Chapter 16

Daddy Eroshka was a superannuated and solitary Cossack: twenty
years ago his wife had gone over to the Orthodox Church and run
away from him and married a Russian sergeant-major, and he had no
children. He was not bragging when he spoke of himself as having
been the boldest dare-devil in the village when he was young.
Everybody in the regiment knew of his old-time prowess. The death
of more than one Russian, as well as Chechen, lay on his
conscience. He used to go plundering in the mountains, and robbed
the Russians too; and he had twice been in prison. The greater
part of his life was spent in the forests, hunting. There he lived
for days on a crust of bread and drank nothing but water. But on
the other hand, when he was in the village he made merry from
morning to night. After leaving Olenin he slept for a couple of
hours and awoke before it was light. He lay on his bed thinking of
the man he had become acquainted with the evening before. Olenin's
'simplicity' (simplicity in the sense of not grudging him a drink)
pleased him very much, and so did Olenin himself. He wondered why
the Russians were all 'simple' and so rich, and why they were
educated, and yet knew nothing. He pondered on these questions and
also considered what he might get out of Olenin.

Daddy Eroshka's hut was of a good size and not old, but the
absence of a woman was very noticeable in it. Contrary to the
usual cleanliness of the Cossacks, the whole of this hut was
filthy and exceedingly untidy. A blood-stained coat had been
thrown on the table, half a dough-cake lay beside a plucked and
mangled crow with which to feed the hawk. Sandals of raw hide, a
gun, a dagger, a little bag, wet clothes, and sundry rags lay
scattered on the benches. In a comer stood a tub with stinking
water, in which another pair of sandals were being steeped, and
near by was a gun and a hunting-screen. On the floor a net had
been thrown down and several dead pheasants lay there, while a hen
tied by its leg was walking about near the table pecking among the
dirt. In the unheated oven stood a broken pot with some kind of
milky liquid. On the top of the oven a falcon was screeching and
trying to break the cord by which it was tied, and a moulting hawk
sat quietly on the edge of the oven, looking askance at the hen
and occasionally bowing its head to right and left. Daddy Eroshka
himself, in his shirt, lay on his back on a short bed rigged up
between the wall and the oven, with his strong legs raised and his
feet on the oven. He was picking with his thick fingers at the
scratches left on his hands by the hawk, which he was accustomed
to carry without wearing gloves. The whole room, especially near
the old man, was filled with that strong but not