Leo Tolstoy: The Complete Novels and Novellas. Leo Tolstoy

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СКАЧАТЬ there are in our parts! I’ve killed two. I’ll take you.’ ‘Well, good-bye! Christ save you.’

      Lukashka mounted his horse, and without calling on Maryanka, rode caracoling down the street, where Nazarka was already awaiting him.

      ‘I say, shan’t we call round?’ asked Nazarka, winking in the direction of Yamka’s house.

      ‘That’s a good one!’ said Lukashka. ‘Here, take my horse to her and if I don’t come soon give him some hay. I shall reach the company by the morning anyway.’

      ‘Hasn’t the cadet given you anything more?’

      ‘I am thankful to have paid him back with a dagger — he was going to ask for the horse,’ said Lukashka, dismounting and handing over the horse to Nazarka.

      He darted into the yard past Olenin’s very window, and came up to the window of the cornet’s hut. It was already quite dark. Maryanka, wearing only her smock, was combing her hair preparing for bed.

      ‘It’s I—’ whispered the Cossack.

      Maryanka’s look was severely indifferent, but her face suddenly brightened up when she heard her name. She opened the window and leant out, frightened and joyous.

      ‘What — what do you want?’ she said.

      ‘Open!’ uttered Lukashka. ‘Let me in for a minute. I am so sick of waiting! It’s awful!’

      He took hold of her head through the window and kissed her.

      ‘Really, do open!’

      ‘Why do you talk nonsense? I’ve told you I won’t! Have you come for long?’

      He did not answer but went on kissing her, and she did not ask again.

      ‘There, through the window one can’t even hug you properly,’ said Lukashka.

      ‘Maryanka dear!’ came the voice of her mother, ‘who is that with you?’

      Lukashka took off his cap, which might have been seen, and crouched down by the window.

      ‘Go, be quick!’ whispered Maryanka.

      ‘Lukashka called round,’ she answered; ‘he was asking for Daddy.’

      ‘Well then send him here!’

      ‘He’s gone; said he was in a hurry.’

      In fact, Lukashka, stooping, as with big strides he passed under the windows, ran out through the yard and towards Yamka’s house unseen by anyone but Olenin. After drinking two bowls of chikhir he and Nazarka rode away to the outpost. The night was warm, dark, and calm. They rode in silence, only the footfall of their horses was heard. Lukashka started a song about the Cossack, Mingal, but stopped before he had finished the first verse, and after a pause, turning to Nazarka, said:

      ‘I say, she wouldn’t let me in!’

      ‘Oh?’ rejoined Nazarka. ‘I knew she wouldn’t. D’you know what Yamka told me? The cadet has begun going to their house. Daddy Eroshka brags that he got a gun from the cadet for getting him Maryanka.’

      ‘He lies, the old devil!’ said Lukashka, angrily. ‘She’s not such a girl. If he does not look out I’ll wallop that old devil’s sides,’ and he began his favourite song:

      ‘From the village of Izmaylov,

      From the master’s favourite garden,

      Once escaped a keen-eyed falcon.

      Soon after him a huntsman came a-riding,

      And he beckoned to the falcon that had strayed,

      But the bright-eyed bird thus answered:

      “In gold cage you could not keep me,

      On your hand you could not hold me,

      So now I fly to blue seas far away.

      There a white swan I will kill,

      Of sweet swan-flesh have my fill.”‘

Chapter 28

      The bethrothal was taking place in the cornet’s hut. Lukashka had returned to the village, but had not been to see Olenin, and Olenin had not gone to the betrothal though he had been invited. He was sad as he had never been since he settled in this Cossack village. He had seen Lukashka earlier in the evening and was worried by the question why Lukashka was so cold towards him. Olenin shut himself up in his hut and began writing in his diary as follows:

      ‘Many things have I pondered over lately and much have I changed,’ wrote he, ‘and I have come back to the copybook maxim: The one way to be happy is to love, to love self-denyingly, to love everybody and everything; to spread a web of love on all sides and to take all who come into it. In this way I caught Vanyusha, Daddy Eroshka, Lukashka, and Maryanka.’

      As Olenin was finishing this sentence Daddy Eroshka entered the room.

      Eroshka was in the happiest frame of mind. A few evenings before this, Olenin had gone to see him and had found him with a proud and happy face deftly skinning the carcass of a boar with a small knife in the yard. The dogs (Lyam his pet among them) were lying close by watching what he was doing and gently wagging their tails. The little boys were respectfully looking at him through the fence and not even teasing him as was their wont. His women neighbours, who were as a rule not too gracious towards him, greeted him and brought him, one a jug of chikhir, another some clotted cream, and a third a little flour. The next day Eroshka sat in his store-room all covered with blood, and distributed pounds of boar-flesh, taking in payment money from some and wine from others. His face clearly expressed, ‘God has sent me luck. I have killed a boar, so now I am wanted.’ Consequently, he naturally began to drink, and had gone on for four days never leaving the village. Besides which he had had something to drink at the betrothal.

      He came to Olenin quite drunk: his face red, his beard tangled, but wearing a new beshmet trimmed with gold braid; and he brought with him a balalayka which he had obtained beyond the river. He had long promised Olenin this treat, and felt in the mood for it, so that he was sorry to find Olenin writing.

      ‘Write on, write on, my lad,’ he whispered, as if he thought that a spirit sat between him and the paper and must not be frightened away, and he softly and silently sat down on the floor. When Daddy Eroshka was drunk his favourite position was on the floor. Olenin looked round, ordered some wine to be brought, and continued to write. Eroshka found it dull to drink by himself and he wished to talk.

      ‘I’ve been to the betrothal at the cornet’s. But there! They’re shwine! — Don’t want them! — Have come to you.’

      ‘And where did you get your balalayka asked Olenin, still writing.

      ‘I’ve been beyond the river and got it there, brother mine,’ he answered, also very quietly. ‘I’m a master at it. Tartar or Cossack, squire or soldiers’ songs, any kind you please.’

      Olenin СКАЧАТЬ