“Step in,” said Olénin. “We’ll have a drop of chikhir.”
“I might as well,” said the old man, “but take the pheasants.” The old man’s face showed that he liked the cadet. He had seen at once that he could get free drinks from him, and that therefore it would be all right to give him a brace of pheasants.
Soon Daddy Eróshka’s figure appeared in the doorway of the hut, and it was only then that Olénin became fully conscious of the enormous size and sturdy build of this man, whose red-brown face with its perfectly white broad beard was all furrowed by deep lines produced by age and toil. For an old man, the muscles of his legs, arms, and shoulders were quite exceptionally large and prominent. There were deep scars on his head under the short-cropped hair. His thick sinewy neck was covered with deep intersecting folds like a bull’s. His horny hands were bruised and scratched. He stepped lightly and easily over the threshold, unslung his gun and placed it in a corner, and casting a rapid glance round the room noted the value of the goods and chattels deposited in the hut, and with out-turned toes stepped softly, in his sandals of raw hide, into the middle of the room. He brought with him a penetrating but not unpleasant smell of chikhir wine, vodka, gunpowder, and congealed blood.
Daddy Eróshka bowed down before the icons, smoothed his beard, and approaching Olénin held out his thick brown hand. “Koshkildy,” said he; “That is Tartar for ‘Good-day’—‘Peace be unto you,’ it means in their tongue.”
“Koshkildy, I know,” answered Olénin, shaking hands.
“Eh, but you don’t, you won’t know the right order! Fool!” said Daddy Eróshka, shaking his head reproachfully. “If anyone says ‘Koshkildy’ to you, you must say ‘Allah rasi bo sun,’ that is, ‘God save you.’ That’s the way, my dear fellow, and not ‘Koshkildy.’ But I’ll teach you all about it. We had a fellow here, Elias Mósevich, one of your Russians, he and I were kunaks. He was a trump, a drunkard, a thief, a sportsman—and what a sportsman! I taught him everything.”
“And what will you teach me?” asked Olénin, who was becoming more and more interested in the old man.
“I’ll take you hunting and teach you to fish. I’ll show you Chéchens and find a girl for you, if you like—even that! That’s the sort I am! I’m a wag!”—and the old man laughed. “I’ll sit down. I’m tired. Karga?” he added inquiringly.
“And what does ‘Karga’ mean?” asked Olénin.
“Why, that means ‘All right’ in Georgian. But I say it just so. It is a way I have, it’s my favourite word. Karga, Karga. I say it just so; in fun I mean. Well, lad, won’t you order the chikhir? You’ve got an orderly, haven’t you?”