The Cossacks (15 page)

“An antlered one,” he said and, throwing down his rifle in despair, started tugging at his gray beard. “He was right here! We should have come around by the path! What a fool I am! What a fool!” And he tore angrily at his beard. The hooves of the fleeing stag sounded fainter and fainter. It was as if something were flying over the forest above the fog.

It was dusk when Olenin—tired, hungry, but invigorated—returned to the village with the old man. Dinner was ready. He ate and drank with Eroshka and, feeling warm and cheerful, went out on the porch. Once more the mountains rose before his eyes in the sunset. Once more the old man told his endless tales of hunting, Chechen warriors, sweet little souls, and the bold and carefree way of life the Cossacks used to lead. Once more beautiful Maryanka went in and out of the yard, her young, powerful body outlined beneath her smock.

The following day Olenin set out alone to find the place where he and the old man had come across the stag. Instead of walking down to the gate, he climbed over the hedges as the villagers did, and before he had time to pull off the thorns that had stuck to his coat, his dog had already flushed out two pheasants. As soon as he entered the underbrush, birds fluttered up at every step. (The old man had not shown him this place the day before, intending to keep it for teaching him how to hunt from a blind.) Olenin hit five pheasants out of the twelve he shot at, but scampering after them through the brambles was so exhausting that he was covered in sweat. He called back his dog,
uncocked his rifle, brushed away the mosquitoes with the sleeve of his jacket, and quietly made his way to where he and Eroshka had been the day before. But he could not hold back the dog, which had come across a scent on the path. Along the way Olenin shot two more pheasants, and since he had to search for them in the brambles, it was midday by the time he reached the stag’s lair.

The day was bright, still, and hot. The morning freshness had dried out even in the forest, and mosquitoes swarmed over his face, back, and hands. The dog had turned from gray to black, its back completely covered with mosquitoes. Olenin’s shirt, through which they plunged their stings, had also turned black. Olenin wanted to flee and suddenly felt it would be impossible to live through the summer in the village. He wanted to head back but, at the sudden thought that the villagers bore these things well enough, decided to brave the swarm and gave himself up to be devoured. And strangely enough, by midday the sensation actually became pleasant. It even seemed to him that if he were not enveloped by mosquitoes and the mosquito paste that his hand mashed over his sweating face, his whole body covered by a consuming itch, the forest would lose its character. This cloud of insects went so well with this wild, insanely lavish vegetation, with the forest’s countless animals and birds, the dark verdure, the hot, aromatic air, the rivulets of murky water seeping out of the Terek and gurgling somewhere beneath overhanging leaves, that Olenin found pleasant what he had previously found unbearable. He walked around the place where they had seen the stag the day before and, not finding anything, decided to rest a little. The sun stood high above the forest, and whenever he came upon a path or clearing, it relentlessly cast its harsh rays on his head and back. The seven pheasants hanging from his belt weighed him down painfully. He looked for the track the stag had left the day before, crawled beneath the bush into the thicket where its lair was, and lay down. He looked at the dark foliage around him, at the damp spot where the animal had lain, at yesterday’s dung, the stag’s knee marks, the torn-up clump of black earth, and at his own footprints from the day before. He felt cool and comfortable. He thought of nothing, desired nothing. Suddenly he was gripped by such a strange feeling of groundless joy and love for everything that, in a
habit he had had from childhood, he began crossing himself and expressing his thankfulness. He suddenly saw with the utmost clarity: “Here I am, Dmitri Olenin, so distinct from all other beings, and I am alone, God knows where, in the lair of a magnificent stag, who perhaps has never seen a man before, in a place where no man has ever been or thought such thoughts. I am here, surrounded by trees old and young, one entwined with coils of wild vines. Pheasants dart through the underbrush, chasing one another, and perhaps scenting their dead brothers.” He prodded the pheasants hanging from his belt, examined them, and wiped his hand, spattered with warm blood, on his coat. “Perhaps the jackals can scent it too, and slink off with sullen faces. Mosquitoes are hovering all around, buzzing among the leaves—to them gigantic islands—one mosquito, two, three, four, a hundred, a thousand, a million, humming something, humming about something, all around me, each as distinct from the next as I, Dmitri Olenin, am from them.

He vividly imagined what they were thinking and humming. “Over here, boys! Here’s someone we can devour!” they hum, and swarm over him. And he felt that he was not simply a Russian nobleman, a member of Moscow society, a relative of such-and-such, a friend of so-and-so, but that he was as much a mosquito, a pheasant, or a stag as the beings around him. “I shall live and I shall die, just like them, just like Uncle Eroshka. And he is right when he says that grass will grow and that will be that!

“But does it matter that grass will grow?” was Olenin’s next thought. “I still have to live, have to be happy. Because there is only one thing I want—happiness. It is of no importance what I am, even if I am no more than an animal over which grass will grow. Or I am a frame holding a part of our one-and-only God. But I still need to live the best way I can. And yet how shall I live to be happy, and why was I not happy before?”

He began thinking of his former life and felt disgusted with himself. He had been such an egoist, when he really had not needed anything. He kept looking around at the translucent foliage, the setting sun, and the clear sky, and felt as happy as he had that first moment. “Why am I happy, and what did I live for in the past?” he thought.
“How I used to want everything for myself, how I schemed, all for nothing but shame and sorrow! But I see I don’t need anything to be happy!” Suddenly it was as if a new world had opened. “This is what happiness is!” he said to himself. “Happiness is to live for others. How clear it is. The need for happiness is within every man—so happiness must be legitimate. One might try to attain happiness selfishly—in other words, seek riches, glory, luxury, and love—and yet circumstances might not allow one to attain these things. So these are the things that aren’t legitimate, not the need for happiness. But what can always be attained, regardless of circumstances? Love and selflessness!”

