nd I will tell mother in case you need anything--clotted cream
or grapes--and if you come to the cordon I'm your servant to go hunting
or to go across the river, anywhere you like! There now, only the other
day, what a boar I killed, and I divided it among the Cossacks, but if
I had only known, I'd have given it to you.' 'That's all right, thank
you! But don't harness the horse, it has never been in harness.'

'Why harness the horse? And there is something else I'll tell you if
you like,' said Lukashka, bending his head. 'I have a kunak, Girey
Khan. He asked me to lie in ambush by the road where they come down
from the mountains. Shall we go together? I'll not betray you. I'll be
your murid.'

'Yes, we'll go; we'll go some day.'

Lukashka seemed quite to have quieted down and to have understood
Olenin's attitude towards him. His calmness and the ease of his
behaviour surprised Olenin, and he did not even quite like it. They
talked long, and it was late when Lukashka, not tipsy (he never was
tipsy) but having drunk a good deal, left Olenin after shaking hands.

Olenin looked out of the window to see what he would do. Lukashka went
out, hanging his head. Then, having led the horse out of the gate, he
suddenly shook his head, threw the reins of the halter over its head,
sprang onto its back like a cat, gave a wild shout, and galloped down
the street. Olenin expected that Lukishka would go to share his joy
with Maryanka, but though he did not do so Olenin still felt his soul
more at ease than ever before in his life. He was as delighted as a
boy, and could not refrain from telling Vanyusha not only that he had
given Lukashka the horse, but also why he had done it, as well as his
new theory of happiness. Vanyusha did not approve of his theory, and
announced that 'l'argent il n'y a pas!' and that therefore it was all
nonsense.

Lukashka rode home, jumped off the horse, and handed it over to his
mother, telling her to let it out with the communal Cossack herd. He
himself had to return to the cordon that same night. His deaf sister
undertook to take the horse, and explained by signs that when she saw
the man who had given the horse, she would bow down at his feet. The
old woman only shook her head at her son's story, and decided in her
own mind that he had stolen it. She therefore told the deaf girl to
take it to the herd before daybreak.

Lukashka went back alone to the cordon pondering over Olenin's action.
Though he d