In the first blog on The Cossacks I delineated the central
character Olenin, an overly sophisticated, disillusioned, even cynical young
man who decides to leave his Moscow life for a military stint in the wilds of
the Caucasus. On the second blog I
delineated his contracting character, Lukashka, a young Cossack man who is
heroic and at one with the nature of his upbringing. Both these characters fall in love with the
beautiful Cossack girl, Maryanka, and so the novel forms a triangle. Lukashka and Maryanka are betrothed by their
parents in a traditional arrangement, but besides the arrangement there is a
true, youthful attraction, and they are presented as a natural and likely
couple. Olenin is the outsider, the rich
man from Moscow, from the big and sophisticated city. He has denied that love is possible or even
real, but once in contact with the natural elements and natural people, his
outlook is challenged and he starts to change.
He becomes drawn to Maryanka, at whose parent’s home he is a
lodger. Here is a passage when Olenin
first meets Maryanka.
Olenin ran up the steps of the
porch and pushed open the door of the hut. Maryanka, wearing nothing but a pink
smock, as all Cossack women do in the house, jumped away from the door,
frightened, and pressing herself against the wall covered the lower part other
face with the broad sleeve of her Tartar smock. Having opened the door wider,
Olenin in the semi-darkness of the passage saw the whole tall, shapely figure
of the young Cossack girl. With the quick and eager curiosity of youth he
involuntarily noticed the firm maidenly form revealed by the fine print smock,
and the beautiful black eyes fixed on him with childlike terror and wild
curiosity. 'This is SHE,' thought Olenin. 'But there will be many others like
her' came at once into his head, and he opened the inner door. [chpt 10]
Love at first sight, love from contact through the eyes is a
motif in several of Tolstoy’s works. (It
happens with Lukashka and Maryanka later on as well.) There is a magic when Tolstoy brings two people’s
eyes in contact as they fall in love.
Such a moment happens here to Olenin: “'This is SHE,' thought Olenin.” But notice how in the very next thought that
moment of love becomes warped: “'But there will be many others like her' came
at once into his head.” He has choked
off the feeling of love with the thought of sexual objectification. It isn’t the “she” he embraces, but the
sexual object. Let’s compare Lukashka’s
interaction with Maryanka. A group of
girls including Maryanka are talking about the lodger at Maryank’s house when
Lukashka walks over and listens. Finally
Lukashka feels a pang of jealousy.
Lukashka rose and raised his cap.
'I expect I had better go home too,
that will be best,' he said, trying to appear unconcerned but hardly able to repress
a smile, and he disappeared behind the corner of the house.
Meanwhile night had entirely
enveloped the village. Bright stars were scattered over the dark sky. The
streets became dark and empty. Nazarka remained with the women on the
earth-bank and their laughter was still heard, but Lukashka, having slowly
moved away from the girls, crouched down like a cat and then suddenly started
running lightly, holding his dagger to steady it: not homeward, however, but
towards the cornet's house. Having passed two streets he turned into a lane and
lifting the skirt of his coat sat down on the ground in the shadow of a fence.
'A regular cornet's daughter!' he thought about Maryanka. 'Won't even have a
lark--the devil! But just wait a bit.'
The approaching footsteps of a
woman attracted his attention. He began listening, and laughed all by himself.
Maryanka with bowed head, striking the pales of the fences with a switch, was
walking with rapid regular strides straight towards him. Lukashka rose.
Maryanka started and stopped.
'What an accursed devil! You
frightened me! So you have not gone home?' she said, and laughed aloud.
Lukashka put one arm round her and
with the other hand raised her face. 'What I wanted to tell you, by Heaven!'
his voice trembled and broke.
'What are you talking of, at night
time!' answered Maryanka. 'Mother is waiting for me, and you'd better go to
your sweetheart.'
And freeing herself from his arms
she ran away a few steps. When she had reached the wattle fence of her home she
stopped and turned to the Cossack who was running beside her and still trying
to persuade her to stay a while with him.
