The Cossacks: A Tale of 1852
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Chapter XXVI
'Yes,' thought Olenin, as he walked home. 'I need only slacken thereins a bit and I might fall desperately in love with this Cossackgirl.' He went to bed with these thoughts, but expected it all to blowover and that he would continue to live as before.
But the old life did not return. His relations to Maryanka werechanged. The wall that had separated them was broken down. Olenin nowgreeted her every time they met.
The master of the house having returned to collect the rent, on hearingof Olenin's wealth and generosity invited him to his hut. The old womanreceived him kindly, and from the day of the party onwards Olenin oftenwent in of an evening and sat with them till late at night. He seemedto be living in the village just as he used to, but within himeverything had changed. He spent his days in the forest, and towardseight o'clock, when it began to grow dusk, he would go to see hishosts, alone or with Daddy Eroshka. They grew so used to him that theywere surprised when he stayed away. He paid well for his wine and was aquiet fellow. Vanyusha would bring him his tea and he would sit down ina corner near the oven. The old woman did not mind him but went on withher work, and over their tea or their chikhir they talked about Cossackaffairs, about the neighbours, or about Russia: Olenin relating and theothers inquiring. Sometimes he brought a book and read to himself.Maryanka crouched like a wild goat with her feet drawn up under her,sometimes on the top of the oven, sometimes in a dark corner. She didnot take part in the conversations, but Olenin saw her eyes and faceand heard her moving or cracking sunflower seeds, and he felt that shelistened with her whole being when he spoke, and was aware of hispresence while he silently read to himself. Sometimes he thought hereyes were fixed on him, and meeting their radiance he involuntarilybecame silent and gazed at her. Then she would instantly hide her faceand he would pretend to be deep in conversation with the old woman,while he listened all the time to her breathing and to her everymovement and waited for her to look at him again. In the presence ofothers she was generally bright and friendly with him, but when theywere alone together she was shy and rough. Sometimes he came in beforeMaryanka had returned home. Suddenly he would hear her firm footstepsand catch a glimmer of her blue cotton smock at the open door. Then shewould step into the middle of the hut, catch sight of him, and her eyeswould give a scarcely perceptible kindly smile, and he would feel happyand frightened.
He neither sought for nor wished for anything from her, but every dayher presence became more and more necessary to him.
Olenin had entered into the life of the Cossack village so fully thathis past seemed quite foreign to him. As to the future, especially afuture outside the world in which he was now living, it did notinterest him at all. When he received letters from home, from relativesand friends, he was offended by the evident distress with which theyregarded him as a lost man, while he in his village considered those aslost who did not live as he was living. He felt sure he would neverrepent of having broken away from his former surroundings and of havingsettled down in this village to such a solitary and original life. Whenout on expeditions, and when quartered at one of the forts, he felthappy too; but it was here, from under Daddy Eroshka's wing, from theforest and from his hut at the end of the village, and especially whenhe thought of Maryanka and Lukashka, that he seemed to see thefalseness of his former life. That falseness used to rouse hisindignation even before, but now it seemed inexpressibly vile andridiculous. Here he felt freer and freer every day and more and more ofa man. The Caucasus now appeared entirely different to what hisimagination had painted it. He had found nothing at all like hisdreams, nor like the descriptions of the Caucasus he had heard andread. 'There are none of all those chestnut steeds, precipices, AmaletBeks, heroes or villains,' thought he. 'The people live as naturelives: they die, are born, unite, and more are born--they fight, eatand drink, rejoice and die, without any restrictions but those thatnature imposes on sun and grass, on animal and tree. They have no otherlaws.' Therefore these people, compared to himself, appeared to himbeautiful, strong, and free, and the sight of them made him feelashamed and sorry for himself. Often it seriously occurred to him tothrow up everything, to get registered as a Cossack, to buy a hut andcattle and marry a Cossack woman (only not Maryanka, whom he concededto Lukashka), and to live with Daddy Eroshka and go shooting andfishing with him, and go with the Cossacks on their expeditions. 'Whyever don't I do it? What am I waiting for?' he asked himself, and heegged himself on and shamed himself. 'Am I afraid of doing what I holdto be reasonable and right? Is the wish to be a simple Cossack, to liveclose to nature, not to injure anyone but even to do good to others,more stupid than my former dreams, such as those of becoming a ministerof state or a colonel?' but a voice seemed to say that he should wait,and not take any decision. He was held back by a dim consciousness thathe could not live altogether like Eroshka and Lukashka because he had adifferent idea of happiness--he was held back by the thought thathappiness lies in self-sacrifice. What he had done for Lukashkacontinued to give him joy. He kept looking for occasions to sacrificehimself for others, but did not meet with them. Sometimes he forgotthis newly discovered recipe for happiness and considered himselfcapable of identifying his life with Daddy Eroshka's, but then hequickly bethought himself and promptly clutched at the idea ofconscious self-sacrifice, and from that basis looked calmly and proudlyat all men and at their happiness.