Chapter X
On the third day after the events above described, two companies of aCaucasian infantry regiment arrived at the Cossack village ofNovomlinsk. The horses had been unharnessed and the companies' wagonswere standing in the square. The cooks had dug a pit, and with logsgathered from various yards (where they had not been sufficientlysecurely stored) were now cooking the food; the pay-sergeants weresettling accounts with the soldiers. The Service Corps men were drivingpiles in the ground to which to tie the horses, and the quartermasterswere going about the streets just as if they were at home, showingofficers and men to their quarters. Here were green ammunition boxes ina line, the company's carts, horses, and cauldrons in which buckwheatporridge was being cooked. Here were the captain and the lieutenant andthe sergeant-major, Onisim Mikhaylovich, and all this was in theCossack village where it was reported that the companies were orderedto take up their quarters: therefore they were at home here. But whythey were stationed there, who the Cossacks were, and whether theywanted the troops to be there, and whether they were Old Believers ornot--was all quite immaterial. Having received their pay and beendismissed, tired out and covered with dust, the soldiers noisily and indisorder, like a swarm of bees about to settle, spread over the squaresand streets; quite regardless of the Cossacks' ill will, chatteringmerrily and with their muskets clinking, by twos and threes theyentered the huts and hung up their accoutrements, unpacked their bags,and bantered the women. At their favourite spot, round theporridge-cauldrons, a large group of soldiers assembled and with littlepipes between their teeth they gazed, now at the smoke which rose intothe hot sky, becoming visible when it thickened into white clouds as itrose, and now at the camp fires which were quivering in the pure airlike molten glass, and bantered and made fun of the Cossack men andwomen because they do not live at all like Russians. In all the yardsone could see soldiers and hear their laughter and the exasperated andshrill cries of Cossack women defending their houses and refusing togive the soldiers water or cooking utensils. Little boys and girls,clinging to their mothers and to each other, followed all the movementsof the troopers (never before seen by them) with frightened curiosity,or ran after them at a respectful distance. The old Cossacks came outsilently and dismally and sat on the earthen embankments of their huts,and watched the soldiers' activity with an air of leaving it all to thewill of God without understanding what would come of it.
Olenin, who had joined the Caucasian Army as a cadet three monthsbefore, was quartered in one of the best houses in the village, thehouse of the cornet, Elias Vasilich--that is to say at Granny Ulitka's.
'Goodness knows what it will be like, Dmitri Andreich,' said thepanting Vanyusha to Olenin, who, dressed in a Circassian coat andmounted on a Kabarda horse which he had bought in Groznoe, was after afive-hours' march gaily entering the yard of the quarters assigned tohim.
'Why, what's the matter?' he asked, caressing his horse and lookingmerrily at the perspiring, dishevelled, and worried Vanyusha, who hadarrived with the baggage wagons and was unpacking.
Olenin looked quite a different man. In place of his clean-shaven lipsand chin he had a youthful moustache and a small beard. Instead of asallow complexion, the result of nights turned into day, his cheeks,his forehead, and the skin behind his ears were now red with healthysunburn. In place of a clean new black suit he wore a dirty whiteCircassian coat with a deeply pleated skirt, and he bore arms. Insteadof a freshly starched collar, his neck was tightly clasped by the redband of his silk BESHMET. He wore Circassian dress but did not wear itwell, and anyone would have known him for a Russian and not a Tartarbrave. It was the thing--but not the real thing. But for all that, hiswhole person breathed health, joy, and satisfaction.
'Yes, it seems funny to you,' said Vanyusha, 'but just try to talk tothese people yourself: they set themselves against one and there's anend of it. You can't get as much as a word out of them.' Vanyushaangrily threw down a pail on the threshold. 'Somehow they don't seemlike Russians.'
'You should speak to the Chief of the Village!'
'But I don't know where he lives,' said Vanyusha in an offended tone.
'Who has upset you so?' asked Olenin, looking round.
'The devil only knows. Faugh! There is no real master here. They say hehas gone to some kind of KRIGA, and the old woman is a real devil. Godpreserve us!' answered Vanyusha, putting his hands to his head. 'How weshall live here I don't know. They are worse than Tartars, I dodeclare--though they consider themselves Christians! A Tartar is badenough, but all the same he is more noble. Gone to the KRIGA indeed!What this KRIGA they have invented is, I don't know!' concludedVanyusha, and turned aside.
