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

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 lighthearted.

 

‘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