Daddy Eróshka was a superannuated and solitary Cossack: twenty years
ago his wife had gone over to the Orthodox Church and run away from him
and married a Russian sergeant-major, and he had no children. He was
not bragging when he spoke of himself as having been the boldest
dare-devil in the village when he was young. Everybody in the regiment
knew of his old-time prowess. The death of more than one Russian, as
well as Chéchen, lay on his conscience. He used to go plundering in the
mountains, and robbed the Russians too; and he had twice been in
prison. The greater part of his life was spent in the forests, hunting.
There he lived for days on a crust of bread and drank nothing but
water. But on the other hand, when he was in the village he made merry
from morning to night. After leaving Olénin he slept for a couple of
hours and awoke before it was light. He lay on his bed thinking of the
man he had become acquainted with the evening before. Olénin’s
“simplicity” (simplicity in the sense of not grudging him a drink)
pleased him very much, and so did Olénin himself. He wondered why the
Russians were all “simple” and so rich, and why they were educated, and
yet knew nothing. He pondered on these questions and also considered
what he might get out of Olénin.
Daddy Eróshka’s hut was of a good size and not old, but the absence of
a woman was very noticeable in it. Contrary to the usual cleanliness of
the Cossacks, the whole of this hut was filthy and exceedingly untidy.
A blood-stained coat had been thrown on the table, half a dough-cake
lay beside a plucked and mangled crow with which to feed the hawk.
Sandals of raw hide, a gun, a dagger, a little bag, wet clothes, and
sundry rags lay scattered on the benches. In a corner stood a tub with
stinking water, in which another pair of sandals were being steeped,
and near by was a gun and a hunting-screen. On the floor a net had been
thrown down and several dead pheasants lay there, while a hen tied by
its leg was walking about near the table pecking among the dirt. In the
unheated oven stood a broken pot with some kind of milky liquid. On the
top of the oven a falcon was screeching and trying to break the cord by
which it was tied, and a moulting hawk sat quietly on the edge of the
oven, looking askance at the hen and occasionally bowing its head to
right and left. Daddy Eróshka himself, in his shirt, lay on his back on
a short bed rigged up between the wall and the oven, with his strong
legs raised and his feet on the oven. He was picking with his thick
fingers at the scratches left on his hands by the hawk, which he was
accustomed to carry without wearing gloves. The whole room, especially
near the old man, was filled with that strong but not unpleasant
mixture of smells that he always carried about with him.
“_Uyde-ma_, Daddy?” (Is Daddy in?) came through the window in a sharp
voice, which he at once recognized as Lukáshka’s.
“_Uyde, Uyde, Uyde_. I am in!” shouted the old man. “Come in, neighbour
Mark, Luke Mark. Come to see Daddy? On your way to the cordon?”
At the sound of his master’s shout the hawk flapped his wings and
pulled at his cord.
The old man was fond of Lukáshka, who was the only man he excepted from
his general contempt for the younger generation of Cossacks. Besides
that, Lukáshka and his mother, as near neighbours, often gave the old
man wine, clotted cream, and other home produce which Eróshka did not
possess. Daddy Eróshka, who all his life had allowed himself to get
carried away, always explained his infatuations from a practical point
of view. “Well, why not?” he used to say to himself. “I’ll give them
some fresh meat, or a bird, and they won’t forget Daddy: they’ll
sometimes bring a cake or a piece of pie.”
“Good morning, Mark! I am glad to see you,” shouted the old man
cheerfully, and quickly putting down his bare feet he jumped off his
bed and walked a step or two along the creaking floor, looked down at
his out-turned toes, and suddenly, amused by the appearance of his
feet, smiled, stamped with his bare heel on the ground, stamped again,
and then performed a funny dance-step. “That’s clever, eh?” he asked,
his small eyes glistening. Lukáshka smiled faintly. “Going back to the
cordon?” asked the old man.
“I have brought the _chikhir_ I promised you when we were at the
cordon.”
“May Christ save you!” said the old man, and he took up the extremely
wide trousers that were lying on the floor, and his _beshmet_, put them
on, fastened a strap round his waist, poured some water from an
earthenware pot over his hands, wiped them on the old trousers,
smoothed his beard with a bit of comb, and stopped in front of
Lukáshka. “Ready,” he said.
Lukáshka fetched a cup, wiped it and filled it with wine, and then
handed it to the old man.
“Your health! To the Father and the Son!” said the old man, accepting
the wine with solemnity. “May you have what you desire, may you always
be a hero, and obtain a cross.”
Lukáshka also drank a little after repeating a prayer, and then put the
wine on the table. The old man rose and brought out some dried fish
which he laid on the threshold, where he beat it with a stick to make
it tender; then, having put it with his horny hands on a blue plate
(his only one), he placed it on the table.
“I have all I want. I have victuals, thank God!” he said proudly.
“Well, and what of Mósev?” he added.
Lukáshka, evidently wishing to know the old man’s opinion, told him how
the officer had taken the gun from him.
“Never mind the gun,” said the old man. “If you don’t give the gun you
will get no reward.”
“But they say, Daddy, it’s little reward a fellow gets when he is not
yet a mounted Cossack; and the gun is a fine one, a Crimean, worth
eighty rubles.”
