The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Cossacks, by Leo Tolstoy

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: The Cossacks

Author: Leo Tolstoy

Translator: Louise and Aylmer Maude

Release Date: January 18, 2009 [EBook #4761]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COSSACKS ***

Produced by Steve Harris, Charles Franks and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team.

[Updater's note: pages appear to be missing from two locations in this
book. Each location has been indicated with an updater's note.
(January 17, 2009)]

THE COSSACKS

A Tale of 1852

By

Leo Tolstoy (1863)

Translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude

Chapter I

All is quiet in Moscow. The squeak of wheels is seldom heard in the
snow-covered street. There are no lights left in the windows and the
street lamps have been extinguished. Only the sound of bells, borne
over the city from the church towers, suggests the approach of morning.
The streets are deserted. At rare intervals a night-cabman's sledge
kneads up the snow and sand in the street as the driver makes his way
to another corner where he falls asleep while waiting for a fare. An
old woman passes by on her way to church, where a few wax candles burn
with a red light reflected on the gilt mountings of the icons. Workmen
are already getting up after the long winter night and going to their
work--but for the gentlefolk it is still evening.

From a window in Chevalier's Restaurant a light--illegal at that
hour--is still to be seen through a chink in the shutter. At the
entrance a carriage, a sledge, and a cabman's sledge, stand close
together with their backs to the curbstone. A three-horse sledge from
the post-station is there also. A yard-porter muffled up and pinched
with cold is sheltering behind the corner of the house.

'And what's the good of all this jawing?' thinks the footman who sits
in the hall weary and haggard. 'This always happens when I'm on duty.'
From the adjoining room are heard the voices of three young men,
sitting there at a table on which are wine and the remains of supper.
One, a rather plain, thin, neat little man, sits looking with tired
kindly eyes a