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'It seems Vanyusha was right! thought Olenin. "A Tartar would be nobler", and followed by Granny Ulitka's abuse he went out of the hut. As he was leaving, Maryanka, still wearing only her pink smock, but with her forehead covered down to her eyes by a white kerchief, suddenly slipped out from the passage past him.
What things Grandad has given me! And yours they say is the richest of the Russians. His orderly says they have serfs of their own. Maryanka raised herself, and after thinking a moment, smiled. 'Do you know what he once told me: the lodger I mean? she said, biting a bit of grass. 'He said, "I'd like to be Lukashka the Cossack, or your brother Lazutka ." What do you think he meant?
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.
I wish to marry a Cossack girl, and dare not because it would be a height of happiness of which I am unworthy. 'Three months have passed since I first saw the Cossack girl, Maryanka. The views and prejudices of the world I had left were still fresh in me. I did not then believe that I could love that woman.
Maryanka, wearing nothing but a pink smock, as all Cossack women do in the house, jumped away from the door, frightened, and pressing herself against the wall covered the lower part of her face with the broad sleeve of her Tartar smock. Having opened the door wider, Olenin in the semi-darkness of the passage saw the whole tall, shapely figure of the young Cossack girl.
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.
The dogs, wagging their tails and looking at their masters, ran on both sides of them. Myriads of gnats hovered in the air and pursued the hunters, covering their backs, eyes, and hands. The air was fragrant with the grass and with the dampness of the forest. Olenin continually looked round at the ox-cart in which Maryanka sat urging on the oxen with a long switch. It was calm.
Lukashka understood her and kept nodding, while he smiled slightly. She was telling him to give the girls dainties, and that the girls liked him, and that one girl, Maryanka the best of them all loved him. She indicated Maryanka by rapidly pointing in the direction of Maryanka's home and to her own eyebrows and face, and by smacking her lips and swaying her head.
Again the fair Maryanka went in and out and across the yard, her beautiful powerful form outlined by her smock. The next day Olenin went alone to the spot where he and the old man startled the stag.
And how can we manage quickest to give it and get away? 'How is it you don't know your own lodger? said Beletski, addressing Maryanka. 'How is one to know him if he never comes to see us? answered Maryanka, with a look at Olenin. Olenin felt frightened, he did not know of what. He flushed and, hardly knowing what he was saying, remarked: 'I'm afraid of your mother.
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