Leo Tolstoy - Leo Tolstoy - The Complete Works

He was ill at ease alone with Maryanka, but as if purposely to torment himself he went up to her.

‘You’ll be shooting the women with your gun like that,’ said Maryanka.

‘No, I shan’t shoot them.’

They were both silent.

Then after a pause she said: ‘You should help me.’

He took out his knife and began silently to cut off the clusters. He reached from under the leaves low down a thick bunch weighing about three pounds, the grapes of which grew so close that they flattened each other for want of space. He showed it to Maryanka.

‘Must they all be cut? Isn’t this one too green?’

‘Give it here.’

Their hands touched. Olenin took her hand, and she looked at him smiling.

‘Are you going to be married soon?’ he asked.

She did not answer, but turned away with a stern look.

‘Do you love Lukashka?’

‘What’s that to you?’

‘I envy him!’

‘Very likely!’ ‘No really. You are so beautiful!’

And he suddenly felt terribly ashamed of having said it, so commonplace did the words seem to him. He flushed, lost control of himself, and seized both her hands.

‘Whatever I am, I’m not for you. Why do you make fun of me?’ replied Maryanka, but her look showed how certainly she knew he was not making fun.

‘Making fun? If you only knew how I—’

The words sounded still more commonplace, they accorded still less with what he felt, but yet he continued, ‘I don’t know what I would not do for you —’

‘Leave me alone, you pitch!’

But her face, her shining eyes, her swelling bosom, her shapely legs, said something quite different. It seemed to him that she understood how petty were all things he had said, but that she was superior to such considerations. It seemed to him she had long known all he wished and was not able to tell her, but wanted to hear how he would say it. ‘And how can she help knowing,’ he thought, ‘since I only want to tell her all that she herself is? But she does not wish to under-stand, does not wish to reply.’

‘Hallo!’ suddenly came Ustenka’s high voice from behind the vine at no great distance, followed by her shrill laugh. ‘Come and help me, Dmitri Andreich. I am all alone,’ she cried, thrusting her round, naive little face through the vines.

Olenin did not answer nor move from his place.

Maryanka went on cutting and continually looked up at Olenin. He was about to say something, but stopped, shrugged his shoulders and, having jerked up his gun, walked out of the vineyard with rapid strides.

He stopped once or twice, listening to the ringing laughter of Maryanka and Ustenka who, having come together, were shouting something. Olenin spent the whole evening hunting in the forest and returned home at dusk without having killed anything. When crossing the road he noticed her open the door of the outhouse, and her blue smock showed through it. He called to Vanyusha very loud so as to let her know that he was back, and then sat down in the porch in his usual place. His hosts now returned from the vineyard; they came out of the outhouse and into their hut, but did not ask of the latch and knocked. The floor hardly creaked under the bare cautious footsteps which approached the door. The latch clicked, the door creaked, and he noticed a faint smell of marjoram and pumpkin, and Maryanka’s whole figure appeared in the doorway. He saw her only for an instant in the moonlight. She slammed the door and, muttering something, ran lightly back again. Olenin began rapping softly but nothing responded. He ran to the window and listened. Suddenly he was startled by a shrill, squeaky man’s voice.

‘Fine!’ exclaimed a rather small young Cossack in a white cap, coming across the yard close to Olenin. ‘I saw... fine!’

Olenin recognized Nazarka, and was silent, not knowing what to do or say.

‘Fine! I’ll go and tell them at the office, and I’ll tell her father! That’s a fine cornet’s daughter! One’s not enough for her.’

‘What do you want of me, what are you after?’ uttered Olenin.

‘Nothing; only I’ll tell them at the office.’

Nazarka spoke very loud, and evidently did so intentionally, adding: ‘Just see what a clever cadet!’

Olenin trembled and grew pale.

‘Come here, here!’ He seized the Cossack firmly by the arm and drew him towards his hut.

‘Nothing happened, she did not let me in, and I too mean no harm. She is an honest girl —’

‘Eh, discuss —’

‘Yes, but all the same I’ll give you something now. Wait a bit!’

Nazarka said nothing. Olenin ran into his hut and brought out ten rubles, which he gave to the Cossack.

‘Nothing happened, but still I was to blame, so I give this! — Only for God’s sake don’t let anyone know, for nothing happened... ‘

‘I wish you joy,’ said Nazarka laughing, and went away.

Nazarka had come to the village that night at Lukashka’s bidding to find a place to hide a stolen horse, and now, passing by on his way home, had heard the sound of footsteps. When he returned next morning to his company he bragged to his chum, and told him how cleverly he had got ten rubles. Next morning Olenin met his hosts and they knew nothing about the events of the night. He did not speak to Maryanka, and she only laughed a little when she looked at him. Next night he also passed without sleep, vainly wandering about the yard. The day after he purposely spent shooting, and in the evening he went to see Beletski to escape from his own thoughts. He was afraid of himself, and promised himself not to go to his hosts’ hut any more.

That night he was roused by the sergeant-major. His company was ordered to start at once on a raid. Olenin was glad this had happened, and thought he would not again return to the village.

The raid lasted four days. The commander, who was a relative of Olenin’s, wished to see him and offered to let him remain with the staff, but this Olenin declined. He found that he could not live away from the village, and asked to be allowed to return to it. For having taken part in the raid he received a soldier’s cross, which he had formerly greatly desired. Now he was quite indifferent about it, and even more indifferent about his promotion, the order for which had still not arrived. Accompanied by Vanyusha he rode back to the cordon without any accident several hours in advance of the rest of the company. He spent the whole evening in his porch watching Maryanka, and he again walked about the yard, without aim or thought, all night.

It was late when he awoke the next day. His hosts were no longer in. He did not go shooting, but now took up a book, and now went out into the porch, and now again re-entered the hut and lay down on the bed. Vanyusha thought he was ill.

Towards evening Olenin got up, resolutely began writing, and wrote on till late at night. He wrote a letter, but did not post it because he felt that no one would have understood what he wanted to say, and besides it was not necessary that anyone but himself should understand it. This is what he wrote:

‘I receive letters of condolence from Russia. They are afraid that I shall perish, buried in these wilds. They say about me: “He will become coarse; he will be behind the times in everything; he will take to drink, and who knows but that he may marry a Cossack girl.” It was not for nothing, they say, that Ermolov declared: “Anyone serving in the Caucasus for ten years either becomes a confirmed drunkard or marries a loose woman.” How terrible! Indeed it won’t do for me to ruin myself when I might have the great happiness of even becoming the Countess B—-’s husband, or a Court chamberlain, or a Marechal de noblesse of my district. Oh, how repulsive and pitiable you all seem to me! You do not know what happiness is and what life is! One must taste life once in all its natural beauty, must see and understand what I see every day before me — those eternally unapproachable snowy peaks, and a majestic woman in that primitive beauty in which the first woman must have come from her creator’s hands — and then it becomes clear who is ruining himself and who is living truly or falsely — you or I. If you only knew how despicable and pitiable you, in your delusions, seem to me! When I picture to myself — in place of my hut, my forests, and my love — those drawing-rooms, those women with their pomatum-greased hair eked out with false curls, those unnaturally grimacing lips, those hidden, feeble, distorted limbs, and that chatter of obligatory drawing-room conversation which has no right to the name — I feel unendurably revolted. I then see before me those obtuse faces, those rich eligible girls whose looks seem to say: