The Cossacks - graf Tolstoy Leo (suggested reading TXT) 📗
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night. And the Cossacks would roll out a barrel into the yards and
sit down and drink till break of day, or they would go hand—in—
hand sweeping the village. Whoever they met they seized and took
along with them, and went from house to house. Sometimes they used
to make merry for three days on end. Father used to come home—I
still remember it—quite red and swollen, without a cap, having
lost everything: he’d come and lie down. Mother knew what to do:
she would bring him some fresh caviar and a little chikhir to
sober him up, and would herself run about in the village looking
for his cap. Then he’d sleep for two days! That’s the sort of
fellows they were then! But now what are they?’
‘Well, and the girls in the sarafans, did they make merry all by
themselves?’ asked Beletski.
‘Yes, they did! Sometimes Cossacks would come on foot or on horse
and say, “Let’s break up the khorovods,” and they’d go, but the
girls would take up cudgels. Carnival week, some young fellow
would come galloping up, and they’d cudgel his horse and cudgel
him too. But he’d break through, seize the one he loved, and carry
her off. And his sweetheart would love him to his heart’s content!
Yes, the girls in those days, they were regular queens!’
Just then two men rode out of the side street into the square. One
of them was Nazarka. The other, Lukashka, sat slightly sideways on
his well-fed bay Kabarda horse which stepped lightly over the hard
road jerking its beautiful head with its fine glossy mane. The
well-adjusted gun in its cover, the pistol at his back, and the
cloak rolled up behind his saddle showed that Lukashka had not
come from a peaceful place or from one near by. The smart way in
which he sat a little sideways on his horse, the careless motion
with which he touched the horse under its belly with his whip, and
especially his half-closed black eyes, glistening as he looked
proudly around him, all expressed the conscious strength and self-confidence of youth. ‘Ever seen as fine a lad?’ his eyes, looking
from side to side, seemed to say. The elegant horse with its
silver ornaments and trappings, the weapons, and the handsome
Cossack himself attracted the attention of everyone in the square.
Nazarka, lean and short, was much less well dressed. As he rode
past the old men, Lukashka paused and raised his curly white
sheepskin cap above his closely cropped black head.
‘Well, have you carried off many Nogay horses?’ asked a lean old
man with a frowning, lowering look.
‘Have you counted them, Grandad, that you ask?’ replied Lukashka,
turning away.
‘That’s all very well, but you need not take my lad along with
you,’ the old man muttered with a still darker frown.
‘Just see the old devil, he knows everything,’ muttered Lukashka
to himself, and a worried expression came over his face; but then,
noticing a corner where a number of Cossack girls were standing,
he turned his horse towards them.
‘Good evening, girls!’ he shouted in his powerful, resonant voice,
suddenly checking his horse. ‘You’ve grown old without me, you
witches!’ and he laughed.
‘Good evening, Lukashka! Good evening, laddie!’ the merry voices
answered. ‘Have you brought much money? Buy some sweets for the
girls! … Have you come for long? True enough, it’s long since we
saw you….’
‘Nazarka and I have just flown across to make a night of it,’
replied Lukashka, raising his whip and riding straight at the
girls.
‘Why, Maryanka has quite forgotten you,’ said Ustenka, nudging
Maryanka with her elbow and breaking into a shrill laugh.
Maryanka moved away from the horse and throwing back her head
calmly looked at the Cossack with her large sparkling eyes.
‘True enough, you have not been home for a long time! Why are you
trampling us under your horse?’ she remarked dryly, and turned
away.
Lukashka had appeared particularly merry. His face shone with
audacity and joy. Obviously staggered by Maryanka’s cold reply he
suddenly knitted his brow.
‘Step up on my stirrup and I’ll carry you away to the mountains.
Mammy!’ he suddenly exclaimed, and as if to disperse his dark
thoughts he caracoled among the girls. Stooping down towards
Maryanka, he said, ‘I’ll kiss, oh, how I’ll kiss you! …’
Maryanka’s eyes met his and she suddenly blushed and stepped back.
‘Oh, bother you! you’ll crush my feet,’ she said, and bending her
head looked at her well-shaped feet in their tightly fitting light
blue stockings with clocks and her new red slippers trimmed with
narrow silver braid.
Lukashka turned towards Ustenka, and Maryanka sat down next to a
woman with a baby in her arms. The baby stretched his plump little
hands towards the girl and seized a necklace string that hung down
onto her blue beshmet. Maryanka bent towards the child and glanced
at Lukashka from the comer of her eyes. Lukashka just then was
getting out from under his coat, from the pocket of his black
beshmet, a bundle of sweetmeats and seeds.
‘There, I give them to all of you,’ he said, handing the bundle to
Ustenka and smiling at Maryanka.
A confused expression again appeared on the girl’s face. It was as
though a mist gathered over her beautiful eyes. She drew her
kerchief down below her lips, and leaning her head over the fair-skinned face of the baby that still held her by her coin necklace
she suddenly began to kiss it greedily. The baby pressed his
little hands against the girl’s high breasts, and opening his
toothless mouth screamed loudly.
