes!' said Lukashka, patting its neck. 'What a step!
And so clever--he simply runs after his master.'

'Did you have to add much to make the exchange?' asked Olenin.

'I did not count it,' answered Lukashka with a smile. 'I got him
from a kunak.'

'A wonderfully beautiful horse! What would you take for it?' asked
Olenin.

'I have been offered a hundred and fifty rubles for it, but I'll
give it you for nothing,' said Lukashka, merrily. 'Only say the
word and it's yours. I'll unsaddle it and you may take it. Only
give me some sort of a horse for my duties.'

'No, on no account.'

'Well then, here is a dagger I've brought you,' said Lukashka,
unfastening his girdle and taking out one of the two daggers which
hung from it. 'I got it from across the river.'

'Oh, thank you!'

'And mother has promised to bring you some grapes herself.'

'That's quite unnecessary. We'll balance up some day. You see I
don't offer you any money for the dagger!'

'How could you? We are kunaks. It's just the same as when Girey
Khan across the river took me into his home and said,

"Choose what you like!" So I took this sword. It's our custom.'

They went into the hut and had a drink.

'Are you staying here awhile?' asked Olenin.

'No, I have come to say good-bye. They are sending me from the
cordon to a company beyond the Terek. I am going to-night with my
comrade Nazarka.'

'And when is the wedding to be?'

'I shall be coming back for the betrothal, and then I shall return
to the company again,' Lukashka replied reluctantly.

'What, and see nothing of your betrothed?'

'Just so--what is the good of looking at her? When you go on
campaign ask in our company for Lukashka the Broad. But what a lot
of boars there are in our parts! I've killed two. I'll take you.'
'Well, good-bye! Christ save you.'

Lukashka mounted his horse, and without calling on Maryanka, rode
caracoling down the street, where Nazarka was already awaiting
him.

'I say, shan't we call round?' asked Nazarka, winking in the
direction of Yamka's house.

'That's a good one!' said Lukashka. 'Here, take my horse to her
and if I don't come soon give him some hay. I shall reach the
company by the morning anyway.'

'Hasn't the cadet given you anything more?'

'I am thankful to have paid him back with a dagger--he was going
to ask for the horse,' said Lukashka, dismounting and handing over
the horse to Nazarka.

He darted into the yard past Olenin's very window, and came up to
the window of the cornet's hut. It was already quite dark.
Maryanka, wearing only her smock, was combing her hair preparing
for bed.

'It's I--' whispered the Cossack.

Maryanka's look was severely indifferent, but her face suddenly
brightened up when she heard her name. She opened the window and
leant out, frightened and joyous.

'What--what do you want?' she said.

'Open!' uttered Lukashka. 'Let me in for a minute. I am so sick of
waiting! It's awful!'

He took hold of her head through the window and kissed her.

'Really, do open!'

'Why do you talk nonsense? I've told you I won't! Have you come
for long?'

He did not answer but went on kissing her, and she did not ask
again.

'There, through the window one can't even hug you properly,' said
Lukashka.

'Maryanka dear!' came the voice of her mother, 'who is that with
you?'

Lukashka took off his cap, which might have been seen, and
crouched down by the window.

'Go, be quick!' whispered Maryanka.

'Lukashka called round,' she answered; 'he was asking for Daddy.'

'Well then send him here!'

'He's gone; said he was in a hurry.'

In fact, Lukashka, stooping, as with big strides he passed under
the windows, ran out through the yard and towards Yamka's house
unseen by anyone but Olenin. After drinking two bowls of chikhir
he and Nazarka rode away to the outpost. The night was warm, dark,
and calm. They rode in silence, only the footfall of their horses
was heard. Lukashka started a song about the Cossack, Mingal, but
stopped before he had finished the first verse, and after a pause,
turning to Nazarka, said:

'I say, she wouldn't let me in!'

'Oh?' rejoined Nazarka. 'I knew she wouldn't. D'you know what
Yamka told me? The cadet has begun going to their house. Daddy
Eroshka brags that he got a gun from the cadet for getting him
Maryanka.'

'He lies, the old devil!' said Lukashka, angrily. 'She's not such
a girl. If he does not look out I'll wallop that old devil's
sides,' and he began his favourite song:

'From the village of Izmaylov,
 From the master's favourite garden,
 Once escaped a keen-eyed falcon.
Soon after him a huntsman came a-riding,
 And he beckoned to the falcon that had strayed,
 But the bright-eyed bird thus answered:
"In gold cage you could not keep me,
On your hand you could not hold me,
 So now I fly to blue seas far away.
There a white swan I will kill,
Of sweet swan-flesh have my fill."'




Chapter XXVIII


The bethrothal was taking place in the cornet's hut. Lukashka had
returned to the village, but had not been to see Olenin, and
Olenin had not gone to the betrothal though he had been invited.
He was sad as he had never been since he settled in this Cossack
village. He had seen Lukashka earlier in the evening and was
worried by the question why Lukashka was so cold towards him.
Olenin shut himself up in his hut and began writing in his diary
as follows:

'Many things have I pondered over lately and much have I changed,'
wrote he, 'and I have come back to the copybook maxim: The one way
to be happy is to love, to love self-denyingly, to love everybody
and everything; to spread a web of love on all sides and to take
all who come into it. In this way I caught Vanyusha, Daddy
Eroshka, Lukashka, and Maryanka.'

As Olenin was finishing this sentence Daddy Eroshka entered the
room.

Eroshka was in the happiest frame of mind. A few evenings before
this, Olenin had gone to see him and had found him with a proud
and happy face deftly skinning the carcass of a boar with a small
knife in the yard. The dogs (Lyam his pet among them) were lying
close by watching what he was doing and gently wagging their
tails. The little boys were respectfully looking at him through
the fence and not even teasing him as was their wont. His women
neighbours, who were as a rule not too gracious towards him,
greeted him and brought him, one a jug of chikhir, another some
clotted cream, and a third a little flour. The next day Eroshka
sat in his store-room all covered with blood, and distributed
pounds of boar-flesh, taking in payment money from some and wine
from others. His face clearly expressed, 'God has sent me luck. I
have killed a boar, so now I am wanted.' Consequently, he
naturally began to drink, and had gone on for four days never
leaving the village. Besides which he had had something to drink
at the betrothal.

He came to Olenin quite drunk: his face red, his beard tangled,
but wearing a new beshmet trimmed with gold braid; and he brought
with him a balalayka which he had obtained beyond the river. He
had long promised Olenin this treat, and felt in the mood for it,
so that he was sorry to find Olenin writing.

'Write on, write on, my lad,' he whispered, as if he thought that
a spirit sat between him and the paper and must not be frightened
away, and he softly and silently sat down on the floor. When Daddy
Eroshka was drunk his favourite position was on the floor. Olenin
looked round, ordered some wine to be brought, and continued to
write. Eroshka found it dull to drink by himself and he wished to
talk.

'I've been to the betrothal at the cornet's. But there! They're
shwine!--Don't want them!--Have come to you.'

'And where did you get your balalayka asked Olenin, still writing.

'I've been beyond the river and got it there, brother mine,' he
answered, also very quietly. 'I'm a master at it. Tartar or
Cossack, squire or soldiers' songs, any kind you please.'

Olenin looked at him again, smiled, and went on writing.

That smile emboldened the old man.

'Come, leave off, my lad, leave off!' he said with sudden
firmness.

'Well, perhaps I will.'

'Come, people have injured you but leave them alone, spit at them!
Come, what's the use of writing and writing, what's the good?'

And he tried to mimic Olenin by tapping the floor with his thick
fingers, and then twisted his big face to express contempt.

'What's the good of writing quibbles. Better have a spree and show
you're a man!'

No other conception of writing found place in his head except that
of legal chicanery.

Olenin burst out laughing and so did Eroshka. Then, jumping up
from the floor, the latter began to show off his skill on the
balalayka and to sing Tartar songs.

'Why write, my good fellow! You'd better listen to what I'll sing
to you. When you're dead you won't hear any more songs. Make merry
now!'

First he sang a song of his own composing accompanied by a dance:

'Ah, dee, dee, dee, dee, dee, dim, Say where did they last see
him? In a booth, at the fair, He was selling pins, there.'

Then he sang a song he had learnt from his former sergeant-major:

'Deep I fell in love on Monday, Tuesday nothing did but sigh,
Wednesday I popped the question, Thursday waited her reply.
Friday, late, it came at last, Then all hope for me was past!
Saturday my life to take I determined like a man, But for my
salvation's sake Sunday morning changed my plan!'

Then he sang again:

'Oh dee, dee, dee, dee, dee, dim, Say where did they last see
him?'

And after that, winking, twitching his shoulders, and footing it
to the tune, he sang:

'I will kiss you and embrace, Ribbons red twine round you; And
I'll call you little Grace. Oh, you little Grace now do Tell me,
do you love me true?'

And he became so excited that with a sudden dashing movement he
started dancing around the room accompanying himself the while.

Songs like 'Dee, dee, dee'--'gentlemen's songs'--he sang for
Olenin's benefit, but after drinking three more tumblers of
chikhir he remembered old times and began singing real Cossack and
Tartar songs. In the midst of one of his favourite songs his voice
suddenly trembled and he ceased singing, and only continued
strumming on the balalayka.

'Oh, my dear friend!' he said.

The peculiar sound of his voice made Olenin look round.

The old man was weeping. Tears stood in his eyes and one tear was
running down his cheek.

'You are gone, my young days, and will never come back!' he said,
blubbering and halting. 'Drink, why don't you drink!' he suddenly
shouted with a deafening roar, without wiping away his tears.

There was one Tartar song that specially moved him. It had few
words, but its charm lay in the sad refrain. 'Ay day, dalalay!'
Eroshka translated the words of the song: 'A youth drove his sheep
from the aoul to the mountains: the Russians came and burnt the
aoul, they killed all the men and took all the women into bondage.
The youth returned from the mountains. Where the aoul had stood
was an empty space; his mother not there, nor his brothers, nor
his house; one tree alone was left standing. The youth sat beneath
the tree and wept. "Alone like thee, alone am I left,'" and
Eroshka began singing: 'Ay day, dalalay!' and the old man repeated
several times this wailing, heart-rending refrain.

When he had finished the refrain Eroshka suddenly seized a gun
that hung on the wall, rushed hurriedly out into the yard and
fired off both barrels into the air. Then again he began, more
dolefully, his 'Ay day, dalalay--ah, ah,' and ceased.

Olenin followed him into the porch and looked up into the starry
sky in the direction where the shots had flashed. In the cornet's
house there were lights and the sound of voices. In the yard girls
were crowding round the porch and the windows, and running
backwards and forwards between the hut and the outhouse. Some
Cossacks rushed out of the hut and could not refrain from
shouting, re-echoing the refrain of Daddy Eroshka's song and his
shots.

'Why are you not at the betrothal?' asked Olenin.

'Never mind them! Never mind them!' muttered the old man, who had
evidently been offended by something there. 'Don't like them, I
don't. Oh, those people! Come back into the hut! Let them make
merry by themselves and we'll make merry by ourselves.'

Olenin went in.

'And Lukashka, is he happy? Won't he come to see me?' he asked.

'What, Lukashka? They've lied to him and said I am getting his
girl for you,' whispered the old man. 'But what's the girl? She
will be ours if we want her. Give enough money--and she's ours.
I'll fix it up for you. Really!'

'No, Daddy, money can do nothing if she does not love me. You'd
better not talk like that!'

'We are not loved, you and I. We are forlorn,' said Daddy Eroshka
suddenly, and again he began to cry.

