ld man. Moths circled round the flame and,
shedding the dust of their wings, fluttered on the table and in the
glasses, flew into the candle flame, and disappeared in the black space
beyond. Olenin and Eroshka had emptied five bottles of chikhir. Eroshka
filled the glasses every time, offering one to Olenin, drinking his
health, and talking untiringly. He told of Cossack life in the old
days: of his father, 'The Broad', who alone had carried on his back a
boar's carcass weighing three hundredweight, and drank two pails of
chikhir at one sitting. He told of his own days and his chum Girchik,
with whom during the plague he used to smuggle felt cloaks across the
Terek. He told how one morning he had killed two deer, and about his
'little soul' who used to run to him at the cordon at night. He told
all this so eloquently and picturesquely that Olenin did not notice how
time passed. 'Ah yes, my dear fellow, you did not know me in my golden
days; then I'd have shown you things. Today it's "Eroshka licks the
jug", but then Eroshka was famous in the whole regiment. Whose was the
finest horse? Who had a Gurda sword? To whom should one go to get a
drink? With whom go on the spree? Who should be sent to the mountains
to kill Ahmet Khan? Why, always Eroshka! Whom did the girls love?
Always Eroshka had to answer for it. Because I was a real brave: a
drinker, a thief (I used to seize herds of horses in the mountains), a
singer; I was a master of every art! There are no Cossacks like that
nowadays. It's disgusting to look at them. When they're that high
[Eroshka held his hand three feet from the ground] they put on idiotic
boots and keep looking at them--that's all the pleasure they know. Or
they'll drink themselves foolish, not like men but all wrong. And who
was I? I was Eroshka, the thief; they knew me not only in this village
but up in the mountains. Tartar princes, my kunaks, used to come to see
me! I used to be everybody's kunak. If he was a Tartar--with a Tartar;
an Armenian--with an Armenian; a soldier--with a soldier; an
officer--with an officer! I didn't care as long as he was a drinker. He
says you should cleanse yourself from intercourse with the world, not
drink with soldiers, not eat with a Tartar.'

'Who says all that?' asked Olenin.

'Why, our teacher! But listen to a Mullah or a Tartar Cadi. He says,
"You unbelieving Giaours, why do you eat pig?" That shows that everyone
has his own law. But I think it's all one. God