“You’re smothering the boy!” said the little one’s mother, taking
him away; and she unfastened her beshmet to give him the breast.
“You’d better have a chat with the young fellow.”
“I’ll only go and put up my horse and then Nazarka and I will come
back; we’ll make merry all night,” said Lukashka, touching his
horse with his whip and riding away from the girls.
Turning into a side street, he and Nazarka rode up to two huts
that stood side by side.
“Here we are all right, old fellow! Be quick and come soon!”
called Lukashka to his comrade, dismounting in front of one of the
huts; then he carefully led his horse in at the gate of the wattle
fence of his own home.
“How d’you do, Stepka?” he said to his dumb sister, who, smartly
dressed like the others, came in from the street to take his
horse; and he made signs to her to take the horse to the hay, but
not to unsaddle it.
The dumb girl made her usual humming noise, smacked her lips as
she pointed to the horse and kissed it on the nose, as much as to
say that she loved it and that it was a fine horse.
“How d’you do. Mother? How is it that you have not gone out yet?”
shouted Lukashka, holding his gun in place as he mounted the steps
of the porch.
His old mother opened the door.
“Dear me! I never expected, never thought, you’d come,” said the
old woman. “Why, Kirka said you wouldn’t be here.”
“Go and bring some chikhir, Mother. Nazarka is coming here and we
will celebrate the feast day.”
“Directly, Lukashka, directly!” answered the old woman. “Our women
are making merry. I expect our dumb one has gone too.”
She took her keys and hurriedly went to the outhouse. Nazarka,
after putting up his horse and taking the gun off his shoulder,
returned to Lukashka’s house and went in.
‘Your health!’ said Lukashka, taking from his mother’s hands a cup
filled to the brim with chikhir and carefully raising it to his
bowed head.
‘A bad business!’ said Nazarka. ‘You heard how Daddy Burlak said,
“Have you stolen many horses?” He seems to know!’
‘A regular wizard!’ Lukashka replied shortly. ‘But what of it!’ he
added, tossing his head. ‘They are across the river by now. Go and
find them!’
‘Still it’s a bad lookout.’
‘What’s a bad lookout? Go and take some chikhir to him to-morrow
and nothing will come of it. Now let’s make merry. Drink!’ shouted
Lukashka, just in the tone in which old Eroshka uttered the word.
‘We’ll go out into the street and make merry with the girls. You
go and get some honey; or no, I’ll send our dumb wench. We’ll make
merry till morning.’
Nazarka smiled.
‘Are we stopping here long?’ he asked.
Till we’ve had a bit of fun. Run and get some vodka. Here’s the
money.’
Nazarka ran off obediently to get the vodka from Yamka’s.
Daddy Eroshka and Ergushov, like birds of prey, scenting where the
merrymaking was going on, tumbled into the hut one after the
other, both tipsy.
‘Bring us another half-pail,’ shouted Lukashka to his mother, by
way of reply to their greeting.
‘Now then, tell us where did you steal them, you devil?’ shouted
Eroshka. ‘Fine fellow, I’m fond of you!’
‘Fond indeed…’ answered Lukashka laughing, ‘carrying sweets from
cadets to lasses! Eh, you old…’
‘That’s not true, not true! … Oh, Mark,’ and the old man burst
out laughing. ‘And how that devil begged me. “Go,” he said, “and
arrange it.” He offered me a gun! But no. I’d have managed it, but
I feel for you. Now tell us where have you been?’ And the old man
began speaking in Tartar.
Lukashka answered him promptly.
Ergushov, who did not know much Tartar, only occasionally put in a
word in Russian: ‘What I say is he’s driven away the horses. I
know it for a fact,’ he chimed in.
‘Girey and I went together.’ (His speaking of Girey Khan as
‘Girey’ was, to the Cossack mind, evidence of his boldness.) ‘Just
beyond the river he kept bragging that he knew the whole of the
steppe and would lead the way straight, but we rode on and the
night was dark, and my Girey lost his way and began wandering in a
circle without getting anywhere: couldn’t find the village, and
there we were. We must have gone too much to the right. I believe
we wandered about well—nigh till midnight. Then, thank goodness,
we heard dogs howling.’
‘Fools!’ said Daddy Eroshka. ‘There now, we too used to lose our
way in the steppe. (Who the devil can follow it?) But I used to
ride up a hillock and start howling like the wolves, like this!’
He placed his hands before his mouth, and howled like a pack of
wolves, all on one note. ‘The dogs would answer at once … Well,
go on—so you found them?’
‘We soon led them away! Nazarka was nearly caught by some Nogay
women, he was!’
‘Caught indeed,’ Nazarka, who had just come back, said in an
injured tone.
‘We rode off again, and again Girey lost his way and almost landed
us among the sand-drifts. We thought we were just getting to the
Terek but we were riding away from it all the time!’
‘You should have steered by the stars,’ said Daddy Eroshka.
‘That’s what I say,’ interjected Ergushov,
‘Yes, steer when all is black; I tried and tried all about… and
at last I put the bridle on one of the mares and let my own horse
go free—thinking he’ll lead us out, and what do you think! he
just gave a snort or two with his nose to
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