THE COSSACKS
A Tale of 1852
By Leo Tolstoy (1863)
Translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude
Chapter I
All is quiet in Moscow. The squeak of wheels is seldom heard in
the snow-covered street. There are no lights left in the windows
and the street lamps have been extinguished. Only the sound of
bells, borne over the city from the church towers, suggests the
approach of morning. The streets are deserted. At rare intervals a
night-cabman's sledge kneads up the snow and sand in the street as
the driver makes his way to another corner where he falls asleep
while waiting for a fare. An old woman passes by on her way to
church, where a few wax candles burn with a red light reflected on
the gilt mountings of the icons. Workmen are already getting up
after the long winter night and going to their work - but for the
gentlefolk it is still evening.
From a window in Chevalier's Restaurant a light - illegal at that
hour - is still to be seen through a chink in the shutter. At the
entrance a carriage, a sledge, and a cabman's sledge, stand close
together with their backs to the curbstone. A three-horse sledge
from the post-station is there also. A yard-porter muffled up and
pinched with cold is sheltering behind the corner of the house.
'And what's the good of all this jawing?' thinks the footman who
sits in the hall weary and haggard. 'This always happens when I'm
on duty.' From the adjoining room are heard the voices of three
young men, sitting there at a table on which are wine and the
remains of supper. One, a rather plain, thin, neat little man,
sits looking with tired kindly eyes at his friend, who is about to
start on a journey. Another, a tall man, lies on a sofa beside a
table on which are empty bottles, and plays with his watch-key. A
third, wearing a short, fur-lined coat, is pacing up and down the
room stopping now and then to crack an almond between his strong,
rather thick, but well-tended fingers. He keeps smiling at
something and his face and eyes are all aglow. He speaks warmly
and gesticulates, but evidently does not find the words he wants
and those that occur to him seem to him inadequate to express what
has risen to his heart.
'Now I can speak out fully,' said the traveller. 'I don't want to
defend myself, but I should like you at least to understand me as
I understand myself, and not look at the matter superficially. You
say I have treated her badly,' he continued, addressing the man
with the kindly eyes who was watching him.
'Yes, you are to blame,' said the latter, and his look seemed to
express still more kindliness and weariness.
'I know why you say that,' rejoined the one who was leaving. 'To
be loved is in your opinion as great a happiness as to love, and
if a man obtains it, it is enough for his whole life.'
'Yes, quite enough, my dear fellow, more than enough!' confirmed
the plain little man, opening and shutting his eyes.
'But why shouldn't the man love too?' said the traveller
thoughtfully, looking at his friend with something like pity. 'Why
shouldn't one love? Because love doesn't come ... No, to be
beloved is a misfortune. It is a misfortune to feel guilty because
you do not give something you cannot give. O my God!' he added,
with a gesture of his arm. 'If it all happened reasonably, and not
all topsy-turvy - not in our way but in a way of its own! Why, it's
as if I had stolen that love! You think so too, don't deny it. You
must think so. But will you believe it, of all the horrid and
stupid things I have found time to do in my life - and there are
many - this is one I do not and cannot repent of. Neither at the
beginning nor afterwards did I lie to myself or to her. It seemed
to me that I had at last fallen in love, but then I saw that it
was an involuntary falsehood, and that that was not the way to
love, and I could not go on, but she did. Am I to blame that I
couldn't? What was I to do?'
'Well, it's ended now!' said his friend, lighting a cigar to
master his sleepiness. 'The fact is that you have not yet loved
and do not know what love is.'
The man in the fur-lined coat was going to speak again, and put
his hands to his head, but could not express what he wanted to
say.
'Never loved! ... Yes, quite true, I never have! But after all, I
have within me a desire to love, and nothing could be stronger
than that desire! But then, again, does such love exist? There
always remains something incomplete. Ah well! What's the use of
talking? I've made an awful mess of life! But anyhow it's all over
now; you are quite right. And I feel that I am beginning a new
life.'
'Which you will again make a mess of,' said the man who lay on the
sofa playing with his watch-key. But the traveller did not listen
to him.
'I am sad and yet glad to go,' he continued. 'Why I am sad I don't
know.'
