about to settle, spread over the squares and streets; quite
regardless of the Cossacks' ill will, chattering merrily and with
their muskets clinking, by twos and threes they entered the huts
and hung up their accoutrements, unpacked their bags, and bantered
the women. At their favourite spot, round the porridge-cauldrons,
a large group of soldiers assembled and with little pipes between
their teeth they gazed, now at the smoke which rose into the hot
sky, becoming visible when it thickened into white clouds as it
rose, and now at the camp fires which were quivering in the pure
air like molten glass, and bantered and made fun of the Cossack
men and women because they do not live at all like Russians. In
all the yards one could see soldiers and hear their laughter and
the exasperated and shrill cries of Cossack women defending their
houses and refusing to give the soldiers water or cooking
utensils. Little boys and girls, clinging to their mothers and to
each other, followed all the movements of the troopers (never
before seen by them) with frightened curiosity, or ran after them
at a respectful distance. The old Cossacks came out silently and
dismally and sat on the earthen embankments of their huts, and
watched the soldiers' activity with an air of leaving it all to
the will of God without understanding what would come of it.

Olenin, who had joined the Caucasian Army as a cadet three months
before, was quartered in one of the best houses in the village,
the house of the cornet, Elias Vasilich--that is to say at Granny
Ulitka's.

'Goodness knows what it will be like, Dmitri Andreich,' said the
panting Vanyusha to Olenin, who, dressed in a Circassian coat and
mounted on a Kabarda horse which he had bought in Groznoe, was