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Title: Hadji Murat Author: Leo Tolstoy Date: Original text source from http://www.revoltlib.com/?id=10061, 2021. Language: en Topics: fiction
I was returning home by the fields. It was midsummer, the hay harvest
was over and they were just beginning to reap the rye. At that season of
the year there is a delightful variety of flowers -- red, white, and
pink scented tufty clover; milk-white ox-eye daisies with their bright
yellow centers and pleasant spicy smell; yellow honey-scented rape
blossoms; tall campanulas with white and lilac bells, tulip-shaped;
creeping vetch; yellow, red, and pink scabious; faintly scented, neatly
arranged purple plaintains with blossoms slightly tinged with pink;
cornflowers, the newly opened blossoms bright blue in the sunshine but
growing paler and redder towards evening or when growing old; and
delicate almond-scented dodder flowers that withered quickly. I gathered
myself a large nosegay and was going home when I noticed in a ditch, in
full bloom, a beautiful thistle plant of the crimson variety, which in
our neighborhood they call "Tartar" and carefully avoid when mowing --
or, if they do happen to cut it down, throw out from among the grass for
fear of pricking their hands. Thinking to pick this thistle and put it
in the center of my nosegay, I climbed down into the ditch, and after
driving away a velvety bumble-bee that had penetrated deep into one of
the flowers and had there fallen sweetly asleep, I set to work to pluck
the flower. But this proved a very difficult task. Not only did the
stalk prick on every side -- even through the handkerchief I wrapped
round my hand -- but it was so tough that I had to struggle with it for
nearly five minutes, breaking the fibers one by one; and when I had at
last plucked it, the stalk was all frayed and the flower itself no
longer seemed so fresh and beautiful. Moreover, owing to a coarseness
and stiffness, it did not seem in place among the delicate blossoms of
my nosegay. I threw it away feeling sorry to have vainly destroyed a
flower that looked beautiful in its proper place.
"But what energy and tenacity! With what determination it defended
itself, and how dearly it sold its life!" thought I, remembering the
effort it had cost me to pluck the flower. The way home led across
black-earth fields that had just been plowed up. I ascended the dusty
path. The plowed field belonged to a landed proprietor and was so large
that on both sides and before me to the top of the hill nothing was
visible but evenly furrowed and moist earth. The land was well tilled
and nowhere was there a blade of grass or any kind of plant to be seen,
it was all black. "Ah, what a destructive creature is man....How many
different plant-lives he destroys to support his own existence!" thought
I, involuntarily looking around for some living thing in this lifeless
black field. In front of me to the right of the road I saw some kind of
little clump, and drawing nearer I found it was the same kind of thistle
as that which I had vainly plucked and thrown away. This "Tartar" plant
had three branches. One was broken and stuck out like the stump of a
mutilated arm. Each of the other two bore a flower, once red but now
blackened. One stalk was broken, and half of it hung down with a soiled
flower at its tip. The other, though also soiled with black mud, still
stood erect. Evidently a cartwheel had passed over the plant but it had
risen again, and that was why, though erect, it stood twisted to one
side, as if a piece of its body had been torn from it, its bowels drawn
out, an arm torn off, and one of its eyes plucked out. Yet it stood firm
and did not surrender to man who had destroyed all its brothers around
it....
"What vitality!" I thought. "Man has conquered everything and destroyed
millions of plants, yet this one won't submit." And I remembered a
Caucasian episode of years ago, which I had partly seen myself, partly
heard of from eye-witnesses, and in part imagined.
The episode, as it has taken shape in my memory and imagination, was as
follows.
It happened towards the end of 1851.
On a cold November evening Hajji Murad rode into Makhmet, a hostile
Chechen aoul that lay some fifteen miles from Russian territory and was
filled with the scented smoke of burning Kizyak. The strained chant of
the muezzin had just ceased, and though the clear mountain air,
impregnated with kizyak smoke, above the lowing of the cattle and the
bleating of the sheep that were dispersing among the saklyas (which were
crowded together like the cells of honeycomb), could be clearly heard
the guttural voices of disputing men, and sounds of women's and
children's voices rising from near the fountain below.
This Hajji Murad was Shamil's naib, famous for his exploits, who used
never to ride out without his banner and some dozens of murids, who
caracoled and showed off before him. Now wrapped in a hood and burka,
from under which protruded a rifle, he rode, a fugitive with one murid
only, trying to attract as little attention as possible and peering with
his quick black eyes into the faces of those he met on his way.
When he entered the aoul, instead of riding up the road leading to the
open square, he turned to the left into a narrow side street, and on
reaching the second saklya, which was cut into the hill side, he stopped
and looked round. There was no one under the penthouse in front, but on
the roof of the saklya itself, behind the freshly plastered clay
chimney, lay a man covered with a sheepskin. Hajji Murad touched him
with the handle of his leather-plaited whip and clicked his tongue, and
an old man, wearing a greasy old beshmet and a nightcap, rose from under
the sheepskin. His moist red eyelids had no lashes, and he blinked to
get them unstuck. Hajji Murad, repeating the customary "Selaam aleikum!"
uncovered his face. "aleikum, selaam!" said the old man, recognizing
him, and smiling with his toothless mouth. And raising himself on his
thin legs he began thrusting his feet into the wooden-heeled slippers
that stood by the chimney. Then he leisurely slipped his arms into the
sleeves of his crumpled sheepskin, and going to the ladder that leant
against the roof he descended backwards, while he dressed and as he
climbed down he kept shaking his head on its thin, shriveled sunburnt
neck and mumbling something with his toothless mouth. As soon as he
reached the ground he hospitably seized Hajji Murad's bridle and right
stirrup; but the strong active murid had quickly dismounted and
motioning the old man aside, took his place. Hajji Murad also
dismounted, and walking with a slight limp, entered under the penthouse.
A boy of fifteen, coming quickly out of the door, met him and
wonderingly fixed his sparkling eyes, black as ripe sloes, on the new
arrivals.
"run to the mosque and call your father," ordered the old man as he
hurried forward to open the thin, creaking door into the saklya.
As Hajji Murad entered the outer door, a slight, spare, middle-aged
woman in a yellow smock, red beshmet, and wide blue trousers came
through an inner door carrying cushions.
"May thy coming bring happiness!" said she, and bending nearly double
began arranging the cushions along the front wall for the guest to sit
on.
"May thy sons live!" answered Hajji Murad, taking off his burka, his
rifle, and his sword, and handing them to the old man who carefully hung
the rifle and sword on a nail beside the weapons of the master of the
house, which were suspended between two large basins that glittered
against the clean clay-plastered and carefully whitewashed wall.
Hajji Murad adjusted the pistol at his back, came up to the cushions,
and wrapping his Circassian coat closer round him, sat down. The old man
squatted on his bare heels beside him, closed his eyes, and lifted his
hands palms upwards. Hajji Murad did the same; then after repeating a
prayer they both stroked their faces, passing their hands downward till
the palms joined at the end of their beards.
"Ne habar?" ("Is there anything new?") asked Hajji Murad, addressing the
old man.
"Habar yok" ("Nothing new"), replied the old man, looking with his
lifeless red eyes not at Hajji Murad's face but at his breast. "I live
at the apiary and have only today come to see my son....He knows."
Hajji Murad, understanding that the old man did not wish to say what he
knew and what Hajji Murad wanted to know, slightly nodded his head and
asked no more questions.
"There is no good news," said the old man. "The only news is that the
hares keep discussing how to drive away the eagles, and the eagles tear
first one and then another of them. The other day the Russian dogs burnt
the hay in the Mitchit aoul....May their faces be torn!" he added
hoarsely and angrily.
Hajji Murad's murid entered the room, his strong legs striding softly
over the earthen floor. Retaining only his dagger and pistol, he took
off his burka, rifle, and sword as Hajji Murad had done, and hung them
up on the same nails as his leader's weapons.
"Who is he?" asked the old man, pointing to the newcomer.
"My murid. Eldar is his name," said Hajji Murad.
"That is well," said the old man, and motioned Eldar to a place on a
piece of felt beside Hajji Murad. Eldar sat down, crossing his legs and
fixing his fine ram-like eyes on the old man who, having now started
talking, was telling how their brave fellows had caught two Russian
soldiers the week before and had killed one and sent the other to Shamil
in Veden.
Hajji Murad heard him absently, looking at the door and listening to the
sounds outside. Under the penthouse steps were heard, the door creaked,
and Sado, the master of the house, came in. He was a man of about forty,
with a small beard, long nose, and eyes as black, though not as
glittering, as those of his fifteen-year-old son who had run to call him
home and who now entered with his father and sat down by the door. The
master of the house took off his wooden slippers at the door, and
pushing his old and much-worn cap to the back of his head (which had
remained unshaved so long that it was beginning to be overgrown with
black hair), at once squatted down in front of Hajji Murad.
He too lifted his palms upwards, as the old man had done, repeated a
prayer, and then stroked his face downward. Only after that did he begin
to speak. He told how an order had come from Shamil to seize Hajji Murad
alive or dead, that Shamil's envoys had left only the day before, that
the people were afraid to disobey Shamil's orders, and that therefore it
was necessary to be careful.
"In my house," said Sado, "no one shall injure my kunak while I live,
but how will it be in the open fields?...We must think it over."
Hajji Murad listened with attention and nodded approvingly. When Sado
had finished he said:
"Very well. Now we must send a man with a letter to the Russians. My
murid will go but he will need a guide."
"I will send brother Bata," said Sado. "Go and call Bata," he added,
turning to his son.
The boy instantly bounded to his nimble feet as if he were on springs,
and swinging his arms, rapidly left the saklya. Some ten minutes later
he returned with a sinewy, short-legged Chechen, burnt almost black by
the sun, wearing a worn and tattered yellow Circassian coat with frayed
sleeves, and crumpled black leggings.
Hajji Murad greeted the newcomer, and again without wasting a single
word, immediately asked:
"Canst thou conduct my murid to the Russians?"
"I can," gaily replied Bata. "I can certainly do it. There is not
another Chechen who would pass as I can. Another might agree to go and
might promise anything, but would do nothing; but I can do it!"
"All right," said Hajji Murad. "Thou shalt receive three for thy
trouble," and he held up three fingers.
Bata nodded to show that he understood, and added that it was not money
he prized, but that he was ready to serve Hajji Murad for the honor
alone. Every one in the mountains knew Hajji Murad, and how he slew the
Russian swine.
"Very well....A rope should be long but a speech short," said Hajji
Murad.
"Well then I'll hold my tongue," said Bata.
"Where the river Argun bends by the cliff," said Hajji Murad, "there are
two stacks in a glade in the forest -- thou knowest?"
"I know."
"There my four horsemen are waiting for me," said Hajji Murad.
"Aye," answered Bata, nodding.
"Ask for Khan Mahoma. He knows what to do and what to say. Canst thou
lead him to the Russian Commander, Prince Vorontsov?"
"Yes, I'll take him."
"Canst thou take him and bring him back again?"
"I can."
"then take him there and return to the wood. I shall be there too."
"I will do it all," said Bata, rising, and putting his hands on his
heart he went out.
Hajji Murad turned to his host.
"A man must also be sent to Chekhi," he began, and took hold of one of
the cartridge pouches of his Circassian coat, but let his hand drop
immediately and became silent on seeing two women enter the saklya.
One was Sado's wife -- the thin middle-aged woman who had arranged the
cushions. The other was quite a young girl, wearing red trousers and a
green beshmet. A necklace of silver coins covered the whole front of her
dress, and at the end of the short but thick plait of hard black hair
that hung between her thin shoulder-blades a silver ruble was suspended.
Her eyes, as sloe- black as those of her father and brother, sparkled
brightly in her young face which tried to be stern. She did not look at
the visitors, but evidently felt their presence.
Sado's wife brought in a low round table on which stood tea, pancakes in
butter, cheese, churek (that is, thinly rolled out bread), and honey.
The girl carried a basin, a ewer, and a towel.
Sado and Hajji Murad kept silent as long as the women, with their coin
ornaments tinkling, moved softly about in their red soft-soled slippers,
setting out before the visitors the things they had brought. Eldar sat
motionless as a statue, his ram-like eyes fixed on his crossed legs, all
the time the women were in the saklya. Only after they had gone and
their soft footsteps could no longer be heard behind the door, did he
give a sigh of relief.
Hajji Murad having pulled out a bullet from one of the cartridge-pouches
of his Circassian coat, and having taken out a rolled-up note that lay
beneath it, held it out, saying:
"To be handed to my son."
"Where must the answer be sent?"
"To thee; and thou must forward it to me."
"It shall be done," said Sado, and placed the note in the
cartridge-pocket of his own coat. Then he took up the metal ewer and
moved the basin towards Hajji Murad.
Hajji Murad turned up the sleeves of his beshmet on his white muscular
arms, held out his hands under the clear cold water which Sado poured
from the ewer, and having wiped them on a clean unbleached towel, turned
to the table. Eldar did the same. While the visitors ate, Sado sat
opposite and thanked them several times for their visit. The boy sat by
the door never taking his sparkling eyes off Hajji Murad's face, and
smiled as if in confirmation of his father's words.
Though he had eaten nothing for more than twenty-four hours Hajji Murad
ate only a little bread and cheese; then, drawing out a small knife from
under his dagger, he spread some honey on a piece of bread.
"Our honey is good," said the old man, evidently pleased to see Hajji
Murad eating his honey. "This year, above all other years, it is
plentiful and good."
"I thank thee," said Hajji Murad and turned from the table. Eldar would
have liked to go on eating but he followed his leader's example, and
having moved away from the table, handed him the ewer and basin.
Sado knew that he was risking his life by receiving such a guest in his
house, for after his quarrel with Shamil the latter had issued a
proclamation to all the inhabitants of Chechnya forbidding them to
receive Hajji Murad on pain of death. He knew that the inhabitants of
the aoul might at any moment become aware of Hajji Murad's presence in
his house and might demand his surrender. But this not only did not
frighten Sado, it even gave him pleasure with himself because he was
doing his duty.
"Whilst thou are in my house and my head is on my shoulders no one shall
harm thee," he repeated to Hajji Murad.
Hajji Murad looked into his glittering eyes and understanding that this
was true, said with some solemnity --
"Mayst thou receive joy and life!"
Sado silently laid his hand on his heart in token of thanks for these
kind words.
Having closed the shutters of the saklya and laid some sticks in the
fireplace, Sado, in an exceptionally bright and animated mood, left the
room and went into that part of his saklya where his family all lived.
The women had not yet gone to sleep, and were talking about the
dangerous visitors who were spending the night in their guest chambers.
At Vozvizhensk, the advanced fort situated some ten miles from the aoul
in which Hajji Murad was spending the night, three soldiers and a
noncommissioned officer left the fort and went beyond the Shahgirinsk
Gate. The soldiers, dressed as Caucasian soldiers used to be in those
days, wore sheepskin coats and caps, and boots that reached above their
knees, and they carried their cloaks tightly rolled up and fastened
across their shoulders. Shouldering arms, they first went some five
hundred paces along the road and then turned off it and went some twenty
paces to the right -- the dead leaves rustling under their boots -- till
they reached the blackened trunk of a broken plane tree just visible
through the darkness. There they stopped. It was at this plane tree that
an ambush party was usually placed.
The bright stars, that had seemed to be running along the tree tops
while the soldiers were walking through the forest, now stood still,
shining brightly between the bare branches of the trees.
"A good job it's dry," said the noncommissioned officer Panov, bringing
down his long gun and bayonet with a clang from his shoulder and placing
it against the plane tree.
The three soldiers did the same.
"Sure enough I've lost it!" muttered Panov crossly. "Must have left it
behind or I've dropped it on the way."
"What are you looking for?" asked one of the soldiers in a bright,
cheerful voice.
"The bowl of my pipe. Where the devil has it got to?"
"Have you got the stem?" asked the cheerful voice.
"Here it is."
"Then why not stick it straight into the ground?"
"Not worth bothering!"
"We'll manage that in a minute."
smoking in ambush was forbidden, but this ambush hardly deserved the
name. It was rather an outpost to prevent the mountaineers from bringing
up a cannon unobserved and firing at the fort as they used to. Panov did
not consider it necessary to forego the pleasure of smoking, and
therefore accepted the cheerful soldier's offer. the latter took a knife
from his pocket and made a small round hole in the ground. Having
smoothed it, he adjusted the pipe stem to it, then filled the hole with
tobacco and pressed it down, and the pipe was ready. A sulfur match
flared and for a moment lit up the broadcheeked face of the soldier who
lay on his stomach, the air whistled in the stem, and Panov smelt the
pleasant odor of burning tobacco.
"Fixed ut up?" said he, rising to his feet.
"Why, of course!"
"What a smart chap you are, Avdeev!...As wise as a judge! Now then,
lad."
Avdeev rolled over on his side to make room for Panov, letting smoke
escape from his mouth.
Panov lay down prone, and after wiping the mouthpiece with his sleeve,
began to inhale.
When they had had their smoke the soldiers began to talk.
"They say the commander has had his fingers in the cashbox again,"
remarked one of them in a lazy voice. "He lost at cards, you see."
"He'll pay it back again," said Panov.
"Of course he will! He's a good officer," assented Avdeev.
"Good! good!" gloomily repeated the man who had started the
conversation. "In my opinion the company ought to speak to him. 'If
you've taken the money, tell us how much and when you'll repay it.'"
"That will be as the company decides," said Panov, tearing himself away
from the pipe.
"Of course. 'The community is a strong man,'" assented Avdeev, quoting a
proverb.
"There will be oats to buy and boots to get towards spring. the money
will be wanted, and what shall we do if he's pocketed it?" insisted the
dissatisfied one.
"I tell you it will be as the company wishes," repeated Panov. "It's not
the first time; he takes it and gives it back."
In the Caucasus in those days each company chose men to manage its own
commissariat. they received 6 rubles 50 kopecks a month per man from the
treasury, and catered for the company. They planted cabbages, made hay,
had their own carts, and prided themselves on their well-fed horses. The
company's money was kept in a chest of which the commander had the key,
and it often happened that he borrowed from the chest. This had just
happened again, and the soldiers were talking about it. The morose
soldier, Nikitin, wished to demand an account from the commander, while
Panov and Avdeev considered that unnecessary.
After Panov, Nikitin had a smoke, and then spreading his cloak on the
ground sat down on it leaning against the trunk of the plane tree. The
soldiers were silent. Far above their heads the crowns of the trees
rustled in the wind and suddenly, above this incessant low rustling,
rose the howling, whining, weeping and chuckling of jackals.
