________________________________________________
_ 'Yes,' thought Olenin, as he walked home. 'I need only slacken the
reins a bit and I might fall desperately in love with this Cossack
girl.' He went to bed with these thoughts, but expected it all to
blow over and that he would continue to live as before.
But the old life did not return. His relations to Maryanka were
changed. The wall that had separated them was broken down. Olenin
now greeted her every time they met.
The master of the house having returned to collect the rent, on
hearing of Olenin's wealth and generosity invited him to his hut.
The old woman received him kindly, and from the day of the party
onwards Olenin often went in of an evening and sat with them till
late at night. He seemed to be living in the village just as he
used to, but within him everything had changed. He spent his days
in the forest, and towards eight o'clock, when it began to grow
dusk, he would go to see his hosts, alone or with Daddy Eroshka.
They grew so used to him that they were surprised when he stayed
away. He paid well for his wine and was a quiet fellow. Vanyusha
would bring him his tea and he would sit down in a comer near the
oven. The old woman did not mind him but went on with her work,
and over their tea or their chikhir they talked about Cossack
affairs, about the neighbours, or about Russia: Olenin relating
and the others inquiring. Sometimes he brought a book and read to
himself. Maryanka crouched like a wild goat with her feet drawn up
under her, sometimes on the top of the oven, sometimes in a dark
comer. She did not take part in the conversations, but Olenin saw
her eyes and face and heard her moving or cracking sunflower
seeds, and he felt that she listened with her whole being when he
spoke, and was aware of his presence while he silently read to
himself. Sometimes he thought her eyes were fixed on him, and
meeting their radiance he involuntarily became silent and gazed at
her. Then she would instantly hide her face and he would pretend
to be deep in conversation with the old woman, while he listened
all the time to her breathing and to her every movement and waited
for her to look at him again. In the presence of others she was
generally bright and friendly with him, but when they were alone
together she was shy and rough. Sometimes he came in before
Maryanka had returned home. Suddenly he would hear her firm
footsteps and catch a glimmer of her blue cotton smock at the open
door. Then she would step into the middle of the hut, catch sight
of him, and her eyes would give a scarcely perceptible kindly
smile, and he would feel happy and frightened.
He neither sought for nor wished for anything from her, but every
day her presence became more and more necessary to him.
Olenin had entered into the life of the Cossack village so fully
that his past seemed quite foreign to him. As to the future,
especially a future outside the world in which he was now living,
it did not interest him at all. When he received letters from
home, from relatives and friends, he was offended by the evident
distress with which they regarded him as a lost man, while he in
his village considered those as lost who did not live as he was
living. He felt sure he would never repent of having broken away
from his former surroundings and of having settled down in this
village to such a solitary and original life. When out on
expeditions, and when quartered at one of the forts, he felt happy
too; but it was here, from under Daddy Eroshka's wing, from the
forest and from his hut at the end of the village, and especially
when he thought of Maryanka and Lukashka, that he seemed to see
the falseness of his former life. That falseness used to rouse his
indignation even before, but now it seemed inexpressibly vile and
ridiculous. Here he felt freer and freer every day and more and
more of a man. The Caucasus now appeared entirely different to
what his imagination had painted it. He had found nothing at all
like his dreams, nor like the descriptions of the Caucasus he had
heard and read. 'There are none of all those chestnut steeds,
precipices, Amalet Beks, heroes or villains,' thought he. 'The
people live as nature lives: they die, are born, unite, and more
are born--they fight, eat and drink, rejoice and die, without any
restrictions but those that nature imposes on sun and grass, on
animal and tree. They have no other laws.' Therefore these people,
compared to himself, appeared to him beautiful, strong, and free,
and the sight of them made him feel ashamed and sorry for himself.
Often it seriously occurred to him to throw up everything, to get
registered as a Cossack, to buy a hut and cattle and marry a
Cossack woman (only not Maryanka, whom he conceded to Lukashka),
and to live with Daddy Eroshka and go shooting and fishing with
him, and go with the Cossacks on their expeditions. 'Why ever
don't I do it? What am I waiting for?' he asked himself, and he
egged himself on and shamed himself. 'Am I afraid of doing what I
hold to be reasonable and right? Is the wish to be a simple
Cossack, to live close to nature, not to injure anyone but even to
do good to others, more stupid than my former dreams, such as
those of becoming a minister of state or a colonel?' but a voice
seemed to say that he should wait, and not take any decision. He
was held back by a dim consciousness that he could not live
altogether like Eroshka and Lukashka because he had a different
idea of happiness--he was held back by the thought that happiness
lies in self-sacrifice. What he had done for Lukashka continued to
give him joy. He kept looking for occasions to sacrifice himself
for others, but did not meet with them. Sometimes he forgot this
newly discovered recipe for happiness and considered himself
capable of identifying his life with Daddy Eroshka's, but then he
quickly bethought himself and promptly clutched at the idea of
conscious self-sacrifice, and from that basis looked calmly and
proudly at all men and at their happiness. _
Read next: CHAPTER 27
Read previous: CHAPTER 25
Table of content of Cossacks
GO TO TOP OF SCREEN
Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book
