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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Cossacks, by Leo Tolstoy
+(#15 in our series by Leo Tolstoy)
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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]
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+Edition: 10
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+Language: English
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+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** 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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