From Eróshka’s hut Lukáshka went home. As he returned, the dewy mists
were rising from the ground and enveloped the village. In various
places the cattle, though out of sight, could be heard beginning to
stir. The cocks called to one another with increasing frequency and
insistence. The air was becoming more transparent, and the villagers
were getting up. Not till he was close to it could Lukáshka discern the
fence of his yard, all wet with dew, the porch of the hut, and the open
shed. From the misty yard he heard the sound of an axe chopping wood.
Lukáshka entered the hut. His mother was up, and stood at the oven
throwing wood into it. His little sister was still lying in bed asleep.
“Well, Lukáshka, had enough holiday-making?” asked his mother softly.
“Where did you spend the night?”
“I was in the village,” replied her son reluctantly, reaching for his
musket, which he drew from its cover and examined carefully.
His mother swayed her head.
Lukáshka poured a little gunpowder onto the pan, took out a little bag
from which he drew some empty cartridge cases which he began filling,
carefully plugging each one with a ball wrapped in a rag. Then, having
tested the loaded cartridges with his teeth and examined them, he put
down the bag.
“I say, Mother, I told you the bags wanted mending; have they been
done?” he asked.
“Oh yes, our dumb girl was mending something last night. Why, is it
time for you to be going back to the cordon? I haven’t seen anything of
you!”
“Yes, as soon as I have got ready I shall have to go,” answered
Lukáshka, tying up the gunpowder. “And where is our dumb one? Outside?”
“Chopping wood, I expect. She kept fretting for you. ‘I shall not see
him at all!’ she said. She puts her hand to her face like this, and
clicks her tongue and presses her hands to her heart as much as to
say—‘sorry.’ Shall I call her in? She understood all about the
_abrek_.”
“Call her,” said Lukáshka. “And I had some tallow there; bring it: I
must grease my sword.”
The old woman went out, and a few minutes later Lukáshka’s dumb sister
came up the creaking steps and entered the hut. She was six years older
than her brother and would have been extremely like him had it not been
for the dull and coarsely changeable expression (common to all deaf and
dumb people) of her face. She wore a coarse smock all patched; her feet
were bare and muddy, and on her head she had an old blue kerchief. Her
neck, arms, and face were sinewy like a peasant’s. Her clothing and her
whole appearance indicated that she always did the hard work of a man.
She brought in a heap of logs which she threw down by the oven. Then
she went up to her brother, and with a joyful smile which made her
whole face pucker up, touched him on the shoulder and began making
rapid signs to him with her hands, her face, and whole body.
“That’s right, that’s right, Stëpka is a trump!” answered the brother,
nodding. “She’s fetched everything and mended everything, she’s a
trump! Here, take this for it!” He brought out two pieces of
gingerbread from his pocket and gave them to her.
The dumb woman’s face flushed with pleasure, and she began making a
weird noise for joy. Having seized the gingerbread she began to
gesticulate still more rapidly, frequently pointing in one direction
and passing her thick finger over her eyebrows and her face. Lukáshka
understood her and kept nodding, while he smiled slightly. She was
telling him to give the girls dainties, and that the girls liked him,
and that one girl, Maryánka—the best of them all—loved him. She
indicated Maryánka by rapidly pointing in the direction of Maryánka’s
home and to her own eyebrows and face, and by smacking her lips and
swaying her head. “Loves” she expressed by pressing her hands to her
breast, kissing her hand, and pretending to embrace someone. Their
mother returned to the hut, and seeing what her dumb daughter was
saying, smiled and shook her head. Her daughter showed her the
gingerbread and again made the noise which expressed joy.
“I told Ulítka the other day that I’d send a matchmaker to them,” said
the mother. “She took my words well.”
Lukáshka looked silently at his mother.
“But how about selling the wine, mother? I need a horse.”
“I’ll cart it when I have time. I must get the barrels ready,” said the
mother, evidently not wishing her son to meddle in domestic matters.
“When you go out you’ll find a bag in the passage. I borrowed from the
neighbours and got something for you to take back to the cordon; or
shall I put it in your saddle-bag?”
“All right,” answered Lukáshka. “And if Giréy Khan should come across
the river send him to me at the cordon, for I shan’t get leave again
for a long time now; I have some business with him.”
He began to get ready to start.
“I will send him on,” said the old woman. “It seems you have been
spreeing at Yámka’s all the time. I went out in the night to see the
cattle, and I think it was your voice I heard singing songs.”
Lukáshka did not reply, but went out into the passage, threw the bags
over his shoulder, tucked up the skirts of his coat, took his musket,
and then stopped for a moment on the threshold.
“Good-bye, mother!” he said as he closed the gate behind him. “Send me
a small barrel with Nazárka. I promised it to the lads, and he’ll call
for it.”
“May Christ keep you, Lukáshka. God be with you! I’ll send you some,
some from the new barrel,” said the old woman, going to the fence: “But
listen,” she added, leaning over the fence.
The Cossack stopped.
“You’ve been making merry here; well, that’s all right. Why should not
a young man amuse himself? God has sent you luck and that’s good. But
now look out and mind, my son. Don’t you go and get into mischief.
Above all, satisfy your superiors: one has to! And I will sell the wine
and find money for a horse and will arrange a match with the girl for
you.”
“All right, all right!” answered her son, frowning.
His deaf sister shouted to attract his attention. She pointed to her
head and the palm of her hand, to indicate the shaved head of a
Chéchen. Then she frowned, and pretending to aim with a gun, she
shrieked and began rapidly humming and shaking her head. This meant
that Lukáshka should kill another Chéchen.
Lukáshka understood. He smiled, and shifting the gun at his back under
his cloak stepped lightly and rapidly, and soon disappeared in the
thick mist.
The old woman, having stood a little while at the gate, returned
silently to the hut and immediately began working.