Chapter 14 - Page 2

intercourse with the world, not drink with soldiers,
not eat with a Tartar.'

'Who says all that?' asked Olenin.

'Why, our teacher! But listen to a Mullah or a Tartar Cadi. He
says, "You unbelieving Giaours, why do you eat pig?" That shows
that everyone has his own law. But I think it's all one. God has
made everything for the joy of man. There is no sin in any of it.
Take example from an animal. It lives in the Tartar's reeds or in
ours. Wherever it happens to go, there is its home! Whatever God
gives it, that it eats! But our people say we have to lick red-hot
plates in hell for that. And I think it's all a fraud,' he added
after a pause.

'What is a fraud?' asked Olenin.

'Why, what the preachers say. We had an army captain in Chervlena
who was my kunak: a fine fellow just like me. He was killed in
Chechnya. Well, he used to say that the preachers invent all that
out of their own heads. "When you die the grass will grow on your
grave and that's all!"' The old man laughed. 'He was a desperate
fellow.'

'And how old are you?' asked Olenin.

'The Lord only knows! I must be about seventy. When a Tsaritsa
reigned in Russia I was no longer very small. So you can reckon it
out. I must be seventy.'

'Yes you must, but you are still a fine fellow.'

'Well, thank Heaven I am healthy, quite healthy, except that a
woman, a witch, has harmed me....'

'How?'

'Oh, just harmed me.'

'And so when you die the grass will grow?' repeated Olenin.

Eroshka evidently did not wish to express his thought clearly. He
was silent for a while.

'And what did you think? Drink!' he shouted suddenly, smiling and
handing Olenin some wine.