‘Have you come for long?’ asked a woman, breaking the silence.
‘Till to-morrow morning,’ quietly replied Lukashka.
‘Well, God grant you get something good,’ said the Cossack; ‘I’m glad of it, as I’ve just been saying.’
‘And I say so too,’ put in the tipsy Ergushov, laughing. ‘What a lot of visitors have come,’ he added, pointing to a soldier who was passing by. ‘The soldiers’ vodka is good — I like it.’
‘They’ve sent three of the devils to us,’ said one of the women. ‘Grandad went to the village Elders, but they say nothing can be done.’
‘Ah, ha! Have you met with trouble?’ said Ergushov.
‘I expect they have smoked you out with their tobacco?’ asked another woman. ‘Smoke as much as you like in the yard, I say, but we won’t allow it inside the hut. Not if the Elder himself comes, I won’t allow it. Besides, they may rob you. He’s not quartered any of them on himself, no fear, that devil’s son of an Elder.’
‘You don’t like it?’ Ergushov began again.
‘And I’ve also heard say that the girls will have to make the soldiers’ beds and offer them chikhir and honey,’ said Nazarka, putting one foot forward and tilting his cap like Lukashka.
Ergushov burst into a roar of laughter, and seizing the girl nearest to him, he embraced her. ‘I tell you true.’
‘Now then, you black pitch!’ squealed the girl, ‘I’ll tell your old woman.’
‘Tell her,’ shouted he. ‘That’s quite right what Nazarka says; a circular has been sent round. He can read, you know. Quite true!’ And he began embracing the next girl.
‘What are you up to, you beast?’ squealed the rosy, round-faced Ustenka, laughing and lifting her arm to hit him.
The Cossack stepped aside and nearly fell.
‘There, they say girls have no strength, and you nearly killed me.’
‘Get away, you black pitch, what devil has brought you from the cordon?’ said Ustenka, and turning away from him she again burst out laughing. ‘You were asleep and missed the abrek, didn’t you? Suppose he had done for you it would have been all the better.’
‘You’d have howled, I expect,’ said Nazarka, laughing.
‘Howled! A likely thing.’
‘Just look, she doesn’t care. She’d howl, Nazarka, eh? Would she?’ said Ergushov.
Lukishka all this time had stood silently looking at Maryanka. His gaze evidently confused the girl.
‘Well, Maryanka! I hear they’ve quartered one of the chiefs on you?’ he said, drawing nearer.
Maryanka, as was her wont, waited before she replied, and slowly raising her eyes looked at the Cossack. Lukashka’s eyes were laughing as if something special, apart from what was said, was taking place between himself and the girl.
‘Yes, it’s all right for them as they have two huts,’ replied an old woman on Maryanka’s behalf, ‘but at Fomushkin’s now they also have one of the chiefs quartered on them and they say one whole corner is packed full with his things, and the family have no room left. Was such a thing ever heard of as that they should turn a whole horde loose in the village?’ she said. ‘And what the plague are they going to do here?’
‘I’ve heard say they’ll build a bridge across the Terek,’ said one of the girls.
‘And I’ve been told that they will dig a pit to put the girls in because they don’t love the lads,’ said Nazarka, approaching Ustenka; and he again made a whimsical gesture which set everybody laughing, and Ergushov, passing by Maryanka, who was next in turn, began to embrace an old woman.
‘Why don’t you hug Maryanka? You should do it to each in turn,’ said Nazarka.
‘No, my old one is sweeter,’ shouted the Cossack, kissing the struggling old woman.
‘You’ll throttle me,’ she screamed, laughing.
The tramp of regular footsteps at the other end of the street interrupted their laughter. Three soldiers in their cloaks, with their muskets on their shoulders, were marching in step to relieve guard by the ammunition wagon.
The corporal, an old cavalry man, looked angrily at the Cossacks and led his men straight along the road where Lukashka and Nazarka were standing, so that they should have to get out of the way. Nazarka moved, but Lukashka only screwed up his eyes and turned his broad back without moving from his place.
‘People are standing here, so you go round,’ he muttered, half turning his head and tossing it contemptuously in the direction of the soldiers.
The soldiers passed by in silence, keeping step regularly along the dusty road.
Maryanka began laughing and all the other girls chimed in.
‘What swells!’ said Nazarka, ‘Just like long-skirted choristers,’ and he walked a few steps down the road imitating the soldiers.
Again everyone broke into peals of laughter.
Lukashka came slowly up to Maryanka.
‘And where have you put up the chief?’ he asked.
Maryanka thought for a moment.
‘We’ve let him have the new hut,’ she said.
‘And is he old or young,’ asked Lukashka, sitting down beside her.
‘Do you think I’ve asked?’ answered the girl. ‘I went to get him some chikhir and saw him sitting at the window with Daddy Eroshka. Red-headed he seemed. They’ve brought a whole cartload of things.’
And she dropped her eyes.
‘Oh, how glad I am that I got leave from the cordon!’ said Lukashka, moving closer to the girl and looking straight in her eyes all the time.
‘And have you come for long?’ asked Maryanka, smiling slightly.
‘Till the morning. Give me some sunflower seeds,’ he said, holding out his hand.
Maryanka now smiled outright and unfastened the neckband of her smock.
‘Don’t take them all,’ she said.
‘Really I felt so dull all the time without you, I swear I did,’ he said in a calm, restrained whisper, helping himself to some seeds out of the bosom of the girl’s smock, and stooping still closer over her he continued with laughing eyes to talk to her in low tones.
‘I won’t come, I tell you,’ Maryanka suddenly said aloud, leaning away from him.
‘No really... what I wanted to say to you,... ‘ whispered Lukashka. ‘By the Heavens! Do come!’
Maryanka shook her head, but did so with a smile.
‘Nursey Maryanka! Hallo Nursey! Mammy is calling! Supper time!’ shouted Maryanka’s little brother, running towards the group.
‘I’m