And the traveller went on talking about himself, without noticing
that this did not interest the others as much as it did him. A man
is never such an egotist as at moments of spiritual ecstasy. At
such times it seems to him that there is nothing on earth more
splendid and interesting than himself.
'Dmitri Andreich! The coachman won't wait any longer!' said a
young serf, entering the room in a sheepskin coat, with a scarf
tied round his head. 'The horses have been standing since twelve,
and it's now four o'clock!'
Dmitri Andreich looked at his serf, Vanyusha. The scarf round
Vanyusha's head, his felt boots and sleepy face, seemed to be
calling his master to a new life of labour, hardship, and
activity.
'True enough! Good-bye!' said he, feeling for the unfastened hook
and eye on his coat.
In spite of advice to mollify the coachman by another tip, he put
on his cap and stood in the middle of the room. The friends kissed
once, then again, and after a pause, a third time. The man in the
fur-lined coat approached the table and emptied a champagne glass,
then took the plain little man's hand and blushed.
'Ah well, I will speak out all the same ... I must and will be
frank with you because I am fond of you ... Of course you love
her - I always thought so - don't you?'
'Yes,' answered his friend, smiling still more gently.
'And perhaps...'
'Please sir, I have orders to put out the candles,' said the
sleepy attendant, who had been listening to the last part of the
conversation and wondering why gentlefolk always talk about one
and the same thing. 'To whom shall I make out the bill? To you,
sir?' he added, knowing whom to address and turning to the tall
man.
'To me,' replied the tall man. 'How much?'
'Twenty-six rubles.'
The tall man considered for a moment, but said nothing and put the
bill in his pocket.
The other two continued their talk.
'Good-bye, you are a capital fellow!' said the short plain man
with the mild eyes. Tears filled the eyes of both. They stepped
into the porch.
'Oh, by the by,' said the traveller, turning with a blush to the
tall man, 'will you settle Chevalier's bill and write and let me
know?'
'All right, all right!' said the tall man, pulling on his gloves.
'How I envy you!' he added quite unexpectedly when they were out
in the porch.
The traveller got into his sledge, wrapped his coat about him, and
said: 'Well then, come along!' He even moved a little to make room
in the sledge for the man who said he envied him - his voice
trembled.
'Good-bye, Mitya! I hope that with God's help you...' said the
tall one. But his wish was that the other would go away quickly,
and so he could not finish the sentence.
They were silent a moment. Then someone again said, 'Good-bye,'
and a voice cried, 'Ready,' and the coachman touched up the
horses.
'Hy, Elisar!' One of the friends called out, and the other
coachman and the sledge-drivers began moving, clicking their
tongues and pulling at the reins. Then the stiffened carriage-
wheels rolled squeaking over the frozen snow.
'A fine fellow, that Olenin!' said one of the friends. 'But what
an idea to go to the Caucasus - as a cadet, too! I wouldn't do it
for anything. ... Are you dining at the club to-morrow?'
'Yes.'
They separated.
The traveller felt warm, his fur coat seemed too hot. He sat on
the bottom of the sledge and unfastened his coat, and the three
shaggy post-horses dragged themselves out of one dark street into
another, past houses he had never before seen. It seemed to Olenin
that only travellers starting on a long journey went through those
streets. All was dark and silent and dull around him, but his soul
was full of memories, love, regrets, and a pleasant tearful
feeling.
Chapter II
'I'm fond of them, very fond! ... First-rate fellows! ... Fine!'
he kept repeating, and felt ready to cry. But why he wanted to
cry, who were the first-rate fellows he was so fond of - was more
than he quite knew. Now and then he looked round at some house and
wondered why it was so curiously built; sometimes he began
wondering why the post-boy and Vanyusha, who were so different
from himself, sat so near, and together with him were being jerked
about and swayed by the tugs the side-horses gave at the frozen
traces, and again he repeated: 'First rate ... very fond!' and
once he even said: 'And how it seizes one ... excellent!' and
wondered what made him say it. 'Dear me, am I drunk?' he asked
himself. He had had a couple of bottles of wine, but it was not
the wine alone that was having this effect on Olenin. He
remembered all the words of friendship heartily, bashfully,
spontaneously (as he believed) addressed to him on his departure.