'It's not as it is in the serfs' quarters at home, eh?' chaffed Oleninwithout dismounting.
'Please sir, may I have your horse?' said Vanyusha, evidently perplexedby this new order of things but resigning himself to his fate.
'So a Tartar is more noble, eh, Vanyusha?' repeated Olenin, dismountingand slapping the saddle.
'Yes, you're laughing! You think it funny,' muttered Vanyusha angrily.
'Come, don't be angry, Vanyusha,' replied Olenin, still smiling. 'Waita minute, I'll go and speak to the people of the house; you'll see Ishall arrange everything. You don't know what a jolly life we shallhave here. Only don't get upset.'
Vanyusha did not answer. Screwing up his eyes he looked contemptuouslyafter his master, and shook his head. Vanyusha regarded Olenin as onlyhis master, and Olenin regarded Vanyusha as only his servant; and theywould both have been much surprised if anyone had told them that theywere friends, as they really were without knowing it themselves.Vanyusha had been taken into his proprietor's house when he was onlyeleven and when Olenin was the same age. When Olenin was fifteen hegave Vanyusha lessons for a time and taught him to read French, ofwhich the latter was inordinately proud; and when in specially goodspirits he still let off French words, always laughing stupidly when hedid so.
Olenin ran up the steps of the porch and pushed open the door of thehut. Maryanka, wearing nothing but a pink smock, as all Cossack womendo in the house, jumped away from the door, frightened, and pressingherself against the wall covered the lower part of her face with thebroad sleeve of her Tartar smock. Having opened the door wider, Oleninin the semi-darkness of the passage saw the whole tall, shapely figureof the young Cossack girl. With the quick and eager curiosity of youthhe involuntarily noticed the firm maidenly form revealed by the fineprint smock, and the beautiful black eyes fixed on him with childliketerror and wild curiosity. 'This is SHE,' thought Olenin. 'But therewill be many others like her' came at once into his head, and he openedthe inner door. Old Granny Ulitka, also dressed only in a smock, wasstooping with her back turned to him, sweeping the floor.
'Good-day to you. Mother! I've come about my lodgings,' he began.
The Cossack woman, without unbending, turned her severe but stillhandsome face towards him.
'What have you come here for? Want to mock at us, eh? I'll teach you tomock; may the black plague seize you!' she shouted, looking askancefrom under her frowning brow at the new-comer.
Olenin had at first imagined that the way-worn, gallant Caucasian Army(of which he was a member) would be everywhere received joyfully, andespecially by the Cossacks, our comrades in the war; and he thereforefelt perplexed by this reception. Without losing presence of mindhowever he tried to explain that he meant to pay for his lodgings, butthe old woman would not give him a hearing.
'What have you come for? Who wants a pest like you, with your scrapedface? You just wait a bit; when the master returns he'll show you yourplace. I don't want your dirty money! A likely thing--just as if we hadnever seen any! You'll stink the house out with your beastly tobaccoand want to put it right with money! Think we've never seen a pest! Mayyou be shot in your bowels and your heart!' shrieked the old woman in apiercing voice, interrupting Olenin.
'It seems Vanyusha was right!' thought Olenin. "A Tartar would benobler",' and followed by Granny Ulitka's abuse he went out of th
e hut.As he was leaving, Maryanka, still wearing only her pink smock, butwith her forehead covered down to her eyes by a white kerchief,suddenly slipped out from the passage past him. Pattering rapidly downthe steps with her bare feet she ran from the porch, stopped, andlooking round hastily with laughing eyes at the young man, vanishedround the corner of the hut.
Her firm youthful step, the untamed look of the eyes glistening fromunder the white kerchief, and the firm stately build of the youngbeauty, struck Olenin even more powerfully than before. 'Yes, it mustbe SHE,' he thought, and troubling his head still less about thelodgings, he kept looking round at Maryanka as he approached Vanyusha.
'There you see, the girl too is quite savage, just like a wild filly!'said Vanyusha, who though still busy with the luggage wagon had nowcheered up a bit. 'LA FAME!' he added in a loud triumphant voice andburst out laughing.
The Cossacks: A Tale of 1852 Page 10