_ The next day was a holiday. In the evening all the villagers,
their holiday clothes shining in the sunset, were out in the
street. That season more wine than usual had been produced, and
the people were now free from their labours. In a month the
Cossacks were to start on a campaign and in many families
preparations were being made for weddings.
Most of the people were standing in the square in front of the
Cossack Government Office and near the two shops, in one of which
cakes and pumpkin seeds were sold, in the other kerchiefs and
cotton prints. On the earth-embankment of the office-building sat
or stood the old men in sober grey, or black coats without gold
trimmings or any kind of ornament. They conversed among themselves
quietly in measured tones, about the harvest, about the young
folk, about village affairs, and about old times, looking with
dignified equanimity at the younger generation. Passing by them,
the women and girls stopped and bent their heads. The young
Cossacks respectfully slackened their pace and raised their caps,
holding them for a while over their heads. The old men then
stopped speaking. Some of them watched the passers-by severely,
others kindly, and in their turn slowly took off their caps and
put them on again.
The Cossack girls had not yet started dancing their khorovods, but
having gathered in groups, in their bright coloured beshmets with
white kerchiefs on their heads pulled down to their eyes, they sat
either on the ground or on the earth-banks about the huts
sheltered from the oblique rays of the sun, and laughed and
chattered in their ringing voices. Little boys and girls playing
in the square sent their balls high up into the clear sky, and ran
about squealing and shouting. The half-grown girls had started
dancing their khorovods, and were timidly singing in their thin
shrill voices. Clerks, lads not in the service, or home for the
holiday, bright-faced and wearing smart white or new red
Circassian gold-trimmed coats, went about arm in arm in twos or
threes from one group of women or girls to another, and stopped to
joke and chat with the Cossack girls. The Armenian shopkeeper, in
a gold-trimmed coat of fine blue cloth, stood at the open door
through which piles of folded bright-coloured kerchiefs were
visible and, conscious of his own importance and with the pride of
an Oriental tradesman, waited for customers. Two red-bearded,
barefooted Chechens, who had come from beyond the Terek to see the
fete, sat on their heels outside the house of a friend,
negligently smoking their little pipes and occasionally spitting,
watching the villagers and exchanging remarks with one another in
their rapid guttural speech. Occasionally a workaday-looking
soldier in an old overcoat passed across the square among the
bright-clad girls. Here and there the songs of tipsy Cossacks who
were merry-making could already be heard. All the huts were
closed; the porches had been scrubbed clean the day before. Even
the old women were out in the street, which was everywhere
sprinkled with pumpkin and melon seed-shells. The air was warm and
still, the sky deep and clear. Beyond the roofs the dead-white
mountain range, which seemed very near, was turning rosy in the
glow of the evening sun. Now and then from the other side of the
river came the distant roar of a cannon, but above the village,
mingling with one another, floated all sorts of merry holiday
sounds.
Olenin had been pacing the yard all that morning hoping to see
Maryanka. But she, having put on holiday clothes, went to Mass at
the chapel and afterwards sat with the other girls on an earth-
embankment cracking seeds; sometimes again, together with her
companions, she ran home, and each time gave the lodger a bright
and kindly look. Olenin felt afraid to address her playfully or in
the presence of others. He wished to finish telling her what he
had begun to say the night before, and to get her to give him a
definite answer. He waited for another moment like that of
yesterday evening, but the moment did not come, and he felt that
he could not remain any longer in this uncertainty. She went out
into the street again, and after waiting awhile he too went out
and without knowing where he was going he followed her. He passed
by the corner where she was sitting in her shining blue satin
beshmet, and with an aching heart he heard behind him the girls
laughing.
Beletski's hut looked out onto the square. As Olenin was passing
it he heard Beletski's voice calling to him, 'Come in,' and in he
went.
After a short talk they both sat down by the window and were soon
joined by Eroshka, who entered dressed in a new beshmet and sat
down on the floor beside them.
'There, that's the aristocratic party,' said Beletski, pointing
with his cigarette to a brightly coloured group at the corner.
'Mine is there too. Do you see her? in red. That's a new beshmet.
Why don't you start the khorovod?' he shouted, leaning out of the
window. 'Wait a bit, and then when it grows dark let us go too.
Then we will invite them to Ustenka's. We must arrange a ball for
them!'
'And I will come to Ustenka's,' said Olenin in a decided tone.
'Will Maryanka be there?'
'Yes, she'll be there. Do come!' said Beletski, without the least
surprise. 'But isn't it a pretty picture?' he added, pointing to
the motley crowds.
'Yes, very!' Olenin assented, trying to appear indifferent.
'Holidays of this kind,' he added, 'always make me wonder why all
these people should suddenly be contented and jolly. To-day for
instance, just because it happens to be the fifteenth of the
month, everything is festive. Eyes and faces and voices and
movements and garments, and the air and the sun, are all in a
holiday mood. And we no longer have any holidays!'
'Yes,' said Beletski, who did not like such reflections.
'And why are you not drinking, old fellow?' he said, turning to
Eroshka.
Eroshka winked at Olenin, pointing to Beletski. 'Eh, he's a proud
one that kunak of yours,' he said.
Beletski raised his glass. ALLAH BIRDY' he said, emptying it.
(ALLAH BIRDY, 'God has given!'--the usual greeting of Caucasians
when drinking together.)
'Sau bul' ('Your health'), answered Eroshka smiling, and emptied
his glass.
'Speaking of holidays!' he said, turning to Olenin as he rose and
looked out of the window, 'What sort of holiday is that! You
should have seen them make merry in the old days! The women used
to come out in their gold--trimmed sarafans. Two rows of gold
coins hanging round their necks and gold-cloth diadems on their
heads, and when they passed they made a noise, "flu, flu," with
their dresses. Every woman looked like a princess. Sometimes
they'd come out, a whole herd of them, and begin singing songs so
that the air seemed to rumble, and they went on making merry all
night. And the Cossacks would roll out a barrel into the yards and
sit down and drink till break of day, or they would go hand--in--
hand sweeping the village. Whoever they met they seized and took
along with them, and went from house to house. Sometimes they used
to make merry for three days on end. Father used to come home--I
still remember it--quite red and swollen, without a cap, having
lost everything: he'd come and lie down. Mother knew what to do:
she would bring him some fresh caviar and a little chikhir to
sober him up, and would herself run about in the village looking
for his cap. Then he'd sleep for two days! That's the sort of
fellows they were then! But now what are they?'
'Well, and the girls in the sarafans, did they make merry all by
themselves?' asked Beletski.
'Yes, they did! Sometimes Cossacks would come on foot or on horse
and say, "Let's break up the khorovods," and they'd go, but the
girls would take up cudgels. Carnival week, some young fellow
would come galloping up, and they'd cudgel his horse and cudgel
him too. But he'd break through, seize the one he loved, and carry
her off. And his sweetheart would love him to his heart's content!
Yes, the girls in those days, they were regular queens!' _