The Cossacks (21 page)

“Why, are you jealous of me and my handsome ‘grandpa’?” Ustenka asked Maryanka in a whisper.

“No, I’m not! Let me sleep. What did you come over here for, anyway?”

“Don’t worry, I’ll tell you why.”

Maryanka raised herself on her elbow and rearranged her kerchief. “Well?”

“I know a thing or two about your lodger,” Ustenka whispered.

“What’s there to know?”

“Aha, I see your lips are sealed!” Ustenka said, nudging Maryanka’s elbow and laughing. “Doesn’t he come over to see you?”

“Yes. So what?” Maryanka said, suddenly blushing.

“Well, unlike you I’m a straightforward girl,” Ustenka said. “I don’t hide anything from my friends—why should I?” And her cheerful, rosy face became pensive. “After all, I’m not doing anybody any harm. I love him, and that’s that.”

“You’re in love with Grandpa?”

“Yes, I am.”

“But that’s a sin!” Maryanka protested.

“Ah, Maryanka! When’s a girl to have fun, if not while she’s still young and free? One day I’ll marry a Cossack, bear children, and have my share of worry. Wait till you marry Lukashka—there’ll be no more time for fun. All you can look forward to is children and work.”

“Some girls marry and live happily, though!” Maryanka replied calmly.

“But tell me just this once if anything has happened yet between you and Lukashka.”

“What should have happened? We got betrothed. My father wanted me to marry in a year, but now it’s been decided for autumn.”

“What did Lukashka say to you?”

Maryanka smiled. “You know exactly what he said. He said he loves me, and kept asking me to go into the vineyards with him.”

“The devil! You didn’t, did you?” Ustenka whispered. “Though he
is
dashing, the best fighter in the village! I hear he carouses out there in the squadron too. The other day our Kirka came back and said that Lukashka had exchanged his horse for a
really
good one. But I suppose he still misses you. What else did he say?”

“You always want to know everything,” Maryanka whispered back,
tittering. “He rode up to my window one night when he was drunk—he wanted to come in.”

“And you didn’t let him?”

“Didn’t let him? I said I wouldn’t and I won’t!” Maryanka replied sharply. “Once I’ve made up my mind, that’s that!”

“But he’s so handsome! No girl would refuse him!”

“So let him go to a girl that won’t refuse him,” Maryanka said proudly.

“Don’t you feel sorry for him?”

“Yes, but I’m not about to do anything foolish. It’s a sin.”

Ustenka suddenly hugged Maryanka and nestled her head on her chest, trying to smother her laughter. “You’re such a silly girl,” she said, gasping for breath. “I see you don’t want to be happy!” And she began tickling her.

“Stop it!” Maryanka squealed, laughing.

“Just look at those two devils!” The old woman’s sleepy voice came from beyond the cart. “Never a peaceful moment!”

“You don’t want to be happy,” Ustenka repeated in a whisper, propping herself up a little. “You’re so lucky—how they all love you! You’re rough with them, but they still love you. If I were in your shoes, you’d see how fast I’d wind that lodger of yours around my little finger. I was watching him at my party: he was ready to gobble you up with his eyes. You should see the things Grandpa has given me, and your lodger is even richer. His servant says he has his own serfs.”

Maryanka also propped herself up a little and smiled, lost in thought. “You know what he told me once—our lodger, I mean,” she said, chewing on a blade of grass. “He told me: ‘I want to be a Cossack, like Lukashka, or your little brother, Lazutka.’ I wonder why he said that.”

“Lies! He’s just saying whatever comes into his head,” Ustenka replied. “You should hear some of the things my ‘grandpa’ says—you’d think his mind’s unhinged!”

Maryanka lay her head on her rolled-up jacket, rested her arm on Ustenka’s shoulder, and closed her eyes. “He wanted to come and work in the vineyards with us. My father told him he could,” Maryanka said, and after a few moments of silence fell asleep.

The sun came out from behind the pear tree shading the cart, and its hot, slanting rays cut through the branches Ustenka had arranged and touched the faces of the sleeping girls. Maryanka woke up and retied her kerchief. She looked around and saw Olenin talking to her father beyond the pear tree. She nudged Ustenka and pointed at him with a smile.

“I did go yesterday, but I didn’t find a thing,” Olenin was saying, looking around uneasily but unable to see Maryanka through the branches on the cart.

