A Hero of Our Time - Mikhail IUr'evich Lermontov [15]
“And what did she sing—do you remember?”
“Yes, it seems it was something like, ‘Our young dzhigits12 are strapping, and their caftans are covered in silver, but the young Russian officer is more strapping than they, and the galloon 13 he wears is in gold. He is like a poplar among them—only he won’t grow; he doesn’t bloom in our garden.’
“Pechorin stood up, bowed to her, put his hand to his head and to his heart, and asked me to reply to her; I know how to speak like them and translated his answer.
“When she walked away from us, I whispered to Grigory Alexandrovich:
“ ‘Well, what do you think of her?’
“ ‘Enchanting!’ he replied. ‘What is her name?’
“ ‘Her name is Bela,’ I replied.
“And indeed, she was fine: tall, slim, with black eyes like a hill chamois14 that cast a look straight into your soul. Pechorin, in his reverie, didn’t take his eyes off her, and she looked over at him from under her brow fairly often too. But it wasn’t only Pechorin who admired the winning princess: from the corner of the room two other eyes were looking at her, fixed and fiery. I looked over and recognized my old acquaintance Kazbich. He was, you understand, neither peaceable nor unpeaceable as it were. There were lots of suspicions about him, even though he wasn’t ever discovered making even one bit of mischief. Sometimes, he would bring sheep to us at the fortress, and he sold them cheaply—he never haggled. You would give what he asked—come what may, he wouldn’t bend. They say that he loves to roam along the Kuban River with the abreks,15 and to tell the truth, he had a thievish snout on him. He was small, spindly, wide-shouldered . . . And then his cunning—he was as cunning as a demon! His beshmet16 was always in tatters and patches, but his weapon was in silver. And his horse was famous in the whole Kabarde—you couldn’t even dream of a better horse. Not for nothing that all the horsemen envied him—and they tried to steal him more than once but never managed it. I can see that horse even now: black as jet, legs like bow-strings, and eyes no worse than Bela’s—and what strength! He’ll gallop at least 50 versts—and he’s well-trained too—runs like a dog after his master, and knows the man’s voice even! They say that Kazbich never ties him up. What a perfect horse for a thief!
“That evening, Kazbich was as sullen as ever, and I noticed that he had a chain mail shirt under his beshmet. ‘He’s wearing this chain mail shirt for a reason,’ I thought. ‘He has probably laid a plan.’
“It became stuffy in the saklya, and I went out into the fresh air to revive myself. Night had already fallen on the mountains, and a thundercloud began to wander along the ravines.
“It occurred to me to look in on our horses in the shelter, to see if they had feed, and besides, caution is never a hindrance—after all, I had a splendid horse. The Kabardin have, more than once, looked at it and repeated ingratiatingly, ‘Yakshi tkhe, chek yakshi!’17
“I steal along the fence and suddenly I hear voices; I immediately recognized one voice: it was the rake Azamat, the son of our host. The other spoke more thinly and more quietly. ‘What are they talking about?’ I thought. ‘Not about my horse surely . . .’ So, I sat down by the fence and began listening, trying not to miss a word. Occasionally, the noise of singing and the sound of talking would fly