He remembered the clasp of hands, glances, the moments of silence,
and the sound of a voice saying, 'Good-bye, Mitya!' when he was
already in the sledge. He remembered his own deliberate frankness.
And all this had a touching significance for him. Not only friends
and relatives, not only people who had been indifferent to him,
but even those who did not like him, seemed to have agreed to
become fonder of him, or to forgive him, before his departure, as
people do before confession or death. 'Perhaps I shall not return
from the Caucasus,' he thought. And he felt that he loved his
friends and some one besides. He was sorry for himself. But it was
not love for his friends that so stirred and uplifted his heart
that he could not repress the meaningless words that seemed to
rise of themselves to his lips; nor was it love for a woman (he
had never yet been in love) that had brought on this mood. Love
for himself, love full of hope - warm young love for all that was
good in his own soul (and at that moment it seemed to him that
there was nothing but good in it) - compelled him to weep and to
mutter incoherent words.
Olenin was a youth who had never completed his university course,
never served anywhere (having only a nominal post in some
government office or other), who had squandered half his fortune
and had reached the age of twenty-four without having done
anything or even chosen a career. He was what in Moscow society is
termed un jeune homme.
At the age of eighteen he was free - as only rich young Russians in
the 'forties who had lost their parents at an early age could be.
Neither physical nor moral fetters of any kind existed for him; he
could do as he liked, lacking nothing and bound by nothing.
Neither relatives, nor fatherland, nor religion, nor wants,
existed for him. He believed in nothing and admitted nothing. But
although he believed in nothing he was not a morose or blase young
man, nor self-opinionated, but on the contrary continually let
himself be carried away. He had come to the conclusion that there
is no such thing as love, yet his heart always overflowed in the
presence of any young and attractive woman. He had long been aware
that honours and position were nonsense, yet involuntarily he felt
pleased when at a ball Prince Sergius came up and spoke to him
affably. But he yielded to his impulses only in so far as they did
not limit his freedom. As soon as he had yielded to any influence
and became conscious of its leading on to labour and struggle, he
instinctively hastened to free himself from the feeling or
activity into which he was being drawn and to regain his freedom.
In this way he experimented with society-life, the civil service,
farming, music - to which at one time he intended to devote his
life - and even with the love of women in which he did not believe.
He meditated on the use to which he should devote that power of
youth which is granted to man only once in a lifetime: that force
which gives a man the power of making himself, or even - as it
seemed to him - of making the universe, into anything he wishes:
should it be to art, to science, to love of woman, or to practical
activities? It is true that some people are devoid of this
impulse, and on entering life at once place their necks under the
first yoke that offers itself and honestly labour under it for the
rest of their lives. But Olenin was too strongly conscious of the
presence of that all-powerful God of Youth - of that capacity to be
entirely transformed into an aspiration or idea - the capacity to
wish and to do - to throw oneself headlong into a bottomless abyss
without knowing why or wherefore. He bore this consciousness
within himself, was proud of it and, without knowing it, was happy
in that consciousness. Up to that time he had loved only himself,
and could not help loving himself, for he expected nothing but
good of himself and had not yet had time to be disillusioned. On
leaving Moscow he was in that happy state of mind in which a young
man, conscious of past mistakes, suddenly says to himself, 'That
was not the real thing.' All that had gone before was accidental
and unimportant. Till then he had not really tried to live, but
now with his departure from Moscow a new life was beginning - a
life in which there would be no mistakes, no remorse, and
certainly nothing but happiness.
It is always the case on a long journey that till the first two or
three stages have been passed imagination continues to dwell on
the place left behind, but with the first morning on the road it
leaps to the end of the journey and there begins building castles
in the air. So it happened to Olenin.
After leaving the town behind, he gazed at the snowy fields and
felt glad to be alone in their midst. Wrapping himself in his fur
coat, he lay at the bottom of the sledge, became tranquil, and
fell into a doze. The parting with his friends had touched him
deeply, and memories of that last winter spent in Moscow and
images of the past, mingled with vague thoughts and regrets, rose
unbidden in his imagination.