He was filled with such joy and excitement at discovering this new truth that he jumped up, and in his impatience began wondering who he could sacrifice himself for, who he could do good to, who he could love. “As one needs nothing for oneself, why not live for others?” he thought.

He picked up his rifle and scrambled out of the bushes to hurry back home in order to think everything through and find an opportunity of doing good. He came out into a clearing and looked around. The sun was no longer visible. It was growing cooler over the treetops. The terrain seemed completely unfamiliar and very unlike that surrounding the village. Everything had suddenly changed: the weather, the feel of the forest, the sky that had clouded over, and the wind whistling through the trees. All around him there was nothing but reeds and the ancient, rotting forest. He called his dog, which had run off to chase some animal, and his voice echoed back as if through a wasteland. He was frightened. He was suddenly seized by dread. His mind filled with Chechen warriors and the murders he had heard about, and he waited. Any second a Chechen might leap out from behind a bush and he would have to fight for his life and die, or try to scamper away in fear. He thought of God and of his future life as he had not done in a long time. And all around was the same dark, grim, wild nature. “Is it worth living just for oneself, when one might die any moment,” he wondered, “die without having done anything good, die in a way that no one will know?”

He headed in the direction where he imagined the village to be. He no longer thought of hunting and felt a desperate exhaustion. He eyed
every bush and tree, almost in terror, expecting at any moment to be called to account for his life. He wandered in circles, until he came upon a rivulet in which cold, sandy water from the Terek flowed, and so as not to stray any further he decided to follow it, not knowing where it would lead. Suddenly the reeds behind him rustled. He shuddered and reached for his rifle. Ashamed, he saw that it was only his dog—it threw itself panting and excited into the cold water and began lapping at it. Olenin also drank and then followed the dog, hoping it might lead him back to the village.

Despite the dog’s company, everything around him seemed even murkier. The forest was darkening, the wind was blowing harder through the tops of the old, decaying trees, and strange, large birds hovered screeching above their nests. The vegetation became sparser, and there were now more whispering reeds and barren, sandy clearings covered with animal tracks. Through the droning wind Olenin could hear other cheerless, monotonous sounds. He felt increasingly downcast. He groped for the pheasants hanging from his belt behind him. One of them was missing. Its body had fallen off, only its blood-drenched head and neck were still jutting out from beneath his belt. He felt terror like never before. He began to pray to God, afraid now of only one thing: that he would die without doing good. He wanted so much to live, to live so that he could perform a great feat of selflessness.

Suddenly it was as if his soul was filled with sunlight: He heard the sound of Russian being spoken, heard the fast, even flow of the Terek, and only two paces away saw the river’s brown, moving surface stretching out before him, the drab, wet sand of its banks and shallows, the distant steppe, the tower of the checkpoint against the water, a saddled horse with hobbled legs among the brambles, and the mountains. For an instant the red sun came out from behind a cloud, its last rays glittering playfully over the river, the reeds, the watchtower, and the Cossacks who had gathered in a crowd. Lukashka’s fine figure caught Olenin’s eye.

Once again Olenin felt completely happy for no apparent reason. He had come out of the forest next to the Nizhnye Prototsky checkpoint on the Terek, across from the peaceful Chechen village. He greeted the Cossacks and, not finding any ready opportunity to do good, entered their hut. There too, he found no opportunity to do good. The Cossacks received him coldly. He lit a cigarette. The Cossacks ignored him, first because he was smoking and also because they were preoccupied: The brother of the slain Chechen warrior had come down from the mountains with a scout to buy back his body. The Cossacks were waiting for a lieutenant from the Cossack Regiment to arrive.

The dead man’s brother was tall and well-built, with a cropped beard dyed red. He was calm and majestic as a Czar, despite his tattered coat and sheepskin hat, and bore a remarkable resemblance to his dead brother. He did not deign to look at anyone and did not even glance at the corpse but squatted in the shadows smoking a pipe and spitting, uttering from time to time forceful, guttural sounds, to which his companion responded respectfully. It was clear that he was a warrior who must have encountered Russians under very different circumstances, and that Olenin did not interest him in the least. Olenin walked over to the dead man and stood gazing at him, but the dead man’s brother, looking past him, uttered curt, angry words, and the scout quickly covered the dead man’s face. Olenin was impressed by the majesty and sternness of the brother’s expression. He tried to start a conversation, asking him what village he was from, but the Chechen barely glanced at him, spat, and turned away. Olenin was so taken aback that this Chechen showed no interest in him that he imagined the man either must be a fool or simply did not understand Russian. Olenin turned to the Chechen’s companion, the scout who was acting as interpreter. He was a restless man, wearing clothes that were also tattered, but his hair was black instead of red, and he had gleaming white teeth and sparkling black eyes. The scout seemed eager to talk and asked for a cigarette.

“They were five brothers,” the scout told Olenin in broken Russian. “This is the third brother the Russians killed, only two left. This one’s a warrior, big warrior,” he said, pointing at the Chechen. “When they killed his brother—his name was Ahmed-Khan—this warrior was sitting
in the reeds across the river. He saw it all: how they put him in the boat, how they took him to the riverbank. He sat there till nightfall. He wanted to shoot an old man he saw there, but the others said no.”

Lukashka joined Olenin and the scout, and sat down.

“What village are they from?” Lukashka asked.

“There, from those mountains,” the scout replied, pointing beyond the Terek toward a bluish, misty gorge. “You know Syuk-su? It’s some ten versts beyond.”