turned towards Ustenka, and Maryanka 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. Maryanka bent towards the child and glanced at Lukashka from the comer of her eyes. Lukashka 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 Ustenka and smiling at Maryanka.
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 Nazarka and I will come back; we’ll make merry all night,” said Lukashka, touching his horse with his whip and riding away from the girls.
Turning into a side street, he and Nazarka rode up to two huts that stood side by side.
“Here we are all right, old fellow! Be quick and come soon!” called Lukashka 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, Stepka?” 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 Lukashka, 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, Kirka said you wouldn’t be here.”
“Go and bring some chikhir, Mother. Nazarka is coming here and we will celebrate the feast day.”
“Directly, Lukashka, 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. Nazarka, after putting up his horse and taking the gun off his shoulder, returned to Lukashka’s house and went in.
Chapter 37
‘Your health!’ said Lukashka, taking from his mother’s hands a cup filled to the brim with chikhir and carefully raising it to his bowed head.
‘A bad business!’ said Nazarka. ‘You heard how Daddy Burlak said, “Have you stolen many horses?” He seems to know!’
‘A regular wizard!’ Lukashka replied shortly. ‘But what of it!’ he added, tossing his head. ‘They are across the river by now. Go and find them!’
‘Still it’s a bad lookout.’
‘What’s a bad lookout? Go and take some chikhir to him to-morrow and nothing will come of it. Now let’s make merry. Drink!’ shouted Lukashka, just in the tone in which old Eroshka uttered the word. ‘We’ll go out into the street and make merry with the girls. You go and get some honey; or no, I’ll send our dumb wench. We’ll make merry till morning.’
Nazarka smiled.
‘Are we stopping here long?’ he asked.
Till we’ve had a bit of fun. Run and get some vodka. Here’s the money.’
Nazarka ran off obediently to get the vodka from Yamka’s.
Daddy Eroshka and Ergushov, like birds of prey, scenting where the merry-making was going on, tumbled into the hut one after the other, both tipsy.
‘Bring us another half-pail,’ shouted Lukashka to his mother, by way of reply to their greeting.
‘Now then, tell us where did you steal them, you devil?’ shouted Eroshka. ‘Fine fellow, I’m fond of you!’
‘Fond indeed... ‘ answered Lukashka laughing, ‘carrying sweets from cadets to lasses! Eh, you old... ‘
‘That’s not true, not true!... Oh, Mark,’ and the old man burst out laughing. ‘And how that devil begged me. “Go,” he said, “and arrange it.” He offered me a gun! But no. I’d have managed it, but I feel for you. Now tell us where have you been?’ And the old man began speaking in Tartar.
Lukashka answered him promptly.
Ergushov, who did not know much Tartar, only occasionally put in a word in Russian: ‘What I say is he’s driven away the horses. I know it for a fact,’ he chimed in.
‘Girey and I went together.’ (His speaking of Girey Khan as ‘Girey’ was, to the Cossack mind, evidence of his boldness.) ‘Just beyond the river he kept bragging that he knew the whole of the steppe and would lead the way straight, but we rode on and the night was dark, and my Girey lost his way and began wandering in a circle without getting anywhere: couldn’t find the village, and there we were. We must have gone too much to the right. I believe we wandered about well — nigh till midnight. Then, thank goodness, we heard dogs howling.’
‘Fools!’ said Daddy Eroshka. ‘There now, we too used to lose our way in the steppe. (Who the devil can follow it?) But I used to ride up a hillock and start howling like the wolves, like this!’ He placed his hands before his mouth, and howled like a pack of wolves, all on one note. ‘The dogs would answer at once... Well, go on — so you found them?’
‘We soon led them away! Nazarka was nearly caught by some Nogay women, he was!’
‘Caught indeed,’ Nazarka, who had just come back, said in an injured tone.
‘We rode off again, and again Girey lost his way and almost landed us among the sand-drifts. We thought we were just getting to the Terek but we were riding away from it all the time!’
‘You should have steered by the stars,’ said Daddy Eroshka.
‘That’s what I say,’ interjected Ergushov,
‘Yes, steer when all is black; I tried and tried all about... and at last I put the bridle on one of the mares and let my own horse go free — thinking he’ll lead us out, and what do you think! he just gave a snort or two with his nose to the ground, galloped ahead, and led us straight to our village. Thank goodness! It was getting quite light. We barely had time to hide them in the forest. Nagim came across the river and took them away.’
Ergushov shook his head. ‘It’s just what I said. Smart. Did you get much for them?’
‘It’s