"Just listen to those accursed creatures -- how they caterwaul!"
"They're laughing at you because your mouth's all on one side," remarked
the high voice of the third soldier, an Ukrainian.
All was silent again, except for the wind that swayed the branches, now
revealing and now hiding the stars.
"I say, Panov," suddenly asked the cheerful Avdeev, "do you ever feel
dull?"
"Dull, why?" replied Panov reluctantly.
"Well, I do....I feel so dull sometimes that I don't know what I might
not be ready to do to myself."
"There now!" was all Panov replied.
"That time when I drank all the money it was from dullness. It took hold
of me...took hold of me till I thought to myself, 'I'll just get blind
drunk!'"
"But sometimes drinking makes it still worse."
"Yes, that's happened to me too. But what is a man to do with himself?"
"But what makes you feel so dull?"
"What, me? ... Why, it's the longing for home."
"Is yours a wealthy home then?"
"No; we weren't wealthy, but things went properly -- we lived well." And
Avdeev began to relate what he had already told Panov many times.
"You see, I went as a soldier of my own free will, instead of my
brother," he said. "He has children. They were five in family and I had
only just married. Mother began begging me to go. So I thought, 'Well,
maybe they will remember what I've done.' So I went to our proprietor
... he was a good master and he said, 'You're a fine fellow, go!' So I
went instead of my brother."
"Well, that was right," said Panov.
"And yet, will you believe me, Panov, it's chiefly because of that that
I feel so dull now? 'Why did you go instead of your brother?' I say to
myself. 'He's living like a king now over there, while you have to
suffer here;' and the more I think of it the worse I feel. ... It seems
just a piece of ill-luck!"
Avdeev was silent.
"Perhaps we'd better have another smoke," said he after a pause.
"Well then, fix it up!"
But the soldiers were not to have their smoke. Hardly had Avdeev risen
to fix the pipe stem in its place when above the rustling of the trees
they heard footsteps along the road. Panov took his gun and pushed
Nikitin with his foot.
Nikitin rose and picked up his cloak.
The third soldier, Bondarenko, rose also, and said:
"And I have dreamed such a dream, mates...."
"Sh!" said Avdeev, and the soldiers held their breath, listening. The
footsteps of men in soft-soled boots were heard approaching. The fallen
leaves and dry twigs could be heard rustling clearer and clearer through
the darkness. Then came the peculiar guttural tones of Chechen voices.
The soldiers could now not only hear men approaching, but could see two
shadows passing through a clear space between the trees; one shadow
taller than the other. When these shadows had come in line with the
soldiers, Panov, gun in hand, stepped out on to the road, followed by
his comrades.
"Who goes there?" cried he.
"Me, friendly Chechen," said the shorter one. This was Bata. "Gun,
yok!...sword, yok!" said he, pointing to himself. "Prince, want!"
The taller one stood silent beside his comrade. He too was unarmed.
"He means he's a scout, and wants the Colonel," explained Panov to his
comrades.
"Prince Vorontsov...much want! Big business!" said Bata.
"All right, all right! We'll take you to him," said Panov. "I say, you'd
better take them," said he to Avdeev, "you and Bondarenko; and when
you've given them up to the officer on duty come back again. Mind," he
added, "be careful to make them keep in front of you!"
"and what of this?" said Avdeev, moving his gun and bayonet as though
stabbing someone. "I's just give a dig, and let the steam out of him!"
"What'll he be worth when you've stuck him?" remarked Bondarenko.
"Now, march!"
When the steps of the two soldiers conducting the scouts could no longer
be heard, Panov and Nikitin returned to their post.
"What the devil brings them here at night?" said Nikitin.
"Seems it's necessary," said panov. "But it's getting chilly," he added,
and unrolling his cloak he put it on and sat down by the tree.
About two hours later Avdeev and Bondarenko returned.
"Well, have you handed them over?"
"Yes. They weren't yet asleep at the Colonel's -- they were taken
straight in to him. And do you know, mates, those shaven- headed lads
are fine!" continued Avdeev. "Yes, really. What a talk I had with them!"
"Of course you'd talk," remarked Nikitin disapprovingly.
"Really they're just like Russians. One of them is married. 'Molly,'
says I, 'bar?' 'Bar,' he says. Bondarenko, didn't I say 'bar'? 'Many
bar?' 'A couple,' says he. A couple! Such a good talk we had! Such nice
fellows!"
"Nice, indeed!" said Nikitin. "If you met him alone he'd soon let the
guts out of you."
"It will be getting light before long." said panov.
"Yes, the stars are beginning to go out," said Avdeev, sitting down and
making himself comfortable.
And the soldiers were silent again.
The windows of the barracks and the soldiers' houses had long been dark
in the fort; but there were still lights in the windows of the best
house.
In it lived Prince Simon Mikhailovich Vorontsov, Commander of the Kurin
Regiment, an Imperial Aide-de-Camp and son of the Commander-in-Chief.
Vorontsov's wife, Marya Vasilevna, a famous Petersburg beauty, was with
him and they lived in this little Caucasian fort more luxuriously than
any one had ever lived there before. To Vorontsov, and even more to his
wife, it seemed that they were not only living a very modest life, but
one full of privations, while to the inhabitants of the place their
luxury was surprising and extraordinary.
Just now, at midnight, the host and hostess sat playing cards with their
visitors, at a card table lit by four candles, in the spacious drawing
room with its carpeted floor and rich curtains drawn across the windows.
Vorontsov, who had a long face and wore the insignia and gold cords of
an aide-de-camp, was partnered by a shaggy young man of gloomy
appearance, a graduate of Petersburg University whom Princess Vorontsov
had lately had sent to the Caucasus to be tutor to her little son (born
of her first marriage). Against them played two officers: one a broad,
red- faced man, Poltoratsky, a company commander who had exchanged out
of the Guards; and the other the regimental adjutant, who sat very
straight on his chair with a cold expression on his handsome face.
Princess Marya Vasilevna, a large-built, large-eyed, black- browed
beauty, sat beside Poltoratsky -- her crinoline touching his lets -- and
looked over his cards. In her words, her looks, her smile, her perfume,
and in every movement of her body, there was something that reduced
Poltoratsky to obliviousness of everything except the consciousness of
her nearness, and he made blunder after blunder, trying his partner's
temper more and more.
"No ... that's too bad! You've wasted an ace again," said the regimental
adjutant, flushing all over as Poltoratsky threw out an ace.
Poltoratsky turned his kindly, wide-set black eyes towards the
dissatisfied adjutant uncomprehendingly, as though just aroused from
sleep.
"Do forgive him!" said Marya Vasilevna, smiling. "There, you see! Didn't
I tell you so?" she went on, turning to Poltoratsky.
"But that's not at all what you said," replied Poltoratsky, smiling.
"Wasn't it?" she queried, with an answering smile, which excited and
delighted Poltoratsky to such a degree that he blushed crimson and
seeing the cards began to shuffle.
"It isn't your turn to deal," said the adjutant sternly, and with his
white ringed hand he began to deal himself, as though he wished to get
rid of the cards as quickly as possible.
The prince's valet entered the drawing room and announced that the
officer on duty wanted to speak to him.
"Excuse me, gentlemen," said the prince speaking Russian with an English
accent. "Will you take my place, marya?"
"Do you all agree?" asked the princess, rising quickly and lightly to
her full height, rustling her silks, and smiling the radiant smile of a
happy woman.
"I always agree to everything," replied the adjutant, very pleased that
the princess -- who could not play at all -- was now going to play
against him.
Poltoratsky only spread out his hands and smiled.
The rubber was nearly finished when the prince returned to the drawing
room, animated and obviously very pleased.
"Do you know what I propose?"
"What?"
"That we have some champagne."
"I am always ready for that," said Poltoratsky.
"Why not? We shall be delighted!" said the adjutant.
"Bring some, Vasili!" said the prince.
"What did they want you for?" asked Marya Vasilevna.
"It was the officer on duty and another man."
"Who? What about?" asked Marya Vasilevna quickly.
"I mustn't say," said Vorontsov, shrugging his shoulders.
"You mustn't say!" repeated Marya Vasilevna. "We'll see about that."
When the champagne was brought each of the visitors drank a glass, and
having finished the game and settled the scores they began to take their
leave.
"Is it your company that's ordered to the forest tomorrow?" the prince
asked Poltoratsky as they said goodbye.
"Yes, mine...why?"
"Then we shall meet tomorrow," said the prince, smiling slightly.
"Very pleased," replied Poltoratsky, not quite understanding what
Vorontsov was saying to him and preoccupied only by the thought that he
would in a minute be pressing Marya Vasilevna's hand.
Marya Vasilevna, according to her wont, not only pressed his hand firmly
but shook it vigorously, and again reminding him of his mistake in
playing diamonds, she gave him what he took to be a delightful,
affectionate, and meaning smile.
Poltoratsky went home in an ecstatic condition only to be understood by
people like himself who, having grown up and been educated in society,
meet a woman belonging to their own circle after months of isolated
military life, and moreover a woman like Princess Vorontsov.
When he reached the little house in which he and his comrade lived he
pushed the door, but it was locked. He knocked, with no result. He felt
vexed, and began kicking the door and banging it with his sword. Then he
heard a sound of footsteps and Vovilo -- a domestic serf of his -- undid
the cabin hook which fastened the door.
"What do you mean by locking yourself in, blockhead?"
"But how is it possible, sir...?"
"You're tipsy again! I'll show you 'how it is possible!'" and
Poltoratsky was about to strike Vovilo but changed his mind. "Oh, go to
the devil! ... Light a candle."
"In a minute."
Vovilo was really tipsy. He had been drinking at the name day party of
the ordnance sergeant, Ivan Petrovich. On returning home he began
comparing his life with that of the latter. Ivan Petrovich had a salary,
was married, and hoped in a year's time to get his discharge.
Vovilo had been taken "up" when a boy -- that is, he had been taken into
his owner's household service -- and now although he was already over
forty he was not married, but lived a campaigning life with his
harum-scarum young master. He was a good master, who seldom struck him,
but what kind of a life was it? "He promised to free me when we return
from the Caucasus, but where am I to with my freedom? ... It's a dog's
life!" thought Vovilo, and he felt so sleepy that, afraid lest someone
should come in and steal something, he fastened the hook of the door and
fell asleep.
Poltoratsky entered the bedroom which he shared with his comrade
Tikhonov.
"Well, have you lost?" asked Tikhonov, waking up.
"No, as it happens, I haven't. I've won seventeen rubles, and we drank a
bottle of Cliquot!"
"And you've looked at Marya Vasilevna?"
"Yes, and I have looked at Marya Vasilevna," repeated Poltoratsky.
"It will soon be time to get up," said Tikhonov. "We are to start at
six."
"Vovilo!" shouted Poltoratsky, "see that you wake me up properly
tomorrow at five!"
"How can I wake you if you fight?"
"I tell you you're to wake me! Do you hear?"
"All right." Vovilo went out, taking Poltoratsky's boots and clothes
with him. Poltoratsky got into bed and smoked a cigarette and put out
his candle smiling the while. In the dark he saw before him the smiling
face of Marya Vasilevna.
The Vorontsovs did not go to bed at once. When the visitors had left,
Marya Vasilevna went up to her husband and standing in front of him,
said severely --
"Eh bien! vous allez me dire ce que c'est."
"Mais, ma chere..."
"Pas de 'ma chere'! C'etait un emissaire, n'est-ce pas?"
"Quand meme, je ne puis pas vous le dire."
"Vous ne pouvez pas? Alors, c'est moi qui vais vous le dire!"
"Vous?"
"It was Hajji Murad, wasn't it?" said Marya Vasilevna, who had for some
days past heard of the negotiations and thought that Hajji Murad himself
had been to see her husband. Vorontsov could not altogether deny this,
but disappointed her by saying that it was not Hajji Murad himself but
only an emissary to announce that Hajji Murad would come to meet him
next day at the spot where a wood- cutting expedition had been arranged.
In the monotonous life of the fortress the young Vorontsovs -- both
husband and wife -- were glad of this occurrence, and it was already
past two o'clock when, after speaking of the pleasure the news would
give his father, they went to bed.
After the three sleepless nights he had passed flying from the murids
Shamil had sent to capture him, Hajji Murad fell asleep as soon as Sado,
having bid him goodnight, had gone out of the saklya.
He slept fully dressed with his head on his hand, his elbow sinking deep
into the red down-cushions his host had arranged for him.
At a little distance, by the wall, slept Eldar. He lay on his back, his
strong young limbs stretched out so that his high chest, with the black
cartridge-pouches sewn into the front of his white Circassian coat, was
higher than his freshly shaven, blue-gleaming head, which had rolled off
the pillow and was thrown back. His upper lip, on which a little soft
down was just appearing, pouted like a child's, now contracting and now
expanding, as though he were sipping something. Like Hajji Murad he
slept with pistol and dagger in his belt. the sticks in the grate burnt
low, and a night light in a niche in the wall gleamed faintly.
In the middle of the night the floor of the guest-chamber creaked, and
Hajji Murad immediately rose, putting his hand to his pistol. Sado
entered, treading softly on the earthen floor.
"What is it?" asked Hajji Murad, as if he had not been asleep at all.
"We must think," replied Sado, squatting down in front of him.
"A woman from her roof saw you arrive and told her husband, and now the
whole aoul knows. A neighbor has just been to tell my wife that the
Elders have assembled in the mosque and want to detain you."
"I must be off!" said Hajji Murad.
"The horses are saddled," said Sado, quickly leaving the saklya.
"Eldar!" whispered Hajji Murad. And Eldar, hearing his name, and above
all his master's voice, leaped to his feet, setting his cap straight as
he did so.
Hajji Murad put on his weapons and then his burka. Eldar did the same,
and they both went silently out of the saklya into the penthouse. The
black-eyed boy brought their horses. Hearing the clatter of hoofs on the
hard-beaten road, someone stuck his head out of the door of a
neighboring saklya and a man ran up the hill towards the mosque,
clattering with his wooden shoes. There was no moon, but the stars shone
brightly in the black sky so that the outlines of the saklya roofs could
be seen in the darkness, the mosque with its minarets in the upper part
of the village rising above the other buildings. From the mosque came a
hum of voices.
quickly seizing his gun, Hajji Murad placed his foot in the narrow
stirrup, and silently and easily throwing his body across, swung himself
onto the high cushion of the saddle.
"May God reward you!" he said, addressing his host while his right foot
felt instinctively for the stirrup, and with his whip he lightly touched
the lad who held his horse, as a sign that he should let go. The boy
stepped aside, and the horse, as if it knew what it had to do, started
at a brisk pace down the lane towards the principal street. Eldar rode
behind him. Sado in his sheepskin followed, almost running, swinging his
arms and crossing now to one side and now to the other of the narrow
sidestreet. At the place where the streets met, first one moving shadow
and then another appeared in the road.
"Stop...who's that? Stop!" shouted a voice, and several men blocked the
path.
Instead of stopping, Hajji Murad drew his pistol from his belt and
increasing his speed rode straight at those who blocked the way. They
separated, and without looking round he started down the road at a swift
canter. Eldar followed him at a sharp trot. Two shots cracked behind
them and two bullets whistled past without hitting either Hajji Murad or
Eldar. Hajji Murad continued riding at the same pace, but having gone
some three hundred yards he stopped his slightly panting horse and
listened.
In front of him, lower down, gurgled rapidly running water. Behind him
in the aoul cocks crowed, answering one another. Above these sounds he
heard behind him the approaching tramp of horses and the voices of
several men. Hajji Murad touched his horse and rode on at an even pace.
Those behind him galloped and soon overtook him. They were some twenty
mounted men, inhabitants of the aoul, who had decided to detain Hajji
Murad or a least to make a show of detaining him in order to justify
themselves in Shamil's eyes. When they came near enough to be seen in
the darkness, Hajji Murad stopped, let go his bridle, and with an
accustomed movement of his bridle, and with an accustomed movement of
his left hand unbuttoned the cover of his rifle, which he drew forth
with his right. Eldar did the same.
"What do you want?" cried Hajji Murad. "Do you wish to take me?...Take
me, then!" and he raised his rifle. The men form the aoul stopped, and
Hajji Murad, rifle in hand, rode down into the ravine. the mounted men
followed him but did not draw any nearer. When Hajji Murad had crossed
to the other side of the ravine the men shouted to him that he should
hear what they had to say. In reply he fired his rifle and put his horse
to a gallop. When he reined it in his pursuers were no longer within
hearing and the crowing of the cocks could also no longer be heard; only
the murmur of the water in the forest sounded more distinctly and now
and then came the cry of an owl. The black wall of the forest appeared
quite close. It was in the forest that his murids awaited him.
On reaching it Hajji Murad paused, and drawing much air into his lungs
he whistled and then listened silently. the next minute he was answered
by a similar whistle from the forest. Hajji Murad turned from the road
and entered it. When he had gone about a hundred paces he saw among the
trunks of the trees a bonfire, the shadows of some men sitting round it,
and, half lit-up by the firelight, a hobbled horse which was saddled.
Four men were sitting by the fire.
One of them rose quickly, and coming up to Hajji Murad took hold of his
bridle and stirrup. This was Hajji Murad's sworn brother who managed his
household affairs for him.
"Put out the fire," said Hajji Murad, dismounting.
The men began scattering the pile and trampling on the burning branches.
"Has Bata been here?" asked Hajji Murad, moving towards a burka that was
spread on the ground.
"Yes, he went away long ago with Khan Mahoma."
"Which way did they go?"
"That way," answered Khanefi pointing in the opposite direction to that
from which Hajji Murad had come.
"All right," said Hajji Murad, and unslinging his rifle he began to load
it.
"We must take care -- I have been pursued," he said to a man who was
putting out the fire.
This was Gamzalo, a Chechen. Gamzalo approached the barka, took up a
rifle that lay on it wrapped in its cover, and without a word went to
that side of the glade from which Hajji Murad had come.
When Eldar had dismounted he took Hajji Murad's horse, and having reined
up both horses's heads high, tied them to two trees. Then he shouldered
his rifle as Gamzalo had done and went to the other side of the glade.
The bonfire was extinguished, the forest no longer looked as black as
before, but in the sky the stars still shone, thought faintly.
Lifting his eyes to the stars and seeing that the Pleiades had already
risen half-way up in the sky, Hajji Murad calculated that it must be
long past midnight and that his nightly prayer was long overdue. He
asked Khanefi for a ewer (they always carried one in their packs), and
putting on his barka went to the water.