“You should ambulate in an arc into those regions over there,” the cornet said, reverting to his attempt at elegant speech. “You will come upon an abandoned vineyard—I should in actual fact denominate it as a vacant plot—but one can always encounter hares there!”

“A fine thing to be walking about looking for hares during the busiest time of the year,” Old Ulitka said cheerfully. “You’d do better to come over here and pitch in. You’d get to work a bit with the girls.” She turned and called to them. “Come on, girls, time to get up!”

Maryanka and Ustenka, whispering back and forth, could barely restrain their laughter.

From the moment the cornet and Old Ulitka had heard that Olenin had given Lukashka a fifty-ruble horse, they had become more friendly toward him. The cornet in particular seemed pleased to see Olenin’s growing interest in his daughter.

“But I don’t know how to do that sort of work,” Olenin said, trying not to look through the green branches, where he had noticed Maryanka’s blue smock and red kerchief.

“Come, I’ll give you some dried apricots,” the old woman said.

“An ancient Cossack custom of hospitality, just a bit of old woman’s foolishness,” the cornet proclaimed, as if attempting to correct his wife’s words. “I imagine that in Russia you partook not merely of dried apricots but even of pineapple marmalade and preserves to your heart’s content!”

“So you say there are some hares in the abandoned vineyard,” Olenin said. “I’ll go over there right away.” And throwing a quick glance at the
cart, he raised his sheepskin hat and hurried through the straight, green rows of vines.

By the time Olenin returned to his landlord’s vineyard, the sun had already dipped beneath the fence and its broken rays were shining through the translucent leaves. The wind had settled, and a cool freshness began spreading through the vines. As if instinctively, his eyes were drawn to Maryanka’s blue smock glimmering among the leaves in the distance. He began picking grapes as he made his way toward her, his panting dog snapping at low-hanging clusters with its drooling mouth. Maryanka was nimbly cutting large bunches of grapes and dropping them into a basket, her face flushed, her sleeves rolled up, her kerchief tied beneath her chin. Without letting go of the vine, she stopped, smiled at Olenin, and then continued working. He came nearer and hung his rifle over his shoulder to free his hands. He wanted to say, “Good heavens, are you working all alone? Where is everyone else?” But he only raised his hat without a word. He felt awkward being alone with Maryanka, yet came nearer, as if to torture himself on purpose.

“You’ll be shooting women, with your rifle dangling like that,” she said.

“No, I won’t.”

Both were silent.

“How about helping me?”

He took out his knife and began cutting grapes. He found a thick cluster weighing a good three pounds, the grapes so tightly bunched together that they flattened each other, and held it up for her to see.

“Should I cut all of these? Aren’t they too green?”

“Wait, I’ll do it.”

Their fingers touched. Olenin took her hand, and she looked at him and smiled.

“So you’ll be getting married soon?” he said.

She turned away without replying, then looked at him with stern eyes.

“So you love Lukashka?”

“What’s that to you?”

“I envy him.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I do. You’re so beautiful.”

He suddenly felt ashamed of what he had just said. His words had sounded so vulgar. He flushed and seized her hands.

“Whatever I am, I’m not for you!” Maryanka said. “Why are you making fun of me?” But her eyes revealed she knew he was serious.

“I’m not making fun of you! If you only knew how I …”

His words sounded even more vulgar, even less expressive of what he felt. But he went on. “There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you!”

“Stop!”

But her face, her sparkling eyes, her taut breasts and shapely legs were saying something very different. He felt she was aware of the vulgarity of his words but was too pure to take offense. He felt she knew what he was struggling to tell her but wanted to hear how he would say it. How could she not know, he thought, when everything he wanted to tell her was what she herself was? But she did not want to understand, she did not want to answer him!

“Hello there!” Ustenka’s crooning voice called from beyond the nearby vines, followed by her chirping laughter. Her naïve little face poked out from behind the leaves. “Come here and help me, Dmitri Andreyevich! I’m working all by myself!”

Olenin did not move. Maryanka continued picking grapes but constantly looked over to Olenin. He was about to say something but stopped, shrugged, and marched quickly out of the vineyard, his rifle over his shoulder.