Listening to the old man's talk Olenin had drunk more than usual.
'So now my Lukashka is happy,' thought he; yet he felt sad. The
old man had drunk so much that evening that he fell down on the
floor and Vanyusha had to call soldiers in to help, and spat as
they dragged the old man out. He was so angry with the old man for
his bad behaviour that he did not even say a single French word.




Chapter XXIX


It was August. For days the sky had been cloudless, the sun
scorched unbearably and from early morning the warm wind raised a
whirl of hot sand from the sand-drifts and from the road, and bore
it in the air through the reeds, the trees, and the village. The
grass and the leaves on the trees were covered with dust, the
roads and dried-up salt marshes were baked so hard that they rang
when trodden on. The water had long since subsided in the Terek
and rapidly vanished and dried up in the ditches. The slimy banks
of the pond near the village were trodden bare by the cattle and
all day long you could hear the splashing of water and the
shouting of girls and boys bathing. The sand-drifts and the reeds
were already drying up in the steppes, and the cattle, lowing, ran
into the fields in the day-time. The boars migrated into the
distant reed-beds and to the hills beyond the Terek. Mosquitoes
and gnats swarmed in thick clouds over the low lands and villages.
The snow-peaks were hidden in grey mist. The air was rarefied and
smoky. It was said that abreks had crossed the now shallow river
and were prowling on this side of it. Every night the sun set in a
glowing red blaze. It was the busiest time of the year. The
villagers all swarmed in the melon-fields and the vineyards. The
vineyards thickly overgrown with twining verdure lay in cool, deep
shade. Everywhere between the broad translucent leaves, ripe,
heavy, black clusters peeped out. Along the dusty road from the
vineyards the creaking carts moved slowly, heaped up with black
grapes. Clusters of them, crushed by the wheels, lay in the dirt.
Boys and girls in smocks stained with grape-juice, with grapes in
their hands and mouths, ran after their mothers. On the road you
continually came across tattered labourers with baskets of grapes
on their powerful shoulders; Cossack maidens, veiled with
kerchiefs to their eyes, drove bullocks harnessed to carts laden
high with grapes. Soldiers who happened to meet these carts asked
for grapes, and the maidens, clambering up without stopping their
carts, would take an armful of grapes and drop them into the
skirts of the soldiers' coats. In some homesteads they had already
begun pressing the grapes; and the smell of the emptied skins
filled the air. One saw the blood-red troughs in the pent-houses
in the yards and Nogay labourers with their trousers rolled up and
their legs stained with the juice. Grunting pigs gorged themselves
with the empty skins and rolled about in them. The flat roofs of
the outhouses were all spread over with the dark amber clusters
drying in the sun. Daws and magpies crowded round the roofs,
picking the seeds and fluttering from one place to another.

The fruits of the year's labour were being merrily gathered in,
and this year the fruit was unusually fine and plentiful.

In the shady green vineyards amid a sea of vines, laughter, songs,
merriment, and the voices of women were to be heard on all sides,
and glimpses of their bright-coloured garments could be seen.

Just at noon Maryanka was sitting in their vineyard in the shade
of a peach-tree, getting out the family dinner from under an
unharnessed cart. Opposite her, on a spread-out horse-cloth, sat
the cornet (who had returned from the school) washing his hands by
pouring water on them from a little jug. Her little brother, who
had just come straight out of the pond, stood wiping his face with
his wide sleeves, and gazed anxiously at his sister and his mother
and breathed deeply, awaiting his dinner. The old mother, with her
sleeves rolled up over her strong sunburnt arms, was arranging
grapes, dried fish, and clotted cream on a little low, circular
Tartar table. The cornet wiped his hands, took off his cap,
crossed himself, and moved nearer to the table. The boy seized the
jug and eagerly began to drink. The mother and daughter crossed
their legs under them and sat down by the table. Even in the shade
it was intolerably hot. The air above the vineyard smelt
unpleasant: the strong warm wind passing amid the branches brought
no coolness, but only monotonously bent the tops of the pear,
peach, and mulberry trees with which the vineyard was sprinkled.
The comet, she felt unbearably hot. Her face was burning, and she
did not know where to put her feet, her eyes were moist with
sleepiness and weariness, her lips parted involuntarily, and her
chest heaved heavily and deeply.

The busy time of year had begun a fortnight ago and the continuous
heavy labour had filled the girl's life. At dawn she jumped up,
washed her face with cold water, wrapped herself in a shawl, and
ran out barefoot to see to the cattle. Then she hurriedly put on
her shoes and her beshmet and, taking a small bundle of bread, she
harnessed the bullocks and drove away to the vineyards for the
whole day. There she cut the grapes and carried the baskets with
only an hour's interval for rest, and in the evening she returned
to the village, bright and not tired, dragging the bullocks by a
rope or driving them with a long stick. After attending to the
cattle, she took some sunflower seeds in the wide sleeve of her
smock and went to the corner of the street to crack them and have
some fun with the other girls. But as soon as it was dusk she
returned home, and after having supper with her parents and her
brother in the dark outhouse, she went into the hut, healthy and
free from care, and climbed onto the oven, where half drowsing she
listened to their lodger's conversation. As soon as he went away
she would throw herself down on her bed and sleep soundly and
quietly till morning. And so it went on day after day. She had not
seen Lukashka since the day of their betrothal, but calmly awaited
the wedding. She had got used to their lodger and felt his intent
looks with pleasure.




Chapter XXX


Although there was no escape from the heat and the mosquitoes
swarmed in the cool shadow of the wagons, and her little brother
tossing about beside her kept pushing her, Maryanka having drawn
her kerchief over her head was just falling asleep, when suddenly
their neighbour Ustenka came running towards her and, diving under
the wagon, lay down beside her.

'Sleep, girls, sleep!' said Ustenka, making herself comfortable
under the wagon. 'Wait a bit,' she exclaimed, 'this won't do!'

She jumped up, plucked some green branches, and stuck them through
the wheels on both sides of the wagon and hung her beshmet over
them.

'Let me in,' she shouted to the little boy as she again crept
under the wagon. 'Is this the place for a Cossack--with the girls?
Go away!'

When alone under the wagon with her friend, Ustenka suddenly put
both her arms round her, and clinging close to her began kissing
her cheeks and neck.

'Darling, sweetheart,' she kept repeating, between bursts of
shrill, clear laughter.

'Why, you've learnt it from Grandad,' said Maryanka, struggling.
'Stop it!'

And they both broke into such peals of laughter that Maryanka's
mother shouted to them to be quiet.

'Are you jealous?' asked Ustenka in a whisper.

'What humbug! Let me sleep. What have you come for?'

But Ustenka kept on, 'I say! But I wanted to tell you such a
thing.'

Maryanka raised herself on her elbow and arranged the kerchief
which had slipped off.

'Well, what is it?'

'I know something about your lodger!'

'There's nothing to know,' said Maryanka.

'Oh, you rogue of a girl!' said Ustenka, nudging her with her
elbow and laughing. 'Won't tell anything. Does he come to you?'

'He does. What of that?' said Maryanka with a sudden blush.

'Now I'm a simple lass. I tell everybody. Why should I pretend?'
said Ustenka, and her bright rosy face suddenly became pensive.
'Whom do I hurt? I love him, that's all about it.'

'Grandad, do you mean?'

'Well, yes!'

'And the sin?'

'Ah, Maryanka! When is one to have a good time if not while one's
still free? When I marry a Cossack I shall bear children and shall
have cares. There now, when you get married to Lukashka not even a
thought of joy will enter your head: children will come, and
work!'

'Well? Some who are married live happily. It makes no difference!'
Maryanka replied quietly.

'Do tell me just this once what has passed between you and
Lukishka?'

'What has passed? A match was proposed. Father put it off for a
year, but now it's been settled and they'll marry us in autumn.'

'But what did he say to you?' Maryanka smiled.

'What should he say? He said he loved me. He kept asking me to
come to the vineyards with him.'

'Just see what pitch! But you didn't go, did you? And what a dare-
devil he has become: the first among the braves. He makes merry
out there in the army too! The other day our Kirka came home; he
says: "What a horse Lukashka's got in exchange!" But all the same
I expect he frets after you. And what else did he say?'

'Must you know everything?' said Maryanka laughing. 'One night he
came to my window tipsy, and asked me to let him in.' 'And you
didn't let him?'

'Let him, indeed! Once I have said a thing I keep to it firm as a
rock,' answered Maryanka seriously.

'A fine fellow! If he wanted her, no girl would refuse him.'

'Well, let him go to the others,' replied Maryanka proudly.

'You don't pity him?'

'I do pity him, but I'll have no nonsense. It is wrong.' Ustenka
suddenly dropped her head on her friend's breast, seized hold of
her, and shook with smothered laughter. 'You silly fool!' she
exclaimed, quite out of breath. 'You don't want to be happy,' and
she began tickling Maryanka. 'Oh, leave off!' said Maryanka,
screaming and laughing. 'You've crushed Lazutka.'

'Hark at those young devils! Quite frisky! Not tired yet!' came
the old woman's sleepy voice from the wagon.

'Don't want happiness,' repeated Ustenka in a whisper,
insistently. 'But you are lucky, that you are! How they love you!
You are so crusty, and yet they love you. Ah, if I were in your
place I'd soon turn the lodger's head! I noticed him when you were
at our house. He was ready to eat you with his eyes. What things
Grandad has given me! And yours they say is the richest of the
Russians. His orderly says they have serfs of their own.'

Maryanka raised herself, and after thinking a moment, smiled.

'Do you know what he once told me: the lodger I mean?' she said,
biting a bit of grass. 'He said, "I'd like to be Lukashka the
Cossack, or your brother Lazutka--." What do you think he meant?'

'Oh, just chattering what came into his head,' answered Ustenka.
'What does mine not say! Just as if he was possessed!'

Maryanka dropped her hand on her folded beshmet, threw her arm
over Ustenka's shoulder, and shut her eyes.

'He wanted to come and work in the vineyard to-day: father invited
him,' she said, and after a short silence she fell asleep.




Chapter XXXI


The sun had come out from behind the pear-tree that had shaded the
wagon, and even through the branches that Ustenka had fixed up it
scorched the faces of the sleeping girls. Maryanka woke up and
began arranging the kerchief on her head. Looking about her,
beyond the pear-tree she noticed their lodger, who with his gun on
his shoulder stood talking to her father. She nudged Ustenka and
smilingly pointed him out to her.

'I went yesterday and didn't find a single one,' Olenin was saying
as he looked about uneasily, not seeing Maryanka through the
branches.

'Ah, you should go out there in that direction, go right as by
compasses, there in a disused vineyard denominated as the Waste,
hares are always to be found,' said the cornet, having at once
changed his manner of speech.

'A fine thing to go looking for hares in these busy times! You had
better come and help us, and do some work with the girls,' the old
woman said merrily. 'Now then, girls, up with you!' she cried.

Maryanka and Ustenka under the cart were whispering and could
hardly restrain their laughter.

Since it had become known that Olenin had given a horse worth
fifty rubles to Lukashka, his hosts had become more amiable and
the cornet in particular saw with pleasure his daughter's growing
intimacy with Olenin. 'But I don't know how to do the work,'
replied Olenin, trying not to look through the green branches
under the wagon where he had now noticed Maryanka's blue smock and
red kerchief.

'Come, I'll give you some peaches,' said the old woman.

'It's only according to the ancient Cossack hospitality. It's her
old woman's silliness,' said the cornet, explaining and apparently
correcting his wife's words. 'In Russia, I expect, it's not so
much peaches as pineapple jam and preserves you have been
accustomed to eat at your pleasure.'

