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| Kuban Cossack |
For the sake of honor, Gregor and Aksinia stay away from
each other. Gregor’s parents marry him off to Natalia, who loves him. Natalia
shrinks from bodily pleasures, however, and Gregor cannot help but think about
Aksinia. Gregor leaves his family and goes to work at a nearby landowners’
estate, taking Aksinia with him. When Gregor is called up for military service
in 1914, he leaves Aksinia on the estate, with their child. War with Austria
begins.
Gregor’s family first receive a message that he died in battle,
then a message saying he is alive. Gregor spends a long time in the hospital.
He has received the Cross of St. George, but is beginning to see that he is
fighting for an upper class which disrespects him. Aksinia’s little daughter
dies. Left alone on the estate and in great pain, she allows the landlord to
come to her. When Gregor comes back, he punishes both of them and leaves, going
back to live with his parents and his wife.
Battles become more confusing. The Russian army fragments as
some become Bolsheviks. In a battle, Gregor saves Stepan, Aksinia’s
husband. “Strongly Gregor defended his Cossack honor, seizing every opportunity
of displaying immortal prowess … but he knew that he no longer laughed as in
former days, that his eyes were sunken and his cheekbones stood out sharply. He
knew what price he had paid for his crosses and medals.” War turns to revolution
and then to civil war. The Cossacks fight on the side of the White Russian army
and Gregor is made an officer. Aksinia returns to Tatarsk on the Don when her husband returns from prison in Germany.
The Don area is enclosed on two sides by Red forces in the
civil war. Gregor is home on leave now and then. Natalia has given him two
children. She reproaches him for drinking and going with women, but he says
“I’ve got no pity left for anyone. The war’s dried it all out of me. … Look
into my soul and you’ll find a blackness like an empty well.” In fact, he sends
for Aksinia, asking her to come to the nearby town where the regiment is
stationed. “Occasionally Gregor awoke after a brief, stupefying sleep and saw
Aksinia’s attentive eyes fixed on him in the twilight as though she were
learning his features by heart … ‘I want to look my fill of you. They’ll kill
you; my heart tells me so.’”
Natalia lays hands on herself. Gregor’s family believes
his wife went to her death because of Aksinia and do not want anything to do
with her. The area around the Don is being fiercely fought over. When the
Whites retreat from Tatarsk, Gregor takes Aksinia with him. But she catches
typhus and he must leave her. When she is well again, she makes her way home
after many days. Gregor’s mother comes to ask after him and from that day on
Aksinia and his family are united in their concern for him. That spring, the women
of the village sow a little wheat on the parched earth.
Gregor switches sides and fights for the Reds. When the
civil war is finally settled and the Reds take over, Gregor returns home, where
his mother has now died, his sister has married a Bolshevik and Aksinia is glad
to see him. The Reds are suspicious of Gregor, however, and arresting former
officers of the Whites. Rather than be punished, Gregor disappears and fights
with a rebel band. There is no discipline, however, and he finally can’t stand it.
He returns to his village for Aksinia, who joins him, riding off and camping in
a lovely dell. “I’ve learned to live like a hare,” he tells her. They are
surprised and shot at by a patrol. Aksinia is hit. She never speaks or wakes.
Gregor buries her, losing all interest in life until he finally goes back to
look for his children.
At different points in my young life, I needed to know about
passion: whether it was allowed, whether it could be survived. The Cossacks
described by Sholokhov own up to passion. They live with it in close proximity
to each other. This is a long tale, in which there is much fighting and
discussion of politics. But it is clear that the real passions of the Cossacks
involve their land and their families. Aksinia has no allies in this story,
nothing but her love of Gregor and the great, fecund steppe. In the end she
sits beside Gregor in the grass as he sleeps. “’My dear, Grisha darling, the
grey hairs you’ve got!’ she whispered. ‘So you’re growing old? And yet it’s not
so long ago that you were a boy.’”