He remembered the friend who had seen him off and his relations
with the girl they had talked about. The girl was rich. "How could
he love her knowing that she loved me?" thought he, and evil
suspicions crossed his mind. "There is much dishonesty in men when
one comes to reflect." Then he was confronted by the question:
"But really, how is it I have never been in love? Every one tells
me that I never have. Can it be that I am a moral monstrosity?"
And he began to recall all his infatuations. He recalled his entry
into society, and a friend's sister with whom he spent several
evenings at a table with a lamp on it which lit up her slender
fingers busy with needlework, and the lower part of her pretty
delicate face. He recalled their conversations that dragged on
like the game in which one passes on a stick which one keeps
alight as long as possible, and the general awkwardness and
restraint and his continual feeling of rebellion at all that
conventionality. Some voice had always whispered: "That's not it,
that's not it," and so it had proved. Then he remembered a ball
and the mazurka he danced with the beautiful D - - . "How much in
love I was that night and how happy! And how hurt and vexed I was
next morning when I woke and felt myself still free! Why does not
love come and bind me hand and foot?" thought he. "No, there is no
such thing as love! That neighbour who used to tell me, as she
told Dubrovin and the Marshal, that she loved the stars, was not
IT either." And now his farming and work in the country recurred
to his mind, and in those recollections also there was nothing to
dwell on with pleasure. "Will they talk long of my departure?"
came into his head; but who "they" were he did not quite know.
Next came a thought that made him wince and mutter incoherently.
It was the recollection of M. Cappele the tailor, and the six
hundred and seventy-eight rubles he still owed him, and he
recalled the words in which he had begged him to wait another
year, and the look of perplexity and resignation which had
appeared on the tailor's face. 'Oh, my God, my God!' he repeated,
wincing and trying to drive away the intolerable thought. 'All the
same and in spite of everything she loved me,' thought he of the
girl they had talked about at the farewell supper. 'Yes, had I
married her I should not now be owing anything, and as it is I am
in debt to Vasilyev.' Then he remembered the last night he had
played with Vasilyev at the club (just after leaving her), and he
recalled his humiliating requests for another game and the other's
cold refusal. 'A year's economizing and they will all be paid, and
the devil take them!'... But despite this assurance he again began
calculating his outstanding debts, their dates, and when he could
hope to pay them off. 'And I owe something to Morell as well as to
Chevalier,' thought he, recalling the night when he had run up so
large a debt. It was at a carousel at the gipsies arranged by some
fellows from Petersburg: Sashka B - -, an aide-de-camp to the Tsar,
Prince D - -, and that pompous old - - . 'How is it those gentlemen
are so self-satisfied?' thought he, 'and by what right do they
form a clique to which they think others must be highly flattered
to be admitted? Can it be because they are on the Emperor's staff?
Why, it's awful what fools and scoundrels they consider other
people to be! But I showed them that I at any rate, on the
contrary, do not at all want their intimacy. All the same, I fancy
Andrew, the steward, would be amazed to know that I am on familiar
terms with a man like Sashka B - -, a colonel and an aide-de-camp
to the Tsar! Yes, and no one drank more than I did that evening,
and I taught the gipsies a new song and everyone listened to it.
Though I have done many foolish things, all the same I am a very
good fellow,' thought he.
Morning found him at the third post-stage. He drank tea, and
himself helped Vanyusha to move his bundles and trunks and sat
down among them, sensible, erect, and precise, knowing where all
his belongings were, how much money he had and where it was, where
he had put his passport and the post-horse requisition and toll-
gate papers, and it all seemed to him so well arranged that he
grew quite cheerful and the long journey before him seemed an
extended pleasure-trip.