'So you say hares are to be found in the disused vineyard?' asked
Olenin. 'I will go there,' and throwing a hasty glance through the
green branches he raised his cap and disappeared between the
regular rows of green vines.

The sun had already sunk behind the fence of the vineyards, and
its broken rays glittered through the translucent leaves when
Olenin returned to his host's vineyard. The wind was falling and a
cool freshness was beginning to spread around. By some instinct
Olenin recognized from afar Maryanka's blue smock among the rows
of vine, and, picking grapes on his way, he approached her. His
highly excited dog also now and then seized a low-hanging cluster
of grapes in his slobbering mouth. Maryanka, her face flushed, her
sleeves rolled up, and her kerchief down below her chin, was
rapidly cutting the heavy clusters and laying them in a basket.
Without letting go of the vine she had hold of, she stopped to
smile pleasantly at him and resumed her work. Olenin drew near and
threw his gun behind his back to have his hands free. 'Where are
your people? May God aid you! Are you alone?' he meant to say but
did not say, and only raised his cap in silence.

He was ill at ease alone with Maryanka, but as if purposely to
torment himself he went up to her.

'You'll be shooting the women with your gun like that,' said
Maryanka.

'No, I shan't shoot them.'

They were both silent.

Then after a pause she said: 'You should help me.'

He took out his knife and began silently to cut off the clusters.
He reached from under the leaves low down a thick bunch weighing
about three pounds, the grapes of which grew so close that they
flattened each other for want of space. He showed it to Maryanka.

'Must they all be cut? Isn't this one too green?'

'Give it here.'

Their hands touched. Olenin took her hand, and she looked at him
smiling.

'Are you going to be married soon?' he asked.

She did not answer, but turned away with a stern look.

'Do you love Lukashka?'

'What's that to you?'

'I envy him!'

'Very likely!' 'No really. You are so beautiful!'

And he suddenly felt terribly ashamed of having said it, so
commonplace did the words seem to him. He flushed, lost control of
himself, and seized both her hands.

'Whatever I am, I'm not for you. Why do you make fun of me?'
replied Maryanka, but her look showed how certainly she knew he
was not making fun.

'Making fun? If you only knew how I--'

The words sounded still more commonplace, they accorded still less
with what he felt, but yet he continued, 'I don't know what I
would not do for you--'

'Leave me alone, you pitch!'

But her face, her shining eyes, her swelling bosom, her shapely
legs, said something quite different. It seemed to him that she
understood how petty were all things he had said, but that she was
superior to such considerations. It seemed to him she had long
known all he wished and was not able to tell her, but wanted to
hear how he would say it. 'And how can she help knowing,' he
thought, 'since I only want to tell her all that she herself is?
But she does not wish to under-stand, does not wish to reply.'

'Hallo!' suddenly came Ustenka's high voice from behind the vine
at no great distance, followed by her shrill laugh. 'Come and help
me, Dmitri Andreich. I am all alone,' she cried, thrusting her
round, naive little face through the vines.

Olenin did not answer nor move from his place.

Maryanka went on cutting and continually looked up at Olenin. He
was about to say something, but stopped, shrugged his shoulders
and, having jerked up his gun, walked out of the vineyard with
rapid strides.




Chapter XXXII


He stopped once or twice, listening to the ringing laughter of
Maryanka and Ustenka who, having come together, were shouting
something. Olenin spent the whole evening hunting in the forest
and returned home at dusk without having killed anything. When
crossing the road he noticed her open the door of the outhouse,
and her blue smock showed through it. He called to Vanyusha very
loud so as to let her know that he was back, and then sat down in
the porch in his usual place. His hosts now returned from the
vineyard; they came out of the outhouse and into their hut, but
did not ask of the latch and knocked. The floor hardly creaked
under the bare cautious footsteps which approached the door. The
latch clicked, the door creaked, and he noticed a faint smell of
marjoram and pumpkin, and Maryanka's whole figure appeared in the
doorway. He saw her only for an instant in the moonlight. She
slammed the door and, muttering something, ran lightly back again.
Olenin began rapping softly but nothing responded. He ran to the
window and listened. Suddenly he was startled by a shrill, squeaky
man's voice.

'Fine!' exclaimed a rather small young Cossack in a white cap,
coming across the yard close to Olenin. 'I saw ... fine!'

Olenin recognized Nazarka, and was silent, not knowing what to do
or say.

'Fine! I'll go and tell them at the office, and I'll tell her
father! That's a fine cornet's daughter! One's not enough for
her.'

'What do you want of me, what are you after?' uttered Olenin.

'Nothing; only I'll tell them at the office.'

Nazarka spoke very loud, and evidently did so intentionally,
adding: 'Just see what a clever cadet!'

Olenin trembled and grew pale.

'Come here, here!' He seized the Cossack firmly by the arm and
drew him towards his hut.

'Nothing happened, she did not let me in, and I too mean no harm.
She is an honest girl--'

'Eh, discuss--'

'Yes, but all the same I'll give you something now. Wait a bit!'

Nazarka said nothing. Olenin ran into his hut and brought out ten
rubles, which he gave to the Cossack.

'Nothing happened, but still I was to blame, so I give this!--Only
for God's sake don't let anyone know, for nothing happened ... '

'I wish you joy,' said Nazarka laughing, and went away.

Nazarka had come to the village that night at Lukashka's bidding
to find a place to hide a stolen horse, and now, passing by on his
way home, had heard the sound of footsteps. When he returned next
morning to his company he bragged to his chum, and told him how
cleverly he had got ten rubles. Next morning Olenin met his hosts
and they knew nothing about the events of the night. He did not
speak to Maryanka, and she only laughed a little when she looked
at him. Next night he also passed without sleep, vainly wandering
about the yard. The day after he purposely spent shooting, and in
the evening he went to see Beletski to escape from his own
thoughts. He was afraid of himself, and promised himself not to go
to his hosts' hut any more.

That night he was roused by the sergeant-major. His company was
ordered to start at once on a raid. Olenin was glad this had
happened, and thought he would not again return to the village.

The raid lasted four days. The commander, who was a relative of
Olenin's, wished to see him and offered to let him remain with the
staff, but this Olenin declined. He found that he could not live
away from the village, and asked to be allowed to return to it.
For having taken part in the raid he received a soldier's cross,
which he had formerly greatly desired. Now he was quite
indifferent about it, and even more indifferent about his
promotion, the order for which had still not arrived. Accompanied
by Vanyusha he rode back to the cordon without any accident
several hours in advance of the rest of the company. He spent the
whole evening in his porch watching Maryanka, and he again walked
about the yard, without aim or thought, all night.




Chapter XXXIII


It was late when he awoke the next day. His hosts were no longer
in. He did not go shooting, but now took up a book, and now went
out into the porch, and now again re-entered the hut and lay down
on the bed. Vanyusha thought he was ill.

Towards evening Olenin got up, resolutely began writing, and wrote
on till late at night. He wrote a letter, but did not post it
because he felt that no one would have understood what he wanted
to say, and besides it was not necessary that anyone but himself
should understand it. This is what he wrote:

'I receive letters of condolence from Russia. They are afraid that
I shall perish, buried in these wilds. They say about me: "He will
become coarse; he will be behind the times in everything; he will
take to drink, and who knows but that he may marry a Cossack
girl." It was not for nothing, they say, that Ermolov declared:
"Anyone serving in the Caucasus for ten years either becomes a
confirmed drunkard or marries a loose woman." How terrible! Indeed
it won't do for me to ruin myself when I might have the great
happiness of even becoming the Countess B---'s husband, or a Court
chamberlain, or a Marechal de noblesse of my district. Oh, how
repulsive and pitiable you all seem to me! You do not know what
happiness is and what life is! One must taste life once in all its
natural beauty, must see and understand what I see every day
before me--those eternally unapproachable snowy peaks, and a
majestic woman in that primitive beauty in which the first woman
must have come from her creator's hands--and then it becomes clear
who is ruining himself and who is living truly or falsely--you or
I. If you only knew how despicable and pitiable you, in your
delusions, seem to me! When I picture to myself--in place of my
hut, my forests, and my love--those drawing-rooms, those women
with their pomatum-greased hair eked out with false curls, those
unnaturally grimacing lips, those hidden, feeble, distorted limbs,
and that chatter of obligatory drawing-room conversation which has
no right to the name--I feel unendurably revolted. I then see
before me those obtuse faces, those rich eligible girls whose
looks seem to say:

"It's all right, you may come near though I am rich and eligible"-
-and that arranging and rearranging of seats, that shameless
match-making and that eternal tittle-tattle and pretence; those
rules--with whom to shake hands, to whom only to nod, with whom to
converse (and all this done deliberately with a conviction of its
inevitability), that continual ennui in the blood passing on from
generation to generation. Try to understand or believe just this
one thing: you need only see and comprehend what truth and beauty
are, and all that you now say and think and all your wishes for me
and for yourselves will fly to atoms! Happiness is being with
nature, seeing her, and conversing with her. "He may even (God
forbid) marry a common Cossack girl, and be quite lost socially" I
can imagine them saying of me with sincere pity! Yet the one thing
I desire is to be quite "lost" in your sense of the word. I wish
to marry a Cossack girl, and dare not because it would be a height
of happiness of which I am unworthy.

'Three months have passed since I first saw the Cossack girl,
Maryanka. The views and prejudices of the world I had left were
still fresh in me. I did not then believe that I could love that
woman. I delighted in her beauty just as I delighted in the beauty
of the mountains and the sky, nor could I help delighting in her,
for she is as beautiful as they. I found that the sight of her
beauty had become a necessity of my life and I began asking myself
whether I did not love her. But I could find nothing within myself
at all like love as I had imagined it to be. Mine was not the
restlessness of loneliness and desire for marriage, nor was it
platonic, still less a carnal love such as I have experienced. I
needed only to see her, to hear her, to know that she was near--
and if I was not happy, I was at peace.

'After an evening gathering at which I met her and touched her, I
felt that between that woman and myself there existed an
indissoluble though unacknowledged bond against which I could not
struggle, yet I did struggle. I asked myself: "Is it possible to
love a woman who will never understand the profoundest interests
of my life? Is it possible to love a woman simply for her beauty,
to love the statue of a woman?" But I was already in love with
her, though I did not yet trust to my feelings.

'After that evening when I first spoke to her our relations
changed. Before that she had been to me an extraneous but majestic
object of external nature: but since then she has become a human
being. I began to meet her, to talk to her, and sometimes to go to
work for her father and to spend whole evenings with them, and in
this intimate intercourse she remained still in my eyes just as
pure, inaccessible, and majestic. She always responded with equal
calm, pride, and cheerful equanimity. Sometimes she was friendly,
but generally her every look, every word, and every movement
expressed equanimity--not contemptuous, but crushing and
bewitching. Every day with a feigned smile on my lips I tried to
play a part, and with torments of passion and desire in my heart I
spoke banteringly to her. She saw that I was dissembling, but
looked straight at me cheerfully and simply. This position became
unbearable. I wished not to deceive her but to tell her all I
thought and felt. I was extremely agitated. We were in the
vineyard when I began to tell her of my love, in words I am now
ashamed to remember. I am ashamed because I ought not to have
dared to speak so to her because she stood far above such words
and above the feeling they were meant to express. I said no more,
but from that day my position has been intolerable. I did not wish
to demean myself by continuing our former flippant relations, and
at the same time I felt that I had not yet reached the level of
straight and simple relations with her. I asked myself
despairingly, "What am I to do?" In foolish dreams I imagined her
now as my mistress and now as my wife, but rejected both ideas
with disgust. To make her a wanton woman would be dreadful. It
would be murder. To turn her into a fine lady, the wife of Dmitri
Andreich Olenin, like a Cossack woman here who is married to one
of our officers, would be still worse. Now could I turn Cossack
like Lukashka, and steal horses, get drunk on chikhir, sing
rollicking songs, kill people, and when drunk climb in at her
window for the night without a thought of who and what I am, it
would be different: then we might understand one another and I
might be happy.

