Although there was no escape from the heat and the mosquitoes swarmed
in the cool shadow of the wagons, and her little brother tossing about
beside her kept pushing her, Maryánka having drawn her kerchief over
her head was just falling asleep, when suddenly their neighbour Ústenka
came running towards her and, diving under the wagon, lay down beside
her.
“Sleep, girls, sleep!” said Ústenka, making herself comfortable under
the wagon. “Wait a bit,” she exclaimed, “this won’t do!”
She jumped up, plucked some green branches, and stuck them through the
wheels on both sides of the wagon and hung her _beshmet_ over them.
“Let me in,” she shouted to the little boy as she again crept under the
wagon. “Is this the place for a Cossack—with the girls? Go away!”
When alone under the wagon with her friend, Ústenka suddenly put both
her arms round her, and clinging close to her began kissing her cheeks
and neck.
“Darling, sweetheart,” she kept repeating, between bursts of shrill,
clear laughter.
“Why, you’ve learnt it from Grandad,” said Maryánka, struggling. “Stop
it!”
And they both broke into such peals of laughter that Maryánka’s mother
shouted to them to be quiet.
“Are you jealous?” asked Ústenka in a whisper.
“What humbug! Let me sleep. What have you come for?”
But Ústenka kept on, “I say! But I wanted to tell you such a thing.”
Maryánka raised herself on her elbow and arranged the kerchief which
had slipped off.
“Well, what is it?”
“I know something about your lodger!”
“There’s nothing to know,” said Maryánka.
“Oh, you rogue of a girl!” said Ústenka, nudging her with her elbow and
laughing. “Won’t tell anything. Does he come to you?”
“He does. What of that?” said Maryánka with a sudden blush.
“Now I’m a simple lass. I tell everybody. Why should I pretend?” said
Ústenka, and her bright rosy face suddenly became pensive. “Whom do I
hurt? I love him, that’s all about it.”
“Grandad, do you mean?”
“Well, yes!”
“And the sin?”
“Ah, Maryánka! When is one to have a good time if not while one’s still
free? When I marry a Cossack I shall bear children and shall have
cares. There now, when you get married to Lukáshka not even a thought
of joy will enter your head: children will come, and work!”
“Well? Some who are married live happily. It makes no difference!”
Maryánka replied quietly.
“Do tell me just this once what has passed between you and Lukáshka?”
“What has passed? A match was proposed. Father put it off for a year,
but now it’s been settled and they’ll marry us in autumn.”
“But what did he say to you?”
Maryánka smiled.
“What should he say? He said he loved me. He kept asking me to come to
the vineyards with him.”
“Just see what pitch! But you didn’t go, did you? And what a dare-devil
he has become: the first among the braves. He makes merry out there in
the army too! The other day our Kírka came home; he says: ‘What a horse
Lukáshka’s got in exchange!’ But all the same I expect he frets after
you. And what else did he say?”
“Must you know everything?” said Maryánka laughing. “One night he came
to my window tipsy, and asked me to let him in.”
“And you didn’t let him?”
“Let him, indeed! Once I have said a thing I keep to it firm as a
rock,” answered Maryánka seriously.
“A fine fellow! If he wanted her, no girl would refuse him.”
“Well, let him go to the others,” replied Maryánka proudly.
“You don’t pity him?”
“I do pity him, but I’ll have no nonsense. It is wrong.”
Ústenka suddenly dropped her head on her friend’s breast, seized hold
of her, and shook with smothered laughter. “You silly fool!” she
exclaimed, quite out of breath. “You don’t want to be happy,” and she
began tickling Maryánka.
“Oh, leave off!” said Maryánka, screaming and laughing. “You’ve crushed
Lazútka.”
“Hark at those young devils! Quite frisky! Not tired yet!” came the old
woman’s sleepy voice from the wagon.
“Don’t want happiness,” repeated Ústenka in a whisper, insistently.
“But you are lucky, that you are! How they love you! You are so crusty,
and yet they love you. Ah, if I were in your place I’d soon turn the
lodger’s head! I noticed him when you were at our house. He was ready
to eat you with his eyes. What things Grandad has given me! And yours
they say is the richest of the Russians. His orderly says they have
serfs of their own.”
Maryánka raised herself, and after thinking a moment, smiled.
“Do you know what he once told me: the lodger I mean?” she said, biting
a bit of grass. “He said, ‘I’d like to be Lukáshka the Cossack, or your
brother Lazútka—.’ What do you think he meant?”
“Oh, just chattering what came into his head,” answered Ústenka. “What
does mine not say! Just as if he was possessed!”
Maryánka dropped her hand on her folded _beshmet_, threw her arm over
Ústenka’s shoulder, and shut her eyes.
“He wanted to come and work in the vineyard today: father invited him,”
she said, and after a short silence she fell asleep.