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Updated: July 2, 2025
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.
And he tried to mimic Olenin by tapping the floor with his thick fingers, and then twisted his big face to express contempt. 'What's the good of writing quibbles. Better have a spree and show you're a man! No other conception of writing found place in his head except that of legal chicanery. Olenin burst out laughing and so did Eroshka.
Moths circled round the flame and, shedding the dust of their wings, fluttered on the table and in the glasses, flew into the candle flame, and disappeared in the black space beyond. Olenin and Eroshka had emptied five bottles of chikhir. Eroshka filled the glasses every time, offering one to Olenin, drinking his health, and talking untiringly.
Eroshka moved aside and let him pass. Gerasim went to the gates. All the small boys in the yard stared at him in silence. He did not even turn round; he only put his cap on in the street. Gavrila sent the same Eroshka to follow him and keep watch on him as a spy. Eroshka, seeing from a distance that he had gone into a cookshop with his dog, waited for him to come out again.
'Yes, still on holiday, he replied, and felt, he did not know why, ashamed and ill at ease. He wished to go away but could not. It also seemed to him impossible to remain silent. The old man helped him by asking for a drink, and they had a drink. Olenin drank with Eroshka, with the other Cossack, and again with Eroshka, and the more he drank the heavier was his heart.
'Ay day, dalalay! Eroshka translated the words of the song: 'A youth drove his sheep from the aoul to the mountains: the Russians came and burnt the aoul, they killed all the men and took all the women into bondage. The youth returned from the mountains. Where the aoul had stood was an empty space; his mother not there, nor his brothers, nor his house; one tree alone was left standing.
Whose was the finest horse? Who had a Gurda sword? To whom should one go to get a drink? With whom go on the spree? Who should be sent to the mountains to kill Ahmet Khan? Why, always Eroshka! Whom did the girls love? Always Eroshka had to answer for it. There are no Cossacks like that nowadays. It's disgusting to look at them. Or they'll drink themselves foolish, not like men but all wrong.
'Just as they, just as Daddy Eroshka, I shall live awhile and die, and as he says truly: "grass will grow and nothing more". 'But what though the grass does grow? he continued thinking. 'Still I must live and be happy, because happiness is all I desire.
For two hours after returning home he lay on his bed motionless. Then he went to his company commander and obtained leave to visit the staff. Without taking leave of anyone, and sending Vanyusha to settle his accounts with his landlord, he prepared to leave for the fort where his regiment was stationed. Daddy Eroshka was the only one to see him off.
And who was I? I was Eroshka, the thief; they knew me not only in this village but up in the mountains. Tartar princes, my kunaks, used to come to see me! I used to be everybody's kunak. If he was a Tartar with a Tartar; an Armenian with an Armenian; a soldier with a soldier; an officer with an officer! I didn't care as long as he was a drinker.
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