All that morning and noon he was deep in calculations of how many
versts he had travelled, how many remained to the next stage, how
many to the next town, to the place where he would dine, to the
place where he would drink tea, and to Stavropol, and what
fraction of the whole journey was already accomplished. He also
calculated how much money he had with him, how much would be left
over, how much would pay off all his debts, and what proportion of
his income he would spend each month. Towards evening, after tea,
he calculated that to Stavropol there still remained seven-
elevenths of the whole journey, that his debts would require seven
months' economy and one-eighth of his whole fortune; and then,
tranquillized, he wrapped himself up, lay down in the sledge, and
again dozed off. His imagination was now turned to the future: to
the Caucasus. All his dreams of the future were mingled with
pictures of Amalat-Beks, Circassian women, mountains, precipices,
terrible torrents, and perils. All these things were vague and
dim, but the love of fame and the danger of death furnished the
interest of that future. Now, with unprecedented courage and a
strength that amazed everyone, he slew and subdued an innumerable
host of hillsmen; now he was himself a hillsman and with them was
maintaining their independence against the Russians. As soon as he
pictured anything definite, familiar Moscow figures always
appeared on the scene. Sashka B - -fights with the Russians or the
hillsmen against him. Even the tailor Cappele in some strange way
takes part in the conqueror's triumph. Amid all this he remembered
his former humiliations, weaknesses, and mistakes, and the
recollection was not disagreeable. It was clear that there among
the mountains, waterfalls, fair Circassians, and dangers, such
mistakes could not recur. Having once made full confession to
himself there was an end of it all. One other vision, the sweetest
of them all, mingled with the young man's every thought of the
future - the vision of a woman.
And there, among the mountains, she appeared to his imagination as
a Circassian slave, a fine figure with a long plait of hair and
deep submissive eyes. He pictured a lonely hut in the mountains,
and on the threshold she stands awaiting him when, tired and
covered with dust, blood, and fame, he returns to her. He is
conscious of her kisses, her shoulders, her sweet voice, and her
submissiveness. She is enchanting, but uneducated, wild, and
rough. In the long winter evenings he begins her education. She is
clever and gifted and quickly acquires all the knowledge
essential. Why not? She can quite easily learn foreign languages,
read the French masterpieces and understand them: Notre Dame de
Paris, for instance, is sure to please her. She can also speak
French. In a drawing-room she can show more innate dignity than a
lady of the highest society. She can sing, simply, powerfully, and
passionately.... 'Oh, what nonsense!' said he to himself. But here
they reached a post-station and he had to change into another
sledge and give some tips. But his fancy again began searching for
the 'nonsense' he had relinquished, and again fair Circassians,
glory, and his return to Russia with an appointment as aide-de-
camp and a lovely wife rose before his imagination. 'But there's
no such thing as love,' said he to himself. 'Fame is all rubbish.
But the six hundred and seventy-eight rubles? ... And the
conquered land that will bring me more wealth than I need for a
lifetime? It will not be right though to keep all that wealth for
myself. I shall have to distribute it. But to whom? Well, six
hundred and seventy-eight rubles to Cappele and then we'll see.'
... Quite vague visions now cloud his mind, and only Vanyusha's
voice and the interrupted motion of the sledge break his healthy
youthful slumber. Scarcely conscious, he changes into another
sledge at the next stage and continues his journey.
Next morning everything goes on just the same: the same kind of
post-stations and tea-drinking, the same moving horses' cruppers,
the same short talks with Vanyusha, the same vague dreams and
drowsiness, and the same tired, healthy, youthful sleep at night.
Chapter III
The farther Olenin travelled from Central Russia the farther he
left his memories behind, and the nearer he drew to the Caucasus
the lighter his heart became. "I'll stay away for good and never
return to show myself in society," was a thought that sometimes
occurred to him. "These people whom I see here are NOT people.
None of them know me and none of them can ever enter the Moscow
society I was in or find out about my past. And no one in that
society will ever know what I am doing, living among these
people." And quite a new feeling of freedom from his whole past
came over him among the rough beings he met on the road whom he
did not consider to be PEOPLE in the sense that his Moscow
acquaintances were. The rougher the people and the fewer the signs
of civilization the freer he felt. Stavropol, through which he had
to pass, irked him. The signboards, some of them even in French,
ladies in carriages, cabs in the marketplace, and a gentleman
wearing a fur cloak and tall hat who was walking along the
boulevard and staring at the passersby, quite upset him. "Perhaps
these people know some of my acquaintances," he thought; and the
club, his tailor, cards, society ... came back to his mind. But
after Stavropol everything was satisfactory - wild and also
beautiful and warlike, and Olenin felt happier and happier. All
the Cossacks, post-boys, and post-station masters seemed to him
simple folk with whom he could jest and converse simply, without
having to consider to what class they belonged. They all belonged
to the human race which, without his thinking about it, all
appeared dear to Olenin, and they all treated him in a friendly
way.