'I tried to throw myself into that kind of life but was still more
conscious of my own weakness and artificiality. I cannot forget
myself and my complex, distorted past, and my future appears to me
still more hopeless. Every day I have before me the distant snowy
mountains and this majestic, happy woman. But not for me is the
only happiness possible in the world; I cannot have this woman!
What is most terrible and yet sweetest in my condition is that I
feel that I understand her but that she will never understand me;
not because she is inferior: on the contrary she ought not to
understand me. She is happy, she is like nature: consistent, calm,
and self-contained; and I, a weak distorted being, want her to
understand my deformity and my torments! I have not slept at
night, but have aimlessly passed under her windows not rendering
account to myself of what was happening to me. On the 18th our
company started on a raid, and I spent three days away from the
village. I was sad and apathetic, the usual songs, cards,
drinking-bouts, and talk of rewards in the regiment, were more
repulsive to me than usual. Yesterday I returned home and saw her,
my hut. Daddy Eroshka, and the snowy mountains, from my porch, and
was seized by such a strong, new feeling of joy that I understood
it all. I love this woman; I feel real love for the first and only
time in my life. I know what has befallen me. I do not fear to be
degraded by this feeling, I am not ashamed of my love, I am proud
of it. It is not my fault that I love. It has come about against
my will. I tried to escape from my love by self-renunciation, and
tried to devise a joy in the Cossack Lukashka's and Maryanka's
love, but thereby only stirred up my own love and jealousy. This
is not the ideal, the so-called exalted love which I have known
before; not that sort of attachment in which you admire your own
love and feel that the source of your emotion is within yourself
and do everything yourself. I have felt that too. It is still less
a desire for enjoyment: it is something different. Perhaps in her
I love nature: the personification of all that is beautiful in
nature; but yet I am not acting by my own will, but some elemental
force loves through me; the whole of God's world, all nature,
presses this love into my soul and says, "Love her." I love her
not with my mind or my imagination, but with my whole being.
Loving her I feel myself to be an integral part of all God's joyous
world. I wrote before about the new convictions to which my solitary
life had brought me, but no one knows with what labour they shaped
themselves within me and with what joy I realized them and saw a
new way of life opening out before me; nothing was dearer to me than
those convictions... Well! ... love has come and neither they nor any
regrets for them remain! It is even difficult for me to believe that
I could prize such a one-sided, cold, and abstract state of mind.
Beauty came and scattered to the winds all that laborious inward toil,
and no regret remains for what has vanished! Self-renunciation is
all nonsense and absurdity! That is pride, a refuge from well-merited
unhappiness, and salvation from the envy of others' happiness: "Live
for others, and do good!"--Why? when in my soul there is only love for
myself and the desire to love her and to live her life with her?
Not for others, not for Lukashka, I now desire happiness. I do not
now love those others. Formerly I should have told myself that
this is wrong. I should have tormented myself with the questions:
What will become of her, of me, and of Lukashka? Now I don't care.
I do not live my own life, there is something stronger than me
which directs me. I suffer; but formerly I was dead and only now
do I live. Today I will go to their house and tell her
everything.'




Chapter XXXIV


Late that evening, after writing this letter, Olenin went to his
hosts' hut. The old woman was sitting on a bench behind the oven
unwinding cocoons. Maryanka with her head uncovered sat sewing by
the light of a candle. On seeing Olenin she jumped up, took her
kerchief and stepped to the oven. 'Maryanka dear,' said her
mother, 'won't you sit here with me a bit?' 'No, I'm bareheaded,'
she replied, and sprang up on the oven. Olenin could only see a
knee, and one of her shapely legs hanging down from the oven. He
treated the old woman to tea. She treated her guest to clotted cream
which she sent Maryanka to fetch. But having put a plateful on the
table Maryanka again sprang on the oven from whence Olenin felt her
eyes upon him. They talked about household matters. Granny Ulitka
became animated and went into raptures of hospitality. She brought
Olenin preserved grapes and a grape tart and some of her best wine,
and pressed him to eat and drink with the rough yet proud hospitality
of country folk, only found among those who produce their bread by
the labour of their own hands. The old woman, who had at first struck
Olenin so much by her rudeness, now often touched him by her simple
tenderness towards her daughter.

'Yes, we need not offend the Lord by grumbling! We have enough of
everything, thank God. We have pressed sufficient CHIKHIR and have
preserved and shall sell three or four barrels of grapes and have
enough left to drink. Don't be in a hurry to leave us. We will
make merry together at the wedding.'

'And when is the wedding to be?' asked Olenin, feeling his blood
suddenly rush to his face while his heart beat irregularly and
painfully.

He heard a movement on the oven and the sound of seeds being
cracked.

'Well, you know, it ought to be next week. We are quite ready,'
replied the old woman, as simply and quietly as though Olenin did
not exist. 'I have prepared and have procured everything for
Maryanka. We will give her away properly. Only there's one thing
not quite right. Our Lukashka has been running rather wild. He has
been too much on the spree! He's up to tricks! The other day a
Cossack came here from his company and said he had been to Nogay.'

'He must mind he does not get caught,' said Olenin.

'Yes, that's what I tell him. "Mind, Lukashka, don't you get into
mischief. Well, of course, a young fellow naturally wants to cut a
dash. But there's a time for everything. Well, you've captured or
stolen something and killed an abrek! Well, you're a fine fellow!
But now you should live quietly for a bit, or else there'll be
trouble."'

'Yes, I saw him a time or two in the division, he was always
merry-making. He has sold another horse,' said Olenin, and glanced
towards the oven. A pair of large, dark, and hostile eyes
glittered as they gazed severely at him.

He became ashamed of what he had said. 'What of it? He does no one
any harm,' suddenly remarked Maryanka. 'He makes merry with his
own money,' and lowering her legs she jumped down from the oven
and went out banging the door.

Olenin followed her with his eyes as long as she was in the hut,
and then looked at the door and waited, understanding nothing of
what Granny Ulitka was telling him.

A few minutes later some visitors arrived: an old man, Granny
Ulitka's brother, with Daddy Eroshka, and following them came
Maryanka and Ustenka.

'Good evening,' squeaked Ustenka. 'Still on holiday?' she added,
turning to Olenin.

'Yes, still on holiday,' he replied, and felt, he did not know
why, ashamed and ill at ease.

He wished to go away but could not. It also seemed to him
impossible to remain silent. The old man helped him by asking for
a drink, and they had a drink. Olenin drank with Eroshka, with the
other Cossack, and again with Eroshka, and the more he drank the
heavier was his heart. But the two old men grew merry. The girls
climbed onto the oven, where they sat whispering and looking at
the men, who drank till it was late. Olenin did not talk, but
drank more than the others. The Cossacks were shouting. The old
woman would not let them have any more chikhir, and at last turned
them out. The girls laughed at Daddy Eroshka, and it was past ten
when they all went out into the porch. The old men invited
themselves to finish their merry-making at Olenin's. Ustenka ran
off home and Eroshka led the old Cossack to Vanyusha. The old
woman went out to tidy up the shed. Maryanka remained alone in the
hut. Olenin felt fresh and joyous, as if he had only just woke up.
He noticed everything, and having let the old men pass ahead he
turned back to the hut where Maryanka was preparing for bed. He
went up to her and wished to say something, but his voice broke.
She moved away from him, sat down cross-legged on her bed in the
corner, and looked at him silently with wild and frightened eyes.
She was evidently afraid of him. Olenin felt this. He felt sorry
and ashamed of himself, and at the same time proud and pleased
that he aroused even that feeling in her.

'Maryanka!' he said. 'Will you never take pity on me? I can't tell
you how I love you.'

She moved still farther away.

'Just hear how the wine is speaking! ... You'll get nothing from
me!'

'No, it is not the wine. Don't marry Lukashka. I will marry you.'
('What am I saying,' he thought as he uttered these words. 'Shall
I be able to say the same to-morrow?' 'Yes, I shall, I am sure I
shall, and I will repeat them now,' replied an inner voice.)

'Will you marry me?'

She looked at him seriously and her fear seemed to have passed.

'Maryanka, I shall go out of my mind! I am not myself. I will do
whatever you command,' and madly tender words came from his lips
of their own accord.

'Now then, what are you drivelling about?' she interrupted,
suddenly seizing the arm he was stretching towards her. She did
not push his arm away but pressed it firmly with her strong hard
fingers. 'Do gentlemen marry Cossack girls? Go away!'

'But will you? Everything...'

'And what shall we do with Lukashka?' said she, laughing.

He snatched away the arm she was holding and firmly embraced her
young body, but she sprang away like a fawn and ran barefoot into
the porch: Olenin came to his senses and was terrified at himself.
He again felt himself inexpressibly vile compared to her, yet not
repenting for an instant of what he had said he went home, and
without even glancing at the old men who were drinking in his room
he lay down and fell asleep more soundly than he had done for a
long time.




Chapter XXXV


The next day was a holiday. In the evening all the villagers,
their holiday clothes shining in the sunset, were out in the
street. That season more wine than usual had been produced, and
the people were now free from their labours. In a month the
Cossacks were to start on a campaign and in many families
preparations were being made for weddings.

Most of the people were standing in the square in front of the
Cossack Government Office and near the two shops, in one of which
cakes and pumpkin seeds were sold, in the other kerchiefs and
cotton prints. On the earth-embankment of the office-building sat
or stood the old men in sober grey, or black coats without gold
trimmings or any kind of ornament. They conversed among themselves
quietly in measured tones, about the harvest, about the young
folk, about village affairs, and about old times, looking with
dignified equanimity at the younger generation. Passing by them,
the women and girls stopped and bent their heads. The young
Cossacks respectfully slackened their pace and raised their caps,
holding them for a while over their heads. The old men then
stopped speaking. Some of them watched the passers-by severely,
others kindly, and in their turn slowly took off their caps and
put them on again.

The Cossack girls had not yet started dancing their khorovods, but
having gathered in groups, in their bright coloured beshmets with
white kerchiefs on their heads pulled down to their eyes, they sat
either on the ground or on the earth-banks about the huts
sheltered from the oblique rays of the sun, and laughed and
chattered in their ringing voices. Little boys and girls playing
in the square sent their balls high up into the clear sky, and ran
about squealing and shouting. The half-grown girls had started
dancing their khorovods, and were timidly singing in their thin
shrill voices. Clerks, lads not in the service, or home for the
holiday, bright-faced and wearing smart white or new red
Circassian gold-trimmed coats, went about arm in arm in twos or
threes from one group of women or girls to another, and stopped to
joke and chat with the Cossack girls. The Armenian shopkeeper, in
a gold-trimmed coat of fine blue cloth, stood at the open door
through which piles of folded bright-coloured kerchiefs were
visible and, conscious of his own importance and with the pride of
an Oriental tradesman, waited for customers. Two red-bearded,
barefooted Chechens, who had come from beyond the Terek to see the
fete, sat on their heels outside the house of a friend,
negligently smoking their little pipes and occasionally spitting,
watching the villagers and exchanging remarks with one another in
their rapid guttural speech. Occasionally a workaday-looking
soldier in an old overcoat passed across the square among the
bright-clad girls. Here and there the songs of tipsy Cossacks who
were merry-making could already be heard. All the huts were
closed; the porches had been scrubbed clean the day before. Even
the old women were out in the street, which was everywhere
sprinkled with pumpkin and melon seed-shells. The air was warm and
still, the sky deep and clear. Beyond the roofs the dead-white
mountain range, which seemed very near, was turning rosy in the
glow of the evening sun. Now and then from the other side of the
river came the distant roar of a cannon, but above the village,
mingling with one another, floated all sorts of merry holiday
sounds.

