Part 16 (1/2)

'Do you think I am afraid? Go back, and thank you. I can get on alone.'

'It's all right! What have I to do? And how can you help being afraid?

Even we are afraid,' said Lukashka to set Olenin's self-esteem at rest, and he laughed too.

'Then come in with me. We'll have a talk and a drink and in the morning you can go back.'

'Couldn't I find a place to spend the night?' laughed Lukashka. 'But the corporal asked me to go back.'

'I heard you singing last night, and also saw you.'

'Every one...' and Luke swayed his head.

'Is it true you are getting married?' asked Olenin.

'Mother wants me to marry. But I have not got a horse yet.'

'Aren't you in the regular service?'

'Oh dear no! I've only just joined, and have not got a horse yet, and don't know how to get one. That's why the marriage does not come off.'

'And what would a horse cost?'

'We were bargaining for one beyond the river the other day and they would not take sixty rubles for it, though it is a Nogay horse.'

'Will you come and be my drabant?' (A drabant was a kind of orderly attached to an officer when campaigning.) 'I'll get it arranged and will give you a horse,' said Olenin suddenly. 'Really now, I have two and I don't want both.'

'How--don't want it?' Lukashka said, laughing. 'Why should you make me a present? We'll get on by ourselves by G.o.d's help.'

'No, really! Or don't you want to be a drabant?' said Olenin, glad that it had entered his head to give a horse to Lukashka, though, without knowing why, he felt uncomfortable and confused and did not know what to say when he tried to speak.

Lukashka was the first to break the silence.

'Have you a house of your own in Russia?' he asked.

Olenin could not refrain from replying that he had not only one, but several houses.

'A good house? Bigger than ours?' asked Lukashka good-naturedly.

'Much bigger; ten times as big and three storeys high,' replied Olenin.

'And have you horses such as ours?'

'I have a hundred horses, worth three or four hundred rubles each, but they are not like yours. They are trotters, you know.... But still, I like the horses here best.'

'Well, and did you come here of your own free will, or were you sent?'

said Lukashka, laughing at him. 'Look! that's where you lost your way,'

he added, 'you should have turned to the right.'

'I came by my own wish,' replied Olenin. 'I wanted to see your parts and to join some expeditions.'