Olenin stopped two or three times, listening to Maryanka’s and Ustenka’s echoing laughter. They were calling something after him. He spent the whole afternoon hunting in the forest and was back in the village by dusk without having killed anything. As he walked through the courtyard, he noticed that the door to the milk shed stood open and caught a glimpse of a blue smock. Eyeing the shed, he called to Vanyusha more loudly than usual to announce his presence and sat down on the porch. The cornet and Old Ulitka had already returned
from the vineyard. He saw them come out of the shed and go into their house without calling him over. Maryanka went out to the gate twice. In the twilight, it seemed to him that she might have turned to look at him. He greedily watched her every move but could not bring himself to go over to her. She disappeared into the house, and he came down from the porch and began pacing back and forth in the yard, but she did not come out. Olenin spent the whole night in the yard, listening to every sound in his landlord’s house. He heard them talking throughout the evening, heard them eating their supper, preparing their featherbeds, and lying down to sleep. He heard Maryanka laugh at something, and then everything fell silent. There was a whispered conversation between the cornet and his wife, and there was a sigh. Olenin went into his house. Vanyusha lay asleep in his clothes. Olenin felt a pang of envy and went out into the yard again and paced up and down, waiting for something to happen. But nobody appeared, nobody moved. All he could hear was the regular breathing of three people. He knew Maryanka’s breathing, and kept listening to it and to the beating of his heart.

The village now lay in silence. The waning moon appeared, and Olenin could see the cattle huffing in the yards, laboriously lying down and getting up again. He angrily asked himself what it was he wanted, but he could not tear himself away. Suddenly he heard footsteps in the landlord’s house and a creaking of floorboards. He rushed toward the front door. But again there was silence, except for even breathing. A cow lying in the yard sighed heavily, moved, and slowly heaved herself onto her knees and got up, swishing her tail. He heard something plopping evenly onto the dry clay, and with a sigh the cow lay down again in the hazy moonlight. Olenin wondered what he should do and decided to go to bed. But again he heard sounds, and in his mind the image sprang up of Maryanka coming out into the misty, moonlit night. He rushed toward her window and again heard footsteps. Just before dawn he finally knocked on her shutters, ran over to the door, and then really did hear a sigh and footsteps. He grabbed hold of the latch and began rapping. He heard bare feet treading carefully toward the door, the floorboards scarcely creaking. The latch moved, the door rasped lightly, there was an aroma of herbs and
pumpkins, and the figure of Maryanka appeared. He saw her only for an instant in the moonlight. She slammed the door shut and, whispering something, ran back with light steps. Olenin began knocking softly, but no one answered. Suddenly he was startled by a man’s shrill voice.

“Aha!” a short Cossack in a white sheepskin hat called out, marching through the yard toward Olenin. “Aha! I saw it all!”

Olenin recognized Nazarka and was at a loss for what to do or say.

“Aha! I’m going over to the village elder right this minute!” Nazarka shouted. “I’m going to tell him everything, and her father too! Ha! A cornet’s daughter indeed! I see one man isn’t enough for her!”

“What do you want from me?” Olenin spluttered.

“Nothing! I’m going to tell the village elder, that’s all!” Nazarka called out, obviously for all to hear. “How sly you cadets are!”

Olenin stood pale and shivering. “Come with me! Come!” he hissed, grabbing Nazarka by the arm and tugging him roughly toward his house. “Nothing happened! She wouldn’t let me in, and I didn’t do … She’s an honest girl!”

“The village elder will decide how honest she is,” Nazarka replied.

“All the same, I’ll give you … Here, wait a moment.”

Nazarka fell silent. Olenin hurried into the house and came back with ten rubles.

“Nothing happened, I tell you! But it’s all my fault, so here you go. But for God’s sake, nobody must find out! You see, nothing happened …”

“A good day to you,” Nazarka said and left.

Nazarka had come that night to the village at Lukashka’s bidding to find a place to hide a stolen horse, and while he was heading down the street to his own house he had heard Olenin pacing the yard. Later that morning, when he returned to the squadron, he bragged to Lukashka how cleverly he had earned himself ten rubles.

When Olenin ran into the cornet and Old Ulitka that morning, he was relieved to see that they knew nothing of the incident. He did not speak to Maryanka, but she giggled whenever she looked at him. He also spent the following night pacing the courtyard in vain and then went hunting all day and in the evening, to escape himself, dropped by to see Beletsky. His feelings frightened him, and he promised himself he would no longer visit his landlord.