Having taken off his shoes and performed his ablutions, Hajji Murad
stepped onto the burka with bare feet and then squatted down on his
calves, and having first placed his fingers in his ears and closed his
eyes, he turned to the south and recited the usual prayer.
When he had finished he returned to the place where the saddle bags lay,
and sitting down on the burka he leant his elbows on his knees and bowed
his head and fell into deep thought.
Hajji Murad always had great faith in his own fortune. When planning
anything he always felt in advance firmly convinced of success, and fate
smiled on him. It had been so, with a few rare exceptions, during the
whole course of his stormy militray life; and so he hoped it would be
now. He pictured to himself how -- with the army vorontsov would place
at his disposal -- he would march against Shamil and take him prisoner,
and revenge himself on him; and how the russian Czar would reward him
and how he would again rule not only over Avaria, but over the whole of
Chechnya, which would submit to him. With these thoughts he unwittingly
fell asleep.
He dreamed how he and his brave followers rushed at Shamil with songs
and with the cry, "Hajji Murad is coming!" and how they seized him and
his wifes and how he heard the wives crying and sobbing. He woke up. The
song, Lya-il-allysha, and the cry "Hajji Murad is coming!" and the
weeping of shamil's wives, was the howling, weeping and laughter of
jackals that awoke him. Hajji Murad lifted his head, glanced at the sky
which, seen between the trunks of the trees, was already growing light
in the east and inquired after Khan Mahoma of a murid who sat at some
distance from him. On hearing that Khan Mahoma had not yet returned,
Hajji Murad again bowed his head and at once fell asleep.
He was awakened by the merry voice of Khan Mahoma returning from his
mission with Bata. Khan Mahoma at once sat down beside Hajji Murad and
told him how the soldiers had met them and had led them to the prince
himself, and how pleased the prince was and how he promised to meet them
in the morning where the Russians would be felling trees beyond the
Mitchik in the Shalin glade. Bata interrupted his fellow-envoy to add
details of his own.
Hajji Murad asked particularly for the words with which Vorontsov had
answered his offer to go over to the russians, and Khan Mahoma and Bata
replied with one voice that the prince promised to receive Hajji Murad
as a guest, and to act so that it should be well for him.
Then Hajji Murad questioned them about the road, and when Khan Mahoma
assured him that he knew the way well and would conduct him straight to
the spot, Hajji Murad took out some money and gave Bata the promised
three rubles. Then he ordered his men to take out of the saddle bags his
gold-ornamented weapons and his turban, and to clean themselves up so as
to look well when they arrived among the Russians.
While they cleaned their weapons, harness, and horses, the stars faded
away, it became quite light, and an early morning breeze sprang up.
Early in the morning, while it was still dark, two companies carrying
axes and commanded by Poltoratsky marched six miles beyond the
Shagirinsk Gate, and having thrown out a line of sharpshooters set to
work to fell trees as soon as the day broke. Towards eight o'clock the
mist which had mingled with the perfumed smoke of the hissing and
crackling damp green branches on the bonfires began to rise and the
wood-fellers -- who till then had not seen five paces off but had only
heard one another -- began to see both the bonfires and the road through
the forest, blocked with falled trees. The sun now appeared like a
bright spot in the fog and now again was hidden.
In the glade, some way from the road, Poltoratsky, his subaltern
Tikhonov, two officers of the Third Company, and Baron Freze, an
ex-officer of the Guards and a fellow student of Poltoratsky at the
Cadet College, who had been reduced to the ranks for fighting a duel,
were sitting on drums. Bits of paper that had contained food, cigarette
stumps, and empty bottles, lat scattered around them. The officers had
had some vodka and were now eating, and drinking porter. A drummer was
uncorking their third bottle.
Poltoratsky, although he had not had enough sleep, was in that peculiar
state of elation and kindly careless gaiety which he always felt when he
found himself among his soldiers and with his comrades where there was a
possibility of danger.
The officers were carrying on an animated conversation, the subject of
which was the latest news: the death of General Sletpsov. None of them
saw in this death that most important moment of a life, its termination
and return to the source when it sprang -- they saw in it only the valor
of a gallant officer who rushed at the mountaineers sword in hand and
hacked them desperately.
Though all of them -- and especially those who had been in action --
knew and could not help knowing that in those days in the Caucasus, and
in fact anywhere and at any time, such hand-to- hand hacking as is
always imagined and described never occurs (or if hacking with swords
and bayonets ever does occur, it is only those who are running away that
get hacked), that fiction of hand- to-hand fighting endowed them with
the calm pride and cheerfulness with which they say on the drums -- some
with a jaunty air, others on the contrary in a very modest pose, and
drank and joked without troubling about death, which might overtake them
at any moment as it had overtaken Sleptsov. And in the midst of their
talk, as if to confirm their expectations, they heard to the left of the
road the pleasant stirring sound of a rifle shot; and a bullet, merrily
whistling somewhere in the misty air, flew past and crashed into a tree.
"Hullo!" exclaimed Poltoratsky in a merry voice; "Why that's at our
line. ... There now, Kostya," and he turned to Freze, "now's your
chance. Go back to the company. I will lead the whole company to support
the cordon and we'll arrange a battle that will be simply delightful ...
and then we'll make a report."
Freze jumped to his feet and went at a quick pace towards the
smoke-enveloped spot where he had left his company.
Poltoratsky's little Kabarda dapple-bay was brought to him, and he
mounted and drew up his company and led it in the direction whence the
shots were fired. The outposts stood on the skirts of the forest in
front of the bare descending slope of a ravine. The wind was blowing in
the direction of the forest, and not only was it possible to see the
slope of the ravine, but the opposite side of it was also distinctly
visible. When Poltoratsky rode up to the line the sun came out from
behind the mist, and on the other side of the ravine, by the outskirts
of a young forest, a few horsemen could be seen at a distance of a
quarter of a mile. These were the Chechens who had pursued Hajji Murad
and wanted to see him meet the Russians. One of them fired at the line.
Several soldiers fired back. The Chechens retreated and the firing
ceased.
But when Poltoratsky and his company came up he nevertheles gave orders
to fire, and scarcely had the word been passed than along the whole line
of sharpshooters the incessant, merry, stirring rattle of our rifles
began, acompanied by pretty dissolving cloudlets of smoke. The soldiers,
pleased to have some distraction, hastened to load and fired shot after
shot. The Chechens evidently caught the feeling of excitement, and
leaping forward one after another fired a few shots at our men. One of
these shots wounded a soldier. It was the same Avdeev who had lain in
ambush the night before.
When his comrades approached him he was lying prone, holding his wounded
stomach with both hands, and rocking himself with a rhythmic motion
moaned softly. He belonged to Poltoratsky's company, and Poltoratsky,
seeing a group of soldiers collected, rode up to them.
"What is it, lad? Been hit?" said Poltoratsky. "Where?"
Avdeev did not answer.
"I was just going to load, your honor, when I heard a click," said a
soldier who had been with Avdeef; "and I look and see he's dropped his
gun."
"Tut, tut, tut!" Poltoratsky clicked his tongue. "Does it hurt much,
Avdeev?"
"It doesn't hurt but it stops me walking. A dropu of vodka now, your
honor!"
Some vodka (or rather the spirit drunk by the soldiers in the Caucasus)
was found, and Panov, severely frowning, brought Avdeev a can-lid full.
Avdeev tried to drink it but immediately handed back the lid.
"My soul truns against it," he said. "Drink it yourself."
Panov drank up the spirit.
Avdeev raised himself but sank back at once. They spread out a cloak and
laid him on it.
"Your honor, the colonel is coming," said the sergeant-major to
Poltoratsky.
"All right. then will you see to him?" said Poltoratsky, and flourishing
his whip he rode at a fast trot to meet Vorontsov.
Vorontsov was riding his thoroughbred English chestnut gelding, and was
accompanied by the adjutant, a Cossack, and a Chechen interpreter.
"What's happening here?" asked Vorontsov.
"Why, a skirmishing party attacked our advanced line," Poltoratsky
answered.
"Come, come -- you arranged the whole thing yourself!"
"Oh no, Prince, not I," said Poltoratsky with a smile; "they pushed
forward of their own accord."
"I hear a soldier has been wounded?"
"Yes, it's a great pity. He's a good soldier."
"Seriously?"
"Seriously, I believe ... in the stomach."
"And do you know where I am going?" vorontsov asked.
"I don't."
"Can't you guess?"
"No."
"Hajji Murad has surrendered and we are now going to meet him."
"You don't mean to say so?"
"His envoy came to me yesterday," said Vorontsov, with difficulty
repressing a smile of pleasure. "He will be waiting for me at the Shalin
glade in a few minutes. Place sharpshooters as far as the glade, and
then come and join me."
"I understand," said Poltoratsky, lifting his hand to his cap, and rode
back to his company. He led the sharp shooters to the right himself, and
ordered the seargeant-major to do the same on the left side.
The wounded Avdeev had meanwhile been taken back to the fort by some of
the soldiers.
On his way back to rejoin vorontsov, Poltoratsky noticed behind him
several horsemen who were overtaking him. In front on a white-maned
horse rode a man of imposing appearance. He wore a turban and carried
weapons with gold ornaments. This man was Hajji Murad. He approached
Poltoratsky and said something to him in Tartar. Raising his eyebrows,
Poltoratsky made a gesture with his arms to show that he did not
understand, and smiled. Hajji Murad gave him smile for smile, and that
smile struck Poltoratsky by its childlike kindliness. Poltoratsky had
never expected to see the terrible mountain chief look like that. He had
expected to see a morose, hard-featured man, and here was a vivacious
person whose smile was so kindly that Poltoratsky felt as if he were an
old acquaintance. He had only one peculiarity: his eyes, set wide apart,
which gazed from under their black brows calmly, attentively, and
penetratingly into the eyes of others.
Hajji Murad's suit consisted of five men, among them was Khan Mahoma,
who had been to see Prince Vorontsov that night. He was a rosy,
round-faced fellow with black lashless eyes and a beaming expression,
full of the joy of life. Then there was the Avar Khanefi, a thick-set,
hairy man, whose eyebrows met. He was in charge of all Hajji Murad's
property and led a stud-bred horse which carried tightly packed saddle
bags. Two men of the suite were particularly striking. The first was a
Lesghian: a youth, broad-shouldered but with a waist as slim as a
woman's, beautiful ram-like eyes, and the beginnings of a brown beard.
This was Eldar. The other, Gamzalo, was a Chechen with a short red beard
and no eyebrows or eyelashes; he was blind in one eye and had a scar
across his nose and face. Poltoratsky pointed out Vorontsov, who had
just appeared on the road. Hajji Murad rode to meet him, and putting his
right hand on his heart said something in Tartar and stopped. The
Chechen interpreter translated.
"He says, 'I surrender myself to the will of the Russian Czar.
Having heard what the interpreter said, Vorontsov stretched out his hand
in its wash-leather glove to Hajji Murad. Hajji Murad looked at it
hestitatingly for a moment and then pressed it firmly, again saying
something and looking first at the interpreter and then at Vorontsov.
"He says he did not wish to surrender to any one but you, as you are the
son of the Sirdar and he respects you much."
Vorontsov nodded to express his thanks. Hajji Murad again said
something, pointing to his suite.
"He says that these men, his henchmen, will serve the Russians as well
as he."
Vorontsov turned towards then and nodded to them too. The merry,
black-eyed, lashless Chechen, Khan Mahoma, also nodded and said
something which was probably amusing, for the hairy Avar drew his lips
into a smile, showing his ivory-white teeth. But the red- haired
Gamzalo's one red eye just glanced at Vorontsov and then was again fixed
on the ears of his horse.
When Vorontsov and Hajji Murad with their retinues rode back to the fort
the soldiers released form the lines gathered in groups and made their
own comments.
"What a lot of men that damned fellow has destroyed! And now see what a
fuss they will make of him!"
"Naturally. He was Shamil's right hand, and now -- no fear!"
"Still there's no denying it! he's a fine fellow -- a regular dzhigit!"
"And the red one! He squints at you like a beast!"
"Ugh! He must be a hound!"
They had all specially noticed the red one. Where the wood- felling was
going on the soldiers nearest to the road ran out to look. Their officer
shouted to them, but Vorontsov stopped him.
"Let them have a look at their old friend."
"You know who that is?" he added, turning to the nearest soldier, and
speaking the words slowly with his English accent.
"No, your Excellency."
"Hajji Murad. ... Heard of him?"
"How could we help it, your Excellency? We've beaten him many a time!"
"Yes, and we've had it hot from him too."
"Yes, that's true, your Excellency," answered the soldier, pleased to be
talking with his chief.
Hajji Murad understood that they were speaking about him, and smiled
brightly with his eyes.
Vornotsov returned to the fort in a very cheerful mood.
Young Vorontsov was much pleased that it was he, and no one else, who
had succeeded in winning over and receiving Hajji Murad -- next to
Shamil Russia's chief and most active enemy. There was only one
unpleasant thing about it: General Meller- Zakomelsky was in command of
the army at Vozdvizhenski, and the whole affair ought to have been
carried out through him. As Vorontsov had done everything himself
without reporting it there might be some unpleasantness, and this
thought rather interfered with his satisfaction. On reaching his house
he entrusted Hajji Murad's henchmen to the regimental adjutant and
himself showed Hajji Murad into the house.
Princess Marya Vasilevna, elegantly dressed and smiling, and her little
son, a handsome curly-headed child of six, met Hajji Murad in the
drawing room. The latter placed his hands on his heart, and through the
interpreter -- who had entered with him -- said with solemnity that he
regarded himself as the prince's kunak, since the prince had brought him
into his own house; and that a kunak's whole family was as sacred as the
kunak himself.
Hajji Murad's appearance and manners pleased Marya Vasilevna, and the
fact that he flushed when she held out her large white hand to him
inclined her still more in his favor. She invited him to sit down, and
having asked him whether he drank coffee, had some served. He, however,
declined it when it came. He understood a little Russian but could not
speak it. When something was said which he could not understand he
smiled, and his smile pleased Marya Vasilevna just as it had pleased
Poltoratsky. The curly-haired, keen-eyed little boy (whom his mother
called Bulka) standing beside her did not take his eyes off Hajji Murad,
whom he had always heard spoken of as a great warrior.
Leaving Hajji Murad with his wife, Vorontsov went to his office to do
what was necessary about reporting the fact of Hajji Murad's having cove
over to the Russians. When he had written a report to the general in
command of the left flank -- General Kozlovsky -- at Grozny, and a
letter to his father, Vorontsov hurried home, afraid that his wife might
be vexed with him for forcing on her this terrible stranger, who had to
be treated in such a way that he should not take offense, and yet not
too kindly. But his fears were needless. Hajji Murad was sitting in an
armchair with little Bulka, Vorontsov's stepson, on his knee, and with
bent head was listening attentively to the interpreter who was
translating to him the words of the laughing marya Vasilevna. Marya
Vasilevna was telling him that if every time a kunak admired anything of
his he made him a present of it, he would soon have to go about like
Adam. ...
When the prince entered, Hajji Murad rose at once and, surprising and
offending Bulka by putting him off his knee, changed the playful
expression of his face to a stern and serious one. He only sat down
again when Vorontsov had himself taken a seat.
Continuing the conversation he answered Marya Vasilevna by telling her
that it was a law among his people that anything your kunak admired must
be presented to him.
"Thy son, kunak?" he said in Russian, patting the curly head of the boy
who had again climbed on his knee.
"He is delightful, your brigand!" said Marya Vasilevna to her husband in
french. "Bulka has been admiring his dagger, and he has given it to
him."
Bulka showed the dagger to his father. "C'est un objet de prix!" added
she.
"Il faudra trouver l'occasion de lui faire cadeau," said Vorontsov.
Hajji Murad, his eyes turned down, sat stroking the boy's curly hair and
saying: "Dzhigit, dzhigit!"
"A beautiful, beautiful dagger," said Vorontsov, half drawing out the
sharpened blade which had a ridge down the center. "I thank thee!"
"Ask him what I can do for him," he said to the interpreter.
The interpreter translated, and Hajji Murad at once replied that he
wanted nothing but that he begged to be taken to a place where he could
say his prayers.
Vorontsov called his valet and told him to do what Hajji Murad desired.
As soon as Hajji Murad was alone in the room allotted to him his face
altered. The pleased expression, now kindly and now stately, vanished,
and a look of anxiety showed itself. Vorontsov had received him far
better than Hajji Murad had expected. But the better the reception the
less did Hajji Murad trust Vorontsov and his officers. He feared
everything: that he might be seized, chained, and sent to Siberia, or
simply killed; and therefore he was on his guard. He asked Eldar, when
the latter entered his room, where his murids had been put and whether
their arms had been taken from them, and where the horses were. Eldar
reported that the horses were in the prince's stables; that the men had
been placed in a barn; that they retained their arms, and that the
interpreter was giving them food and tea.
Hajji Murad shook his head in doubt, and after undressing said his
prayers and told Eldar to bring him his silver dagger. He then dressed,
and having fastened his belt, sat down on the divan with his legs tucked
under him, to await what might befall him.
At four in the afternoon the interpreter came to call him to dine with
the prince.
At dinner he hardly ate anything except some pilaf, to which he helped
himself from the very part of the dish from which Marya Vasilevna had
helped herself.
"He is afraid we shall poison him," Marya Vasilevna remarked to her
husband. "He has helped himself from the place where I took my helping."
Then instantly turning to Hajji Murad she asked him through the
interpreter when he would pray again. Hajji Murad lifted five fingers
and pointed to the sun. "Then it will soon be time," and Vorontsov drew
out his watch and pressed a spring. The watch struck four and one
quarter. This evidently surprised Hajji Murad, and he asked to hear it
again and to be allowed to look at the watch.
"Voila l'occasion! Donnez-lui la montre," said the princess to her
husband.
Vorontsov at once offered the watch to Hajji Murad.
The latter placed his hand on his breast and took the watch. He touched
the spring several times, listened, and nodded his head approvingly.
After dinner, Meller-Zakomelsky's aide-de-camp was announced.
The aide-de-camp informed the prince that the general, having heard of
Hajji Murad's arrival, was highly displeased that this had not been
reported to him, and required Hajji Murad to be brought to him without
delay. Vorontsov replied that the general's command should be obeyed,
and through the interpreter informed Hajji Murad of these orders and
asked him to go to Meller with him.
When Marya Vasilevna heard what the aide-de-camp had come about, she at
once understood that unpleasantness might arise between her husband and
the general, and in spite of all her husband's attempts to dissuade her,
decided to go with him and Hajji Murad.
"Vous feriez blen mieux de rester -- c'est mon affaire, non pas la
votre. ..."