'Well, what do you want to say,
midnight-gadabout?' and she again began laughing.
'Don't laugh at me, Maryanka! By
the Heaven! Well, what if I have a sweetheart? May the devil take her! Only say
the word and now I'll love you--I'll do anything you wish. Here they are!' and
he jingled the money in his pocket. 'Now we can live splendidly. Others have
pleasures, and I? I get no pleasure from you, Maryanka dear!'
The girl did not answer. She stood
before him breaking her switch into little bits with a rapid movement other
fingers.
Lukashka suddenly clenched his
teeth and fists.
'And why keep waiting and waiting?
Don't I love you, darling? You can do what you like with me,' said he suddenly,
frowning angrily and seizing both her hands.
The calm expression of Maryanka's
face and voice did not change.
'Don't bluster, Lukashka, but
listen to me,' she answered, not pulling away her hands but holding the Cossack
at arm's length. 'It's true I am a girl, but you listen to me! It does not
depend on me, but if you love me I'll tell you this. Let go my hands, I'll tell
you without.--I'll marry you, but you'll never get any nonsense from me,' said
Maryanka without turning her face.
'What, you'll marry me? Marriage
does not depend on us. Love me yourself, Maryanka dear,' said Lukashka, from
sullen and furious becoming again gentle, submissive, and tender, and smiling
as he looked closely into her eyes.
Maryanka clung to him and kissed
him firmly on the lips.
'Brother dear!' she whispered,
pressing him convulsively to her. Then, suddenly tearing herself away, she ran
into the gate of her house without looking round. [Chpt 13]
Their courting is youthful, natural, even impulsive. Lukashka’s jealousy sets up the love
triangle, the conflict, and the narrative tension. Olenin, on the other hand, courts Maryanka at
Beletski’s party. Prince Beletski is an
acquaintance of Olenin’s from Moscow society who is a rising officer in the
army and has arrived during the summer to participate with Olenin’s troop. While in the Caucuses he arranges evening
parties, a sort of meat market gathering where Beletski lures women and then
brags about his conquests. He has
brought the Moscow sophistication to the country, and when he hears about
Olenin’s attraction to Maryanka, he brings them together at his party. Here Olenin notices Maryanka at the party.
Olenin noticed Maryanka among the
group of girls, who without exception were all handsome, and he felt vexed and
hurt that he met her in such vulgar and awkward circumstances. He felt stupid
and awkward, and made up his mind to do what Beletski did. Beletski stepped to
the table somewhat solemnly yet with confidence and ease, drank a glass of wine
to Ustenka's health, and invited the others to do the same. Ustenka announced
that girls don't drink. 'We might with a little honey,' exclaimed a voice from
among the group of girls. The orderly, who had just returned with the honey and
spice-cakes, was called in. He looked askance (whether with envy or with
contempt) at the gentlemen, who in his opinion were on the spree; and carefully
and conscientiously handed over to them a piece of honeycomb and the cakes
wrapped up in a piece of greyish paper, and began explaining circumstantially
all about the price and the change, but Beletski sent him away. Having mixed
honey with wine in the glasses, and having lavishly scattered the three pounds
of spice-cakes on the table, Beletski dragged the girls from their comers by
force, made them sit down at the table, and began distributing the cakes among
them. Olenin involuntarily noticed how Maryanka's sunburnt but small hand
closed on two round peppermint nuts and one brown one, and that she did not
know what to do with them. The conversation was halting and constrained, in
spite of Ustenka's and Beletski's free and easy manner and their wish to
enliven the company. Olenin faltered, and tried to think of something to say,
feeling that he was exciting curiosity and perhaps provoking ridicule and
infecting the others with his shyness. He blushed, and it seemed to him that
Maryanka in particular was feeling uncomfortable. 'Most likely they are
expecting us to give them some money,' thought he. 'How are we to do it? And
how can we manage quickest to give it and get away?' [Chpt 24]
It ‘s in that setting that Maryanka, now become mesmerized
with the social scene, and begins to feel tempted to Olenin’s entreats. It comes to a head one day when Olenin is
drunk.