Olenin had been pacing the yard all that morning hoping to see
Maryanka. But she, having put on holiday clothes, went to Mass at
the chapel and afterwards sat with the other girls on an earth-
embankment cracking seeds; sometimes again, together with her
companions, she ran home, and each time gave the lodger a bright
and kindly look. Olenin felt afraid to address her playfully or in
the presence of others. He wished to finish telling her what he
had begun to say the night before, and to get her to give him a
definite answer. He waited for another moment like that of
yesterday evening, but the moment did not come, and he felt that
he could not remain any longer in this uncertainty. She went out
into the street again, and after waiting awhile he too went out
and without knowing where he was going he followed her. He passed
by the corner where she was sitting in her shining blue satin
beshmet, and with an aching heart he heard behind him the girls
laughing.

Beletski's hut looked out onto the square. As Olenin was passing
it he heard Beletski's voice calling to him, 'Come in,' and in he
went.

After a short talk they both sat down by the window and were soon
joined by Eroshka, who entered dressed in a new beshmet and sat
down on the floor beside them.

'There, that's the aristocratic party,' said Beletski, pointing
with his cigarette to a brightly coloured group at the corner.
'Mine is there too. Do you see her? in red. That's a new beshmet.
Why don't you start the khorovod?' he shouted, leaning out of the
window. 'Wait a bit, and then when it grows dark let us go too.
Then we will invite them to Ustenka's. We must arrange a ball for
them!'

'And I will come to Ustenka's,' said Olenin in a decided tone.
'Will Maryanka be there?'

'Yes, she'll be there. Do come!' said Beletski, without the least
surprise. 'But isn't it a pretty picture?' he added, pointing to
the motley crowds.

'Yes, very!' Olenin assented, trying to appear indifferent.

'Holidays of this kind,' he added, 'always make me wonder why all
these people should suddenly be contented and jolly. To-day for
instance, just because it happens to be the fifteenth of the
month, everything is festive. Eyes and faces and voices and
movements and garments, and the air and the sun, are all in a
holiday mood. And we no longer have any holidays!'

'Yes,' said Beletski, who did not like such reflections.

'And why are you not drinking, old fellow?' he said, turning to
Eroshka.

Eroshka winked at Olenin, pointing to Beletski. 'Eh, he's a proud
one that kunak of yours,' he said.

Beletski raised his glass. ALLAH BIRDY' he said, emptying it.
(ALLAH BIRDY, 'God has given!'--the usual greeting of Caucasians
when drinking together.)

'Sau bul' ('Your health'), answered Eroshka smiling, and emptied
his glass.

'Speaking of holidays!' he said, turning to Olenin as he rose and
looked out of the window, 'What sort of holiday is that! You
should have seen them make merry in the old days! The women used
to come out in their gold--trimmed sarafans. Two rows of gold
coins hanging round their necks and gold-cloth diadems on their
heads, and when they passed they made a noise, "flu, flu," with
their dresses. Every woman looked like a princess. Sometimes
they'd come out, a whole herd of them, and begin singing songs so
that the air seemed to rumble, and they went on making merry all
night. And the Cossacks would roll out a barrel into the yards and
sit down and drink till break of day, or they would go hand--in--
hand sweeping the village. Whoever they met they seized and took
along with them, and went from house to house. Sometimes they used
to make merry for three days on end. Father used to come home--I
still remember it--quite red and swollen, without a cap, having
lost everything: he'd come and lie down. Mother knew what to do:
she would bring him some fresh caviar and a little chikhir to
sober him up, and would herself run about in the village looking
for his cap. Then he'd sleep for two days! That's the sort of
fellows they were then! But now what are they?'

'Well, and the girls in the sarafans, did they make merry all by
themselves?' asked Beletski.

'Yes, they did! Sometimes Cossacks would come on foot or on horse
and say, "Let's break up the khorovods," and they'd go, but the
girls would take up cudgels. Carnival week, some young fellow
would come galloping up, and they'd cudgel his horse and cudgel
him too. But he'd break through, seize the one he loved, and carry
her off. And his sweetheart would love him to his heart's content!
Yes, the girls in those days, they were regular queens!'




Chapter XXXVI


Just then two men rode out of the side street into the square. One
of them was Nazarka. The other, Lukashka, sat slightly sideways on
his well-fed bay Kabarda horse which stepped lightly over the hard
road jerking its beautiful head with its fine glossy mane. The
well-adjusted gun in its cover, the pistol at his back, and the
cloak rolled up behind his saddle showed that Lukashka had not
come from a peaceful place or from one near by. The smart way in
which he sat a little sideways on his horse, the careless motion
with which he touched the horse under its belly with his whip, and
especially his half-closed black eyes, glistening as he looked
proudly around him, all expressed the conscious strength and self-
confidence of youth. 'Ever seen as fine a lad?' his eyes, looking
from side to side, seemed to say. The elegant horse with its
silver ornaments and trappings, the weapons, and the handsome
Cossack himself attracted the attention of everyone in the square.
Nazarka, lean and short, was much less well dressed. As he rode
past the old men, Lukashka paused and raised his curly white
sheepskin cap above his closely cropped black head.

'Well, have you carried off many Nogay horses?' asked a lean old
man with a frowning, lowering look.

'Have you counted them, Grandad, that you ask?' replied Lukashka,
turning away.

'That's all very well, but you need not take my lad along with
you,' the old man muttered with a still darker frown.

'Just see the old devil, he knows everything,' muttered Lukashka
to himself, and a worried expression came over his face; but then,
noticing a corner where a number of Cossack girls were standing,
he turned his horse towards them.

'Good evening, girls!' he shouted in his powerful, resonant voice,
suddenly checking his horse. 'You've grown old without me, you
witches!' and he laughed.

'Good evening, Lukashka! Good evening, laddie!' the merry voices
answered. 'Have you brought much money? Buy some sweets for the
girls! ... Have you come for long? True enough, it's long since we
saw you....'

'Nazarka and I have just flown across to make a night of it,'
replied Lukashka, raising his whip and riding straight at the
girls.

'Why, Maryanka has quite forgotten you,' said Ustenka, nudging
Maryanka with her elbow and breaking into a shrill laugh.

Maryanka moved away from the horse and throwing back her head
calmly looked at the Cossack with her large sparkling eyes.

'True enough, you have not been home for a long time! Why are you
trampling us under your horse?' she remarked dryly, and turned
away.

Lukashka had appeared particularly merry. His face shone with
audacity and joy. Obviously staggered by Maryanka's cold reply he
suddenly knitted his brow.

'Step up on my stirrup and I'll carry you away to the mountains.
Mammy!' he suddenly exclaimed, and as if to disperse his dark
thoughts he caracoled among the girls. Stooping down towards
Maryanka, he said, 'I'll kiss, oh, how I'll kiss you! ...'

Maryanka's eyes met his and she suddenly blushed and stepped back.

'Oh, bother you! you'll crush my feet,' she said, and bending her
head looked at her well-shaped feet in their tightly fitting light
blue stockings with clocks and her new red slippers trimmed with
narrow silver braid.

Lukashka turned towards Ustenka, and Maryanka sat down next to a
woman with a baby in her arms. The baby stretched his plump little
hands towards the girl and seized a necklace string that hung down
onto her blue beshmet. Maryanka bent towards the child and glanced
at Lukashka from the comer of her eyes. Lukashka just then was
getting out from under his coat, from the pocket of his black
beshmet, a bundle of sweetmeats and seeds.

'There, I give them to all of you,' he said, handing the bundle to
Ustenka and smiling at Maryanka.

A confused expression again appeared on the girl's face. It was as
though a mist gathered over her beautiful eyes. She drew her
kerchief down below her lips, and leaning her head over the fair-
skinned face of the baby that still held her by her coin necklace
she suddenly began to kiss it greedily. The baby pressed his
little hands against the girl's high breasts, and opening his
toothless mouth screamed loudly.

"You're smothering the boy!" said the little one's mother, taking
him away; and she unfastened her beshmet to give him the breast.
"You'd better have a chat with the young fellow."

"I'll only go and put up my horse and then Nazarka and I will come
back; we'll make merry all night," said Lukashka, touching his
horse with his whip and riding away from the girls.

Turning into a side street, he and Nazarka rode up to two huts
that stood side by side.

"Here we are all right, old fellow! Be quick and come soon!"
called Lukashka to his comrade, dismounting in front of one of the
huts; then he carefully led his horse in at the gate of the wattle
fence of his own home.

"How d'you do, Stepka?" he said to his dumb sister, who, smartly
dressed like the others, came in from the street to take his
horse; and he made signs to her to take the horse to the hay, but
not to unsaddle it.

The dumb girl made her usual humming noise, smacked her lips as
she pointed to the horse and kissed it on the nose, as much as to
say that she loved it and that it was a fine horse.

"How d'you do. Mother? How is it that you have not gone out yet?"
shouted Lukashka, holding his gun in place as he mounted the steps
of the porch.

His old mother opened the door.

"Dear me! I never expected, never thought, you'd come," said the
old woman. "Why, Kirka said you wouldn't be here."

"Go and bring some chikhir, Mother. Nazarka is coming here and we
will celebrate the feast day."

"Directly, Lukashka, directly!" answered the old woman. "Our women
are making merry. I expect our dumb one has gone too."

She took her keys and hurriedly went to the outhouse. Nazarka,
after putting up his horse and taking the gun off his shoulder,
returned to Lukashka's house and went in.




Chapter XXXVII


'Your health!' said Lukashka, taking from his mother's hands a cup
filled to the brim with chikhir and carefully raising it to his
bowed head.

'A bad business!' said Nazarka. 'You heard how Daddy Burlak said,
"Have you stolen many horses?" He seems to know!'

'A regular wizard!' Lukashka replied shortly. 'But what of it!' he
added, tossing his head. 'They are across the river by now. Go and
find them!'

'Still it's a bad lookout.'

'What's a bad lookout? Go and take some chikhir to him to-morrow
and nothing will come of it. Now let's make merry. Drink!' shouted
Lukashka, just in the tone in which old Eroshka uttered the word.
'We'll go out into the street and make merry with the girls. You
go and get some honey; or no, I'll send our dumb wench. We'll make
merry till morning.'

Nazarka smiled.

'Are we stopping here long?' he asked.

Till we've had a bit of fun. Run and get some vodka. Here's the
money.'

Nazarka ran off obediently to get the vodka from Yamka's.

Daddy Eroshka and Ergushov, like birds of prey, scenting where the
merry-making was going on, tumbled into the hut one after the
other, both tipsy.

'Bring us another half-pail,' shouted Lukashka to his mother, by
way of reply to their greeting.

'Now then, tell us where did you steal them, you devil?' shouted
Eroshka. 'Fine fellow, I'm fond of you!'

'Fond indeed...' answered Lukashka laughing, 'carrying sweets from
cadets to lasses! Eh, you old...'