"Vous ne pouvez pas m'empecher d'aller voir madame la generale!"
"You could go some other time."
"But I wish to go now!"
There was no help for it, so Vorontsov agreed, and they all three went.
When they entered, Meller with somber politeness conducted Marya
Vasilevna to his wife and told his aide-de-camp to show Hajji Murad to
the waiting room and not let him out till further orders.
"Please..." he said to Vorontsov, opening the door of his study and
letting the prince enter before him.
Having entered the study he stopped in front of Vorontsov and, without
offering him a seat, said:
"I am in command here and therefore all negotiations with the enemy have
to be carried on through me! Why did you not report to me that Hajji
Murad had come over?"
"An emissary came to me and announced his wish to capitulate only to
me," replied Vorontsov growing pale with excitement, expecting some rude
expression from the angry general and at the same time becoming infected
with his anger.
"I ask you why was I not informed?"
"I intended to inform you, Baron, but..."
"You are not to address me as 'Baron,' but as 'Your Excellency'!" And
here the baron's pent-up irritation suddenly broke out and he uttered
all that had long been boiling in his soul.
"I have not served my sovereign twenty-seven years in order that men who
began their service yesterday, relying on family connections, should
give orders under my very nose about matters that do not concern them!"
"Your Excellency, I request you not to say things that are incorrect!"
interrupted Vorontsov.
"I am saying what is correct, and I won't allow..." said the general,
still more irritably.
But at that moment Marya Vasilevna entered, rustling with her skirts and
followed by a model-looking little lady, Meller- Zakomelsky's wife.
"Come, come, Baron! Simon did not wish to displease you," began Marya
Vasilevna.
"I am not speaking about that, Princess. ..."
"Well, well, let's forget it all!... You know, 'A bad peace is better
than a good quarrel!' ... Oh dear, what am I saying?" and she laughed.
The angry general capitulated to the enchanting laugh of the beauty. A
smile hovered under his mustache.
"I confess I was wrong," said Vorontsov, "but--"
"And I too got rather carried away," said Meller, and held out his hand
to the prince.
Peace was reestablished, and it was decided to leave Hajji Murad with
the general for the present, and then to send him to the commander of
the left flank.
Hajji Murad sat in the next room and though he did not understand what
was said, he understood what it was necessary for him to understand --
namely, that they were quarreling about him, that his desertion of
Shamil was a matter of immense importance to the Russians, and that
therefore not only would they not exile or kill him, but that he would
be able to demand much from them. He also understood that though
Meller-Zakomelsky was the commanding officer, he had not as much
influence as his subordinate Vorontsov, and that Vorontsov was important
and Meller-Zakomelsky unimportant; and therefore when Meller- Zakomelsky
sent for him and began to question him, Hajji Murad bore himself proudly
and ceremoniously, saying that he had come from the mountains to serve
the White Czar and would give account only to his Sirdar, meaning the
commander-in-chief, Prince Vorontsov senior, in Tiflis.
The wounded Avdeev was taken to the hospital -- a small wooden building
roofed with boards at the entrance of the fort -- and was placed on one
of the empty beds in the common ward. There were four patients in the
ward: one ill with typhus and in high fever; another, pale, with dark
shadows under his eyes, who had ague, was just expecting attack and
yawned continually; and two more who had been wounded in a raid three
weeks before: one in the hand -- he was up -- and the other in the
shoulder. The latter was sitting on a bed. All of them except the typhus
patient surrounded and questioned the newcomer and those who had brought
him.
"Sometimes they fire as if they were spilling peas over you, and nothing
happens ... and this time only about five shots were fired," related one
of the bearers.
"Each man get what fate sends!"
"Oh!" groaned Avdeev loudly, trying to master his pain when they began
to place him on the bed; but he stopped groaning when he was on it, and
only frowned and moved his feet continually. He held his hands over his
wound and looked fixedly before him.
The doctor came, and gave orders to turn the wounded man over to see
whether the bullet had passed out behind.
"What's this?" the doctor asked, pointing to the large white scars that
crossed one another on the patient's back and loins.
"That was done long ago, your honor!" replied Avdeev with a groan.
They were scars left by the flogging Avdeev had received for the money
he drank.
Avdeev was again turned over, and the doctor probed in his stomach for a
long time and found the bullet, but failed to extract it. He put a
dressing on the wound, and having stuck plaster over it went away.
During the whole time the doctor was probing and bandaging the wound
Avdeev lay with clenched teeth and closed eyes, but when the doctor had
gone he opened them and looked around as though amazed. His eyes were
turned on the other patients and on the surgeon's orderly, though he
seemed to see not them but something else that surprised him.
His friends Panov and Serogin came in, but Avdeev continued to lie in
the same position looking before him with surprise. It was long before
he recognized his comrades, though his eyes gazed straight at them.
"I say, Peter, have you no message to send home?" said Panov.
Avdeev did not answer, though he was looking Panov in the face.
"I say, haven't you any orders to send home?" again repeated Panov,
touching Avdeev's cold, large-boned hand.
Avdeev seemed to come to.
"Ah! ... Panov!"
"Yes, I'm here. ... I've come! Have you nothing for home? Serogin would
write a letter."
"Serogin ... " said Avdeev moving his eyes with difficulty towards
Serogin, "will you write? ... Well then, wrote so: 'Your son,' say
'Peter, has given orders that you should live long. He envied his
brother' ... I told you about that today ... ' and now he is himself
glad. Don't worry him. ... Let him live. God grant it him. I am glad!'
Write that."
Having said this he was silent for some time with his eyes fixed on
Panov.
"And did you find your pipe?" he suddenly asked.
Panov did not reply.
"Your pipe ... your pipe! I mean, have you found it?" Avdeev repeated.
"It was in my gag."
"That's right! ... Well, and now give me a candle to hold ... I am going
to die," said Avdeev.
Just then Poltoratsky came in to inquire after his soldier.
"How goes it, my lad! Badly?" said he.
Avdeev closed his eyes and shook his head negatively. His broad-cheeked
face was pale and stern. He did not reply, but again said to Panov:
"Bring a candle. ... I am going to die."
A wax taper was placed in his hand but his fingers would not bend, so it
was placed between them and held up for him.
Poltoratsky went away, and five minutes later the orderly put his ear to
Avdeev's heart and said that all was over.
Avdeev's death was described in the following manner in the report sent
to Tiflis:
"23rd Nov. -- Two companies of the Kurin regiment advanced from the fort
on a wood-felling expedition. At mid-day a considerable number of
mountaineers suddenly attacked the wood- fellers. The sharpshooters
began to retreat, but the 2nd Company charged with the bayonet and
overthrew the mountaineers. In this affair two privates were slightly
wounded and one killed. The mountaineers lost about a hundred men killed
and wounded."
On the day Peter Avdeev died in the hospital at Vozdvizhensk, his old
father with the wife of the brother in whose stead he had enlisted, and
that brother's daughter -- who was already approaching womanhood and
almost of age to get married -- were threshing oats on the hard-frozen
threshing floor.
There had been a heavy fall of snow the previous night followed towards
morning by a severe front. The old man woke when the cocks were crowing
for the third time, and seeing the bright moonlight through the frozen
windowpanes got down from the stove, put on his boots, his sheepskin
coat and cap, and went out to the threshing floor. Having worked there
for a couple of hours he returned to the hut and awoke his son and the
women. When the woman and girl came to the threshing floor they found it
ready swept, with a wooden shovel sticking in the dry white snow, beside
which were birch brooms with the twigs upwards and two rows of oat
sheaves laid ears to ears in a long line the whole length of the clean
threshing floor. They chose their flails and started threshing, keeping
time with their triple blows. The old man struck powerfully with his
heavy flail, breaking the straw, the girl struck the ears from above
with measured blows, and the daughter-in-law turned the oats over with
her flail.
The moon had set, dawn was breaking, and they were finishing the line of
sheaves when Akim, the eldest son, in his sheepskin and cap, joined the
threshers.
"What are you lazing about for?" shouted his father to him, pausing in
his work and leaning on his flail.
"The horses had to be seen to."
"'Horses seen to!'" the father repeated, mimicking him. "The old woman
will look after them. ... Take your flail! You're getting too fat, you
drunkard!"
"Have you been standing me treat?" muttered the son.
"What?" said the old man, frowning sternly and missing a stroke.
The son silently took a flail and they began threshing with four flails.
"Trak, tapatam...trak, tapatam...trak ..." came down the old man's heavy
flail after the three others.
"Why, you've got a nape like a goodly gentleman! ... Look here, my
trousers have hardly anything to hand on!" said the old man, omitting
his stroke and only swinging his flail in the air so as not to get out
of time.
They had finished the row, and the women began removing the straw with
rakes.
"Peter was a fool to go in your stead. They'd have knocked the nonsense
out of you in the army, and he was worth five of such as you at home!"
"That's enough, father," said the daughter-in-law, as she threw aside
the binders that had come off the sheaves.
"Yes, feed the six of you and get no work out of a single one! Peter
used to work for two. He was not like ..."
Along the trodden path from the house came the old man's wife, the
frozen snow creaking under the new bark shoes she wore over her tightly
wound woolen leg-bands. The men were shoveling the unwinnowed grain into
heaps, the woman and the girl sweeping up what remained.
The Elder has been and orders everybody to go and work for the master,
carting bricks," said the old woman. "I've got breakfast ready. ... Come
along, won't you?"
"All right. ... Harness the roan and go," said the old man to Akim, "and
you'd better look out that you don't get me into trouble as you did the
other day! ... I can't help regretting Peter!"
"When he was at home you used to scold him," retorted Akim. "Now he's
away you keep nagging at me."
"That shows you deserve it," said his mother in the same angry tones.
"You'll never be Peter's equal."
"Oh, all right," said the son.
"'All right,' indeed! You've drunk the meal, and now you say 'all
right!'"
"Let bygones be bygones!" said the daughter-in-law.
The disagreements between father and son had begun long ago -- almost
from the time Peter went as a soldier. Even then the old man felt that
he had parted with an eagle for a cuckoo. It is true that it was right
-- as the old man understood it -- for a childless man to go in place of
a family man. Akin had four children and Peter had none; but Peter was a
worker like his father, skillful, observant, strong, enduring, and above
all industrious. He was always at work. If he happened to pass by where
people were working he lent a helping hand as his father would have
done, and took a turn or two with the scythe, or loaded a cart, or
felled a tree, or chopped some wood. The old man regretted his going
away, but there was no help for it. Conscription in those days was like
death. A soldier was a severed branch, and to think about him at home
was to tear one's heart uselessly. Only occasionally, to prick his elder
son, did the father mention him, as he had done that day. But his mother
often thought of her younger son, and for a long time -- more than a
year now -- she had been asking her husband to send Peter a little
money, but the old man had made no response.
The Kurenkovs were a well-to-do family and the old man had some savings
hidden away, but he would on no account have consented to touch what he
had laid by. Now however the old woman having heard him mention their
younger son, made up her mind to ask him again to send him at least a
ruble after selling the oats. This she did. As soon as the young people
had gone to work for the proprietor and the old folks were left alone
together, she persuaded him to send Peter a ruble out of the oats-money.
So when ninety-six bushels of the winnowed oats had been packed onto
three sledges lined with sacking carefully pinned together at the top
with wooden skewers, she gave her husband a letter the church clerk had
written at her dictation, and the old man promised when he got to town
to enclose a ruble and send it off to the right address.
The old man, dressed in a new sheepskin with homespun cloak over it, his
legs wrapped round with warm white woolen leg- bands, took the letter,
placed it in his wallet, said a prayer, got into the front sledge, and
drove to town. His grandson drove in the last sledge. When he reached
town the old man asked the innkeeper to read the letter to him, and
listened to it attentively and approvingly.
In her letter Peter's mother first sent him her blessing, then greetings
from everybody and the news of his godfather's death, and at the end she
added that Aksinya (Peter's wife) had not wished to stay with them but
had gone into service, where they heard she was living honestly and
well. Then came a reference to the present of a ruble, and finally a
message which the old woman, yielding to her sorrows, had dictated with
tears in her eyes and the church clerk had taken down exactly, word for
word:
"One thing more, my darling child, my sweet dove, my own Peterkin! I
have wept my eyes out lamenting for thee, thou light of my eyes. To whom
has thou left me?..." At this point the old woman had sobbed and wept,
and said: "That will do!" So the words stood in the letter; but it was
not fated that Peter should receive the news of his wife's having left
home, nor the present of the ruble, nor his mother's last words. The
letter with the money in it came back with the announcement that Peter
had been killed in the war, "defending his Czar, his Fatherland, and the
Orthodox Faith." That is how the army clerk expressed it.
The old woman, when this news reached her, wept for as long as she could
spare time, and then set to work again. The very next Sunday she went to
church and had a requiem chanted and Peter's name entered among those
for whose souls prayers were to be said, and she distributed bits of
holy bread to all the good people in memory of Peter, the servant of
God.
Aksinya, his widow, also lamented loudly when she heard of the death of
her beloved husband with whom she had lived but one short year. She
regretted her husband and her own ruined life, and in her lamentations
mentioned Peter's brown locks and his love, and the sadness of her life
with her little orphaned Vanka, and bitterly reproached Peter for having
had pity on his brother but none on her -- obliged to wander among
strangers!
But in the depth of her soul Aksinya was glad of her husband's death.
She was pregnant a second time by the shopman with whom she was living,
and no one would now have a right to scold her, and the shopman could
marry her as he had said he would when he was persuading her to yield.
Michael Semenovich Vorontsov, being the son of the Russian Ambassador,
had been educated in England and possessed a European education quite
exceptional among the higher Russian officials of his day. He was
ambitious, gentle and kind in his manner with inferiors, and a finished
courtier with superiors. He did not understand life without power and
submission. He had obtained all the highest ranks and decorations and
was looked upon as a clever commander, and even as the conqueror of
Napoleon at Krasnoe.
In 1852 he was over seventy, but young for his age, he moved briskly,
and above all was in full possession of a facile, refined, and agreeable
intellect which he used to maintain his power and strengthen and
increase his popularity. He possessed large means -- his own and his
wife's (who had been a countess Branitski) -- and received an enormous
salary as Viceroy, and he spent a great part of his means on building a
palace and laying out a garden on the south coast of the Crimea.
On the evening of December the 4th, 1852, a courier's troika drew up
before his palace in Tiflis. an officer, tired and black with dust, sent
by General Kozlovski with the news of Hajji Murad's surrender to the
Russians, entered the wide porch, stretching the stiffened muscles of
his legs as he passed the sentinel. It was six o'clock, and Vorontsov
was just going in to dinner when he was informed of the courier's
arrival. He received him at once, and was therefore a few minutes late
for dinner.
When he entered the drawing room the thirty persons invited to dine, who
were sitting beside Princess Elizabeth Ksaverevna Vorontsova, or
standing in groups by the windows, turned their faces towards him.
Vorontsov was dressed in his usual black military coat, with
shoulderstraps but no epaulets, and wore the White Cross of the Order of
St. George at his neck.
His clean shaven, foxlike face wore a pleasant smile as, screwing up his
eyes, he surveyed the assembly. Entering with quick soft steps he
apologized to the ladies for being late, greeted the men, and
approaching Princess Manana Orbelyani -- a tall, fine, handsome woman of
Oriental type about forty-five years of age -- he offered her his arm to
take her in to dinner. Princess Elizabeth Ksaverevna Vorontsova gave her
arm to a red- haired general with bristly mustaches who was visiting
Tiflis. A Georgian prince offered his arm to Princess Vorontsova's
friend, Countess Choiseuil. Doctor Andreevsky, the aide-de-camp, and
others, with ladies or without, followed these first couples. Footmen in
livery and knee-breeches drew back and replaced the guests' chairs when
they sat down, while the major-domo ceremoniously ladled out steaming
soup from a silver tureen.
Vorontsov took his place in the center of one side of the long table,
and wife sat opposite, with the general on her right. On the prince's
right sat his lady, the beautiful Orbelyani; and on his left was a
graceful, dark, red-cheeked Georgian woman, glittering with jewels and
incessantly smiling.
"Excellentes, chere amie!" replied Vorontsov to his wife's inquiry about
what news the courier had brought him. "Simon a eu de la chance!" And he
began to tell aloud, so that everyone could hear, the striking news (for
him alone not quite unexpected, because negotiations had long been going
on) that Hajji Murad, the bravest and most famous of Shamil's officers,
had come over to the Russians and would in a day or two be brought to
Tiflis.
Everybody -- even the young aides-de-camp and officials who sat at the
far ends of the table and who had been quietly laughing at something
among themselves -- became silent and listened.
"And you, General, have you ever met this Hajji Murad?" asked the
princess of her neighbor, the carroty general with the bristly
mustaches, when the prince had finished speaking.
"More than once, Princess."
And the general went on to tell how Hajji Murad, after the mountaineers
had captured Gergebel in 1843, had fallen upon General Pahlen's
detachment and killed Colones Zolotukhin almost before their very eyes.
Vorontsov listened to the general and smiled amiably, evidently pleased
that the latter had joined in the conversation. But suddenly his face
assumed an absent-minded and depressed expression.
The general, having started talking, had begun to tell of his second
encounter with Hajji Murad.
"Why, it was he, if your Excellency will please remember," said the
general, "who arranged the ambush that attacked the rescue party in the
'Biscuit' expedition."
"Where?" asked Vorontsov, screwing up his eyes.
What the brave general spoke of as the "rescue" was the affair in the
unfortunate Dargo campaign in which a whole detachment, including Prince
Vorontsov who commanded it, would certainly have perished had it not
been rescued by the arrival of fresh troops. Every one knew that the
whole Dargo campaign under Vorontsov's command -- in which the Russians
lost many killed and wounded and several cannon -- had been a shameful
affair, and therefore if any one mentioned it in Vorontsov's presence
they did so only in the aspect in which Vorontsov had reported it to the
Czar -- as a brilliant achievement of the Russian army. But the word
"rescue" plainly indicated that it was not a brilliant victory but a
blunder costing many lives. Everybody understood this and some pretended
not to notice the meaning of the general's words, others nervously
waited to see what would follow, while a few exchanged glances, and
smiled. Only the carroty general with the bristly mustaches noticed
nothing, and carried away by his narrative quietly replied:
"At the rescue, your Excellency."
