LITMIR.BIZ

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To-day for instance, just because it happens to be the fifteenth of the month, everything is festive. Eyes and faces and voices and movements and garments, and the air and the sun, are all in a holiday mood. And we no longer have any holidays!’

      ‘Yes,’ said Beletski, who did not like such reflections.

      ‘And why are you not drinking, old fellow?’ he said, turning to Eroshka.

      Eroshka winked at Olenin, pointing to Beletski. ‘Eh, he’s a proud one that kunak of yours,’ he said.

      Beletski raised his glass. Allah birdy’ he said, emptying it. (Allah birdy, ‘God has given!’— the usual greeting of Caucasians when drinking together.)

      ‘Sau bul’ (‘Your health’), answered Eroshka smiling, and emptied his glass.

      ‘Speaking of holidays!’ he said, turning to Olenin as he rose and looked out of the window, ‘What sort of holiday is that! You should have seen them make merry in the old days! The women used to come out in their gold — trimmed sarafans. Two rows of gold coins hanging round their necks and gold-cloth diadems on their heads, and when they passed they made a noise, “flu, flu,” with their dresses. Every woman looked like a princess. Sometimes they’d come out, a whole herd of them, and begin singing songs so that the air seemed to rumble, and they went on making merry all night. And the Cossacks would roll out a barrel into the yards and sit down and drink till break of day, or they would go hand — in — hand sweeping the village. Whoever they met they seized and took along with them, and went from house to house. Sometimes they used to make merry for three days on end. Father used to come home — I still remember it — quite red and swollen, without a cap, having lost everything: he’d come and lie down. Mother knew what to do: she would bring him some fresh caviar and a little chikhir to sober him up, and would herself run about in the village looking for his cap. Then he’d sleep for two days! That’s the sort of fellows they were then! But now what are they?’

      ‘Well, and the girls in the sarafans, did they make merry all by themselves?’ asked Beletski.

      ‘Yes, they did! Sometimes Cossacks would come on foot or on horse and say, “Let’s break up the khorovods,” and they’d go, but the girls would take up cudgels. Carnival week, some young fellow would come galloping up, and they’d cudgel his horse and cudgel him too. But he’d break through, seize the one he loved, and carry her off. And his sweetheart would love him to his heart’s content! Yes, the girls in those days, they were regular queens!’

Chapter 36

      Just then two men rode out of the side street into the square. One of them was Nazarka. The other, Lukashka, sat slightly sideways on his well-fed bay Kabarda horse which stepped lightly over the hard road jerking its beautiful head with its fine glossy mane. The well-adjusted gun in its cover, the pistol at his back, and the cloak rolled up behind his saddle showed that Lukashka had not come from a peaceful place or from one near by. The smart way in which he sat a little sideways on his horse, the careless motion with which he touched the horse under its belly with his whip, and especially his half-closed black eyes, glistening as he looked proudly around him, all expressed the conscious strength and self-confidence of youth. ‘Ever seen as fine a lad?’ his eyes, looking from side to side, seemed to say. The elegant horse with its silver ornaments and trappings, the weapons, and the handsome Cossack himself attracted the attention of everyone in the square. Nazarka, lean and short, was much less well dressed. As he rode past the old men, Lukashka paused and raised his curly white sheepskin cap above his closely cropped black head.

      ‘Well, have you carried off many Nogay horses?’ asked a lean old man with a frowning, lowering look.

      ‘Have you counted them, Grandad, that you ask?’ replied Lukashka, turning away.

      ‘That’s all very well, but you need not take my lad along with you,’ the old man muttered with a still darker frown.

      ‘Just see the old devil, he knows everything,’ muttered Lukashka to himself, and a worried expression came over his face; but then, noticing a corner where a number of Cossack girls were standing, he turned his horse towards them.

      ‘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 comer 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?”

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