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