Already in the province of the Don Cossacks his sledge had been
exchanged for a cart, and beyond Stavropol it became so warm that
Olenin travelled without wearing his fur coat. It was already
spring - an unexpected joyous spring for Olenin. At night he was no
longer allowed to leave the Cossack villages, and they said it was
dangerous to travel in the evening. Vanyusha began to be uneasy,
and they carried a loaded gun in the cart. Olenin became still
happier. At one of the post-stations the post-master told of a
terrible murder that had been committed recently on the high road.
They began to meet armed men. "So this is where it begins!"
thought Olenin, and kept expecting to see the snowy mountains of
which mention was so often made. Once, towards evening, the Nogay
driver pointed with his whip to the mountains shrouded in clouds.
Olenin looked eagerly, but it was dull and the mountains were
almost hidden by the clouds. Olenin made out something grey and
white and fleecy, but try as he would he could find nothing
beautiful in the mountains of which he had so often read and
heard. The mountains and the clouds appeared to him quite alike,
and he thought the special beauty of the snow peaks, of which he
had so often been told, was as much an invention as Bach's music
and the love of women, in which he did not believe. So he gave up
looking forward to seeing the mountains. But early next morning,
being awakened in his cart by the freshness of the air, he glanced
carelessly to the right. The morning was perfectly clear. Suddenly
he saw, about twenty paces away as it seemed to him at first
glance, pure white gigantic masses with delicate contours, the
distinct fantastic outlines of their summits showing sharply
against the far-off sky. When he had realized the distance between
himself and them and the sky and the whole immensity of the
mountains, and felt the infinitude of all that beauty, he became
afraid that it was but a phantasm or a dream. He gave himself a
shake to rouse himself, but the mountains were still the same.
"What's that! What is it?" he said to the driver.
"Why, the mountains," answered the Nogay driver with indifference.
"And I too have been looking at them for a long while," said
Vanyusha. "Aren't they fine? They won't believe it at home."
The quick progress of the three-horsed cart along the smooth road
caused the mountains to appear to be running along the horizon,
while their rosy crests glittered in the light of the rising sun.
At first Olenin was only astonished at the sight, then gladdened
by it; but later on, gazing more and more intently at that snow-
peaked chain that seemed to rise not from among other black
mountains, but straight out of the plain, and to glide away into
the distance, he began by slow degrees to be penetrated by their
beauty and at length to FEEL the mountains. From that moment all
he saw, all he thought, and all he felt, acquired for him a new
character, sternly majestic like the mountains! All his Moscow
reminiscences, shame, and repentance, and his trivial dreams about
the Caucasus, vanished and did not return. 'Now it has begun,' a
solemn voice seemed to say to him. The road and the Terek, just
becoming visible in the distance, and the Cossack villages and the
people, all no longer appeared to him as a joke. He looked at
himself or Vanyusha, and again thought of the mountains. ... Two
Cossacks ride by, their guns in their cases swinging rhythmically
behind their backs, the white and bay legs of their horses
mingling confusedly ... and the mountains! Beyond the Terek rises
the smoke from a Tartar village... and the mountains! The sun has
risen and glitters on the Terek, now visible beyond the reeds ...
and the mountains! From the village comes a Tartar wagon, and
women, beautiful young women, pass by... and the mountains!
'Abreks canter about the plain, and here am I driving along and do
not fear them! I have a gun, and strength, and youth... and the
mountains!'
Chapter IV
That whole part of the Terek line (about fifty miles) along which
lie the villages of the Grebensk Cossacks is uniform in character
both as to country and inhabitants. The Terek, which separates the
Cossacks from the mountaineers, still flows turbid and rapid
though already broad and smooth, always depositing greyish sand on
its low reedy right bank and washing away the steep, though not
high, left bank, with its roots of century-old oaks, its rotting
plane trees, and young brushwood. On the right bank lie the
villages of pro-Russian, though still somewhat restless, Tartars.
