A Hero of Our Time - Mikhail IUr'evich Lermontov [24]
With shouts and curses, the cart drivers thrashed the horses, which snorted, dug in their heels and wouldn’t move from their places for anything on the earth, never mind the eloquence of the whips.
“Your Honor,” one of them said finally, “it seems we won’t get to Koba today. Will you not give the order, while you can, for us to turn left? You see, those are probably saklyas over there that blacken the landscape on the hillside. Travelers always stop there in bad weather; they’re saying that they’ll lead us through if you give them a little something for vodka,” he added, pointing to the Ossetians.
“I know, old man, I know it without you telling me!” said the staff captain. “These rogues! They’ll seize any chance in order to extract something for their vodka.”
“You must admit, though,” I said, “that things would be worse without them.”
“Yes, that is so, that is so,” he muttered, “but these cart drivers! They pick up the scent of advantage and take it when they can—and it’s as if you wouldn’t even find the road without them!”
Here, we turned to the left and somehow, after many obstacles, made it to the meager refuge, which consisted of two saklyas, connected by flagstones and cobblestones, and encircled by a wall of the same stone. We interrupted the hosts, who took us in cordially. I found out afterward that the government pays them and supports them under the condition that they take in travelers caught in storms.
“Things are improving!” I said, taking a seat at the fire. “Now you will tell me the rest of the story about Bela. I am sure that it didn’t finish where you left it.”
“And why are you so sure of that?” replied the staff captain, winking with a sly smile.
“From the fact that things are not settled. What started in an unusual way, should also end unusually.”
“You’ve guessed it . . .”
“I’m glad.”
“It is good that it gives you joy, but for me, really, it is sad to recollect it. She was a glorious girl, Bela! I became so used to her, by the end, it was as though she were a daughter, and she loved me. I have to tell you, that I don’t have a family. Since the age of about twelve, I haven’t heard a thing about my father or mother, and I didn’t think to furnish myself with a wife earlier—and now, you know, it wouldn’t be very becoming to do so. I was glad to have someone to spoil. She would sometimes sing us songs, or dance the lezginka32 . . . and how she danced! I have seen our provincial gentle-women, and once I was in Moscow at the Club of Nobility, about twenty years ago—but what of them! They were nothing in comparison! . . . Grigory Alexandrovich dressed her up like a doll, tended to her, pampered her, and she grew prettier, like a miracle. The suntan descended from her face and arms, and a pinkness got up into her cheeks . . . Oh, she was really something, happy, always playing tricks on me, the mischief-maker . . . God forgive her!”
“What happened when you told her about her father’s death?”
“We hid it from her for a long time, while she was getting used to her situation. But when we told her, she cried for two days, and then forgot about it.
“About four months went by, and things couldn’t have been better. Grigory Alexandrovich, I’ve already mentioned I think, loved hunting with a passion. He would sometimes have such an urge to go out after boar or wild goat—but during that time he wouldn’t even step outside of the fortress ramparts. Then he started to seem distracted again; he paced his room, hands behind his back. And then once, without a word to anyone, he went off hunting, and was absent the whole morning. It happened again, and then it became more and more frequent . . . ‘Not good,’ I thought, ‘it seems a black cat has run between them!’
“One morning I go in to see him when I see before my eyes: Bela sitting on the bed in a black silk beshmet, the poor pale thing was so sad that I took fright.