The Cossacks: A Tale of 1852

by graf Leo Tolstoy

  Chapter XX

  The next day Olenin went alone to the spot where he and the old manstartled the stag. Instead of passing round through the gate he climbedover the prickly hedge, as everybody else did, and before he had hadtime to pull out the thorns that had caught in his coat, his dog, whichhad run on in front, started two pheasants. He had hardly stepped amongthe briers when the pheasants began to rise at every step (the old manhad not shown him that place the day before as he meant to keep it forshooting from behind the screen). Olenin fired twelve times and killedfive pheasants, but clambering after them through the briers he got sofatigued that he was drenched with perspiration. He called off his dog,uncocked his gun, put in a bullet above the small shot, and brushingaway the mosquitoes with the wide sleeve of his Circassian coat he wentslowly to the spot where they had been the day before. It was howeverimpossible to keep back the dog, who found trails on the very path, andOlenin killed two more pheasants, so that after being detained by thisit was getting towards noon before he began to find the place he waslooking for.

  The day was perfectly clear, calm, and hot. The morning moisture haddried up even in the forest, and myriads of mosquitoes literallycovered his face, his back, and his arms. His dog had turned from blackto grey, its back being covered with mosquitoes, and so had Olenin'scoat through which the insects thrust their stings. Olenin was ready torun away from them and it seemed to him that it was impossible to livein this country in the summer. He was about to go home, but rememberingthat other people managed to endure such pain he resolved to bear itand gave himself up to be devoured. And strange to say, by noontime thefeeling became actually pleasant. He even felt that without thismosquito-filled atmosphere around him, and that mosquito-paste mingledwith perspiration which his hand smeared over his face, and thatunceasing irritation all over his body, the forest would lose for himsome of its character and charm. These myriads of insects were so wellsuited to that monstrously lavish wild vegetation, these multitudes ofbirds and beasts which filled the forest, this dark foliage, this hotscented air, these runlets filled with turbid water which everywheresoaked through from the Terek and gurgled here and there under theoverhanging leaves, that the very thing which had at first seemed tohim dreadful and intolerable now seemed pleasant. After going round theplace where yesterday they had found the animal and not findinganything, he felt inclined to rest. The sun stood right above theforest and poured its perpendicular rays down on his back and headwhenever he came out into a glade or onto the road. The seven heavypheasants dragged painfully at his waist. Having found the traces ofyesterday's stag he crept under a bush into the thicket just where thestag had lain, and lay down in its lair. He examined the dark foliagearound him, the place marked by the stag's perspiration and yesterday'sdung, the imprint of the stag's knees, the bit of black earth it hadkicked up, and his own footprints of the day before. He felt cool andcomfortable and did not think of or wish for anything. And suddenly hewas overcome by such a strange feeling of causeless joy and of love foreverything, that from an old habit of his childhood he began crossinghimself and thanking someone. Suddenly, with extraordinary clearness,he thought: 'Here am I, Dmitri Olenin, a being quite distinct fromevery other being, now lying all alone Heaven only knows where--where astag used to live--an old stag, a beautiful stag who perhaps had neverseen a man, and in a place where no human being has ever sat or thoughtthese thoughts. Here I sit, and around me stand old and young trees,one of them festooned with wild grape vines, and pheasants arefluttering, driving one another about and perhaps scenting theirmurdered brothers.' He felt his pheasants, examined them, and wiped thewarm blood off his hand onto his coat. 'Perhaps the jackals scent themand with dissatisfied faces go off in another direction: above me,flying in among the leaves which to them seem enormous islands,mosquitoes hang in the air and buzz: one, two, three, four, a hundred,a thousand, a million mosquitoes, and all of them buzz something orother and each one of them is separate from all else and is just such aseparate Dmitri Olenin as I am myself.' He vividly imagined what themosquitoes buzzed: 'This way, this way, lads! Here's some one we caneat!' They buzzed and stuck to him. And it was clear to him that he wasnot a Russian nobleman, a member of Moscow society, the friend andrelation of so-and-so and so-and-so, but just such a mosquito, orpheasant, or deer, as those that were now living all around him. 'Justas they, just as Daddy Eroshka, I shall live awhile and die, and as hesays truly:

  "grass will grow and nothing more".

