The Cossacks by Leo Tolstoy

daughter was standing in front of a small Tatar mirror, tying a kerchief around her head. She turned and looked at Vanyusha.
    “I will give you good money,” Vanyusha said, jingling the coins in his pocket, and then added, “Be nice to us, and we’ll be nice to you—it will be better that way.”
    “You want a lot of Chikhir?”
    “Just an eighth.”
    “Go and tap some for him,” Old Ulitka told her daughter. “And mind, sweetie, that it’s from the barrel we just started.”
    The girl brought a ring of keys and a jug, and Vanyusha followed her out of the house.
    Olenin saw her walk past the window. “Who is that woman?” he asked Uncle Eroshka.
    The old man winked and nudged him with his elbow.
    “Watch this,” he said, leaning out the window. He cleared his throat and bellowed, “Maryanka! Darling Maryanka! Won’t you fall in love with me, my sweetheart?” He turned to Olenin and whispered, “I’m always good for a joke!”
    Without looking back, Maryanka walked on with the strutting gait of the Cossack woman, smoothly swinging her arms. Then she slowly turned her black, long-lashed eyes toward the old man.
    “Love me and I promise you happiness!” Eroshka shouted, and with a wink looked at Olenin as if expecting him to say something. “What you need is a quick tongue—just a bit of fun,” he added. “She’s a fine girl, isn’t she?”
    “A beauty,” Olenin said. “Call her over.”
    “No, no!” the old man replied. “She’s been promised to Lukashka. Luka is a good Cossack, a fighter, he killed a Chechen warrior the other day. I’ll find you a better girl—I’ll find you one dressed in silk and silver. I said I’ll find you one, and find you one I will! A real beauty, you’ll see!”
    “An old man like you saying such things!” Olenin exclaimed. “What you’re suggesting is a sin!”
    “A sin? What do you mean, a sin?” the old man snapped. “Is it a sin to look at a pretty girl? Is it a sin to have some fun with her? Or is it a sin to love her? Is that how things are back where you’re from? No, my dear friend, it is not sin, it is salvation! God made you and God also made women. He made everything. So how can it be a sin to look at a pretty woman? That’s what she was made for—to be loved and taken delight in. That’s how
I
see things!”
    Maryanka crossed the courtyard and entered the dark, cool storeroomfilled with barrels. She walked over to one, spoke the customary words of prayer, and put in the siphon. Vanyusha stood in the doorway, smiling. He found it very funny that she was only wearing a smock, and that the smock was tight behind and tucked up in front, and even funnier that she was wearing a coin necklace. He thought all this was very un-Russian, and imagined how everyone back home in the servant quarters would laugh if they saw such a girl. “But
la fille il c’est très bien
!” he thought. “I will tell my master.”
    “You’re blocking the light, you devil!” the girl suddenly said. “You’d do better to give me that jug!”
    Maryanka filled the jug with cold red wine and handed it to Vanyusha.
    “No, give Mother the money,” she said, pushing away his hand with the coins.
    Vanyusha laughed.
    “Why are you so unkind, you sweet girl?” he asked good-naturedly, shifting from one foot to the other while Maryanka stopped up the barrel.
    She burst out laughing. “Are
you
perhaps kind?”
    “The gentleman and I are both very kind,” Vanyusha said emphatically. “We are so kind that wherever we have been quartered, the people putting us up were grateful to us. My master is a nobleman.”
    Maryanka stood and listened. “So, is your master married?” she asked.
    “No! My master is young and unmarried—because noblemen can never marry young,” Vanyusha said in a superior tone.
    “Too young? An ox of a man like that too young to marry? Is he the commander of all you men here?”
    “My master is a cadet. That means he’s not an officer yet.