‘Why, that you keep company with a soldier-lodger and no longer care for me!’
‘I’ll care just as long as I choose. You’re not my father, nor my mother. What do you want? I’ll care for whom I like!’
‘Well, all right...’ said Lukashka, ‘but remember!’ He moved towards the shop. ‘Girls!’ he shouted, ‘why have you stopped? Go on dancing. Nazarka, fetch some more chikhir.’
‘Well, will they come?’ asked Olenin, addressing Beletski.
‘They’ll come directly,’ replied Beletski. ‘Come along, we must prepare the ball.’
Chapter 39
It was already late in the night when Olenin came out of Beletski’s hut following Maryanka and Ustenka. He saw in the dark street before him the gleam of the girl’s white kerchief. The golden moon was descending towards the steppe. A silvery mist hung over the village. All was still; there were no lights anywhere and one heard only the receding footsteps of the young women. Olenin’s heart beat fast. The fresh moist atmosphere cooled his burning face. He glanced at the sky and turned to look at the hut he had just come out of: the candle was already out. Then he again peered through the darkness at the girls’ retreating shadows. The white kerchief disappeared in the mist. He was afraid to remain alone, he was so happy. He jumped down from the porch and ran after the girls.
‘Bother you, someone may see...’ said Ustenka.
‘Never mind!’
Olenin ran up to Maryanka and embraced her.
Maryanka did not resist.
‘Haven’t you kissed enough yet?’ said Ustenka. ‘Marry and then kiss, but now you’d better wait.’
‘Good-night, Maryanka. To-morrow I will come to see your father and tell him. Don’t you say anything.’
‘Why should I!’ answered Maryanka.
Both the girls started running. Olenin went on by himself thinking over all that had happened. He had spent the whole evening alone with her in a corner by the oven. Ustenka had not left the hut for a single moment, but had romped about with the other girls and with Beletski all the time. Olenin had talked in whispers to Maryanka.
‘Will you marry me?’ he had asked.
‘You’d deceive me and not have me,’ she replied cheerfully and calmly.
‘But do you love me? Tell me for God’s sake!’
‘Why shouldn’t I love you? You don’t squint,’ answered Maryanka, laughing and with her hard hands squeezing his...
‘What whi-ite, whi-i-ite, soft hands you’ve got — so like clotted cream,’ she said.
‘I am in earnest. Tell me, will you marry me?’
‘Why not, if father gives me to you?’
‘Well then remember, I shall go mad if you deceive me. To-morrow I will tell your mother and father. I shall come and propose.’
Maryanka suddenly burst out laughing.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘It seems so funny!’
‘It’s true! I will buy a vineyard and a house and will enroll myself as a Cossack.’
‘Mind you don’t go after other women then. I am severe about that.’
Olenin joyfully repeated all these words to himself. The memory of them now gave him pain and now such joy that it took away his breath. The pain was because she had remained as calm as usual while talking to him. She did not seem at all agitated by these new conditions. It was as if she did not trust him and did not think of the future. It seemed to him that she only loved him for the present moment, and that in her mind there was no future with him. He was happy because her words sounded to him true, and she had consented to be his. ‘Yes,’ thought he to himself, ‘we shall only understand one another when she is quite mine. For such love there are no words. It needs life — the whole of life. To-morrow everything will be cleared up. I cannot live like this any longer; to-morrow I will tell everything to her father, to Beletski, and to the whole village.’
Lukashka, after two sleepless nights, had drunk so much at the fete that for the first time in his life his feet would not carry him, and he slept in Yamka’s house.
Chapter 40
The next day Olenin awoke earlier than usual, and immediately remembered what lay before him, and he joyfully recalled her kisses, the pressure of her hard hands, and her words, ‘What white hands you have!’ He jumped up and wished to go at once to his hosts’ hut to ask for their consent to his marriage with Maryanka. The sun had not yet risen, but it seemed that there was an unusual bustle in the street and side-street: people were moving about on foot and on horseback, and talking. He threw on his Circassian coat and hastened out into the porch. His hosts were not yet up. Five Cossacks were riding past and talking loudly together. In front rode Lukashka on his broad-backed Kabarda horse.
The Cossacks were all speaking and shouting so that it was impossible to make out exactly what they were saying.
‘Ride to the Upper Post,’ shouted one.
‘Saddle and catch us up, be quick,’ said another.
‘It’s nearer through the other gate!’
‘What are you talking about?’ cried Lukashka. ‘We must go through the middle gates, of course.’
‘So we must, it’s nearer that way,’ said one of the Cossacks who was covered with dust and rode a perspiring horse. Lukashka’s face was red and swollen after the drinking of the previous night and his cap was pushed to the back of his head. He was calling out with authority as though he were an officer.
‘What is the matter? Where are you going?’ asked Olenin, with difficulty attracting the Cossacks’ attention.
‘We are off to catch abreks. They’re hiding among the sand-drifts. We are just off, but there are not enough of us yet.’
And the Cossacks continued to shout, more and more of them joining as they rode down the street. It occurred to Olenin that it would not look well for him to stay behind; besides he thought he could soon come back. He dressed, loaded his gun with bullets, jumped onto his horse which Vanyusha had saddled more or less well, and overtook the Cossacks at the village gates. The Cossacks had dismounted, and filling a wooden bowl with chikhir from a little cask which they had brought with them, they passed the bowl round to one another and drank to the success of their expedition. Among them was a smartly dressed young cornet, who happened to be in the village and who took command of the group of nine Cossacks who had joined for the expedition. All these Cossacks were privates, and although the cornet assumed the airs of a commanding officer, they only obeyed Lukashka. Of Olenin they took no notice at all, and when they had all mounted and started, and Olenin rode up to the cornet and began asking him what was taking place, the cornet, who was usually quite friendly, treated him with marked condescension. It was with great difficulty that Olenin managed to find out from him what was happening. Scouts who had been sent out to search for abreks had come upon several hillsmen some six miles from the village. These abreks had taken shelter in pits and had fired at the scouts, declaring they would not surrender. A corporal who had been scouting with two Cossacks had remained to watch the abreks, and had sent one Cossack back to get help.
The sun was just rising. Three miles beyond the village the steppe spread out and nothing was visible except the dry, monotonous, sandy, dismal plain covered with the footmarks of cattle, and here and there with tufts of withered grass, with low reeds in the flats, and rare, little-trodden footpaths, and the camps of the nomad Nogay tribe just visible far away. The absence of shade and the austere aspect of the place were striking.