The Cossacks by graf Tolstoy Leo (leveled readers .txt) 📖

Daddy Eroshka 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 Chechen, 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 Olenin 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. Olenin’s

‘simplicity’ (simplicity in the sense of not grudging him a drink)

pleased him very much, and so did Olenin 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 Olenin.

Daddy Eroshka’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 bloodstained 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 comer 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 Eroshka

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 Lukashka’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 Lukashka, who was the only man he excepted

from his general contempt for the younger generation of Cossacks.

Besides that, Lukashka and his mother, as near neighbours, often

gave the old man wine, clotted cream, and other home produce which

Eroshka did not possess. Daddy Eroshka, 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. Lukashka

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 Lukashka. ‘Ready,’ he said.

Lukashka 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.’

Lukashka 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