The Cossacks by graf Tolstoy Leo (best book series to read TXT) 📕
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compasses, there in a disused vineyard denominated as the Waste,
hares are always to be found,’ said the cornet, having at once
changed his manner of speech.
‘A fine thing to go looking for hares in these busy times! You had
better come and help us, and do some work with the girls,’ the old
woman said merrily. ‘Now then, girls, up with you!’ she cried.
Maryanka and Ustenka under the cart were whispering and could
hardly restrain their laughter.
Since it had become known that Olenin had given a horse worth
fifty rubles to Lukashka, his hosts had become more amiable and
the cornet in particular saw with pleasure his daughter’s growing
intimacy with Olenin. ‘But I don’t know how to do the work,’
replied Olenin, trying not to look through the green branches
under the wagon where he had now noticed Maryanka’s blue smock and
red kerchief.
‘Come, I’ll give you some peaches,’ said the old woman.
‘It’s only according to the ancient Cossack hospitality. It’s her
old woman’s silliness,’ said the cornet, explaining and apparently
correcting his wife’s words. ‘In Russia, I expect, it’s not so
much peaches as pineapple jam and preserves you have been
accustomed to eat at your pleasure.’
‘So you say hares are to be found in the disused vineyard?’ asked
Olenin. ‘I will go there,’ and throwing a hasty glance through the
green branches he raised his cap and disappeared between the
regular rows of green vines.
The sun had already sunk behind the fence of the vineyards, and
its broken rays glittered through the translucent leaves when
Olenin returned to his host’s vineyard. The wind was falling and a
cool freshness was beginning to spread around. By some instinct
Olenin recognized from afar Maryanka’s blue smock among the rows
of vine, and, picking grapes on his way, he approached her. His
highly excited dog also now and then seized a low-hanging cluster
of grapes in his slobbering mouth. Maryanka, her face flushed, her
sleeves rolled up, and her kerchief down below her chin, was
rapidly cutting the heavy clusters and laying them in a basket.
Without letting go of the vine she had hold of, she stopped to
smile pleasantly at him and resumed her work. Olenin drew near and
threw his gun behind his back to have his hands free. ‘Where are
your people? May God aid you! Are you alone?’ he meant to say but
did not say, and only raised his cap in silence.
He was ill at ease alone with Maryanka, but as if purposely to
torment himself he went up to her.
‘You’ll be shooting the women with your gun like that,’ said
Maryanka.
‘No, I shan’t shoot them.’
They were both silent.
Then after a pause she said: ‘You should help me.’
He took out his knife and began silently to cut off the clusters.
He reached from under the leaves low down a thick bunch weighing
about three pounds, the grapes of which grew so close that they
flattened each other for want of space. He showed it to Maryanka.
‘Must they all be cut? Isn’t this one too green?’
‘Give it here.’
Their hands touched. Olenin took her hand, and she looked at him
smiling.
‘Are you going to be married soon?’ he asked.
She did not answer, but turned away with a stern look.
‘Do you love Lukashka?’
‘What’s that to you?’
‘I envy him!’
‘Very likely!’ ‘No really. You are so beautiful!’
And he suddenly felt terribly ashamed of having said it, so
commonplace did the words seem to him. He flushed, lost control of
himself, and seized both her hands.
‘Whatever I am, I’m not for you. Why do you make fun of me?’
replied Maryanka, but her look showed how certainly she knew he
was not making fun.
‘Making fun? If you only knew how I—’
The words sounded still more commonplace, they accorded still less
with what he felt, but yet he continued, ‘I don’t know what I
would not do for you—’
‘Leave me alone, you pitch!’
But her face, her shining eyes, her swelling bosom, her shapely
legs, said something quite different. It seemed to him that she
understood how petty were all things he had said, but that she was
superior to such considerations. It seemed to him she had long
known all he wished and was not able to tell her, but wanted to
hear how he would say it. ‘And how can she help knowing,’ he
thought, ‘since I only want to tell her all that she herself is?
But she does not wish to understand, does not wish to reply.’
‘Hallo!’ suddenly came Ustenka’s high voice from behind the vine
at no great distance, followed by her shrill laugh. ‘Come and help
me, Dmitri Andreich. I am all alone,’ she cried, thrusting her
round, naive little face through the vines.
Olenin did not answer nor move from his place.
Maryanka went on cutting and continually looked up at Olenin. He
was about to say something, but stopped, shrugged his shoulders
and, having jerked up his gun, walked out of the vineyard with
rapid strides.