“Eh, let it go! I had a dispute like that with an officer, he wanted my
horse. ‘Give it me and you’ll be made a cornet,’ says he. I wouldn’t,
and I got nothing!”
“Yes, Daddy, but you see I have to buy a horse; and they say you can’t
get one the other side of the river under fifty rubles, and mother has
not yet sold our wine.”
“Eh, we didn’t bother,” said the old man; “when Daddy Eróshka was your
age he already stole herds of horses from the Nogáy folk and drove them
across the Térek. Sometimes we’d give a fine horse for a quart of vodka
or a cloak.”
“Why so cheap?” asked Lukáshka.
“You’re a fool, a fool, Mark,” said the old man contemptuously. “Why,
that’s what one steals for, so as not to be stingy! As for you, I
suppose you haven’t so much as seen how one drives off a herd of
horses? Why don’t you speak?”
“What’s one to say, Daddy?” replied Lukáshka. “It seems we are not the
same sort of men as you were.”
“You’re a fool, Mark, a fool! ‘Not the same sort of men!’” retorted the
old man, mimicking the Cossack lad. “I was not that sort of Cossack at
your age.”
“How’s that?” asked Lukáshka.
The old man shook his head contemptuously.
“Daddy Eróshka was _simple;_ he did not grudge anything! That’s why I
was _kunak_ with all Chéchnya. A _kunak_ would come to visit me and I’d
make him drunk with vodka and make him happy and put him to sleep with
me, and when I went to see him I’d take him a present—a dagger! That’s
the way it is done, and not as you do nowadays: the only amusement lads
have now is to crack seeds and spit out the shells!” the old man
finished contemptuously, imitating the present-day Cossacks cracking
seeds and spitting out the shells.
“Yes, I know,” said Lukáshka; “that’s so!”
“If you wish to be a fellow of the right sort, be a brave and not a
peasant! Because even a peasant can buy a horse—pay the money and take
the horse.”
They were silent for a while.
“Well, of course it’s dull both in the village and the cordon, Daddy:
but there’s nowhere one can go for a bit of sport. All our fellows are
so timid. Take Nazárka. The other day when we went to the Tartar
village, Giréy Khan asked us to come to Nogáy to take some horses, but
no one went, and how was I to go alone?”
“And what of Daddy? Do you think I am quite dried up? ... No, I’m not
dried up. Let me have a horse and I’ll be off to Nogáy at once.”
“What’s the good of talking nonsense!” said Luke. “You’d better tell me
what to do about Giréy Khan. He says, ‘Only bring horses to the Térek,
and then even if you bring a whole stud I’ll find a place for them.’
You see he’s also a shaven-headed Tartar—how’s one to believe him?”
“You may trust Giréy Khan, all his kin were good people. His father too
was a faithful _kunak_. But listen to Daddy and I won’t teach you
wrong: make him take an oath, then it will be all right. And if you go
with him, have your pistol ready all the same, especially when it comes
to dividing up the horses. I was nearly killed that way once by a
Chéchen. I wanted ten rubles from him for a horse. Trusting is all
right, but don’t go to sleep without a gun.” Lukáshka listened
attentively to the old man.
“I say, Daddy, have you any stone-break grass?” he asked after a pause.
“No, I haven’t any, but I’ll teach you how to get it. You’re a good lad
and won’t forget the old man.... Shall I tell you?”
“Tell me, Daddy.”
“You know a tortoise? She’s a devil, the tortoise is!”
“Of course I know!”
“Find her nest and fence it round so that she can’t get in. Well,
she’ll come, go round it, and then will go off to find the stone-break
grass and will bring some along and destroy the fence. Anyhow next
morning come in good time, and where the fence is broken there you’ll
find the stone-break grass lying. Take it wherever you like. No lock
and no bar will be able to stop you.”
“Have you tried it yourself, Daddy?”
“As for trying, I have not tried it, but I was told of it by good
people. I used only one charm: that was to repeat the Pilgrim rhyme
when mounting my horse; and no one ever killed me!”
“What is the Pilgrim rhyme, Daddy?”
“What, don’t you know it? Oh, what people! You’re right to ask Daddy.
Well, listen, and repeat after me:
“Hail! Ye, living in Sion,
This is your King,
Our steeds we shall sit on,
Sophonius is weeping.
Zacharias is speaking,
Father Pilgrim,
Mankind ever loving.”
“Kind ever loving,” the old man repeated. “Do you know it now? Try it.”
Lukáshka laughed.
“Come, Daddy, was it that that hindered their killing you? Maybe it
just happened so!”
“You’ve grown too clever! You learn it all, and say it. It will do you
no harm. Well, suppose you have sung ‘Pilgrim’, it’s all right,” and
the old man himself began laughing. “But just one thing, Luke, don’t
you go to Nogáy!”
“Why?”
“Times have changed. You are not the same men. You’ve become rubbishy
Cossacks! And see how many Russians have come down on us! You’d get to
prison. Really, give it up! Just as if you could! Now Gírchik and I, we
used...”
And the old man was about to begin one of his endless tales, but
Lukáshka glanced at the window and interrupted him.
“It is quite light. Daddy. It’s time to be off. Look us up some day.”
“May Christ save you! I’ll go to the officer; I promised to take him
out shooting. He seems a good fellow.”