'That's not true, not true! ... Oh, Mark,' and the old man burst
out laughing. 'And how that devil begged me. "Go," he said, "and
arrange it." He offered me a gun! But no. I'd have managed it, but
I feel for you. Now tell us where have you been?' And the old man
began speaking in Tartar.

Lukashka answered him promptly.

Ergushov, who did not know much Tartar, only occasionally put in a
word in Russian: 'What I say is he's driven away the horses. I
know it for a fact,' he chimed in.

'Girey and I went together.' (His speaking of Girey Khan as
'Girey' was, to the Cossack mind, evidence of his boldness.) 'Just
beyond the river he kept bragging that he knew the whole of the
steppe and would lead the way straight, but we rode on and the
night was dark, and my Girey lost his way and began wandering in a
circle without getting anywhere: couldn't find the village, and
there we were. We must have gone too much to the right. I believe
we wandered about well--nigh till midnight. Then, thank goodness,
we heard dogs howling.'

'Fools!' said Daddy Eroshka. 'There now, we too used to lose our
way in the steppe. (Who the devil can follow it?) But I used to
ride up a hillock and start howling like the wolves, like this!'
He placed his hands before his mouth, and howled like a pack of
wolves, all on one note. 'The dogs would answer at once ... Well,
go on--so you found them?'

'We soon led them away! Nazarka was nearly caught by some Nogay
women, he was!'

'Caught indeed,' Nazarka, who had just come back, said in an
injured tone.

'We rode off again, and again Girey lost his way and almost landed
us among the sand-drifts. We thought we were just getting to the
Terek but we were riding away from it all the time!'

'You should have steered by the stars,' said Daddy Eroshka.

'That's what I say,' interjected Ergushov,

'Yes, steer when all is black; I tried and tried all about... and
at last I put the bridle on one of the mares and let my own horse
go free--thinking he'll lead us out, and what do you think! he
just gave a snort or two with his nose to the ground, galloped
ahead, and led us straight to our village. Thank goodness! It was
getting quite light. We barely had time to hide them in the
forest. Nagim came across the river and took them away.'

Ergushov shook his head. 'It's just what I said. Smart. Did you
get much for them?'

'It's all here,' said Lukashka, slapping his pocket.

Just then his mother came into the room, and Lukashka did not
finish what he was saying.

'Drink!' he shouted.

'We too, Girich and I, rode out late one night...' began Eroshka.

'Oh bother, we'll never hear the end of you!' said Lukashka. 'I am
going.' And having emptied his cup and tightened the strap of his
belt he went out.




Chapter XXXVIII


It was already dark when Lukashka went out into the street. The
autumn night was fresh and calm. The full golden moon floated up
behind the tall dark poplars that grew on one side of the square.
From the chimneys of the outhouses smoke rose and spread above the
village, mingling with the mist. Here and there lights shone
through the windows, and the air was laden with the smell of
kisyak, grape-pulp, and mist. The sounds of voices, laughter,
songs, and the cracking of seeds mingled just as they had done in
the daytime, but were now more distinct. Clusters of white
kerchiefs and caps gleamed through the darkness near the houses
and by the fences.

In the square, before the shop door which was lit up and open, the
black and white figures of Cossack men and maids showed through
the darkness, and one heard from afar their loud songs and
laughter and talk. The girls, hand in hand, went round and round
in a circle stepping lightly in the dusty square. A skinny girl,
the plainest of them all, set the tune:

  'From beyond the wood, from the forest dark,
   From the garden green and the shady park,
   There came out one day two young lads so gay.
   Young bachelors, hey! brave and smart were they!
   And they walked and walked, then stood still, each man,
   And they talked and soon to dispute began!
   Then a maid came out; as she came along,
   Said, "To one of you I shall soon belong!"
   'Twas the fair-faced lad got the maiden fair,
   Yes, the fair-faced lad with the golden hair!
   Her right hand so white in his own took he,
   And he led her round for his mates to see!
   And said, "Have you ever in all your life,
   Met a lass as fair as my sweet little wife?"'

The old women stood round listening to the songs. The little boys
and girls ran about chasing one another in the dark. The men stood
by, catching at the girls as the latter moved round, and sometimes
breaking the ring and entering it. On the dark side of the doorway
stood Beletski and Olenin, in their Circassian coats and sheepskin
caps, and talked together in a style of speech unlike that of the
Cossacks, in low but distinct tones, conscious that they were
attracting attention. Next to one another in the khorovod circle
moved plump little Ustenka in her red beshmet and the stately
Maryanka in her new smock and beshmet. Olenin and Beletski were
discussing how to snatch Ustenka and Maryanka out of the ring.
Beletski thought that Olenin wished only to amuse himself, but
Olenin was expecting his fate to be decided. He wanted at any cost
to see Maryanka alone that very day and to tell her everything,
and ask her whether she could and would be his wife. Although that
question had long been answered in the negative in his own mind,
he hoped he would be able to tell her all he felt, and that she
would understand him.

'Why did you not tell me sooner?' said Beletski. 'I would have got
Ustenka to arrange it for you. You are such a queer fellow! ...'

'What's to be done! ... Some day, very soon, I'll tell you all
about it. Only now, for Heaven's sake, arrange so that she should
come to Ustenka's.'

'All right, that's easily done! Well, Maryanka, will you belong to
the "fair-faced lad", and not to Lukashka?' said Beletski,
speaking to Maryanka first for propriety's sake, but having
received no reply he went up to Ustenka and begged her to bring
Maryanka home with her. He had hardly time to finish what he was
saying before the leader began another song and the girls started
pulling each other round in the ring by the hand.

They sang:

  "Past the garden, by the garden,
   A young man came strolling down,
   Up the street and through the town.
   And the first time as he passed
   He did wave his strong right hand.
   As the second time he passed
   Waved his hat with silken band.
   But the third time as he went
   He stood still: before her bent.

  "How is it that thou, my dear,
   My reproaches dost not fear?
   In the park don't come to walk
   That we there might have a talk?
   Come now, answer me, my dear,
   Dost thou hold me in contempt?
   Later on, thou knowest, dear,
   Thou'lt get sober and repent.
   Soon to woo thee I will come,
   And when we shall married be
   Thou wilt weep because of me!"

  "Though I knew what to reply,
   Yet I dared not him deny,
   No, I dared not him deny!
   So into the park went I,
   In the park my lad to meet,
   There my dear one I did greet."

  "Maiden dear, I bow to thee!
   Take this handkerchief from me.
   In thy white hand take it, see!
   Say I am beloved by thee.
   I don't know at all, I fear,
   What I am to give thee, dear!
   To my dear I think I will
   Of a shawl a present make--
   And five kisses for it take."'

Lukashka and Nazarka broke into the ring and started walking about
among the girls. Lukashka joined in the singing, taking seconds in
his clear voice as he walked in the middle of the ring swinging
his arms. 'Well, come in, one of you!' he said. The other girls
pushed Maryanka, but she would not enter the ring. The sound of
shrill laughter, slaps, kisses, and whispers mingled with the
singing.

As he went past Olenin, Lukashka gave a friendly nod.

'Dmitri Andreich! Have you too come to have a look?' he said.

'Yes,' answered Olenin dryly.

Beletski stooped and whispered something into Ustenka's ear. She
had not time to reply till she came round again, when she said:

'All right, we'll come.'

'And Maryanka too?'

Olenin stooped towards Maryanka. 'You'll come? Please do, if only
for a minute. I must speak to you.'

'If the other girls come, I will.'

'Will you answer my question?' said he, bending towards her. 'You
are in good spirits to-day.'

She had already moved past him. He went after her.

'Will you answer?'

'Answer what?'

'The question I asked you the other day,' said Olenin, stooping to
her ear. 'Will you marry me?'

Maryanka thought for a moment.

'I'll tell you,' said she, 'I'll tell you to-night.'

And through the darkness her eyes gleamed brightly and kindly at
the young man.

He still followed her. He enjoyed stooping closer to her. But
Lukashka, without ceasing to sing, suddenly seized her firmly by
the hand and pulled her from her place in the ring of girls into
the middle. Olenin had only time to say, "Come to Ustenka's," and
stepped back to his companion.

The song came to an end. Lukashka wiped his lips, Maryanka did the
same, and they kissed. "No, no, kisses five!" said Lukashka.
Chatter, laughter, and running about, succeeded to the rhythmic
movements and sound. Lukashka, who seemed to have drunk a great
deal, began to distribute sweetmeats to the girls.

"I offer them to everyone!" he said with proud, comically pathetic
self-admiration. "But anyone who goes after soldiers goes out of
the ring!" he suddenly added, with an angry glance at Olenin.

The girls grabbed his sweetmeats from him, and, laughing,
struggled for them among themselves. Beletski and Olenin stepped
aside.

Lukashka, as if ashamed of his generosity, took off his cap and
wiping his forehead with his sleeve came up to Maryanka and
Ustenka.

"Answer me, my dear, dost thou hold me in contempt?" he said in
the words of the song they had just been singing, and turning to
Maryanka he angrily repeated the words: "Dost thou hold me in
contempt? When we shall married be thou wilt weep because of me!"
he added, embracing Ustenka and Maryanka both together.

Ustenka tore herself away, and swinging her arm gave him such a
blow on the back that she hurt her hand.

"Well, are you going to have another turn?" he asked.

"The other girls may if they like," answered Ustenka, "but I am
going home and Maryanka was coming to our house too."

With his arm still round her, Lukashka led Maryanka away from the
crowd to the darker comer of a house.

"Don't go, Maryanka," he said, "let's have some fun for the last
time. Go home and I will come to you!"

"What am I to do at home? Holidays are meant for merrymaking. I am
going to Ustenka's," replied Maryanka.

'I'll marry you all the same, you know!'

'All right,' said Maryanka, 'we shall see when the time comes.'

'So you are going,' said Lukashka sternly, and, pressing her
close, he kissed her on the cheek.

'There, leave off! Don't bother,' and Maryanka, wrenching herself
from his arms, moved away.

'Ah my girl, it will turn out badly,' said Lukashka reproachfully
and stood still, shaking his head. 'Thou wilt weep because of
me...' and turning away from her he shouted to the other girls:

'Now then! Play away!'

What he had said seemed to have frightened and vexed Maryanka. She
stopped, 'What will turn out badly?'

'Why, that!'

'That what?'

'Why, that you keep company with a soldier-lodger and no longer
care for me!'

'I'll care just as long as I choose. You're not my father, nor my
mother. What do you want? I'll care for whom I like!'

'Well, all right...' said Lukashka, 'but remember!' He moved
towards the shop. 'Girls!' he shouted, 'why have you stopped? Go
on dancing. Nazarka, fetch some more chikhir.'

'Well, will they come?' asked Olenin, addressing Beletski.

'They'll come directly,' replied Beletski. 'Come along, we must
prepare the ball.'




Chapter XXXIX


It was already late in the night when Olenin came out of
Beletski's hut following Maryanka and Ustenka. He saw in the dark
street before him the gleam of the girl's white kerchief. The
golden moon was descending towards the steppe. A silvery mist hung
over the village. All was still; there were no lights anywhere and
one heard only the receding footsteps of the young women. Olenin's
heart beat fast. The fresh moist atmosphere cooled his burning
face. He glanced at the sky and turned to look at the hut he had
just come out of: the candle was already out. Then he again peered
through the darkness at the girls' retreating shadows. The white
kerchief disappeared in the mist. He was afraid to remain alone,
he was so happy. He jumped down from the porch and ran after the
girls.

'Bother you, someone may see...' said Ustenka.

'Never mind!'

Olenin ran up to Maryanka and embraced her.

Maryanka did not resist.

