by Лев Толстой
'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 corner 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.
Chapter XXXVII
'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 merry-making 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 the ground, galloped ahead, and led us straight to our village. Thank goodness! It was getting quite light. We barely had time to hide them in the forest. Nagim came across the riv
er and took them away.'
Ergushov shook his head. 'It's just what I said. Smart. Did you get much for them?'
'It's all here,' said Lukashka, slapping his pocket.
Just then his mother came into the room, and Lukashka did not finish what he was saying.
'Drink!' he shouted.
'We too, Girich and I, rode out late one night…' began Eroshka.
'Oh bother, we'll never hear the end of you!' said Lukashka. 'I am going.' And having emptied his cup and tightened the strap of his belt he went out.
Chapter XXXVIII
It was already dark when Lukashka went out into the street. The autumn night was fresh and calm. The full golden moon floated up behind the tall dark poplars that grew on one side of the square. From the chimneys of the outhouses smoke rose and spread above the village, mingling with the mist. Here and there lights shone through the windows, and the air was laden with the smell of kisyak, grape-pulp, and mist. The sounds of voices, laughter, songs, and the cracking of seeds mingled just as they had done in the daytime, but were now more distinct. Clusters of white kerchiefs and caps gleamed through the darkness near the houses and by the fences.
In the square, before the shop door which was lit up and open, the black and white figures of Cossack men and maids showed through the darkness, and one heard from afar their loud songs and laughter and talk. The girls, hand in hand, went round and round in a circle stepping lightly in the dusty square. A skinny girl, the plainest of them all, set the tune:
'From beyond the wood, from the forest dark,
From the garden green and the shady park,
There came out one day two young lads so gay.
Young bachelors, hey! brave and smart were they!
And they walked and walked, then stood still, each man,
And they talked and soon to dispute began!
Then a maid came out; as she came along,
Said, "To one of you I shall soon belong!"
'Twas the fair-faced lad got the maiden fair,
Yes, the fair-faced lad with the golden hair!
Her right hand so white in his own took he,
And he led her round for his mates to see!
And said, "Have you ever in all your life,
Met a lass as fair as my sweet little wife?"'
The old women stood round listening to the songs. The little boys and girls ran about chasing one another in the dark. The men stood by, catching at the girls as the latter moved round, and sometimes breaking the ring and entering it. On the dark side of the doorway stood Beletski and Olenin, in their Circassian coats and sheepskin caps, and talked together in a style of speech unlike that of the Cossacks, in low but distinct tones, conscious that they were attracting attention. Next to one another in the khorovod circle moved plump little Ustenka in her red beshmet and the stately Maryanka in her new smock and beshmet. Olenin and Beletski were discussing how to snatch Ustenka and Maryanka out of the ring. Beletski thought that Olenin wished only to amuse himself, but Olenin was expecting his fate to be decided. He wanted at any cost to see Maryanka alone that very day and to tell her everything, and ask her whether she could and would be his wife. Although that question had long been answered in the negative in his own mind, he hoped he would be able to tell her all he felt, and that she would understand him.
'Why did you not tell me sooner?' said Beletski. 'I would have got
Ustenka to arrange it for you. You are such a queer fellow! …'
'What's to be done! … Some day, very soon, I'll tell you all about it. Only now, for Heaven's sake, arrange so that she should come to Ustenka's.'
'All right, that's easily done! Well, Maryanka, will you belong to the "fair-faced lad", and not to Lukashka?' said Beletski, speaking to Maryanka first for propriety's sake, but having received no reply he went up to Ustenka and begged her to bring Maryanka home with her. He had hardly time to finish what he was saying before the leader began another song and the girls started pulling each other round in the ring by the hand.
They sang:
"Past the garden, by the garden,
A young man came strolling down,
Up the street and through the town.
And the first time as he passed
He did wave his strong right hand.
As the second time he passed
Waved his hat with silken band.
But the third time as he went
He stood still: before her bent.
"How is it that thou, my dear,
My reproaches dost not fear?
In the park don't come to walk
That we there might have a talk?