Having started on his favorite theme, the general recounted
circumstantially how Hajji Murad had so cleverly cut the detachment in
two that if the rescue party had not arrived (he seemed to be
particularly fond of repeating the word "rescue") not a man in the
division would have escaped, because...He did not finish his story, for
Manana Orbelyani, having understood what was happening, interrupted him
by asking if he had found comfortable quarters in Tiflis. The general,
surprised, glanced at everybody all round and saw his aides-de-camp from
the end of the table looking fixedly and significantly at him, and he
suddenly understood! Without replying to the princess's question, he
frowned, became silent, and began hurriedly swallowing the delicacy that
lay on his plate, the appearance and taste of which both completely
mystified him.
Everybody felt uncomfortable, but the awkwardness of the situation was
relieved by the Georgian prince -- a very stupid man but an
extraordinarily refined and artful flatterer and courtier -- who sat on
the other side of Princess Vorontsova. Without seeming to have noticed
anything he began to relate how Hajji Murad had carried off the widow of
Akhmet Khan of Mekhtuli.
"He came into the village at night, seized what he wanted, and galloped
off again with the whole party."
"Why did he want that particular woman?" asked the princess.
"Oh, he was her husband's enemy, and pursued him but could never once
succeed in meeting him right up to the time of his death, so he revenged
himself on the widow."
The princess translated this into French for her old friend Countess
Choiseuil, who sat next to the Georgian prince.
"Quelle horreur!" said the countess, closing her eyes and shaking her
head.
"Oh no!" said Vorontsov, smiling. "I have been told that he treated his
captive with chivalrous respect and afterwards released her."
"Yes, for a ransom!"
"Well, of course. But all the same he acted honorably."
These words of Vorontsov's set the tone for the further conversation.
The courtiers understood that the more importance was attributed to
Hajji Murad the better the prince would be pleased.
"The man's audacity is amazing. A remarkable man!"
"Why, in 1849 he dashed into Temir Khan Shura and plundered the shops in
broad daylight."
An Armenian sitting at the end of the table, who had been in Temir Khan
Shura at the time, related the particulars of that exploit of Hajji
Murad's.
In fact, Hajji Murad was the sole topic of conversation during the whole
dinner.
Everybody in succession praised his courage, his ability, and his
magnanimity. Someone mentioned his having ordered twenty six prisoners
to be killed, but that too was met by the usual rejoinder, "What's to be
done? A la guerre, comme al la guerre!"
"He is a great man."
"Had he been born in Europe he might have been another Napoleon," said
the stupid Georgian prince with a gift of flattery.
He knew that every mention of Napoleon was pleasant to Vorontsov, who
wore the White Cross at his neck as a reward for having defeated him.
"Well, not Napoleon perhaps, but a gallant cavalry general if you like,"
said Vorontsov.
"If not Napoleon, then Murat."
"And his name is Hajji Murad!"
"Hajji Murad has surrendered and now there'll be an end to Shamil too,"
someone remarked.
"They feel that now" (this "now" meant under Vorontsov) "they can't hold
out," remarked another.
"Tout cela est grace a vous!" said Manana Orbelyani.
Prince Vorontsov tried to moderate the waves of flattery which began to
flow over him. Still, it was pleasant, and in the best of spirits he led
his lady back into the drawing room.
After dinner, when coffee was being served in the drawing room, the
prince was particularly amiable to everybody, and going up to the
general with the red bristly mustaches he tried to appear not to have
noticed his blunder.
Having made a round of the visitors he sat down to the card table. He
only played the old-fashioned game of omber. His partners were the
Georgian prince, an Armenia general (who had learned the game of omber
from Prince Vorontsov's valet), and Doctor Andreevsky, a man remarkable
for the great influence he exercised.
Placing beside him his gold snuff-box with a portrait of Aleksandr I on
the lid, the prince tore open a pack of highly glazed cards and was
going to spread them out, when his Italian valet brought him a letter on
a silver tray.
"Another courier, your Excellency."
Vorontsov laid down the cards, excused himself, opened the letter, and
began to read.
The letter was from his son, who described Hajji Murad's surrender and
his own encounter with Meller-Zakomelsky.
The princess came up and inquired what their son had written.
"It's all about the same matter. ... Il a eu quelques desagrements avec
le commandant de la place. Simon a eu tort. ... But 'All's well that
ends well,'" he added in English, handing the letter to his wife; and
turning to his respectfully waiting partners he asked them to draw
cards.
When the first round had been dealt Vorontsov did what he was in the
habit of doing when in a particularly pleasant mood: with his white,
wrinkled old hand he took out a pinch of French snuff, carried it to his
nose, and released it.
When Hajji Murad appeared at the prince's palace next day, the waiting
room was already full of people. Yesterday's general with the bristly
mustaches was there in full uniform with all his decorations, having
come to take leave. There was the commander of a regiment who was in
danger of being court martialed for misappropriating commisarriat money,
and there was a rich Armenian (patronized by Doctor Andreevsky) who
wanted to obtain from the Government a renewal of his monopoly for the
sale of vodka. There, dressed in black, was the widow of an officer who
had been killed in action. She had come to ask for a pension, or for
free education for her children. There was a ruined Georgian prince in a
magnificent Georgian costume who was trying to obtain for himself some
confiscated Church property. There was an official with a large roll of
paper containing a new plan for subjugating the Caucasus. There was also
a Khan who had come solely to be able to tell his people at home that he
had called on the prince.
They all waited their turn and were one by one shown into the prince's
cabinet and out again by the aide-de-camp, a handsome, fair-haired
youth.
When Hajji Murad entered the waiting room with his brisk though limping
step all eyes were turned towards him and he heard his name whispered
from various parts of the room.
He was dressed in a long white Circassian coat over a brown beshmet
trimmed round the collar with fine silver lace. He wore black leggings
and soft shoes of the same color which were stretched over his instep as
tight as gloves. On his head he wore a high cap draped turban-fashion --
that same turban for which, on the denunciation of Akhmet Khan, he had
been arrested by General Klugenau and which had been the cause of his
going over to Shamil.
He stepped briskly across the parquet floor of the waiting room, his
whole slender figure swaying slightly in consequence of his lameness in
one leg which was shorter than the other. His eyes, set far apart,
looked calmly before him and seemed to see no one.
The handsome aide-de-camp, having greeted him, asked him to take a seat
while he went to announce him to the prince, but Hajji Murad declined to
sit down and, putting his hand on his dagger, stood with one foot
advanced, looking round contemptuously at all those present.
The prince's interpreter, Prince Tarkhanov, approached Hajji Murad and
spoke to him. Hajji Murad answered abruptly and unwillingly. A Kumyk
prince, who was there to lodge a complaint against a police official,
came out of the prince's room, and then the aide-de-camp called Hajji
Murad, led him to the door of the cabinet, and showed him in.
The Commander-in-Chief received Hajji Murad standing beside his table,
and his old white face did not wear yesterday's smile but was rather
stern and solemn.
On entering the large room with its enormous table and great windows
with green venetian blinds, Hajji Murad placed his small sunburnt hands
on his chest just where the front of his white coat overlapped, and
lowering his eyes began, without hurrying, to speak distinctly and
respectfully, using the Kumyk dialect which he spoke well.
"I place myself under the powerful protection of the great Czar and of
yourself," said he, "and promise to serve the White Czar in faith and
truth to the last drop of my blood, and I hope to be useful to you in
the war with Shamil who is my enemy and yours."
Having the interpreter out, Vorontsov glanced at Hajji Murad and Hajji
Murad glanced at Vorontsov.
The eyes of the two men met, and expressed to each other much that could
not have been put into words and that was not at all what the
interpreter said. Without words they told each other the whole truth.
Vorontsov's eyes said that he did not believe a single word Hajji Murad
was saying, and that he knew he was and always would be an enemy to
everything Russian and had surrendered only because he was obliged to.
Hajji Murad understood this and yet continued to give assurances of his
fidelity. His eyes said, "That old man ought to be thinking of his death
and not of war, but though he is old he is cunning, and I must be
careful." Vorontsov understood this also, but nevertheless spoke to
Hajji Murad in the way he considered necessary for the success of the
war.
"Tell him," said Vorontsov, "that our sovereign is as merciful as he is
mighty and will probably at my request pardon him and take him into his
service. ... Have you told him?" he asked looking at Hajji Murad. ...
"Until I receive my master's gracious decision, tell him I take it on
myself to receive him and make his sojourn among us pleasant."
Hajji Murad again pressed his hands to the center of his chest and began
to say something with animation.
"He says," the interpreter translated, "that formerly, when he governed
Avaria in 1839, he served the Russians faithfully and would never have
deserted them had not his enemy, Akhmet Khan, wishing to ruin him,
calumniated him to General Klugenau."
"I know, I know," said Vorontsov (though if he had ever known he had
long forgotten it). "I know," he repeated, sitting down and motioning
Hajji Murad to the divan that stood beside the wall. But Hajji Murad did
not sit down. Shrugging his powerful shoulders as a sign that he could
not bring himself to sit in the presence of so important a man, he went
on, addressing the interpreter:
"Akhmet Khan and Shamil are both my enemies. Tell the prince that Akhmet
Khan is dead and I cannot revenge myself on him, but Shamil lives and I
will not die without taking vengeance on him," said he, knitting his
brows and tightly closing his mouth.
"Yes, yes; but how does he want to revenge himself on Shamil?" said
Vorontsov quietly to the interpreter. "And tell him he may sit down."
Hajji Murad again declined to sit down, and in answer to the question
replied that his object in coming over to the Russians was to help them
to destroy Shamil.
"Very well, very well," said Vorontsov; "but what exactly does he wish
to do? ... Sit down, sit down!"
Hajji Murad sat down, and said that if only they would send him to the
Lesghian line and would give him an army, he would guarantee to raise
the whole of Daghestan and Shamil would then be unable to hold out.
"That would be excellent. ... I'll think it over," said Vorontsov.
The interpreter translated Vorontsov's words to Hajji Murad.
Hajji Murad pondered.
"Tell the Sirdar one thing more," Hajji Murad began again, "that my
family are in the hands of my enemy, and that as long as they are in the
mountains I am bound and cannot serve him. Shamil would kill my wife and
my mother and my children if I went openly against him. Let the prince
first exchange my family for the prisoners he has, and then I will
destroy Shamil or die!"
"All right, all right," said Vorontsov. "I will think it over. ... Now
let him go to the chief of the staff and explain to him in detail his
position, intentions, and wishes."
Thus ended the first interview between Hajji Murad and Vorontsov.
That even an Italian opera was performed at the new theater, which was
decorated in Oriental style. Vorontsov was in his box when the striking
figure of the limping Hajji Murad wearing a turban appeared in the
stalls. He came in with Loris-Melikov, Vorontsov's aide-de-cam;, in
whose charge he was placed, and took a seat in the front row. Having sat
through the first act with Oriental Mohammedan dignity, expressing no
pleasure but only obvious indifference, he rose and looking calmly round
at the audience went out, drawing to himself everybody's attention.
The next day was Monday and there was the usual evening party at the
Vorontsovs'. In the large brightly lighted hall a band was playing,
hidden among trees. Young women and women not very young wearing dresses
that displayed their bare necks, arms, and breasts, turned round and
round in the embrace of men in bright uniforms. At the buffet, footmen
in red swallow-tail coats and wearing shoes and knee-breeches, poured
out champagne and served sweetmeats to the ladies. The "Sirdar's" wife
also, in spite of her age, went about half-dressed among the visitors
smiling affably, and through the interpreter said a few amiable words to
Hajji Murad who glanced at the visitors with the same indifference he
had shown yesterday in the theater. After the hostess, other half-naked
women came up to him and all of them stood shamelessly before him and
smilingly asked him the same question: How he liked what he saw?
Vorontsov himself, wearing gold epaulets and gold shoulder-knots with
his white cross and ribbon at his neck, came up and asked him the same
question, evidently feeling sure, like all the others, that Hajji Murad
could not help being pleased at what he saw. Hajji Murad replied to
Vorontsov as he had replied to them all, that among his people nothing
of the kind was done, without expressing an opinion as to whether it was
good or bad that it was so.
Here at the ball Hajji Murad tried to speak to Vorontsov about buying
out his family, but Vorontsov, pretending that he had not heard him,
walked away, and Loris-Melikov afterwards told Hajji Murad that this was
the place to talk about business.
When it struck eleven Hajji Murad, having made sure of the time by the
watch the Vorontsovs had given him, asked Loris- Melikov whether he
might now leave. Loris-Melikov said he might, though it would be better
to stay. In spite of this Hajji Murad did not stay, but drove in the
phaeton placed at his disposal to the quarters that had been assigned to
him.
On the fifth day of Hajji Murad's stay in Tiflis Loris- Melikov, the
Viceroy's aide-de-camp, came to see him at the latter's command.
"My head and my hands are glad to serve the Sirdar," said Hajji Murad
with his usual diplomatic expression, bowing his head and putting his
hands to his chest. "Command me!" said he, looking amiably into
Loris-Melikov's face.
Loris-Melikov sat down in an arm chair placed by the table and Hajji
Murad sank onto a low divan opposite and, resting his hands on his
knees, bowed his head and listened attentively to what the other said to
him.
Loris-Melikov, who spoke Tartar fluently, told him that though the
prince knew about his past life, he yet wanted to hear the whole story
from himself.
Tell it me, and I will write it down and translate it into Russian and
the prince will send it to the Emperor."
Hajji Murad remained silent for a while (he never interrupted anyone but
always waited to see whether his interlocutor had not something more to
say), then he raised his head, shook back his cap, and smiled the
peculiar childlike smile that had captivated Marya Vasilevna.
"I can do that," said he, evidently flattered by the thought that his
story would be read by the Emperor.
"Thou must tell me" (in Tartar nobody is addressed as "you")
"everything, deliberately from the beginning," said Loris Melikov
drawing a notebook from his pocket.
"I can do that, only there is much -- very much -- to tell! Many events
have happened!" said Hajji Murad.
"If thou canst not do it all in one day thou wilt finish it another
time," said Loris-Melikov.
"Shall I begin at the beginning?"
"Yes, at the very beginning ... where thou wast born and where thou
didst live."
Hajji Murad's head sank and he sat in that position for a long time.
Then he took a stick that lay beside the divan, drew a little knife with
an ivory gold-inlaid handle, sharp as a razor, from under his dagger,
and started whittling the stick with it and speaking at the same time.
"Write: Born in Tselmess, a small aoul, 'the size of an ass's head,' as
we in the mountains say," he began. "not far from it, about two
cannon-shots, lies Khunzakh where the Khans lived. Our family was
closely connected with them.
"My mother, when my eldest brother Osman was born, nursed the eldest
Khan, Abu Nutsal Khan. Then she nursed the second son of the Khan, Umma
Khan, and reared him; but Akhmet my second brother died, and when I was
born and the Khansha bore Bulach Khan, my mother would not go as
wet-nurse again. My father ordered her to, but she would not. She said:
'I should again kill my own son, and I will not go.' Then my father, who
was passionate, struck her with a dagger and would have killed her had
they not rescued her from him. So she did not give me up, and later on
she composed a song ... but I need not tell that."
"Yes, you must tell everything. It is necessary," said Loris-Melikov.
Hajji Murad grew thoughtful. He remembered how his mother had laid him
to sleep beside her under a fur coat on the roof of the saklya, and he
had asked her to show him the place in her side where the scar of her
wound was still visible.
He repeated the song, which he remembered:
"My white bosom was pierced by the blade of bright steel,
But I laid my bright sun, my dear boy, close upon it
Till his body was bathed in the stream of my blood.
And the wound healed without aid of herbs or of grass.
As I feared not death, so my boy will ne'er fear it."
"My mother is now in Shamil's hands," he added, "and she must be
rescued."
He remembered the fountain below the hill, when holding on to his
mother's sarovary (loose Turkish trousers) he had gone with her for
water. He remembered how she had shaved his head for the first time, and
how the reflection of his round bluish head in the shining brass vessel
that hung on the wall had astonished him. He remembered a lean dog that
had licked his face. He remembered the strange smell of the lepeshki (a
kind of flat cake) his mother had given him -- a smell of smoke and of
sour milk. He remembered how his mother had carried him in a basket on
her back to visit his grandfather at the farmstead. He remembered his
wrinkled grandfather with his gray hairs, and how he had hammered silver
with his sinewy hands.
"Well, so my mother did not go as nurse," he said with a jerk of his
head, "and the Khansha took another nurse but still remained fond of my
mother, and my mother used to take us children to the Khansha's palace,
and we played with her children and she was fond of us.
"There were three young Khans: Abu Nutsal Khan my brother Osman's
foster-brother; Umma Khan my own sworn brother; and Bulach Khan the
youngest -- whom Shamil threw over the precipice. But that happened
later.
"I was about sixteen when murids began to visit the aouls. They beat the
stones with wooden scimitars and cried 'Mussulmans, Ghazavat!' The
Chechens all went over to Muridism and the Avars began to go over too. I
was then living in the palace like a brother of the Khans. I could do as
I liked, and I became rich. I had horses and weapons and money. I lived
for pleasure and had no care, and went on like that till the time when
Kazi-Mulla, the Imam, was killed and Hamzad succeeded him. Hamzad sent
envoys to the Khans to say that if they did not join the Ghazavat he
would destroy Khunzakh.
"This needed consideration. The Khans feared the Russians, but were also
afraid to join in the Holy War. The old Khansha sent me with her second
son, Umma Khan, to Tiflis to ask the Russian Commander-in-Chief for help
against Hamzad. The Commander-in-Chief at Tiflis was Baron Rosen. He did
not receive either me or Umma Khan. He sent word that he would help us,
but did nothing. Only his officers came riding to us and played cards
with Umma Khan. They made him drunk with wine and took him to bad
places, and he lost all he had to them at cards. His body was as strong
as a bull's and he was as brave as a lion, but his soul was weak as
water. He would have gambled away his last horses and weapons if I had
not made him come away.
"After visiting Tiflis my ideas changed and I advised the old Khansha
and the Khans to join the Ghazavat...."
What made you change your mind?" asked Loris-Melikov. "Were you not
pleased with the Russians?"
Hajji Murad paused.
"No, I was not pleased," he answered decidedly, closing his eyes. "and
there was also another reason why I wished to join the Ghazavat."
"What was that?"
"Why, near Tselmess the Khan and I encountered three murids, two of whom
escaped but the third one I shot with my pistol.
"He was still alive when I approached to take his weapons. He looked up
at me, and said, 'Thou has killed me...I am happy; but thou are a
Mussulman, young and strong. Join the Ghazavat! God wills it!'"
"And did you join it?"
"I did not, but it made me think," said Hajji Murad, and he went on with
his tale.
