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 corner 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 unpleasant
mixture of smells that he always carried about with him.

'Uyde-ma, Daddy?' (Is Daddy in?) came through the window in a sharp
voice, which he at once recognized as Lukashka's.

'Uyde, Uyde, Uyde. I am in!' shouted the old man. 'Come in, neighbour
Mark, Luke Mark. Come to see Daddy? On your way to the cordon?'

At the sound of his master's shout the hawk flapped his wings and
pulled at his cord.

The old man was fond of Lukashka, who was the only man he excepted from
his general contempt for the younger generation of Cossacks. Besides
that, Lukashka and his mother, as near neighbours, often gave the old
man wine, clotted cream, and other home produce which Eroshka did not
possess. Daddy Eroshka, who all his life had allowed himself to get
carried away, always explained his infatuations from a practical point
of view. 'Well, why not?' he used to say to hi