The Cossacks Read online

  '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 of her 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 father, '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, h
ow 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.