"When Hamzad approached Kunzakh we sent our Elders to him to say that we
would agree to join the Ghazavat if the Imam would sent a learned man to
explain it to us. Hamzad had our Elders' mustaches shaved off, their
nostrils pierced, and cakes hung to their noses, and in that condition
he sent them back to us.
"The Elders brought word that Hamzad was ready to send a sheikh to teach
us the Ghazavat, but only if the Khansha sent him her youngest son as a
hostage. She took him at his word and sent her youngest son, Bulach
Khan. Hamzad received him well and sent to invite the two elder brothers
also. He sent word that he wished to serve the Khans as his father had
served their father. ... The Khansha was a weak, stupid, and conceited
woman, as all women are when they are not under control. She was afraid
to send away both sons and sent only Umma Khan. I went with him. We were
met by murids about a mile before we arrived and they sang and shot and
caracoled around us, and when we drew near, Hamzad came out of his tent
and went up to Umma Khan's stirrup and received him as a Khan. He said,
'I have not done any harm to thy family and do not wish to do any. Only
do not kill me and do not prevent my bringing the people over to the
Ghazavat, and I will serve you with my whole army as my father served
your father! Let me live in your house and I will help you with my
advice, and you shall do as you like!'
"Umma Khan was slow of speech. He did not know how to reply and remained
silent. Then I said that if this was so, Let Hamzad come to Khunzakh and
the Khansha and the Khans would receive him with honor. ... but I was
not allowed to finish -- and here I first encountered Shamil, who was
beside the Imam. He said to me, 'Thou has not been asked. ... It was the
Khan!'
"I was silent, and Hamzad led Umma Khan into his tent. Afterwards Hamzad
called me and ordered me to go to Kunzakh with his envoys. I went. The
envoys began persuading the Khansha to send her eldest son also to
Hamzad. I saw there was treachery and told her not to send him; but a
woman has as much sense in her head as an egg has hair. She ordered her
son to go. Abu Nutsal Khan did not wish to. Then she said, 'I see thou
are afraid!' Like a bee she knew where to sting him most painfully. Abu
Nutsal Khan flushed and did not speak to her any more, but ordered his
horse to be saddled. I went with him.
"Hamzad met us with even greater honor than he had shown Umma Khan. He
himself rode out two rifle-shot lengths down the hill to meet us. A
large party of horsemen with their banners followed him, and they too
sang, shot, and caracoled.
"When we reached the camp, Hamzad led the Khan into his tent and I
remained with the horses....
"I was some way down the hiss when I heard shots fired in Hamzad's tent.
I ran there and saw Umma Khan lying prone in a pool of blood, and Abu
Nutsal was fighting the murids. One of his cheeks had been hacked off
and hung down. He supported it with one hand and with the other stabbed
with his dagger at all who came near him. I saw him strike down Hamzad's
brother and aim a blow at another man, but then the murids fired at him
and he fell."
Hajji Murad stopped and his sunburnt face flushed a dark red and his
eyes became bloodshot.
"I was seized with fear and ran away."
"Really? ... I thought thou never wast afraid," said Loris- Melikov.
"Never after that. ... Since then I have always remembered that shame,
and when I recalled it I feared nothing!"
"But enough! It is time for me to pray," said Hajji Murad drawing from
an inner breast-pocket of his Circassian coat Vorontsov's repeater watch
and carefully pressing the spring. The repeater struck twelve and a
quarter. Hajji Murad listened with his head on one side, repressing a
childlike smile.
"Kunak Vorontsov's present," he said, smiling.
"It is a good watch," said Loris-Melikov. "Well then, to thou and pray,
and I will wait."
"Yakshi. Very well," said Hajji Murad and went to his bedroom.
Left by himself, Loris-Melikov wrote down in his notebook the chief
things Hajji Murad had related, and then lighting a cigarette began to
pace up and down the room. On reaching the door opposite the bedroom he
heard animated voices speaking rapidly in Tartar. He guessed that the
speakers were Hajji Murad's murids, and opening the door he went to
them.
The room was impregnated with that special leathery acid smell peculiar
to the mountaineers. On a burka spread out on the floor sat the
one-eyed, red-haired Gamzalo, in a tattered greasy beshmet, plaiting a
bridle. He was saying something excitedly, speaking in a hoarse voice,
but when Loris-Melikov entered he immediately became silent and
continued his work without paying any attention to him.
In front of Gamzalo stood the merry Khan Mahoma showing his white teeth,
his black lashless eyes glittering, and saying something over and over
again. The handsome Eldar, his sleeves turned up on his strong arms, was
polishing the girths of a saddle suspended from a nail. Khanefi, the
principal worker and manager of the household, was not there, he was
cooking their dinner in the kitchen.
"What were you disputing about?" asked Loris-Melikov after greeting
them.
"Why, he keeps on praising Shamil," said Khan Mahoma giving his hand to
Loris-Melikov. "He says Shamil is a great man, learned, holy, and a
dzhigit."
"How is it that he has left him and still praises him?"
"He has left him and still praises him," repeated Khan Mahoma, his teeth
showing and his eyes glittering.
"And does he really consider him a saint?" asked Loris- Melikov.
"If he were not a saint the people would not listen to him," said
Gamzalo rapidly.
"Shamil is no saint, but Mansur was!" replied Khan Mahoma. "He was a
real saint. When he was Imam the people were quite different. He used to
ride through the aouls and the people used to come out and kiss the him
of his coat and confess their sins and vow to do no evil. Then all the
people -- so the old men say -- lived like saints: not drinking, nor
smoking, nor neglecting their prayers, and forgiving one another their
sins even when blood had been spilled. If anyone then found money or
anything, he tied it to a stake and set it up by the roadside. In those
days God gave the people success in everything -- not as now."
"In the mountains they don's smoke or drink now," said Gamzalo.
"Your Shamil is a lamorey," said Khan Mahoma, winking at Loris-Melikov.
(Lamorey was a contemptuous term for a mountaineer.)
"Yes, lamorey means mountaineer," replied Gamzalo. "It is in the
mountains that the eagles dwell."
"Smart fellow! Well hit!" said Khan Mahoma with a grin, pleased at his
adversary's apt retort.
Seeing the silver cigarette-case in Loris Melikov's hand, Khan Mahoma
asked for a cigarette, and when Loris=Melikov remarked that they were
forbidden to smoke, he winded with one eye and jerking his head in the
direction of Hajji Murad's bedroom replied that they could do it as long
as they were not seen. He at once began smoking -- not inhaling -- and
pouting his red lips awkwardly as he blew out the smoke.
"That is wrong!" said Gamzalo severely, and left the room. Khan Mahoma
winked in his direction, and while smoking asked Loris-Melikov where he
could best buy a silk beshmet and a white cap.
"Why, has thou so much money?"
"I have enough," replied Khan Mahoma with a wink.
"Ask him where he got the money," said Eldar, turning his handsome
smiling face towards Loris-Melikov.
"Oh, I won it!" said Khan Mahoma quickly, and related how while walking
in Tiflis the day before he had come upon a group of men -- Russians and
Armenians -- playing at orlyanka (a kind of heads-and-tails). the stake
was a large one: three gold ;pieces and much silver. Khan Mahoma at once
saw what the game consisted in, and jingling the coppers he had in his
pocket he went up to the players and said he would stake the whole
amount.
"How couldst thou do it? Hadst thou so much?" asked Loris- Melikov.
"I had only twelve kopecks," said Khan Mahoma, grinning.
"But if thou hadst lost?"
"Why, this!" said Khan Mahoma pointing to his pistol.
"Wouldst thou have given that?"
"Give it indeed! I should have run away, and if anyone had tried to stop
me I should have killed him -- that's all!"
"Well, and didst thou win?"
"Aye, I won it all and went away!"
Loris-Melikov quite understood what sort of men Khan Mahoma and Eldar
were. Khan Mahoma was a merry fellow, careless and ready for any spree.
He did not know what to do with his superfluous vitality. He was always
gay and reckless, and played with his own and other people's lives. For
the sake of that sport with life he had now come over to the Russians,
and for the same sport he might go back to Shamil tomorrow.
Eldar was also quite easy to understand. He was a man entirely devoted
to his Murshid; calm, strong, and firm.
The red-haired Gamzalo was the only one Loris-Melikov did not
understand. He saw that that man was not only loyal to Shamil but felt
an insuperable aversion, contempt, repugnance, and hatred for all
Russians, and Loris-Melikov could therefore not understand why he had
come over to them. It occurred to him that, as some of the higher
officials suspected, Hajji Murad's surrender and his tales of hatred of
Shamil might be false, and that perhaps he had surrendered only to spy
out the Russians' weak spots that, after escaping back to the mountains,
he might be able to direct his forces accordingly. Gamzalo's whole
person strengthened this suspicion.
"The others, and Hajji Murad himself, know how to hid their intentions,
but this one betrays them by his open hatred," thought he.
Loris-Melikov tried to speak to him. He asked whether he did not feel
dull. "No, I don't!" he growled hoarsely without stopping his work, and
glancing at his questioner out of the corner of his one eye. He replied
to all Loris-Melikov's other questions in a similar manner.
While Loris-Melikov was in the room Hajji Murad's fourth murid came in,
the Avar Khanefi; a man with a hairy face and neck and an arched chest
as rough as if it were overgrown with moss. He was strong and a hard
worker, always engrossed in his duties, and like Eldar unquestioningly
obedient to his master.
When he entered the room to fetch some rice, Loris-Melikov stopped him
and asked where he came from and how long he had been with Hajji Murad.
"Five years," replied Khanefi. "I come from the same aoul as he. My
father killed his uncle and they wished to kill me." he said calmly,
looking from under his joined eyebrows straight into Loris-Melikov's
face. "Then I asked them to adopt me as a brother."
"What do you mean by 'adopt as a brother'?"
"I did not shave my head nor cut my nails for two months, and then I
came to them. They let me in to Patimat, his mother, and she gave me the
breast and I became his brother."
Hajji Murad's voice could be heard from the next room and Eldar,
immediately answering his call, promptly wiped his hands and went with
large strides into the drawing room.
"He asks thee to come," said he, coming back.
Loris-Melikov gave another cigarette to the merry Khan Mahoma and went
into the drawing room.
When Loris-Melikov entered the drawing room Hajji Murad received him
with a bright face.
"Well, shall I continue?" he asked, sitting down comfortably on the
divan.
"Yes, certainly," said Loris-Melikov. "I have been in to have a talk
with thy henchmen. ... One is a jolly fellow!" he added.
"Yes, Khan Mahoma is a frivolous fellow," said Hajji Murad.
"I liked the young handsome one."
"Ah, that's Eldar. He's young but firm -- made of iron!"
They were silent for a while.
"So I am to on?"
"Yes, yes!"
"I told the how the Khans were killed. ... Well, having killed them
Hamzad rode into Khunzakh and took up his quarters in their palace. The
Khansha was the only one of the family left alive. Hamzad sent for her.
She reproached him, so he winked to his murid Aseldar, who struck her
from behind and killed her."
"Why did he kill her?" asked Loris-Melikov.
"What could he do? ... Where the forelegs have gone the hind legs must
follow! He killed off the whole family. Shamil killed the youngest son
-- threw him over a precipice. ...
"Then the whole of Avaria surrendered to Hamzad. But my brother and I
would not surrender. We wanted his blood for the blood of the Khans. We
pretended to yield, but our only thought was how to get his blood. We
consulted our grandfather and decided to await the time when he would
come out of his palace, and then to kill him from an ambush. Someone
overheard us and told Hamzad, who sent for grandfather and said, 'Mind,
if it be true that thy grandsons are planning evil against me, thou and
they shall hang from one rafter. I do God's work and cannot be hindered.
... To, and remember what I have said!'
"Our grandfather came home and told us.
"Then we decided not to wait but to do the deed on the first day of the
feast in the mosque. Our comrades would not take part in it but my
brother and I remained firm.
"We took two pistols each, put on our burkas, and went to the mosque.
Hamzad entered the mosque with thirty murids. They all had drawn swords
in their hands. Aseldar, his favorite murid (the one who had cut off
Khansha's head), saw us, shouted to us to take off our burkas, and came
towards me. I had my dagger in my hand and I killed him with it and
rushed at Hamzad; but my brother Osman had already shot him. He was
still alive and rushed at my brother dagger in hand, but I have him a
finishing blow on the head. There were thirty murids and we were only
two. They killed my brother Osman, but I kept them at bay, leaped
through the window, and escaped.
"When it was known that Hamzad had been killed all the people rose. The
murids fled and those of them who did not flee were killed."
Hajji Murad paused, and breathed heavily.
"That was very good," he continued, "but afterwards everything was
spoiled.
"Shamil succeeded Hamzad. He sent envoys to me to say that I should join
him in attacking the Russians, and that if I refused he would destroy
Kunzakh and kill me.
"I answered that I would not join him and would not let him come to me.
..."
"Why didst thou not go with him?" asked Loris-Melikov.
Hajji Murad frowned and did not reply at once.
"I could not. The blood of my brother Osman and of Abu Nutsal Khan was
on his hands. I did not go to him. General Rosen sent me an officer's
commission and ordered me to govern Avaria. All this would have been
well, but that Rosen appointed as Khan of Kazi-Kumukh, first
Mahomet-Murza, and afterwards Akhmet Khan, who hated me. He had been
trying to get the Khansha's daughter, Sultanetta, in marriage for his
son, but she would not giver her to him, and he believed me to be the
cause of this. ... Yes, Akhmet Khan hated me and sent his henchmen to
kill me, but I escaped from them. Then he spoke ill of me to General
Klugenau. He said that I told the Avars not to supply wood to the
Russian soldiers, and he also said that I had donned a turban -- this
one" (Hajji Murad touched his turban) "and that this meant that I had
gone over to Shamil. The general did not believe him and gave orders
that I should not be touched. But when the general went to Tiflis,
Akhmet Khan did as he pleased. He sent a company of soldiers to seize
me, put me in chains, and tied me to a cannon.
"So they kept me six days," he continued. "On the seventh day they
untied me and started to take me to Temir-Khan-Shura. Forty soldiers
with loaded guns had me in charge. My hands were tied and I knew that
they had orders to kill me if I tried to escape.
"As we approached Mansokha the path became narrow, and on the right was
an abyss about a hundred and twenty yards deep. I went to the right --
to the very edge. A soldier wanted to stop me, but I jumped down and
pulled him with me. He was killed outright but I, as you see, remained
alive.
"Ribs, head, arms, and leg -- all were broken! I tried to crawl but grew
giddy and fell asleep. I awoke wet with blood. A shepherd saw me and
called some people who carried me to an aoul. My ribs and head healed,
and my leg too, only it has remained short," and Hajji Murad stretched
out his crooked leg. "It still serves me, however, and that is well,"
said he.
"The people heard the news and began coming to me. I recovered and went
to Tselmess. The Avars again called on me to rule over them," he went
on, with tranquil, confident pride, "and I agreed."
He rose quickly and taking a portfolio out of a saddlebag, drew out two
discolored letters and handed one of them to Loris- Melikov. They were
from General Klugenau. Loris-Melikov read the first letter, which was as
follows:
"Lieutenant Hajji Murad, thou has served under me and I was satisfied
with thee and considered thee a good man.
"Recently Akhmet Khan informed me that thou are a traitor, that thou has
donned a turban and has intercourse with Shamil, and that thou has
taught the people to disobey the Russian Government. I ordered thee to
be arrested and brought before me but thou fledst. I do not know whether
this is for thy good or not, as I do not know whether thou art guilty or
not.
"Now hear me. If thy conscience is pure, if thou are not guilty in
anything towards the great Czar, come to me, fear no one. I am thy
defender. The Khan can do nothing to thee, he is himself under my
command, so thou has nothing to fear."
Klugenau added that he always kept his word and was just, and he again
exhorted Hajji Murad to appear before him.
When Loris-Melikov had read this letter Hajji Murad, before handing him
the second one, told him what he had written in reply to the first.
"I wrote that I wore a turban not for Shamil's sake but for my soul's
salvation; that I neither wished nor could go over to Shamil, because he
had cause the death of my father, my brothers, and my relations; but
that I could not join the Russians because I had been dishonored by
them. (In Khunzakh, a scoundrel had spat on me while I was bound, and I
could not join your people until that man was killed.) But above all I
feared that liar, Akhmet Khan.
"Then the general sent me this letter," said Hajji Murad, handing
Loris-Melikov the other discolored paper.
"Thou has answered my first letter and I thank thee," read
Loris-Melikov. "Thou writest that thou are not afraid to return but that
the insult done thee by a certain giarou prevents it, but I assure thee
that the Russian law is just and that thou shalt see him who dared to
offend thee punished before thine eyes. I have already given orders to
investigate the matter.
"Hear me, Hajji Murad! I have a right to be displeased with thee for not
trusting me and my honor, but I forgive thee, for I know how suspicious
mountaineers are in general. If thy conscience is pure, if thou hast put
on a turban only for they soul's salvation, then thou art right and
mayst look me and the Russian Government boldly in the eye. He who
dishonored thee shall, I assure thee, be punished and thy property shall
be restored to thee, and thou shalt see and know what Russian law is.
Moreover we Russians look at things differently, and thou hast not sunk
in our eyes because some scoundrel has dishonored thee.
"I myself have consented to the Chimrints wearing turbans, and I regard
their actions in the right light, and therefore I repeat that thou hast
nothing to fear. Come to me with the man by whom I am sending thee this
letter. He is faithful to me and is not the slave of thy enemies, but is
the friend of a man who enjoys the special favor of the Government."
Further on Klugenau again tried to persuade Hajji Murad to come over to
him.
"I did not believe him," said Hajji Murad when Loris-Melikov had
finished reading, "and did not go to Klugenau. The chief thing for me
was to revenge myself on Akhmet Khan, and that I could not do through
the Russians. Then Akhmet Khan surrounded Tselmess and wanted to take me
or kill me. I had too few men and could not drive him off, and just then
came an envoy with a letter from Shamil promising to help me to defeat
and kill Akhmet Khan and making me ruler over the whole of Avaria. I
considered the matter for a long time and then went over to Shamil, and
from that time I have fought the Russians continually."
Here Hajji Murad related all his military exploits, of which there were
very many and some of which were already familiar to Loris-Melikov. all
his campaigns and raids had been remarkable for the extraordinary
rapidity of his movements and the boldness of his attacks, which were
always crowned with success.
"There never was any friendship between me and Shamil," said Hajji Murad
at the end of his story, "but he feared me and needed me. But it so
happened that I was asked who should be Imam after Shamil, and I
replied: 'He will be Imam whose sword is sharpest!'
