The Cossacks - graf Tolstoy Leo (suggested reading TXT) 📗

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 merrymaking 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

merrymaking, 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!