Granny Ulitka, the wife of the Cossack cornet who is also teacher in the regimental school, goes out to the gates of her yard like the other women, and waits for the cattle which her daughter Maryanka is driving along the street. Before she has had time fully to open the wattle gate in the fence, an enormous buffalo cow surrounded by mosquitoes rushes up bellowing and squeezes in. Several well-fed cows slowly follow her, their large eyes gazing with recognition at their mistress as they swish their sides with their tails. The beautiful and shapely Maryanka enters at the gate and throwing away her switch quickly slams the gate to and rushes with all the speed of her nimble feet to separate and drive the cattle into their sheds. ‘Take off your slippers, you devil’s wench!’ shouts her mother, ‘you’ve worn them into holes!’ Maryanka is not at all offended at being called a ‘devil’s wench’, but accepting it as a term of endearment cheerfully goes on with her task. Her face is covered with a kerchief tied round her head. She is wearing a pink smock and a green beshmet. She disappears inside the lean-to shed in the yard, following the big fat cattle; and from the shed comes her voice as she speaks gently and persuasively to the buffalo: ‘Won’t she stand still? What a creature! Come now, come old dear!’ Soon the girl and the old woman pass from the shed to the dairy carrying two large pots of milk, the day’s yield. From the dairy chimney rises a thin cloud of kisyak smoke: the milk is being used to make into clotted cream. The girl makes up the fire while her mother goes to the gate. Twilight has fallen on the village. The air is full of the smell of vegetables, cattle, and scented kisyak smoke. From the gates and along the streets Cossack women come running, carrying lighted rags. From the yards one hears the snorting and quiet chewing of the cattle eased of their milk, while in the street only the voices of women and children sound as they call to one another. It is rare on a week-day to hear the drunken voice of a man.
One of the Cossack wives, a tall, masculine old woman, approaches Granny Ulitka from the homestead opposite and asks her for a light. In her hand she holds a rag.
‘Have you cleared up. Granny?’
‘The girl is lighting the fire. Is it fire you want?’ says Granny Ulitka, proud of being able to oblige her neighbour.
Both women enter the hut, and coarse hands unused to dealing with small articles tremblingly lift the lid of a matchbox, which is a rarity in the Caucasus. The masculine-looking new-comer sits down on the doorstep with the evident intention of having a chat.
‘And is your man at the school. Mother?’ she asked.
‘He’s always teaching the youngsters. Mother. But he writes that he’ll come home for the holidays,’ said the cornet’s wife.
‘Yes, he’s a clever man, one sees; it all comes useful.’
‘Of course it does.’
‘And my Lukashka is at the cordon; they won’t let him come home,’ said the visitor, though the cornet’s wife had known all this long ago. She wanted to talk about her Lukashka whom she had lately fitted out for service in the Cossack regiment, and whom she wished to marry to the cornet’s daughter, Maryanka.
‘So he’s at the cordon?’
‘He is. Mother. He’s not been home since last holidays. The other day I sent him some shirts by Fomushkin. He says he’s all right, and that his superiors are satisfied. He says they are looking out for abreks again. Lukashka is quite happy, he says.’
‘Ah well, thank God,’ said the cornet’s wife.’ “Snatcher” is certainly the only word for him.’ Lukashka was surnamed ‘the Snatcher’ because of his bravery in snatching a boy from a watery grave, and the cornet’s wife alluded to this, wishing in her turn to say something agreeable to Lukashka’s mother.
‘I thank God, Mother, that he’s a good son! He’s a fine fellow, everyone praises him,’ says Lukashka’s mother. ‘All I wish is to get him married; then I could die in peace.’
‘Well, aren’t there plenty of young women in the village?’ answered the cornet’s wife slyly as she carefully replaced the lid of the matchbox with her horny hands.
‘Plenty, Mother, plenty,’ remarked Lukashka’s mother, shaking her head. ‘There’s your girl now, your Maryanka — that’s the sort of girl! You’d have to search through the whole place to find such another!’ The cornet’s wife knows what Lukashka’s mother is after, but though she believes him to be a good Cossack she hangs back: first because she is a cornet’s wife and rich, while Lukashka is the son of a simple Cossack and fatherless, secondly because she does not want to part with her daughter yet, but chiefly because propriety demands it.
‘Well, when Maryanka grows up she’ll be marriageable too,’ she answers soberly and modestly.
‘I’ll send the matchmakers to you — I’ll send them! Only let me get the vineyard done and then we’ll come and make our bows to you,’ says Lukashka’s mother. ‘And we’ll make our bows to Elias Vasilich too.’
‘Elias, indeed!’ says the cornet’s wife proudly. ‘It’s to me you must speak! All in its own good time.’
Lukashka’s mother sees by the stern face of the cornet’s wife that it is not the time to say anything more just now, so she lights her rag with the match and says, rising: ‘Don’t refuse us, think of my words. I’ll go, it is time to light the fire.’
As she crosses the road swinging the burning rag, she meets Maryanka, who bows.
‘Ah, she’s a regular queen, a splendid worker, that girl!’ she thinks, looking at the beautiful maiden. ‘What need for her to grow any more? It’s time she was married and to a good home; married to Lukashka!’
But Granny Ulitka had her own cares and she remained sitting on the threshold thinking hard about something, till the girl called her.
Chapter 6
The male population of the village spend their time on military expeditions and in the cordon — or ‘at their posts’, as the Cossacks say. Towards evening, that same Lukashka the Snatcher, about whom the old women had been talking, was standing on a watch-tower of the Nizhni-Prototsk post situated on the very banks of the Terek. Leaning on the railing of the tower and screwing up his eyes, he looked now far into the distance beyond the Terek, now down at his fellow Cossacks, and occasionally he addressed the latter. The sun was already approaching the snowy range that gleamed white above the fleecy clouds. The clouds undulating at the base of the mountains grew darker and darker. The clearness of evening was noticeable in the air. A sense of freshness came from the woods, though round the post it was still hot. The voices of the talking Cossacks vibrated more sonorously than before. The moving mass of the Terek’s rapid brown waters contrasted more vividly with its motionless banks. The waters were beginning to subside and here and