"This was told to Shamil and he wanted to get rid of me. He sent me into
Tabasaran. I went, and captured a thousand sheep and three hundred
horses, but he said I had not done the right thing and dismissed me from
being Naib, and ordered me to send him all the money. I sent him a
thousand gold pieces. He sent his murids and they took from me all my
property. He demanded that I should go to him, but I knew he wanted to
kill me and I did not go. Then he sent to take me. I resisted and went
over to Vorontsov. Only I did not take my family. My mother, my wives,
and my son are in his hands. Tell the Sirdar that as long as my family
is in Shamil's power I can do nothing."
"I will tell him," said Loris-Melikov.
"Take pains, try hard!. ... What is mine is thine, only help me with the
Prince. I am tied up and the end of the rope is in Shamil's hands," said
Hajji Murad concluding his story.
On the 20th of December Vorontsov wrote to Chernyshov, the Minister of
War. The letter was in French:
"I did not write to you by the last post, dear Prince, as I wished first
to decide what we should do with Hajji Murad, and for the last two or
three days I have not been feeling quite well.
"In my last letter I informed you of Hajji Murad's arrival here. He
reached Tiflis on the 8th, and next day I made his acquaintance, and
during the following seven or eight days have spoken to him and
considered what use we can make of him in the future, and especially
what we are to do with him at present, for he is much concerned about
the fate of his family, and with every appearance of perfect frankness
says that while they are in Shamil's hands he is paralyzed and cannot
render us any service or show his gratitude for the friendly reception
and forgiveness we have extended to him.
"His uncertainty about those dear to him makes him restless, and the
persons I have appointed to live with him assure me that he does not
sleep at night, eats hardly anything, prays continually, and asks only
to be allowed to ride out accompanied by several Cossacks -- the sole
recreation and exercise possible for him and made necessary to him by
life-long habit. Every day he comes to me to know whether I have any
news of his family, and to ask me to have all the prisoners in our hands
collected and offered to Shamil in exchange for them. He would also give
a little money. There are people who would let him have some for the
purpose. He keeps repeating to me: 'Save my family and then give me a
chance to serve thee' (preferably, in his opinion, on the Lesghian
line), 'and if within a month I do not render you great service, punish
me as you think fit.' I reply that to me all this appears very just, and
that many among us would even not trust him so long as his family remain
in the mountains and are not in our hands as hostages, and that I will
do everything possible to collect the prisoners on our frontier, that I
have no power under our laws to give him money for the ransom of his
family in addition to the sum he may himself be able to raise, but that
I may perhaps find some other means of helping him. After that I told
him frankly that in my opinion Shamil would not in any case give up the
family, and that Shamil might tell him so straight out and promise him a
full pardon and his former posts, and might threaten if Hajji Murad did
not return, to kill his mother, his wives, and his six children. I asked
him whether he could say frankly what he would do if he received such an
announcement from Shamil. He lifted his eyes and arms to heaven, and
said that everything is in God's hands, but that he would never
surrender to his foe, for he is certain Shamil would not forgive him and
he would therefore not have long to live. As to the destruction of his
family, he did not think Shamil would act so rashly: firstly, to avoid
making him a yet more desperate and dangerous foe, and secondly, because
there were many people, and even very influential people, in Daghestan,
who would dissuade Shamil from such a course. Finally, he repeated
several times that whatever God might decree for him in the future, he
was at present interested in nothing but his family's ransom, and he
implored me in God's name to help him and allow him to return to the
neighborhood of the Chechnya, where he could, with the help and consent
of our commanders, have some intercourse with his family and regular
news of their condition and of the best means to liberate them. He said
that many people, and even some Naibs in that part of the enemy's
territory, were more or less attached to him and that among the whole of
the population already subjugated by Russia or neutral it would be easy
with our help to establish relations very useful for the attainment of
the aim which gives him no peace day or night, and the attainment of
which would set him at ease and make it possible for him to act for our
good and win our confidence.
"He asks to be sent back to Grozny with a convoy of twenty or thirty
picked Cossacks who would serve him as a protection against foes and us
as a guarantee of his good faith.
"You will understand, dear Prince, that I have been much perplexed by
all this, for do what I will a great responsibility rests on me. It
would be in the highest degree rash to trust him entirely, yet in order
to deprive him of all means of escape we should have to lock him up, and
in my opinion that would be both unjust and impolitic. A measure of that
kind, the news of which would soon spread over the whole of Daghestan,
would do us great harm by keeping back those who are now inclined more
or less openly to oppose Shamil (and there are many such), and who are
keenly watching to see how we treat the Imam's bravest and most
adventurous officer now that he has found himself obliged to place
himself in our hands. If we treat Hajji Murad as a prisoner all the good
effect of the situation will be lost. Therefore I think that I could not
act otherwise than as I have done, though at the same time I feel that I
may be accused of having made a great mistake if Hajji Murad should take
it into his head to escape again. In the service, and especially in a
complicated situation such as this, it is difficult, not to say
impossible, to follow any one straight path without risking mistakes and
without accepting responsibility, but once a path seems to be the right
one I must follow it, happen what may.
"I beg of you, dear Prince, to submit this to his Majesty the Emperor
for his consideration; and I shall be happy if it pleases our most
august monarch to approve my action.
"All that I have written above I have also written to Generals
Zavodovsky and Kozlovsky, to guide the latter when communicating direct
with Hajji Murad whom I have warned not to act or go anywhere without
Kozlovsky's consent. I also told him that it would be all the better of
us if he rode out with our convoy, as otherwise Shamil might spread a
rumor that we were keeping him prisoner, but at the same time I made him
promise never to go to Vozdvizhensk, because my son, to whom he first
surrendered and whom he looks upon as his kunak (friend), is not the
commander of that place and some unpleasant misunderstanding might
easily arise. In any case Vozdvizhensk lies too near a thickly populated
hostile settlement, which for the intercourse with his friends which he
desires, Grozny is in all respects suitable.
"Besides the twenty chosen Cossacks who at his own request are to keep
close to him, I am also sending Captain Loris-Melikov -- a worthy,
excellent, and highly intelligence officer who speaks Tartar, and knows
Hajji Murad well and apparently enjoys his full confidence. During the
ten days that Hajji Murad has spent here, he has, however, lived in the
same house with Lieutenant-Colonel Prince Tarkhanov, who is in command
of the shoushin District and is here on business connected with the
service. He is a truly worthy man whom I trust entirely. He also has won
Hajji Murad's confidence, and through him alone -- as he speaks Tartar
perfectly -- we have discussed the most delicate and secret matters. I
have consulted Tarkhanov about Hajji Murad, and he fully agrees with me
that it was necessary either to act as I have done, or to put Hajji
Murad in prison and guard him in the strictest manner (for if we once
treat him badly he will not be easy to hold), or else to remove him from
the country altogether. But these two last measures would not only
destroy all the advantage accruing to us from Hajji Murad's quarrel with
Shamil, but would inevitably check any growth of the present
insubordination, and possible future revolt, of the people against
Shamil's power. Prince Tarkhanov tells me he himself has no doubt of
Hajji Murad's truthfulness, and that Hajji Murad is convinced that
Shamil will never forgive him but would have him executed in spite of
any promise of forgiveness. The only thing Tarkhanov has noticed in his
intercourse with Hajji Murad that might cause any anxiety, is his
attachment to his religion. Tarkhanov does not deny that Shamil might
influence Hajji Murad from that side. But as I have already said, he
will never persuade Hajji Murad that he will not take his life sooner or
later should the latter return to him.
"This, dear Prince, is all I have to tell you about this episode in our
affairs here."
The report was dispatched from Tiflis on the 24th of December 1851, and
on New Year's Eve a courier, having overdriven a dozen horses and beaten
a dozen drivers till they bled, delivered it to Prince Chernyshov who at
that time was Minister of War; and on the 1st of January 1852 Chernyshov
took Vorontsov's report, among other papers, to the Emperor Nicholas.
Chernyshov disliked Vorontsov because of the general respect in which
the latter was held and because of his immense wealth, and also because
Vorontsov was a real aristocrat while Chernyshov, after all, was a
parvenu, but especially because the Emperor was particularly well
disposed towards Vorontsov. Therefore at every opportunity Chernyshov
tried to injure Vorontsov.
When he had last presented the report about Caucasian affairs he had
succeeded in arousing Nicholas's displeasure against Vorontsov because
-- through the carelessness of those in command -- almost the whole of a
small Caucasian detachment had been destroyed by the mountaineers. He
now intended to present the steps taken by Vorontsov in relation to
Hajji Murad in an unfavorable light. He wished to suggest to the Emperor
that Vorontsov always protected and even indulged the natives to the
detriment of the Russians, and that he had acted unwisely in allowing
Hajji Murad to remain in the Caucasus for there was every reason to
suspect that he had only come over to spy on our means of defense, and
that it would therefore be better to transport him to Central Russia and
make use of him only after his family had been rescued from the
mountaineers and it had become possible to convince ourselves of his
loyalty.
Chernyshov's plan did not succeed merely because on that New Year's Day
Nicholas was in particularly bad spirits, and out of perversity would
not have accepted any suggestion whatever from anyone, least of all from
Chernyshov whom he only tolerated -- regarding him as indispensable for
the time being but looking upon him as a blackguard, for Nicholas knew
of his endeavors at the trial of the Decembrists to secure the
conviction of Zachary Chernyshov, and of his attempt to obtain Zachary's
property for himself. So thanks to Nicholas's ill temper Hajji Murad
remained in the Caucasus, and his circumstances were not changed as they
might have been had Chernyshov presented his report at another time.
It was half-past nine o'clock when through the mist of the cold morning
(the thermometer showed 13 degrees below zero Fahrenheit) Chernyshov's
fat, bearded coachman, sitting on the box of a small sledge (like the
one Nicholas drove about in) with a sharp-angled, cushion-shaped azure
velvet cap on his head, drew up at the entrance of the Winter Palace and
gave a friendly nod to his chum, Prince Dolgoruky's coachman -- who
having brought his master to the palace had himself long been waiting
outside, in his big coat with the thickly wadded skirts, sitting on the
reins and rubbing his numbed hands together. Chernyshov had on a long
cloak with a large cap and a fluffy collar of silver beaver, and a
regulation three-cornered had with cocks' feathers. He threw back the
bearskin apron of the sledge and carefully disengaged his chilled feet,
on which he had no over-shoes (he prided himself on never wearing any).
Clanking his spurs with an air of bravado he ascended the carpeted steps
and passed through the hall door which was respectfully opened for him
by the porter, and entered the hall. Having thrown off his cloak which
an old Court lackey hurried forward to take, he went to a mirror and
carefully removed the hat from his curled wig. Looking at himself in the
mirror, he arranged the hair on his temples and the tuft above his
forehead with an accustomed movement of his old hands, and adjusted his
cross, the shoulder-knots of his uniform, and his large-initialed
epaulets, and then went up the gently ascending carpeted stairs, his not
very reliable old legs feebly mounting the shallow steps. Passing the
Court lackeys in gala livery who stood obsequiously bowing, Chernyshov
entered the waiting-room. He was respectfully met by a newly appointed
aide- de-camp of the Emperor's in a shining new uniform with epaulets
and shoulder-knots, whose face was still fresh and rosy and who had a
small black mustache, and the hair on his temples brushed towards his
eyes in the same way as the Emperor.
Prince Vasili Dolgoruky, Assistant-Minister of War, with an expression
of ennui on his dull face -- which was ornamented with similar whiskers,
mustaches, and temple tufts brushed forward like Nicholas's -- greeted
him.
"L'empereur?" said Chernyshov, addressing the aide-de-camp and looking
inquiringly towards the door leading to the cabinet.
"Sa majeste vient de rentrer," replied the aide-de-camp, evidently
enjoying the sound of his own voice, and stepping so softly and steadily
that had a tumbler of water been placed on his head none of it would
have been spilled, he approached the door and disappeared, his whole
body evincing reverence for the spot he was about to visit.
Dolgoruky meanwhile opened his portfolio to see that it contained the
necessary papers, while Chernyshov, frowning, paced up and down to
restore the circulation in his numbed feet, and thought over what he was
about to report to the Emperor. He was near the door of the cabinet when
it opened again and the aide- de-camp, even more radiant and respectful
than before, came out and with a gesture invited the minister and his
assistant to enter.
The Winter Palace had been rebuilt after a fire some considerable time
before this, but Nicholas was still occupying rooms in the upper story.
The cabinet in which he received the reports of his ministers and other
high officials was a very lofty apartment with four large windows. A big
portrait of the Emperor Alexander I hung on the front side of the room.
Two bureaux stood between the windows, and several chairs were ranged
along the walls. IN the middle of the room was an enormous writing table
and an arm chair before it for Nicholas, and other chairs for those to
whom he gave audience.
Nicholas sat at the table in a black coat with shoulder- straps but no
epaulets, his enormous body -- with his overgrown stomach tightly laced
in -- was thrown back, and he gazed at the newcomers with fixed,
lifeless eyes. His long pale face, with its enormous receding forehead
between the tufts of hair which were brushed forward and skillfully
joined to the wig that covered his bald patch, was specially cold and
stony that day. His eyes, always dim, looked duller than usual, the
compressed lips under his upturned mustaches, the high collar which
supported his chin, and his fat freshly shaven cheeks on which
symmetrical sausage-shaped bits of whiskers had been left, gave his face
a dissatisfied and even irate expression. His bad mood was caused by
fatigue, due to the fact that he had been to a masquerade the night
before, and while walking about as was his wont in his Horse Guards'
uniform with a bird on the helmet, among the public which crowded round
and timidly made way for his enormous, self-assured figure, he had again
met the mask who at the previous masquerade had aroused his senile
sensuality by her whiteness, her beautiful figure, and her tender voice.
At that former masquerade she had disappeared after promising to meet
him at the next one.
At yesterday's masquerade she had come up to him, and this time he had
not let her go, but had led her to the box specially kept ready for that
purpose, where he could be alone with her. Having arrived in silence at
the door of the box Nicholas looked round to find the attendant, but he
was not there. He frowned and pushed the door open himself, letting the
lady enter first.
"Il y a quelq'un!" said the mask, stopping short.
And the box actually was occupied. On the small velvet- covered sofa,
close together, sat an Uhlan officer and a pretty, fair curly-haired
young woman in a domino, who had removed her mask. On catching sight of
the angry figure of Nicholas drawn up to its full height, she quickly
replaced her mask, but the Uhlan officer, rigid with fear, gazed at
Nicholas with fixed eyes without rising from the sofa.
Used as he was to the terror he inspired in others, that terror always
pleased Nicholas, and by way of contrast he sometimes liked to astound
those plunged in terror by addressing kindly words to them. He did so on
this occasion.
"Well, friend!" said he to the officer, "You are younger than I and
might give up your place to me."
The officer jumped to his feet, and growing first pale and then red and
bending almost double, he followed his partner silently out of the box,
leaving Nicholas alone with his lady.
She proved to be a pretty, twenty-year-old virgin, the daughter of a
Swedish governess. She told Nicholas how when quite a child she had
fallen in love with him from his portraits; how she adored him and had
made up her mind to attract his attention at any cost. Now she had
succeeded and wanted nothing more -- so she said.
The girl was taken to the place where Nicholas usually had rendezvous
with women, and there he spent more than an hour with her.
When he returned to his room that night and lay on the hard narrow bed
about which he prided himself, and covered himself with the cloak which
he considered to be (and spoke of as being) as famous as Napoleon's hat,
it was a long time before he could fall asleep. He thought now of the
frightened and elated expression on that girl's fair face, and now of
the full, powerful shoulders of his established mistress, Nelidova, and
he compared the two. That profligacy in a married man was a bad thing
did not once enter his head, and he would have been greatly surprised
had anyone censured him for it. Yet though convinced that he had acted
rightly, some kind of unpleasant after-taste remained, and to stifle
that feeling he dwelt on a thought that always tranquilized him -- the
thought of his own greatness.
Though he had fallen asleep so late, he rose before eight, and after
attending to his toilet in the usual way -- rubbing his big well-fed
body all over with ice -- and saying his prayers (repeating those he had
been used to from childhood -- the prayer to the Virgin, the apostles'
Creed, and the Lord's Prayer, without attaching any kind of meaning to
the words he uttered), he went out through the smaller portico of the
palace onto the embankment in his military cloak and cap.
On the embankment he met a student in the uniform of the School of
Jurisprudence, who was as enormous as himself. On recognizing the
uniform of that school, which he disliked for its freedom of thought,
Nicholas frowned, but the stature of the student and the painstaking
manner in which he drew himself up and saluted, ostentatiously sticking
out his elbow, mollified his displeasure.
"Your name?" said he.
"Polosatov, your Imperial Majesty."
"...fine fellow!"
The student continued to stand with his hand lifted to his hat.
Nicholas stopped.
"Do you wish to enter the army?"
"Not at all, your Imperial Majesty."
"Blockhead!" And Nicholas turned away and continued his walk, and began
uttering aloud the first words that came into his head.
"Kopervine...Kopervine -- " he repeated several times (it was the name
of yesterday's girl). "Horrid ... horrid -- " He did not think of what
he was saying, but stifled his feelings by listening to the words.
"Yes, what would Russia be without me?" said he, feeling his former
dissatisfaction returning. "What would -- not Russia alone but Europe
be, without me?" and calling to mind the weakness and stupidity of his
brother-in-law the King of Prussia, he shook his head.
As he was returning to the small portico, he saw the carriage of Helena
Pavlovna, with a red-liveried footman, approaching the Saltykov entrance
of the palace.
Helena Pavlovna was to him the personification of that futile class of
people who discussed not merely science and poetry, but even the ways of
governing men: imagining that they could govern themselves better than
he, Nicholas, governed them! He knew that however much he crushed such
people they reappeared again and again, and he recalled his brother,
Michael Pavlovich, who had died not long before. A feeling of sadness
and vexation came over him and with a dark frown he again began
whispering the first words that came into his head, which he only ceased
doing when he reentered the palace.
On reaching his apartments he smoothed his whiskers and the hair on his
temples and the wig on his bald patch, and twisted his mustaches upwards
in front of the mirror, and then went straight to the cabinet in which
he received reports.
He first received Chernyshov, who at once saw by his face, and
especially by his eyes, that Nicholas was in a particularly bad humor
that day, and knowing about the adventure of the night before he
understood the cause. Having coldly greeted him and invited him to sit
down, Nicholas fixed on him a lifeless gaze. The first matter Chernyshov
reported upon was a case of embezzlement by commissariat officials which
had just been discovered; the next was the movement of troops on the
Prussian frontier; then came a list of rewards to be given at the New
Year to some people omitted from a former list; then Vorontsov's report
about Hajji Murad; and lastly some unpleasant business concerning an
attempt by a student of the Academy of Medicine on the life of a
professor.