Along the left bank, back half a mile from the river and standing
five or six miles apart from one another, are Cossack villages. In
olden times most of these villages were situated on the banks of
the river; but the Terek, shifting northward from the mountains
year by year, washed away those banks, and now there remain only
the ruins of the old villages and of the gardens of pear and plum
trees and poplars, all overgrown with blackberry bushes and wild
vines. No one lives there now, and one only sees the tracks of the
deer, the wolves, the hares, and the pheasants, who have learned
to love these places. From village to village runs a road cut
through the forest as a cannon-shot might fly. Along the roads are
cordons of Cossacks and watch-towers with sentinels in them. Only
a narrow strip about seven hundred yards wide of fertile wooded
soil belongs to the Cossacks. To the north of it begin the sand-
drifts of the Nogay or Mozdok steppes, which fetch far to the
north and run, Heaven knows where, into the Trukhmen, Astrakhan,
and Kirghiz-Kaisatsk steppes. To the south, beyond the Terek, are
the Great Chechnya river, the Kochkalov range, the Black
Mountains, yet another range, and at last the snowy mountains,
which can just be seen but have never yet been scaled. In this
fertile wooded strip, rich in vegetation, has dwelt as far back as
memory runs the fine warlike and prosperous Russian tribe
belonging to the sect of Old Believers, and called the Grebensk
Cossacks.
Long long ago their Old Believer ancestors fled from Russia and
settled beyond the Terek among the Chechens on the Greben, the
first range of wooded mountains of Chechnya. Living among the
Chechens the Cossacks intermarried with them and adopted the
manners and customs of the hill tribes, though they still retained
the Russian language in all its purity, as well as their Old
Faith. A tradition, still fresh among them, declares that Tsar
Ivan the Terrible came to the Terek, sent for their Elders, and
gave them the land on this side of the river, exhorting them to
remain friendly to Russia and promising not to enforce his rule
upon them nor oblige them to change their faith. Even now the
Cossack families claim relationship with the Chechens, and the
love of freedom, of leisure, of plunder and of war, still form
their chief characteristics. Only the harmful side of Russian
influence shows itself - by interference at elections, by
confiscation of church bells, and by the troops who are quartered
in the country or march through it. A Cossack is inclined to hate
less the dzhigit hillsman who maybe has killed his brother, than
the soldier quartered on him to defend his village, but who has
defiled his hut with tobacco-smoke. He respects his enemy the
hillsman and despises the soldier, who is in his eyes an alien and
an oppressor. In reality, from a Cossack's point of view a Russian
peasant is a foreign, savage, despicable creature, of whom he sees
a sample in the hawkers who come to the country and in the
Ukrainian immigrants whom the Cossack contemptuously calls
'woolbeaters'. For him, to be smartly dressed means to be dressed
like a Circassian. The best weapons are obtained from the hillsmen
and the best horses are bought, or stolen, from them. A dashing
young Cossack likes to show off his knowledge of Tartar, and when
carousing talks Tartar even to his fellow Cossack. In spite of all
these things this small Christian clan stranded in a tiny comer of
the earth, surrounded by half-savage Mohammedan tribes and by
soldiers, considers itself highly advanced, acknowledges none but
Cossacks as human beings, and despises everybody else. The Cossack
spends most of his time in the cordon, in action, or in hunting
and fishing. He hardly ever works at home. When he stays in the
village it is an exception to the general rule and then he is
holiday-making. All Cossacks make their own wine, and drunkenness
is not so much a general tendency as a rite, the non-fulfilment of
which would be considered apostasy. The Cossack looks upon a woman
as an instrument for his welfare; only the unmarried girls are
allowed to amuse themselves. A married woman has to work for her
husband from youth to very old age: his demands on her are the
Oriental ones of submission and labour. In consequence of this
outlook women are strongly developed both physically and mentally,
and though they are - as everywhere in the East - nominally in
subjection, they possess far greater influence and importance in
family-life than Western women. Their exclusion from public life
and inurement to heavy male labour give the women all the more
power and importance in the household. A Cossack, who before
strangers considers it improper to speak affectionately or
needlessly to his wife, when alone with her is involuntarily
conscious of her superiority. His house and all his property, in
fact the entire homestead, has been acquired and is kept together
solely by her labour and care. Though firmly convinced that labour
is degrading to a Cossack and is only proper for a Nogay labourer
or a woman, he is vaguely aware of the fact that all he makes use
of and calls his own is the result of that toil, and that it is in
the power of the woman (his mother or his wife) whom he considers
his slave, to deprive him of all he possesses. Besides, the
continuous performance of man's heavy work and the
responsibilities entrusted to her have endowed the Grebensk women
with a peculiarly independent masculine character and have
remarkably developed their physical powers, common sense,
resolution, and stability. The women are in most cases stronger,
more intelligent, more developed, and handsomer than the men. A
striking feature of a Grebensk woman's beauty is the combination
of the purest Circassian type of face with the broad and powerful
build of Northern women. Cossack women wear the Circassian dress -
a Tartar smock, beshmet, and soft slippers - but they tie their
kerchiefs round their heads in the Russian fashion. Smartness,
cleanliness and elegance in dress and in the arrangement of their
huts, are with them a custom and a necessity. In their relations
with men the women, and especially the unmarried girls, enjoy
perfect freedom.
