“Well then remember, I shall go mad if you deceive me. Tomorrow I will tell your mother and father. I shall come and propose.”
Maryánka suddenly burst out laughing.
“What’s the matter?”
“It seems so funny!”
“It’s true! I will buy a vineyard and a house and will enroll myself as a Cossack.”
“Mind you don’t go after other women then. I am severe about that.”
Olénin joyfully repeated all these words to himself. The memory of them now gave him pain and now such joy that it took away his breath. The pain was because she had remained as calm as usual while talking to him. She did not seem at all agitated by these new conditions. It was as if she did not trust him and did not think of the future. It seemed to him that she only loved him for the present moment, and that in her mind there was no future with him. He was happy because her words sounded to him true, and she had consented to be his. “Yes,” thought he to himself, “we shall only understand one another when she is quite mine. For such love there are no words. It needs life—the whole of life. Tomorrow everything will be cleared up. I cannot live like this any longer; tomorrow I will tell everything to her father, to Belétski, and to the whole village.”
Lukáshka, after two sleepless nights, had drunk so much at the fête that for the first time in his life his feet would not carry him, and he slept in Yámka’s house.
Chapter XL
The next day Olénin awoke earlier than usual, and immediately remembered what lay before him, and he joyfully recalled her kisses, the pressure of her hard hands, and her words, “What white hands you have!” He jumped up and wished to go at once to his hosts’ hut to ask for their consent to his marriage with Maryánka. The sun had not yet risen, but it seemed that there was an unusual bustle in the street and side-street: people were moving about on foot and on horseback, and talking. He threw on his Circassian coat and hastened out into the porch. His hosts were not yet up. Five Cossacks were riding past and talking loudly together. In front rode Lukáshka on his broad-backed Kabardá horse.