He stopped once or twice, listening to the ringing laughter of
Maryanka and Ustenka who, having come together, were shouting
something. Olenin spent the whole evening hunting in the forest
and returned home at dusk without having killed anything. When
crossing the road he noticed her open the door of the outhouse,
and her blue smock showed through it. He called to Vanyusha very
loud so as to let her know that he was back, and then sat down in
the porch in his usual place. His hosts now returned from the
vineyard; they came out of the outhouse and into their hut, but
did not ask of the latch and knocked. The floor hardly creaked
under the bare cautious footsteps which approached the door. The
latch clicked, the door creaked, and he noticed a faint smell of
marjoram and pumpkin, and Maryanka’s whole figure appeared in the
doorway. He saw her only for an instant in the moonlight. She
slammed the door and, muttering something, ran lightly back again.
Olenin began rapping softly but nothing responded. He ran to the
window and listened. Suddenly he was startled by a shrill, squeaky
man’s voice.
‘Fine!’ exclaimed a rather small young Cossack in a white cap,
coming across the yard close to Olenin. ‘I saw … fine!’
Olenin recognized Nazarka, and was silent, not knowing what to do
or say.
‘Fine! I’ll go and tell them at the office, and I’ll tell her
father! That’s a fine cornet’s daughter! One’s not enough for
her.’
‘What do you want of me, what are you after?’ uttered Olenin.
‘Nothing; only I’ll tell them at the office.’
Nazarka spoke very loud, and evidently did so intentionally,
adding: ‘Just see what a clever cadet!’
Olenin trembled and grew pale.
‘Come here, here!’ He seized the Cossack firmly by the arm and
drew him towards his hut.
‘Nothing happened, she did not let me in, and I too mean no harm.
She is an honest girl—’
‘Eh, discuss—’
‘Yes, but all the same I’ll give you something now. Wait a bit!’
Nazarka said nothing. Olenin ran into his hut and brought out ten
rubles, which he gave to the Cossack.
‘Nothing happened, but still I was to blame, so I give this!—Only
for God’s sake don’t let anyone know, for nothing happened … ‘
‘I wish you joy,’ said Nazarka laughing, and went away.
Nazarka had come to the village that night at Lukashka’s bidding
to find a place to hide a stolen horse, and now, passing by on his
way home, had heard the sound of footsteps. When he returned next
morning to his company he bragged to his chum, and told him how
cleverly he had got ten rubles. Next morning Olenin met his hosts
and they knew nothing about the events of the night. He did not
speak to Maryanka, and she only laughed a little when she looked
at him. Next night he also passed without sleep, vainly wandering
about the yard. The day after he purposely spent shooting, and in
the evening he went to see Beletski to escape from his own
thoughts. He was afraid of himself, and promised himself not to go
to his hosts’ hut any more.
That night he was roused by the sergeant-major. His company was
ordered to start at once on a raid. Olenin was glad this had
happened, and thought he would not again return to the village.
The raid lasted four days. The commander, who was a relative of
Olenin’s, wished to see him and offered to let him remain with the
staff, but this Olenin declined. He found that he could not live
away from the village, and asked to be allowed to return to it.
For having taken part in the raid he received a soldier’s cross,
which he had formerly greatly desired. Now he was quite
indifferent about it, and even more indifferent about his
promotion, the order for which had still not arrived. Accompanied
by Vanyusha he rode back to the cordon without any accident
several hours in advance of the rest of the company. He spent the
whole evening in his porch watching Maryanka, and he again walked
about the yard, without aim or thought, all night.
It was late when he awoke the next day. His hosts were no longer
in. He did not go shooting, but now took up a book, and now went
out into the porch, and now again re-entered the hut and lay down
on the bed. Vanyusha thought he was ill.
Towards evening Olenin got up, resolutely began writing, and wrote
on till late at night. He wrote a letter, but did not post it
because he felt that no one would have understood what he wanted
to say, and besides it was not necessary that anyone but himself
should understand it. This is what he wrote:
‘I receive letters of condolence from Russia. They are afraid that
I shall perish, buried in these wilds. They say about me: “He will
become coarse; he will be behind the times in everything; he will
take to drink, and who knows but that he may marry a Cossack
girl.” It was not for nothing, they say, that Ermolov declared:
“Anyone serving in the Caucasus for ten years either becomes a
confirmed drunkard or marries a loose woman.” How terrible! Indeed
it won’t do for me to ruin myself when I might have the great
happiness of even becoming the Countess B–‘s husband, or a Court
chamberlain, or a Marechal de noblesse of my district. Oh, how
repulsive and pitiable you all seem to me! You do not know what
happiness is and what life is! One must taste life once in all its
natural beauty, must see and understand what I see every day
before me—those eternally unapproachable snowy peaks, and a
majestic woman in that primitive beauty in which the first woman
must have come from her creator’s hands—and then it becomes clear
who is ruining himself and who is living truly or falsely—you or
I. If you only knew how despicable and pitiable you, in your
delusions, seem to me! When I picture to myself—in place of my
hut, my forests, and my love—those drawing-rooms, those women
with their pomatum-greased hair eked out with false curls, those
unnaturally grimacing lips, those hidden, feeble, distorted limbs,
and that chatter of obligatory drawing-room conversation which has
no right
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