‘Do you know Girey Khan in Suuk-su?’ asked Lukashka, evidently proud of the acquaintance. ‘He is my kunak.’
‘He is my neighbour,’ answered the scout.
‘He’s a trump!’ and Lukashka, evidently much interested, began talking to the scout in Tartar.
Presently a Cossack captain, with the head of the village, arrived on horseback with a suite of two Cossacks. The captain — one of the new type of Cossack officers — wished the Cossacks ‘Good health,’ but no one shouted in reply, ‘Hail! Good health to your honour,’ as is customary in the Russian Army, and only a few replied with a bow. Some, and among them Lukashka, rose and stood erect. The corporal replied that all was well at the outposts. All this seemed ridiculous: it was as if these Cossacks were playing at being soldiers. But these formalities soon gave place to ordinary ways of behaviour, and the captain, who was a smart Cossack just like the others, began speaking fluently in Tartar to the interpreter. They filled in some document, gave it to the scout, and received from him some money. Then they approached the body.
‘Which of you is Luke Gavrilov?’ asked the captain.
Lukishka took off his cap and came forward.
‘I have reported your exploit to the Commander. I don’t know what will come of it. I have recommended you for a cross; you’re too young to be made a sergeant. Can you read?’
‘I can’t.’
‘But what a fine fellow to look at!’ said the captain, again playing the commander. ‘Put on your cap. Which of the Gavrilovs does he come of?... the Broad, eh?’
‘His nephew,’ replied the corporal.
‘I know, I know. Well, lend a hand, help them,’ he said, turning to the Cossacks.
Lukashka’s face shone with joy and seemed handsomer than usual. He moved away from the corporal, and having put on his cap sat down beside Olenin.
When the body had been carried to the skiff the brother Chechen descended to the bank. The Cossacks involuntarily stepped aside to let him pass. He jumped into the boat and pushed off from the bank with his powerful leg, and now, as Olenin noticed, for the first time threw a rapid glance at all the Cossacks and then abruptly asked his companion a question. The latter answered something and pointed to Lukashka. The Chechen looked at him and, turning slowly away, gazed at the opposite bank. That look expressed not hatred but cold contempt. He again made some remark.
‘What is he saying?’ Olenin asked of the fidgety scout.
‘Yours kill ours, ours slay yours. It’s always the same,’ replied the scout, evidently inventing, and he smiled, showing his white teeth, as he jumped into the skiff.
The dead man’s brother sat motionless, gazing at the opposite bank. He was so full of hatred and contempt that there was nothing on this side of the river that moved his curiosity. The scout, standing up at one end of the skiff and dipping his paddle now on one side now on the other, steered skilfully while talking incessantly. The skiff became smaller and smaller as it moved obliquely across the stream, the voices became scarcely audible, and at last, still within sight, they landed on the opposite bank where their horses stood waiting. There they lifted out the corpse and (though the horse shied) laid it across one of the saddles, mounted, and rode at a foot-pace along the road past a Tartar village from which a crowd came out to look at them. The Cossacks on the Russian side of the river were highly satisfied and jovial. Laughter and jokes were heard on all sides. The captain and the head of the village entered the mud hut to regale themselves. Lukashka, vainly striving to impart a sedate expression to his merry face, sat down with his elbows on his knees beside Olenin and whittled away at a stick.
‘Why do you smoke?’ he said with assumed curiosity. ‘Is it good?’
He evidently spoke because he noticed Olenin felt ill at ease and isolated among the Cossacks.
‘It’s just a habit,’ answered Olenin. ‘Why?’
‘H’m, if one of us were to smoke there would be a row! Look there now, the mountains are not far off,’ continued Lukashka, ‘yet you can’t get there! How will you get back alone? It’s getting dark. I’ll take you, if you like. You ask the corporal to give me leave.’
‘What a fine fellow!’ thought Olenin, looking at the Cossack’s bright face. He remembered Maryanka and the kiss he had heard by the gate, and he was sorry for Lukashka and his want of culture. ‘What confusion it is,’ he thought. ‘A man kills another and is happy and satisfied with himself as if he had done something excellent. Can it be that nothing tells him that it is not a reason for any rejoicing, and that happiness lies not in killing, but in sacrificing oneself?’
‘Well, you had better not meet him again now, mate!’ said one of the Cossacks who had seen the skiff off, addressing Lukashka. ‘Did you hear him asking about you?’
Lukashka raised his head.
‘My godson?’ said Lukashka, meaning by that word the dead Chechen.
‘Your godson won’t rise, but the red one is the godson’s brother!’
‘Let him thank God that he got off whole himself,’ replied Lukashka.
‘What are you glad about?’ asked Olenin. ‘Supposing your brother had been killed; would you be glad?’
The Cossack looked at Olenin with laughing eyes. He seemed to have understood all that Olenin wished to say to him, but to be above such considerations.
‘Well, that happens too! Don’t our fellows get killed sometimes?’
Chapter 22
The Captain and the head of the village rode away, and Olenin, to please Lukashka as well as to avoid going back alone through the dark forest, asked the corporal to give Lukashka leave, and the corporal did so. Olenin thought that Lukashka wanted to see Maryanka and he was also glad of the companionship of such a pleasant-looking and sociable Cossack. Lukashka and Maryanka he involuntarily united in his mind, and he found pleasure in thinking about them. ‘He loves Maryanka,’ thought Olenin, ‘and I could love her,’ and a new and powerful emotion of tenderness overcame him as they walked homewards together through the dark forest. Lukashka too felt happy; something akin to love made itself felt between these two very different young men. Every time they glanced at one another they wanted to laugh.
‘By which gate do you enter?’ asked Olenin.
‘By the middle one. But I’ll see you as far as the marsh. After that you have nothing to fear.’
Olenin laughed.
‘Do you think I am afraid? Go back, and thank you. I can get on alone.’
‘It’s all right! What have I to do? And how can you help being afraid? Even we are afraid,’ said Lukashka to set Olenin’s self-esteem at rest, and he laughed too.
‘Then come in with me. We’ll have a talk and a drink and in the morning you can go back.’
‘Couldn’t I find a place to spend the night?’ laughed Lukashka. ‘But the corporal asked me to go back.’
‘I heard you singing last night, and also saw you.’
‘Every one... ‘ and Luke swayed his head.
‘Is it true you are getting married?’ asked Olenin.
‘Mother wants me to marry. But I have not got a horse yet.’
‘Aren’t you in the regular service?’
‘Oh dear no! I’ve only just joined, and have not got a horse yet, and don’t know how to get one. That’s why the marriage does not come off.’
‘And