Novomlinsk village was considered the very heart of Grebensk
Cossackdom. In it more than elsewhere the customs of the old
Grebensk population have been preserved, and its women have from
time immemorial been renowned all over the Caucasus for their
beauty. A Cossack's livelihood is derived from vineyards, fruit-
gardens, water melon and pumpkin plantations, from fishing,
hunting, maize and millet growing, and from war plunder.
Novomlinsk village lies about two and a half miles away from the
Terek, from which it is separated by a dense forest. On one side
of the road which runs through the village is the river; on the
other, green vineyards and orchards, beyond which are seen the
driftsands of the Nogay Steppe. The village is surrounded by
earth-banks and prickly bramble hedges, and is entered by tall
gates hung between posts and covered with little reed-thatched
roofs. Beside them on a wooden gun-carriage stands an unwieldy
cannon captured by the Cossacks at some time or other, and which
has not been fired for a hundred years. A uniformed Cossack
sentinel with dagger and gun sometimes stands, and sometimes does
not stand, on guard beside the gates, and sometimes presents arms
to a passing officer and sometimes does not. Below the roof of the
gateway is written in black letters on a white board: 'Houses 266:
male inhabitants 897: female 1012.' The Cossacks' houses are all
raised on pillars two and a half feet from the ground. They are
carefully thatched with reeds and have large carved gables. If not
new they are at least all straight and clean, with high porches of
different shapes; and they are not built close together but have
ample space around them, and are all picturesquely placed along
broad streets and lanes. In front of the large bright windows of
many of the houses, beyond the kitchen gardens, dark green poplars
and acacias with their delicate pale verdure and scented white
blossoms overtop the houses, and beside them grow flaunting yellow
sunflowers, creepers, and grape vines. In the broad open square
are three shops where drapery, sunflower and pumpkin seeds, locust
beans and gingerbreads are sold; and surrounded by a tall fence,
loftier and larger than the other houses, stands the Regimental
Commander's dwelling with its casement windows, behind a row of
tall poplars. Few people are to be seen in the streets of the
village on weekdays, especially in summer. The young men are on
duty in the cordons or on military expeditions; the old ones are
fishing or helping the women in the orchards and gardens. Only the
very old, the sick, and the children, remain at home.
Chapter V
It was one of those wonderful evenings that occur only in the
Caucasus. The sun had sunk behind the mountains but it was still
light. The evening glow had spread over a third of the sky, and
against its brilliancy the dull white immensity of the mountains
was sharply defined. The air was rarefied, motionless, and full of
sound. The shadow of the mountains reached for several miles over
the steppe. The steppe, the opposite side of the river, and the
roads, were all deserted. If very occasionally mounted men
appeared, the Cossacks in the cordon and the Chechens in their
aouls (villages) watched them with surprised curiosity and tried
to guess who those questionable men could be. At nightfall people
from fear of one another flock to their dwellings, and only birds
and beasts fearless of man prowl in those deserted spaces. Talking
merrily, the women who have been tying up the vines hurry away
from the gardens before sunset. The vineyards, like all the
surrounding district, are deserted, but the villages become very
animated at that time of the evening. From all sides, walking,