Just then two men rode out of the side street into the square. One of
them was Nazárka. The other, Lukáshka, sat slightly sideways on his
well-fed bay Kabardá horse which stepped lightly over the hard road
jerking its beautiful head with its fine glossy mane. The well-adjusted
gun in its cover, the pistol at his back, and the cloak rolled up
behind his saddle showed that Lukáshka had not come from a peaceful
place or from one near by. The smart way in which he sat a little
sideways on his horse, the careless motion with which he touched the
horse under its belly with his whip, and especially his half-closed
black eyes, glistening as he looked proudly around him, all expressed
the conscious strength and self-confidence of youth. “Ever seen as fine
a lad?” his eyes, looking from side to side, seemed to say. The elegant
horse with its silver ornaments and trappings, the weapons, and the
handsome Cossack himself attracted the attention of everyone in the
square. Nazárka, lean and short, was much less well dressed. As he rode
past the old men, Lukáshka paused and raised his curly white sheepskin
cap above his closely cropped black head.
“Well, have you carried off many Nogáy horses?” asked a lean old man
with a frowning, lowering look.
“Have you counted them, Grandad, that you ask?” replied Lukáshka,
turning away.
“That’s all very well, but you need not take my lad along with you,”
the old man muttered with a still darker frown.
“Just see the old devil, he knows everything,” muttered Lukáshka to
himself, and a worried expression came over his face; but then,
noticing a corner where a number of Cossack girls were standing, he
turned his horse towards them.
“Good evening, girls!” he shouted in his powerful, resonant voice,
suddenly checking his horse. “You’ve grown old without me, you
witches!” and he laughed.
“Good evening, Lukáshka! Good evening, laddie!” the merry voices
answered. “Have you brought much money? Buy some sweets for the
girls!... Have you come for long? True enough, it’s long since we saw
you....”
“Nazárka and I have just flown across to make a night of it,” replied
Lukáshka, raising his whip and riding straight at the girls.
“Why, Maryánka has quite forgotten you,” said Ústenka, nudging Maryánka
with her elbow and breaking into a shrill laugh.
Maryánka moved away from the horse and throwing back her head calmly
looked at the Cossack with her large sparkling eyes.
“True enough, you have not been home for a long time! Why are you
trampling us under your horse?” she remarked dryly, and turned away.
Lukáshka had appeared particularly merry. His face shone with audacity
and joy. Obviously staggered by Maryánka’s cold reply he suddenly
knitted his brow.
“Step up on my stirrup and I’ll carry you away to the mountains.
Mammy!” he suddenly exclaimed, and as if to disperse his dark thoughts
he caracoled among the girls. Stooping down towards Maryánka, he said,
“I’ll kiss, oh, how I’ll kiss you! ...”
Maryánka’s eyes met his and she suddenly blushed and stepped back.
“Oh, bother you! you’ll crush my feet,” she said, and bending her head
looked at her well-shaped feet in their tightly fitting light blue
stockings with clocks and her new red slippers trimmed with narrow
silver braid.
Lukáshka turned towards Ústenka, and Maryánka sat down next to a woman
with a baby in her arms. The baby stretched his plump little hands
towards the girl and seized a necklace string that hung down onto her
blue _beshmet_. Maryánka bent towards the child and glanced at Lukáshka
from the corner of her eyes. Lukáshka just then was getting out from
under his coat, from the pocket of his black _beshmet_, a bundle of
sweetmeats and seeds.
“There, I give them to all of you,” he said, handing the bundle to
Ústenka and smiling at Maryánka.
A confused expression again appeared on the girl’s face. It was as
though a mist gathered over her beautiful eyes. She drew her kerchief
down below her lips, and leaning her head over the fair-skinned face of
the baby that still held her by her coin necklace she suddenly began to
kiss it greedily. The baby pressed his little hands against the girl’s
high breasts, and opening his toothless mouth screamed loudly.
“You’re smothering the boy!” said the little one’s mother, taking him
away; and she unfastened her _beshmet_ to give him the breast. “You’d
better have a chat with the young fellow.”
“I’ll only go and put up my horse and then Nazárka and I will come
back; we’ll make merry all night,” said Lukáshka, touching his horse
with his whip and riding away from the girls.
Turning into a side street, he and Nazárka rode up to two huts that
stood side by side.
“Here we are all right, old fellow! Be quick and come soon!” called
Lukáshka to his comrade, dismounting in front of one of the huts; then
he carefully led his horse in at the gate of the wattle fence of his
own home.
“How d’you do, Stëpka?” he said to his dumb sister, who, smartly
dressed like the others, came in from the street to take his horse; and
he made signs to her to take the horse to the hay, but not to unsaddle
it.
The dumb girl made her usual humming noise, smacked her lips as she
pointed to the horse and kissed it on the nose, as much as to say that
she loved it and that it was a fine horse.
“How d’you do, Mother? How is it that you have not gone out yet?”
shouted Lukáshka, holding his gun in place as he mounted the steps of
the porch.
His old mother opened the door.
“Dear me! I never expected, never thought, you’d come,” said the old
woman. “Why, Kírka said you wouldn’t be here.”
“Go and bring some _chikhir_, Mother. Nazárka is coming here and we
will celebrate the feast day.”
“Directly, Lukáshka, directly!” answered the old woman. “Our women are
making merry. I expect our dumb one has gone too.”
She took her keys and hurriedly went to the outhouse. Nazárka, after
putting up his horse and taking the gun off his shoulder, returned to
Lukáshka’s house and went in.