He third Don Cossack regiment

He third Don Cossack regiment was stationed at Vilno together with certain sections of the third cavalry division. One day in June the various companies rode out from the city to take up country quarters. The day was dull but warm. The flowing clouds coursed in droves across the sky and concealed the sun. The regimental band blared at the head of the column, and the officers in their light summer caps and drill uniforms rode in a bunch at the back of a cloud of cigarette smoke rising above them.
On each side of the road the peasants and their womenfolk were cutting the hay, stopping to gaze at the columns of Cossacks as they passed. The horses sweated with the heat, a yellowish foam appeared between their legs and the light breeze blowing from the south east did not cool, but rather intensified the steaming swelter
Arrived at his destination, the regiment was broken up by companies among the states in the district. During the day the Cossacks cut the clover and meadow grass for the landowners, at night they grazed their hobbled horses in the fields assigned to them, and played cards or told stories by the smoke of the camp fires. The sixth company was billeted on the large estate of a Polish landowner. The officers lived in the house, played cards, got drunk, and paid attentions to the steward’s daughter; the Cossacks pitched their tents a couple of miles away from the house. Each morning the steward drove out in a drozhi to their camp. The corpulent, estimable gentleman would get out of the drozhi and invariably welcome the Cossacks with a wave of his white, glossy peaked cap.
‘Come and cut hay with us, sir; it’ll shake your fat down a bit,’ the Cossacks called to him. The steward smiled phlegmatically , wiped his bald head with his handkerchief, and went with the sergeant major to point out the next section of hay to be cut.
From the book ‘And quiet Flows the Don’ by Mikhail Sholokhov, translated by Stephen Garry