Olenin drank with Eroshka, with the
other Cossack, and again with Eroshka, and the more he drank the heavier was
his heart. But the two old men grew merry. The girls climbed onto the oven,
where they sat whispering and looking at the men, who drank till it was late.
Olenin did not talk, but drank more than the others. The Cossacks were
shouting. The old woman would not let them have any more chikhir, and at last
turned them out. The girls laughed at Daddy Eroshka, and it was past ten when
they all went out into the porch. The old men invited themselves to finish
their merry-making at Olenin's. Ustenka ran off home and Eroshka led the old
Cossack to Vanyusha. The old woman went out to tidy up the shed. Maryanka
remained alone in the hut. Olenin felt fresh and joyous, as if he had only just
woke up. He noticed everything, and having let the old men pass ahead he turned
back to the hut where Maryanka was preparing for bed. He went up to her and
wished to say something, but his voice broke. She moved away from him, sat down
cross-legged on her bed in the corner, and looked at him silently with wild and
frightened eyes. She was evidently afraid of him. Olenin felt this. He felt
sorry and ashamed of himself, and at the same time proud and pleased that he
aroused even that feeling in her.
'Maryanka!' he said. 'Will you
never take pity on me? I can't tell you how I love you.'
She moved still farther away.
'Just hear how the wine is
speaking! ... You'll get nothing from me!'
'No, it is not the wine. Don't
marry Lukashka. I will marry you.' ('What am I saying,' he thought as he
uttered these words. 'Shall I be able to say the same to-morrow?' 'Yes, I
shall, I am sure I shall, and I will repeat them now,' replied an inner voice.)
'Will you marry me?'
She looked at him seriously and her
fear seemed to have passed.
'Maryanka, I shall go out of my
mind! I am not myself. I will do whatever you command,' and madly tender words
came from his lips of their own accord.
'Now then, what are you drivelling
about?' she interrupted, suddenly seizing the arm he was stretching towards
her. She did not push his arm away but pressed it firmly with her strong hard
fingers. 'Do gentlemen marry Cossack girls? Go away!'
'But will you? Everything...'
'And what shall we do with
Lukashka?' said she, laughing.
He snatched away the arm she was
holding and firmly embraced her young body, but she sprang away like a fawn and
ran barefoot into the porch: Olenin came to his senses and was terrified at
himself. He again felt himself inexpressibly vile compared to her, yet not
repenting for an instant of what he had said he went home, and without even
glancing at the old men who were drinking in his room he lay down and fell
asleep more soundly than he had done for a long time. [Chpt 34]
And so what Tolstoy has set up through the triangle is a
decision point for Maryanka, and then the culmination of the struggle between
Olenin and Lukashka. You would expect
the resolution of that struggle, perhaps a life and death fight between the antagonists,
to be the climax of the novel. However,
it isn’t, and it never takes place.
Maryanka, in effect, does make a decision, though not a considered
choice. Tolstoy projects a culminating
conflict but it never happens. An event,
which I won’t spoil for the reader here, occurs that changes the trajectory of
the narrative.
To be forthright, I can’t claim I understand why Tolstoy
ended the novel in this fashion. I
can’t say if it holds together.
Intuitively it seems off. But
I’ve only read this once and I would need at least another reading—especially
now that I know how it ends—to see if Tolstoy has found a sparkling and
fitting, though original, ending or one that is forced and flawed. Perhaps in the future I will read this novel
again. It’s worth a second read. This is definitely an enjoyable novel, especially if you like Tolstoy. In the meantime, anyone that has read the
novel, I would appreciate your thoughts, especially on the ending.