'Haven't you kissed enough yet?' said Ustenka. 'Marry and then
kiss, but now you'd better wait.'

'Good-night, Maryanka. To-morrow I will come to see your father
and tell him. Don't you say anything.'

'Why should I!' answered Maryanka.

Both the girls started running. Olenin went on by himself thinking
over all that had happened. He had spent the whole evening alone
with her in a corner by the oven. Ustenka had not left the hut for
a single moment, but had romped about with the other girls and
with Beletski all the time. Olenin had talked in whispers to
Maryanka.

'Will you marry me?' he had asked.

'You'd deceive me and not have me,' she replied cheerfully and
calmly.

'But do you love me? Tell me for God's sake!'

'Why shouldn't I love you? You don't squint,' answered Maryanka,
laughing and with her hard hands squeezing his....

'What whi-ite, whi-i-ite, soft hands you've got--so like clotted
cream,' she said.

'I am in earnest. Tell me, will you marry me?'

'Why not, if father gives me to you?'

'Well then remember, I shall go mad if you deceive me. To-morrow I
will tell your mother and father. I shall come and propose.'

Maryanka suddenly burst out laughing.

'What's the matter?'

'It seems so funny!'

'It's true! I will buy a vineyard and a house and will enroll
myself as a Cossack.'

'Mind you don't go after other women then. I am severe about
that.'

Olenin joyfully repeated all these words to himself. The memory of
them now gave him pain and now such joy that it took away his
breath. The pain was because she had remained as calm as usual
while talking to him. She did not seem at all agitated by these
new conditions. It was as if she did not trust him and did not
think of the future. It seemed to him that she only loved him for
the present moment, and that in her mind there was no future with
him. He was happy because her words sounded to him true, and she
had consented to be his. 'Yes,' thought he to himself, 'we shall
only understand one another when she is quite mine. For such love
there are no words. It needs life--the whole of life. To-morrow
everything will be cleared up. I cannot live like this any longer;
to-morrow I will tell everything to her father, to Beletski, and
to the whole village.'

Lukashka, after two sleepless nights, had drunk so much at the
fete that for the first time in his life his feet would not carry
him, and he slept in Yamka's house.




Chapter XL


The next day Olenin awoke earlier than usual, and immediately
remembered what lay before him, and he joyfully recalled her
kisses, the pressure of her hard hands, and her words, 'What white
hands you have!' He jumped up and wished to go at once to his
hosts' hut to ask for their consent to his marriage with Maryanka.
The sun had not yet risen, but it seemed that there was an unusual
bustle in the street and side-street: people were moving about on
foot and on horseback, and talking. He threw on his Circassian
coat and hastened out into the porch. His hosts were not yet up.
Five Cossacks were riding past and talking loudly together. In
front rode Lukashka on his broad-backed Kabarda horse.

The Cossacks were all speaking and shouting so that it was
impossible to make out exactly what they were saying.

'Ride to the Upper Post,' shouted one.

'Saddle and catch us up, be quick,' said another.

'It's nearer through the other gate!'

'What are you talking about?' cried Lukashka. 'We must go through
the middle gates, of course.'

'So we must, it's nearer that way,' said one of the Cossacks who
was covered with dust and rode a perspiring horse. Lukashka's face
was red and swollen after the drinking of the previous night and
his cap was pushed to the back of his head. He was calling out
with authority as though he were an officer.

'What is the matter? Where are you going?' asked Olenin, with
difficulty attracting the Cossacks' attention.

'We are off to catch abreks. They're hiding among the sand-drifts.
We are just off, but there are not enough of us yet.'

And the Cossacks continued to shout, more and more of them joining
as they rode down the street. It occurred to Olenin that it would
not look well for him to stay behind; besides he thought he could
soon come back. He dressed, loaded his gun with bullets, jumped
onto his horse which Vanyusha had saddled more or less well, and
overtook the Cossacks at the village gates. The Cossacks had
dismounted, and filling a wooden bowl with chikhir from a little
cask which they had brought with them, they passed the bowl round
to one another and drank to the success of their expedition. Among
them was a smartly dressed young cornet, who happened to be in the
village and who took command of the group of nine Cossacks who had
joined for the expedition. All these Cossacks were privates, and
although the cornet assumed the airs of a commanding officer, they
only obeyed Lukashka. Of Olenin they took no notice at all, and
when they had all mounted and started, and Olenin rode up to the
cornet and began asking him what was taking place, the cornet, who
was usually quite friendly, treated him with marked condescension.
It was with great difficulty that Olenin managed to find out from
him what was happening. Scouts who had been sent out to search for
abreks had come upon several hillsmen some six miles from the
village. These abreks had taken shelter in pits and had fired at
the scouts, declaring they would not surrender. A corporal who had
been scouting with two Cossacks had remained to watch the abreks,
and had sent one Cossack back to get help.

The sun was just rising. Three miles beyond the village the steppe
spread out and nothing was visible except the dry, monotonous,
sandy, dismal plain covered with the footmarks of cattle, and here
and there with tufts of withered grass, with low reeds in the
flats, and rare, little-trodden footpaths, and the camps of the
nomad Nogay tribe just visible far away. The absence of shade and
the austere aspect of the place were striking. The sun always
rises and sets red in the steppe. When it is windy whole hills of
sand are carried by the wind from place to place.

When it is calm, as it was that morning, the silence,
uninterrupted by any movement or sound, is peculiarly striking.
That morning in the steppe it was quiet and dull, though the sun
had already risen. It all seemed specially soft and desolate. The
air was hushed, the footfalls and the snorting of the horses were
the only sounds to be heard, and even they quickly died away.

The men rode almost silently. A Cossack always carries his weapons
so that they neither jingle nor rattle. Jingling weapons are a
terrible disgrace to a Cossack. Two other Cossacks from the
village caught the party up and exchanged a few words. Lukashka's
horse either stumbled or caught its foot in some grass, and became
restive--which is a sign of bad luck among the Cossacks, and at
such a time was of special importance. The others exchanged
glances and turned away, trying not to notice what had happened.
Lukaskha pulled at the reins, frowned sternly, set his teeth, and
flourished his whip above his head. His good Kabarda horse,
prancing from one foot to another not knowing with which to start,
seemed to wish to fly upwards on wings. But Lukashka hit its well-
-fed sides with his whip once, then again, and a third time, and
the horse, showing its teeth and spreading out its tail, snorted
and reared and stepped on its hind legs a few paces away from the
others.

'Ah, a good steed that!' said the cornet.

That he said steed instead of HORSE indicated special praise.

'A lion of a horse,' assented one of the others, an old Cossack.

The Cossacks rode forward silently, now at a footpace, then at a
trot, and these changes were the only incidents that interrupted
for a moment the stillness and solemnity of their movements.

Riding through the steppe for about six miles, they passed nothing
but one Nogay tent, placed on a cart and moving slowly along at a
distance of about a mile from them. A Nogay family was moving from
one part of the steppe to another. Afterwards they met two
tattered Nogay women with high cheekbones, who with baskets on
their backs were gathering dung left by the cattle that wandered
over the steppe. The cornet, who did not know their language well,
tried to question them, but they did not understand him and,
obviously frightened, looked at one another.

Lukashka rode up to them both, stopped his horse, and promptly
uttered the usual greeting. The Nogay women were evidently
relieved, and began speaking to him quite freely as to a brother.

'Ay--ay, kop abrek!' they said plaintively, pointing in the
direction in which the Cossacks were going. Olenin understood that
they were saying, 'Many abreks.'

Never having seen an engagement of that kind, and having formed an
idea of them only from Daddy Eroshka's tales, Olenin wished not to
be left behind by the Cossacks, but wanted to see it all. He
admired the Cossacks, and was on the watch, looking and listening
and making his own observations. Though he had brought his sword
and a loaded gun with him, when he noticed that the Cossacks
avoided him he decided to take no part in the action, as in his
opinion his courage had already been sufficiently proved when he
was with his detachment, and also because he was very happy.

Suddenly a shot was heard in the distance.

The cornet became excited, and began giving orders to the Cossacks
as to how they should divide and from which side they should
approach. But the Cossacks did not appear to pay any attention to
these orders, listening only to what Lukashka said and looking to
him alone. Lukashka's face and figure were expressive of calm
solemnity. He put his horse to a trot with which the others were
unable to keep pace, and screwing up his eyes kept looking ahead.

'There's a man on horseback,' he said, reining in his horse and
keeping in line with the others.

Olenin looked intently, but could not see anything. The Cossacks
soon distinguished two riders and quietly rode straight towards
them.

'Are those the ABREKS?' asked Olenin.

The Cossacks did not answer his question, which appeared quite
meaningless to them. The ABREKS would have been fools to venture
across the river on horseback.

'That's friend Rodka waving to us, I do believe,' said Lukashka,
pointing to the two mounted men who were now clearly visible.
'Look, he's coming to us.'

A few minutes later it became plain that the two horsemen were the
Cossack scouts. The corporal rode up to Lukashka.




Chapter XLI


'Are they far?' was all Lukashka said.

Just then they heard a sharp shot some thirty paces off. The
corporal smiled slightly.

'Our Gurka is having shots at them,' he said, nodding in the
direction of the shot.

Having gone a few paces farther they saw Gurka sitting behind a
sand-hillock and loading his gun. To while away the time he was
exchanging shots with the ABREKS, who were behind another sand-
heap. A bullet came whistling from their side.

The cornet was pale and grew confused. Lukashka dismounted from
his horse, threw the reins to one of the other Cossacks, and went
up to Gurka. Olenin also dismounted and, bending down, followed
Lukashka. They had hardly reached Gurka when two bullets whistled
above them.

Lukashka looked around laughing at Olenin and stooped a little.

'Look out or they will kill you, Dmitri Andreich,' he said. 'You'd
better go away--you have no business here.' But Olenin wanted
absolutely to see the ABREKS.

From behind the mound he saw caps and muskets some two hundred
paces off. Suddenly a little cloud of smoke appeared from thence,
and again a bullet whistled past. The ABREKS were hiding in a
marsh at the foot of the hill. Olenin was much impressed by the
place in which they sat. In reality it was very much like the rest
of the steppe, but because the ABREKS sat there it seemed to
detach itself from all the rest and to have become distinguished.
Indeed it appeared to Olenin that it was the very spot for ABREKS
to occupy. Lukashka went back to his horse and Olenin followed
him.

'We must get a hay-cart,' said Lukashka, 'or they will be killing
some of us. There behind that mound is a Nogay cart with a load of
hay.'

The cornet listened to him and the corporal agreed. The cart of
hay was fetched, and the Cossacks, hiding behind it, pushed it
forward. Olenin rode up a hillock from whence he could see
everything. The hay-cart moved on and the Cossacks crowded
together behind it. The Cossacks advanced, but the Chechens, of
whom there were nine, sat with their knees in a row and did not
fire.

All was quiet. Suddenly from the Chechens arose the sound of a
mournful song, something like Daddy Eroshka's 'Ay day, dalalay.'
The Chechens knew that they could not escape, and to prevent
themselves from being tempted to take to flight they had strapped
themselves together, knee to knee, had got their guns ready, and
were singing their death-song.

The Cossacks with their hay-cart drew closer and closer, and
Olenin expected the firing to begin at any moment, but the silence
was only broken by the abreks' mournful song. Suddenly the song
ceased; there was a sharp report, a bullet struck the front of the
cart, and Chechen curses and yells broke the silence and shot
followed on shot and one bullet after another struck the cart. The
Cossacks did not fire and were now only five paces distant.

