The Cossacks Read online

  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 re
ed-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 cornet, having crossed himself once more, took a little jug of chikhir that stood behind him covered with a vine-leaf, and having had a drink from the mouth of the jug passed it to the old woman. He had nothing on over his shirt, which was unfastened at the neck and showed his shaggy muscular chest. His fine-featured cunning face looked cheerful; neither in his attitude nor in his words was his usual wiliness to be seen; he was cheerful and natural.

  'Shall we finish the bit beyond the shed to-night?' he asked, wiping his wet beard.

  'We'll manage it,' replied his wife, 'if only the weather does not hinder us. The Demkins have not half finished yet,' she added. 'Only Ustenka is at work there, wearing herself out.'

  'What can you expect of them?' said the old man proudly.

  'Here, have a drink, Maryanka dear!' said the old woman, passing the jug to the girl. 'God willing we'll have enough to pay for the wedding feast,' she added.

  'That's not yet awhile,' said the cornet with a slight frown.

  The girl hung her head.

  'Why shouldn't we mention it?' said the old woman. 'The affair is settled, and the time is drawing near too.'

  'Don't make plans beforehand,' said the cornet. 'Now we have the harvest to get in.'

  'Have you seen Lukashka's new horse?' asked the old woman. 'That which Dmitri Andreich Olenin gave him is gone — he's exchanged it.'

  'No, I have not; but I spoke with the servant to-day,' said the cornet, 'and he said his master has again received a thousand rubles.'

  'Rolling in riches, in short,' said the old woman.

  The whole family felt cheerful and contented.

  The work was progressing successfully. The grapes were more abundant and finer than they had expected.

  After dinner Maryanka threw some grass to the oxen, folded her beshmet for a pillow, and lay down under the wagon on the juicy down-trodden grass. She had on only a red kerchief over her head and a faded blue print smock, yet

  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 yo
ur 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.