Come now, answer me, my dear,
Dost thou hold me in contempt?
Later on, thou knowest, dear,
Thou'lt get sober and repent.
Soon to woo thee I will come,
And when we shall married be
Thou wilt weep because of me!"
"Though I knew what to reply,
Yet I dared not him deny,
No, I dared not him deny!
So into the park went I,
In the park my lad to meet,
There my dear one I did greet."
"Maiden dear, I bow to thee!
Take this handkerchief from me.
In thy white hand take it, see!
Say I am beloved by thee.
I don't know at all, I fear,
What I am to give thee, dear!
To my dear I think I will
Of a shawl a present make—
And five kisses for it take."'
Lukashka and Nazarka broke into the ring and started walking about among the girls. Lukashka joined in the singing, taking seconds in his clear voice as he walked in the middle of the ring swinging his arms. 'Well, come in, one of you!' he said. The other girls pushed Maryanka, but she would not enter the ring. The sound of shrill laughter, slaps, kisses, and whispers mingled with the singing.
As he went past Olenin, Lukashka gave a friendly nod.
'Dmitri Andreich! Have you too come to have a look?' he said.
'Yes,' answered Olenin dryly.
Beletski stooped and whispered something into Ustenka's ear. She had not time to reply till she came round again, when she said:
'All right, we'll come.'
'And Maryanka too?'
Olenin stooped towards Maryanka. 'You'll come? Please do, if only for a minute. I must speak to you.'
'If the other girls come, I will.'
'Will you answer my question?' said he, bending towards her. 'You are in good spirits to-day.'
She had already moved past him. He went after her.
'Will you answer?'
'Answer what?'
'The question I asked you the other day,' said Olenin, stooping to her ear. 'Will you marry me?'
Maryanka thought for a moment.
'I'll tell you,' said she, 'I'll tell you to-night.'
And through the darkness her eyes gleamed brightly and kindly at the young man.
He still followed her. He enjoyed stooping closer to her. But Lukashka, without ceasing to sing, suddenly seized her firmly by the hand and pulled her from her place in the ring of girls into the middle. Olenin had only time to say, "Come to Ustenka's," and stepped back to his companion.
The song came to an end. Lukashka wiped his lips, Maryanka did the same, and they kissed. "No, no, kisses five!" said Lukashka. Chatter, laughter, and running about, succeeded to the rhythmic movements and sound. Lukashka, who seemed to have drunk a great deal, began to distribute sweetmeats to the girls.
"I offer them to everyone!" he said with proud, comically pathetic self-admiration. "But anyone who goes after soldiers goes out of the ring!" he suddenly added, with an angry glance at Olenin.
The girls grabbed his sweetmeats from him, and, laughing, struggled for them among themselves. Beletski and Olenin stepped aside.
Lukashka, as if ashamed of his generosity, took off his cap and wiping his forehead with h
is sleeve came up to Maryanka and Ustenka.
"Answer me, my dear, dost thou hold me in contempt?" he said in the words of the song they had just been singing, and turning to Maryanka he angrily repeated the words: "Dost thou hold me in contempt? When we shall married be thou wilt weep because of me!" he added, embracing Ustenka and Maryanka both together.
Ustenka tore herself away, and swinging her arm gave him such a blow on the back that she hurt her hand.
"Well, are you going to have another turn?" he asked.
"The other girls may if they like," answered Ustenka, "but I am going home and Maryanka was coming to our house too."
With his arm still round her, Lukashka led Maryanka away from the crowd to the darker corner of a house.
"Don't go, Maryanka," he said, "let's have some fun for the last time.
Go home and I will come to you!"
"What am I to do at home? Holidays are meant for merrymaking. I am going to Ustenka's," replied Maryanka.
'I'll marry you all the same, you know!'
'All right,' said Maryanka, 'we shall see when the time comes.'
'So you are going,' said Lukashka sternly, and, pressing her close, he kissed her on the cheek.
'There, leave off! Don't bother,' and Maryanka, wrenching herself from his arms, moved away.