  'But what though the grass does grow?' he continued thinking. 'Still Imust live and be happy, because happiness is all I desire. Never mindwhat I am--an animal like all the rest, above whom the grass will growand nothing more; or a frame in which a bit of the one God has beenset,--still I must live in the very best way. How then must I live tobe happy, and why was I not happy before?' And he began to recall hisformer life and he felt disgusted with himself. He appeared to himselfto have been terribly exacting and selfish, though he now saw that allthe while he really needed nothing for himself. And he looked round atthe foliage with the light shining through it, at the setting sun andthe clear sky, and he felt just as happy as before. 'Why am I happy,and what used I to live for?' thought he. 'How much I exacted formyself; how I schemed and did not manage to gain anything but shame andsorrow! and, there now, I require nothing to be happy;' and suddenly anew light seemed to reveal itself to him. 'Happiness is this!' he saidto himself. 'Happiness lies in living for others. That is evident. Thedesire for happiness is innate in every man; therefore it islegitimate. When trying to satisfy it selfishly--that is, by seekingfor oneself riches, fame, comforts, or love--it may happen thatcircumstances arise which make it impossible to satisfy these desires.It follows that it is these desires that are illegitimate, but not theneed for happiness. But what desires can always be satisfied despiteexternal circumstances? What are they? Love, self-sacrifice.' He was soglad and excited when he had discovered this, as it seemed to him, newtruth, that he jumped up and began impatiently seeking some one tosacrifice himself for, to do good to and to love. 'Since one wantsnothing for oneself,' he kept thinking, 'why not live for others?' Hetook up his gun with the intention of returning home quickly to thinkthis out and to find an opportunity of doing good. He made his way outof the thicket. When he had come out into the glade he looked aroundhim; the sun was no longer visible above the tree-tops. It had growncooler and the place seemed to him quite strange and not like thecountry round the village. Everything seemed changed--the weather andthe character of the forest; the sky was wrapped in clouds, the windwas rustling in the tree-tops, and all around nothing was visible butreeds and dying broken-down trees. He called to his dog who had runaway to follow some animal, and his voice came back as in a desert. Andsuddenly he was seized with a terrible sense of weirdness. He grewfrightened. He remembered the abreks and the murders he had been toldabout, and he expected every moment that an abrek would spring frombehind every bush and he would have to defend his life and die, or be acoward. He thought of God and of the future life as for long he had notthought about them. And all around was that same gloomy stern wildnature. 'And is it worth while living for oneself,' thought he, 'whenat any moment you may die, and die without having done any good, and sothat no one will know of it?' He went in the direction where he fanciedthe village lay. Of his shooting he had no further thought; but he felttired to death and peered round at every bush and tree with particularattention and almost with terror, expecting every moment to be calledto account for his life. After having wandered about for a considerabletime he came upon a ditch down which was flowing cold sandy water fromthe Terek, and, not to go astray any longer, he decided to follow it.He went on without knowing where the ditch would lead him. Suddenly thereeds behind him crackled. He shuddered and seized his gun, and thenfelt ashamed of himself: the over-excited dog, panting hard, had thrownitself into the cold water of the ditch and was lapping it!

  He too had a drink, and then followed the dog in the direction itwished to go, thinking it would lea
d him to the village. But despitethe dog's company everything around him seemed still more dreary. Theforest grew darker and the wind grew stronger and stronger in the topsof the broken old trees. Some large birds circled screeching roundtheir nests in those trees. The vegetation grew poorer and he cameoftener and oftener upon rustling reeds and bare sandy spaces coveredwith animal footprints. To the howling of the wind was added anotherkind of cheerless monotonous roar. Altogether his spirits becamegloomy. Putting his hand behind him he felt his pheasants, and foundone missing. It had broken off and was lost, and only the bleeding headand beak remained sticking in his belt. He felt more frightened than hehad ever done before. He began to pray to God, and feared above allthat he might die without having done anything good or kind; and he sowanted to live, and to live so as to perform a feat of self-sacrifice.