The Cossacks

He wanted to forget who he was and where he had been born—to shake off the dust and soot of a contemptible civilization, to become flesh and blood of those people for whom war and freedom are ordinary things. He tried to let other people’s hatred into himself, but he could accept only other people’s love.

“But I was still fighting; I told myself: can you really love a woman who will never understand the innermost interests of my life? If only I could become a Cossack—Lukashka, steal herds, drink chikhir, drown in songs, kill people, and drunkenly climb through her window… then we might understand each other.”

“Cossacks” is the brilliant anatomy of the most desperate passion in the world—passion for real life.