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

class="calibre1">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 footpace 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?’