Another moment passed and the Cossacks with a whoop rushed out on
both sides from behind the cart--Lukashka in front of them. Olenin
heard only a few shots, then shouting and moans. He thought he saw
smoke and blood, and abandoning his horse and quite beside himself
he ran towards the Cossacks. Horror seemed to blind him. He could
not make out anything, but understood that all was over. Lukashka,
pale as death, was holding a wounded Chechen by the arms and
shouting, 'Don't kill him. I'll take him alive!' The Chechen was
the red-haired man who had fetched his brother's body away after
Lukashka had killed him. Lukashka was twisting his arms. Suddenly
the Chechen wrenched himself free and fired his pistol. Lukashka
fell, and blood began to flow from his stomach. He jumped up, but
fell again, swearing in Russian and in Tartar. More and more blood
appeared on his clothes and under him. Some Cossacks approached
him and began loosening his girdle. One of them, Nazarka, before
beginning to help, fumbled for some time, unable to put his sword
in its sheath: it would not go the right way. The blade of the
sword was blood-stained.

The Chechens with their red hair and clipped moustaches lay dead
and hacked about. Only the one we know of, who had fired at
Lukashka, though wounded in many places was still alive. Like a
wounded hawk all covered with blood (blood was flowing from a
wound under his right eye), pale and gloomy, he looked about him
with wide--open excited eyes and clenched teeth as he crouched,
dagger in hand, still prepared to defend himself. The cornet went
up to him as if intending to pass by, and with a quick movement
shot him in the ear. The Chechen started up, but it was too late,
and he fell.

The Cossacks, quite out of breath, dragged the bodies aside and
took the weapons from them. Each of the red-haired Chechens had
been a man, and each one had his own individual expression.
Lukashka was carried to the cart. He continued to swear in Russian
and in Tartar.

'No fear, I'll strangle him with my hands. ANNA SENI!' he cried,
struggling. But he soon became quiet from weakness.

Olenin rode home. In the evening he was told that Lukashka was at
death's door, but that a Tartar from beyond the river had
undertaken to cure him with herbs.

The bodies were brought to the village office. The women and the
little boys hastened to look at them.

It was growing dark when Olenin returned, and he could not collect
himself after what he had seen. But towards night memories of the
evening before came rushing to his mind. He looked out of the
window, Maryanka was passing to and fro from the house to the
cowshed, putting things straight. Her mother had gone to the
vineyard and her father to the office. Olenin could not wait till
she had quite finished her work, but went out to meet her. She was
in the hut standing with her back towards him. Olenin thought she
felt shy.

'Maryanka,' said he, 'I say, Maryanka! May I come in?'

She suddenly turned. There was a scarcely perceptible trace of
tears in her eyes and her face was beautiful in its sadness. She
looked at him in silent dignity.

Olenin again said:

'Maryanka, I have come--'

'Leave me alone!' she said. Her face did not change but the tears
ran down her cheeks.

'What are you crying for? What is it?'

'What?' she repeated in a rough voice. 'Cossacks have been killed,
that's what for.'

'Lukashka?' said Olenin.

'Go away! What do you want?'

'Maryanka!' said Olenin, approaching her.

'You will never get anything from me!'

'Maryanka, don't speak like that,' Olenin entreated.

'Get away. I'm sick of you!' shouted the girl, stamping her foot,
and moved threateningly towards him. And her face expressed such
abhorrence, such contempt, and such anger that Olenin suddenly
understood that there was no hope for him, and that his first
impression of this woman's inaccessibility had been perfectly
correct.

Olenin said nothing more, but ran out of the hut.




Chapter XLII


For two hours after returning home he lay on his bed motionless.
Then he went to his company commander and obtained leave to visit
the staff. Without taking leave of anyone, and sending Vanyusha to
settle his accounts with his landlord, he prepared to leave for
the fort where his regiment was stationed. Daddy Eroshka was the
only one to see him off. They had a drink, and then a second, and
then yet another. Again as on the night of his departure from
Moscow, a three-horsed conveyance stood waiting at the door. But
Olenin did not confer with himself as he had done then, and did
not say to himself that all he had thought and done here was 'not
it'. He did not promise himself a new life. He loved Maryanka more
than ever, and knew that he could never be loved by her.

'Well, good-bye, my lad!' said Daddy Eroshka. 'When you go on an
expedition, be wise and listen to my words--the words of an old
man. When you are out on a raid or the like (you know I'm an old
wolf and have seen things), and when they begin firing, don't get
into a crowd where there are many men. When you fellows get
frightened you always try to get close together with a lot of
others. You think it is merrier to be with others, but that's
where it is worst of all! They always aim at a crowd. Now I used
to keep farther away from the others and went alone, and I've
never been wounded. Yet what things haven't I seen in my day?'

'But you've got a bullet in your back,' remarked Vanyusha, who was
clearing up the room.

'That was the Cossacks fooling about,' answered Eroshka.

'Cossacks? How was that?' asked Olenin.

'Oh, just so. We were drinking. Vanka Sitkin, one of the Cossacks,
got merry, and puff! he gave me one from his pistol just here.'

'Yes, and did it hurt?' asked Olenin. 'Vanyusha, will you soon be
ready?' he added.

'Ah, where's the hurry! Let me tell you. When he banged into me,
the bullet did not break the bone but remained here. And I say:
"You've killed me, brother. Eh! What have you done to me? I won't
let you off! You'll have to stand me a pailful!"'

'Well, but did it hurt?' Olenin asked again, scarcely listening to
the tale.

'Let me finish. He stood a pailful, and we drank it, but the blood
went on flowing. The whole room was drenched and covered with
blood. Grandad Burlak, he says, "The lad will give up the ghost.
Stand a bottle of the sweet sort, or we shall have you taken up!"
They bought more drink, and boozed and boozed--'

'Yes, but did it hurt you much?' Olenin asked once more.

'Hurt, indeed! Don't interrupt: I don't like it. Let me finish. We
boozed and boozed till morning, and I fell asleep on the top of
the oven, drunk. When I woke in the morning I could not unbend
myself anyhow--'

'Was it very painful?' repeated Olenin, thinking that now he would
at last get an answer to his question.

'Did I tell you it was painful? I did not say it was painful, but
I could not bend and could not walk.'

'And then it healed up?' said Olenin, not even laughing, so heavy
was his heart.

'It healed up, but the bullet is still there. Just feel it!' And
lifting his shirt he showed his powerful back, where just near the
bone a bullet could be felt and rolled about.

'Feel how it rolls,' he said, evidently amusing himself with the
bullet as with a toy. 'There now, it has rolled to the back.'

'And Lukashka, will he recover?' asked Olenin.

'Heaven only knows! There's no doctor. They've gone for one.'

'Where will they get one? From Groznoe?' asked Olenin. 'No, my
lad. Were I the Tsar I'd have hung all your Russian doctors long
ago. Cutting is all they know! There's our Cossack Baklashka, no
longer a real man now that they've cut off his leg! That shows
they're fools. What's Baklashka good for now? No, my lad, in the
mountains there are real doctors. There was my chum, Vorchik, he
was on an expedition and was wounded just here in the chest. Well,
your doctors gave him up, but one of theirs came from the
mountains and cured him! They understand herbs, my lad!'

'Come, stop talking rubbish,' said Olenin. 'I'd better send a
doctor from head-quarters.'

'Rubbish!' the old man said mockingly. 'Fool, fool! Rubbish.
You'll send a doctor!--If yours cured people, Cossacks and
Chechens would go to you for treatment, but as it is your officers
and colonels send to the mountains for doctors. Yours are all
humbugs, all humbugs.'

Olenin did not answer. He agreed only too fully that all was
humbug in the world in which he had lived and to which he was now
returning.

'How is Lukashka? You've been to see him?' he asked.

'He just lies as if he were dead. He does not eat nor drink. Vodka
is the only thing his soul accepts. But as long as he drinks vodka
it's well. I'd be sorry to lose the lad. A fine lad--a brave, like
me. I too lay dying like that once. The old women were already
wailing. My head was burning. They had already laid me out under
the holy icons. So I lay there, and above me on the oven little
drummers, no bigger than this, beat the tattoo. I shout at them
and they drum all the harder.' (The old man laughed.) 'The women
brought our church elder. They were getting ready to bury me. They
said, "He defiled himself with worldly unbelievers; he made merry
with women; he ruined people; he did not fast, and he played the
balalayka. Confess," they said. So I began to confess. "I've
sinned!" I said. Whatever the priest said, I always answered "I've
sinned." He began to ask me about the balalayka. "Where is the
accursed thing," he says. "Show it me and smash it." But I say,
"I've not got it." I'd hidden it myself in a net in the outhouse.
I knew they could not find it. So they left me. Yet after all I
recovered. When I went for my BALALAYKA--What was I saying?' he
continued. 'Listen to me, and keep farther away from the other men
or you'll get killed foolishly. I feel for you, truly: you are a
drinker--I love you! And fellows like you like riding up the
mounds. There was one who lived here who had come from Russia, he
always would ride up the mounds (he called the mounds so funnily,
"hillocks"). Whenever he saw a mound, off he'd gallop. Once he
galloped off that way and rode to the top quite pleased, but a
Chechen fired at him and killed him! Ah, how well they shoot from
their gun-rests, those Chechens! Some of them shoot even better
than I do. I don't like it when a fellow gets killed so foolishly!
Sometimes I used to look at your soldiers and wonder at them.
There's foolishness for you! They go, the poor fellows, all in a
clump, and even sew red collars to their coats! How can they help
being hit! One gets killed, they drag him away and another takes
his place! What foolishness!' the old man repeated, shaking his
head. 'Why not scatter, and go one by one? So you just go like
that and they won't notice you. That's what you must do.'

'Well, thank you! Good-bye, Daddy. God willing we may meet again,'
said Olenin, getting up and moving towards the passage.

The old man, who was sitting on the floor, did not rise.

'Is that the way one says "Good-bye"? Fool, fool!' he began. 'Oh
dear, what has come to people? We've kept company, kept company
for well-nigh a year, and now "Good-bye!" and off he goes! Why, I
love you, and how I pity you! You are so forlorn, always alone,
always alone. You're somehow so unsociable. At times I can't sleep
for thinking about you. I am so sorry for you. As the song has it:

"It is very hard, dear brother, In a foreign land to live."

So it is with you.'

'Well, good-bye,' said Olenin again.

The old man rose and held out his hand. Olenin pressed it and
turned to go.

'Give us your mug, your mug!'

And the old man took Olenin by the head with both hands and kissed
him three times with wet moustaches and lips, and began to cry.

'I love you, good-bye!'

Olenin got into the cart.

'Well, is that how you're going? You might give me something for a
remembrance. Give me a gun! What do you want two for?' said the
old man, sobbing quite sincerely.

Olenin got out a musket and gave it to him.

'What a lot you've given the old fellow,' murmured Vanyusha,
'he'll never have enough! A regular old beggar. They are all such
irregular people,' he remarked, as he wrapped himself in his
overcoat and took his seat on the box.

'Hold your tongue, swine!' exclaimed the old man, laughing. 'What
a stingy fellow!'

Maryanka came out of the cowshed, glanced indifferently at the
cart, bowed and went towards the hut.

'LA FILLE!' said Vanyusha, with a wink, and burst out into a silly
laugh.

'Drive on!' shouted Olenin, angrily.

'Good-bye, my lad! Good-bye. I won't forget you!' shouted Eroshka.

Olenin turned round. Daddy Eroshka was talking to Maryanka,
evidently about his own affairs, and neither the old man nor the
girl looked at Olenin.



The End






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