Just before the vintage Lukáshka came on horseback to see Olénin. He
looked more dashing than ever.
“Well? Are you getting married?” asked Olénin, greeting him merrily.
Lukáshka gave no direct reply.
“There, I’ve exchanged your horse across the river. This _is_ a horse!
A Kabardá horse from the Lov stud. I know horses.”
They examined the new horse and made him caracole about the yard. The
horse really was an exceptionally fine one, a broad and long gelding,
with glossy coat, thick silky tail, and the soft fine mane and crest of
a thoroughbred. He was so well fed that “you might go to sleep on his
back” as Lukáshka expressed it. His hoofs, eyes, teeth, were
exquisitely shaped and sharply outlined, as one only finds them in very
pure-bred horses. Olénin could not help admiring the horse, he had not
yet met with such a beauty in the Caucasus.
“And how it goes!” said Lukáshka, patting its neck. “What a step! And
so clever—he simply runs after his master.”
“Did you have to add much to make the exchange?” asked Olénin.
“I did not count it,” answered Lukáshka with a smile. “I got him from a
_kunak_.”
“A wonderfully beautiful horse! What would you take for it?” asked
Olénin.
“I have been offered a hundred and fifty rubles for it, but I’ll give
it you for nothing,” said Lukáshka, merrily. “Only say the word and
it’s yours. I’ll unsaddle it and you may take it. Only give me some
sort of a horse for my duties.”
“No, on no account.”
“Well then, here is a dagger I’ve brought you,” said Lukáshka,
unfastening his girdle and taking out one of the two daggers which hung
from it. “I got it from across the river.”
“Oh, thank you!”
“And mother has promised to bring you some grapes herself.”
“That’s quite unnecessary. We’ll balance up some day. You see I don’t
offer you any money for the dagger!”
“How could you? We are _kunaks_. It’s just the same as when Giréy Khan
across the river took me into his home and said, ‘Choose what you
like!’ So I took this sword. It’s our custom.”
They went into the hut and had a drink.
“Are you staying here awhile?” asked Olénin.
“No, I have come to say good-bye. They are sending me from the cordon
to a company beyond the Térek. I am going tonight with my comrade
Nazárka.”
“And when is the wedding to be?”
“I shall be coming back for the betrothal, and then I shall return to
the company again,” Lukáshka replied reluctantly.
“What, and see nothing of your betrothed?”
“Just so—what is the good of looking at her? When you go on campaign
ask in our company for Lukáshka the Broad. But what a lot of boars
there are in our parts! I’ve killed two. I’ll take you.”
“Well, good-bye! Christ save you.”
Lukáshka mounted his horse, and without calling on Maryánka, rode
caracoling down the street, where Nazárka was already awaiting him.
“I say, shan’t we call round?” asked Nazárka, winking in the direction
of Yámka’s house.
“That’s a good one!” said Lukáshka. “Here, take my horse to her and if
I don’t come soon give him some hay. I shall reach the company by the
morning anyway.”
“Hasn’t the cadet given you anything more?”
“I am thankful to have paid him back with a dagger—he was going to ask
for the horse,” said Lukáshka, dismounting and handing over the horse
to Nazárka.
He darted into the yard past Olénin’s very window, and came up to the
window of the cornet’s hut. It was already quite dark. Maryánka,
wearing only her smock, was combing her hair preparing for bed.
“It’s I—” whispered the Cossack.
Maryánka’s look was severely indifferent, but her face suddenly
brightened up when she heard her name. She opened the window and leant
out, frightened and joyous.
“What—what do you want?” she said.
“Open!” uttered Lukáshka. “Let me in for a minute. I am so sick of
waiting! It’s awful!”
He took hold of her head through the window and kissed her.
“Really, do open!”
“Why do you talk nonsense? I’ve told you I won’t! Have you come for
long?”
He did not answer but went on kissing her, and she did not ask again.
“There, through the window one can’t even hug you properly,” said
Lukáshka.
“Maryánka dear!” came the voice of her mother, “who is that with you?”
Lukáshka took off his cap, which might have been seen, and crouched
down by the window.
“Go, be quick!” whispered Maryánka.
“Lukáshka called round,” she answered; “he was asking for Daddy.”
“Well then send him here!”
“He’s gone; said he was in a hurry.”
In fact, Lukáshka, stooping, as with big strides he passed under the
windows, ran out through the yard and towards Yámka’s house unseen by
anyone but Olénin. After drinking two bowls of _chikhir_ he and Nazárka
rode away to the outpost. The night was warm, dark, and calm. They rode
in silence, only the footfall of their horses was heard. Lukáshka
started a song about the Cossack, Mingál, but stopped before he had
finished the first verse, and after a pause, turning to Nazárka, said:
“I say, she wouldn’t let me in!”
“Oh?” rejoined Nazárka. “I knew she wouldn’t. D’you know what Yámka
told me? The cadet has begun going to their house. Daddy Eróshka brags
that he got a gun from the cadet for getting him Maryánka.”
“He lies, the old devil!” said Lukáshka, angrily. “She’s not such a
girl. If he does not look out I’ll wallop that old devil’s sides,” and
he began his favourite song:
“From the village of Izmáylov,
From the master’s favourite garden,
Once escaped a keen-eyed falcon.
Soon after him a huntsman came a-riding,
And he beckoned to the falcon that had strayed,
But the bright-eyed bird thus answered:
‘In gold cage you could not keep me,
On your hand you could not hold me,
So now I fly to blue seas far away.
There a white swan I will kill,
Of sweet swan-flesh have my fill.’”