Nicholas heard the report of the embezzlement silently with compressed
lips, his large white hand -- with one ring on the fourth finger --
stroking some sheets of paper, and his eyes steadily fixed on
Chernyshov's forehead and on the tuft of hair above it.
Nicholas was convinced that everybody stole. He knew he would have to
punish the commissariat officials now, and decided to send them all to
serve in the ranks, but he also knew that this would not prevent those
who succeeded them from acting in the same way. It was a characteristic
of officials to steal, but it was his duty to punish them for doing so,
and tired as he was of that duty he conscientiously performed it.
"It seems there is only one honest man in Russia!" said he.
Chernyshov at once understood that this one honest man was Nicholas
himself, and smiled approvingly.
"It looks like it, your Imperial Majesty," said he.
"Leave it -- I will give a decision," said Nicholas, taking the document
and putting it on the left side of the table.
Then Chernyshov reported the rewards to be given and about moving the
army on the Prussian frontier.
Nicholas looked over the list and struck out some names, and then
briefly and firmly gave orders to move two divisions to the Prussian
frontier. He could not forgive the King of Prussia for granting a
Constitution to his people after the events of 1848, and therefore while
expressing most friendly feelings to his brother-in-law in letters and
conversation, he considered it necessary to keep an army near the
frontier in case of need. He might want to use these troops to defend
his brother-in-law's throne if the people of Prussia rebelled (Nicholas
saw a readiness for rebellion everywhere) as he had used troops to
suppress the rising in Hungary a few years previously. they were also of
use to give more weight and influence to such advice as he gave to the
King of Prussia.
"Yes -- what would Russia be like now if it were not for me?" he again
thought.
"Well, what else is there?" said he.
"A courier from the Caucasus," said Chernyshov, and he reported what
Vorontsov had written about Hajji Murad's surrender.
"Well, well!" said Nicholas. "It's a good beginning!"
"Evidently the plan devised by your Majesty begins to bear fruit," said
Chernyshov.
this approval of his strategic talents was particularly pleasant to
Nicholas because, though he prided himself upon them, at the bottom of
his heart he knew that they did not really exist, and he now desired to
hear more detailed praise of himself.
"How do you mean?" he asked.
"I mean that if your Majesty's plans had been adopted before, and we had
moved forward slowly and steadily, cutting down forests and destroying
the supplies of food, the Caucasus would have been subjugated long ago.
I attribute Hajji Murad's surrender entirely to his having come to the
conclusion that they can hold out no longer."
"True," said Nicholas.
Although the plan of a gradual advance into the enemy's territory by
means of felling forests and destroying the food supplies was Ermolov's
and Velyaminov's plan, and was quite contrary to Nicholas's own plan of
seizing Shamil's place of residence and destroying that nest of robbers
-- which was the plan on which the dargo expedition in 1845 (that cost
so many lives) had been undertaken -- Nicholas nevertheless attributed
to himself also the plan of a slow advance and a systematic felling of
forests and devastation of the country. It would seem that to believe
the plan of a slow movement by felling forests and destroying food
supplies to have been his own would have necessitated hiding the fact
that he had insisted on quite contrary operations in 1845. But he did
not hide it and was proud of the plan of the 1845 expedition as well as
of the plan of a slow advance -- though the two were obviously contrary
to one another. Continual brazen flattery from everybody round him in
the teeth of obvious facts had brought him to such a state that he no
longer saw his own inconsistencies or measured his actions and words by
reality, logic, or even simple common sense; but was quite convinced
that all his orders, however senseless, unjust, and mutually
contradictory they might be, became reasonable, just, and mutually
accordant simply because he gave them. His decision in the case next
reported to him -- that of the student of the Academy of Medicine -- was
of the that senseless kind.
The case was as follows: A young man who had twice failed in his
examinations was being examined a third time, and when the examiner
again would not pass him, the young man whose nerves were deranged,
considering this to be an injustice, seized a pen- knife from the table
in a paroxysm of fury, and rushing at the professor inflicted on him
several trifling wounds.
"What's his name?" asked Nicholas.
"Bzhezovski."
"A Pole?"
"Of Polish descent and a roman Catholic," answered Chernyshov.
Nicholas frowned. He had done much evil to the Poles. To justify that
evil he had to feel certain that all Poles were rascals, and he
considered them to be such and hated them in proportion to the evil he
had done them.
"Wait a little," he said, closing his eyes and bowing his head.
Chernyshov, having more than once heard Nicholas say so, knew that when
the Emperor had to take a decision it was only necessary for him to
concentrate his attention for a few moments and the spirit moved him,
and the best possible decision presented itself as though an inner voice
had told him what to do. He was now thinking how most fully to satisfy
the feeling of hatred against the Poles which this incident had stirred
up within him, and the inner voice suggested the following decision. He
took the report and in his large handwriting wrote on its margin with
three orthographical mistakes:
"Diserves deth, but, thank God, we have no capitle punishment, and it is
not for me to introduce it. Make him fun the gantlet of a thousand men
twelve times. -- Nicholas."
He signed, adding his unnaturally huge flourish.
Nicholas knew that twelve thousand strokes with the regulation rods were
not only certain death with torture, but were a superfluous cruelty, for
five thousand strokes were sufficient to kill the strongest man. But it
pleased him to be ruthlessly cruel and it also pleased him to think that
we have abolished capital punishment in Russia.
Having written his decision about the student, he pushed it across to
Chernyshov.
"There," he said, "read it."
Chernyshov read it, and bowed his head as a sign of respectful amazement
at the wisdom of the decision.
"Yes, and let all the students be present on the drill- ground at the
punishment," added Nicholas.
"It will do them good! I will abolish this revolutionary spirit and will
tear it up by the roots!" he thought.
"It shall be done," replied Chernyshov; and after a short pause he
straightened the tuft on his forehead and returned to the Caucasian
report.
"What do you command me to write in reply to Prince Vorontsov's
dispatch?"
"To keep firmly to my system of destroying the dwellings and food
supplies in Chechnya and to harass them by raids." answered Nicholas.
"And what are your Majesty's commands with reference to Hajji Murad?"
asked Chernyshov.
"Well, Vorontsov writes that he wants to make use of him in the
Caucasus."
"Is it not dangerous?" said Chernyshov, avoiding Nicholas's gaze.
"Prince Vorontsov is too confiding, I am afraid."
"And you -- what do you think?" asked Nicholas sharply, detecting
Chernyshov's intention of presenting Vorontsov's decision in an
unfavorable light.
"Well, I should have thought it would be safer to deport him to Central
Russia."
"You would have thought!" said Nicholas ironically. "But I don't think
so, and agree with Vorontsov. Write to him accordingly."
"It shall be done," said Chernyshov, rising and bowing himself out.
Dolgoruky also bowed himself out, having during the whole audience only
uttered a few words (in reply to a question from Nicholas) about the
movement of the army.
After Chernyshov, Nicholas received Bibikov, General- Governor of the
Western Provinces. Having expressed his approval of the measures taken
by Bibikov against the mutinous peasants who did not wish to accept the
orthodox Faith, he ordered him to have all those who did not submit
tried by court-martial. that was equivalent to sentencing them to run
the gantlet. He also ordered the editor of a newspaper to be sent to
serve in the ranks of the army for publishing information about the
transfer of several thousand State peasants to the imperial estates.
"I do this because I consider it necessary," said Nicholas, "and I will
not allow it to be discussed."
Bibikov saw the cruelty of the order concerning the Uniate peasants and
the injustice of transferring State peasants (the only free peasants in
Russia in those days) to the Crown, which meant making them serfs of the
Imperial family. But it was impossible to express dissent. Not to agree
with Nicholas's decisions would have meant the loss of that brilliant
position which it had cost Bibikov forty years to attain and which he
now enjoyed; and he therefore submissively bowed his dark head (already
touched with gray) to indicate his submission and his readiness to
fulfill the cruel, insensate, and dishonest supreme will.
Having dismissed Bibikov, Nicholas stretched himself, with a sense of
duty well fulfilled, glanced at the clock, and went to get ready to go
out. Having put on a uniform with epaulets, orders, and a ribbon, he
went out into the reception hall where more than a hundred persons --
men in uniforms and women in elegant low-necked dresses, all standing in
the places assigned to them -- awaited his arrival with agitation.
He came out to them with a lifeless look in his eyes, his chest
expanded, his stomach bulging out above and below its bandages, and
feeling everybody's gaze tremulously and obsequiously fixed upon him he
assumed an even more triumphant air. When his eyes met those of people
he knew, remembering who was who, he stopped and addressed a few words
to them sometimes in Russian and sometimes in French, and transfixing
them with his cold glassy eye listened to what they said.
Having received all the New year congratulations he passed on to church,
where God, through His servants the priests, greeted and praised
Nicholas just as worldly people did; and weary as he was of these
greetings and praises Nicholas duly accepted them. All this was as it
should be, because the welfare and happiness of the whole world depended
on him, and wearied though he was he would still not refuse the universe
his assistance.
When at the end of the service the magnificently arrayed deacon, his
long hair crimped and carefully combed, began the chant "Many Years,"
which was heartily caught up by the splendid choir, Nicholas looked
round and noticed Nelidova, with her fine shoulders, standing by a
window, and he decided the comparison with yesterday's girl in her
favor.
After Mass he went to the empress and spent a few minutes in the bosom
of his family, joking with the children and his wife. then passing
through the Hermitage, he visited the Minister of the Court, Volkonski,
and among other things ordered him to pay out of a special fund a yearly
pension to the mother of yesterday's girl. From there he went for his
customary drive.
Dinner that day was served in the Pompeian Hall. Besides the younger
sons of Nicholas and Michael there were also invited Baron Lieven, Count
Rzhevski, Dolgoruky, the Prussian Ambassador, and the King of Prussia's
aide-de-camp.
While waiting for the appearance of the Emperor and Empress an
interesting conversation took place between Baron Lieven and the
Prussian Ambassador concerning the disquieting news from Poland.
"La Pologne et le Caucases, ce sont les deux cauteres de la Russie,"
said Lieven. "Il nous faut dent mille hommes a peu pres, dans chcun de
ces deux pays."
The Ambassador expressed a fictitious surprise that it should be so.
"Vous dites, la Pologne -- " began the Ambassador.
"Oh, oui, c'etait un coup de maitre de Metternich de nous en avoir
laisse l'embarras. ... "
At this point the Empress, with her trembling head and fixed smile,
entered followed by Nicholas.
At dinner Nicholas spoke of Hajji Murad's surrender and said that the
war in the Caucasus must now soon come to an end in consequence of the
measures he was taking to limit the scope of the mountaineers by felling
their forests and by his system of erecting a series of small forts.
The Ambassador, having exchanged a rapid glance with the aide-de-camp --
to whom he had only that morning spoken about Nicholas's unfortunate
weakness for considering himself a great strategist -- warmly praised
this plan which once more demonstrated Nicholas's great strategic
ability.
After dinner Nicholas drove to the ballet where hundreds of women
marched round in tights and scanty clothing. One of the specially
attracted him, and he had the German ballet-master sent for and gave
orders that a diamond ring should be presented to her.
The next day when Chernyshov came with his report, Nicholas again
confirmed his order to Vorontsov -- that now that Hajji Murad had
surrendered, the Chechens should be more actively harassed than ever and
the cordon round them tightened.
Chernyshov wrote in that sense to Vorontsov; and another courier,
overdriving more horses and bruising the faces of more drivers, galloped
to Tiflis.
In obedience to this command of Nicholas a raid was immediately made in
Chechnya that same month, January 1852.
The detachment ordered for the raid consisted of four infantry
battalions, two companies of Cossacks, and eight guns. The column
marched along the road; and on both sides of it in a continuous line,
now mounting, now descending, marched Fagers in high boots, sheepskin
coats, and tall caps, with rifles on their shoulders and cartridges in
their belts.
As usual when marching through a hostile country, silence was observed
as far as possible. Only occasionally the guns jingled jolting across a
ditch, or an artillery horse snorted or neighed, not understanding that
silence was ordered, or an angry commander shouted in a hoarse subdued
voice to his subordinates that the line was spreading out too much or
marching too near or too far from the column. Only once was the silence
broken, when from a bramble patch between the line and the column a
gazelle with a white breast and gray back jumped out followed by a buck
of the same color with small backward-curving horns. Doubling up their
forelegs at each big bound they took, the beautiful timid creatures came
so close to the column that some of the soldiers rushed after them
laughing and shouting, intending to bayonet them, but the gazelles
turned back, slipped through the line of Fagers, and pursued by a few
horsemen and the company's dogs, fled like birds to the mountains.
It was still winter, but towards noon, when the column (which had
started early in the morning) had gone three miles, the sun had risen
high enough and was powerful enough to make the men quite hot, and its
rays were so bright that it was painful to look at the shining steel of
the bayonets or at the reflections - - like little suns -- on the brass
of the cannons.
The clear and rapid stream the detachment had just crossed lay behind,
and in front were tilled fields and meadows in shallow valleys. Farther
in front were the dark mysterious forest-clad hills with craigs rising
beyond them, and farther still on the lofty horizon were the
ever-beautiful ever-changing snowy peaks that played with the light like
diamonds.
At the head of the 5th Company, Butler, a tall handsome officer who had
recently exchanged from the Guards, marched along in a black coat and
tall cap, shouldering his sword. He was filled with a buoyant sense of
the joy of living, the danger of death, a wish for action, and the
consciousness of being part of an immense whole directed by a single
will. This was his second time of going into action and he thought how
in a moment they would be fired at, and he would not only not stoop when
the shells flew overhead, or heed the whistle of the bullets, but would
carry his head even more erect than before and would look round at his
comrades and the soldiers with smiling eyes, and begin to talk in a
perfectly calm voice about quite other matters.
The detachment turned off the good road onto a little-used one that
crossed a stubbly maize field, ant they were drawing near the forest
when, with an ominous whistle, a shell flew past amid the baggage wagons
-- they could not see whence -- and tore up the ground in the field by
the roadside.
"It's beginning," said Butler with a bright smile to a comrade who was
walking beside him.
And so it was. After the shell a thick crowd of mounted Chechens
appeared with their banners from under the shelter of the forest. In the
midst of the crowd could be seen a large green banner, and an old and
very far-sighted sergeant-major informed the short-sighted Butler that
Shamil himself must be there. The horsemen came down the hiss and
appeared to the right, at the highest part of the valley nearest the
detachment, and began to descend. A little general in a thick black coat
and tall cap rode up to Butler's company on his ambler, and ordered him
to the right to encounter the descending horsemen. Butler quickly led
his company in the direction indicated, but before he reached the valley
he heard two cannon shots behind him. He looked round: two clouds of
gray smoke had risen above two cannon and were spreading along the
valley. The mountaineers' horsemen -- who had evidently not expected to
meet artillery -- retired. Butler's company began firing at them and the
whole ravine was filled with the smoke of powder. Only higher up above
the ravine could the mountaineers be seen hurriedly retreating, though
still firing back at the Cossacks who pursued them. The company followed
the mountaineers farther, and on the slope of a second ravine came in
view of an aoul.
Following the Cossacks, Butler and his company entered the aoul at a
run, to find it deserted. The soldiers were ordered to burn the corn and
the hay as well as the saklyas, and the whole aoul was soon filled with
pungent smoke amid which the soldiers rushed about dragging out of the
saklyas what they could find, and above all catching and shooting the
fowls the mountaineers had not been able to take away with them.
The officers sat down at some distance beyond the smoke, and lunched and
drank. The sergeant-major brought them some honeycombs on a board. There
was no sigh of any Chechens and early in the afternoon the order was
given to retreat. The companies formed into a column behind the aoul and
Butler happened to be in the rearguard. As soon as they started Chechens
appeared, following and firing at the detachment, but they ceased this
pursuit as soon as they came out into an open space.
Not one of Butler's company had been wounded, and he returned in a most
happy and energetic mood. When after fording the same stream it had
crossed in the morning, the detachment spread over the maize fields and
the meadows, the singers of each company came forward and songs filled
the air.
"Verry diff'rent, very diff'rent, Fagers are, Fagers are!" sang Butler's
singers, and his horse stepped merrily to the music. Trezorka, the
shaggy gray dog belonging to the company, ran in front, with his tail
curled up with an air of responsibility like a commander. Butler felt
buoyant, calm, and joyful. War presented itself to him as consisting
only in his exposing himself to danger and to possible death, thereby
gaining rewards and the respect of his comrades here, as well as of his
friends in Russia. Strange to say, his imagination never pictured the
other aspect of war: the death and wounds of the soldiers, officers, and
mountaineers. To retain his poetic conception he even unconsciously
avoided looking at the dead and wounded. So that day when we had three
dead and twelve wounded, he passed by a corpse lying on its back and did
not stop to look, seeing only with one eye the strange position of the
waxen hand and a dark red spot on the head. The hosslmen appeared to him
only a mounted dzhigits from whom he had to defend himself.
"You see, my dear sir," said his major in an interval between two songs,
"it's not as it is with you in Petersburg -- 'Eyes right! Eyes left!'
Here we have done our job, and now we go home and Masha will set a pie
and some nice cabbage soup before us. That's life -- don't you think so?
-- Now then! As the Dawn Was Breaking!" He called for his favorite song.
There was no wind, the air was fresh and clear and so transparent that
the snow hills nearly a hundred miles away seemed quite near, and in the
intervals between the songs the regular sound of the footsteps and the
jingle of the guns was heard as a background on which each song began
and ended. The song that was being sung in Butler's company was composed
by a cadet in honor of the regiment, and went to a dance tune. The
chorus was: "Verry diff'rent, very diff'rent, Fagers are, Fagers are!"
Butler rode beside the officer next in rank above him, Major Petrov,
with whom he lived, and he felt he could not be thankful enough to have
exchanged from the Guards and come to the Caucasus. His chief reason for
exchanging was that he had lost all he had at cards and was afraid that
if he remained there he would be unable to resist playing though he had
nothing more to lose. Now all that was over, his life was quite changed
and was such a pleasant and brave one! He forgot that he was ruined, and
forgot his unpaid debts. The Caucasus, the war, the soldiers, the
officers -- those tipsy, brave, good-natured fellows -- and Major Petrov
himself, all seemed so delightful that sometimes it appeared too good to
be true that he was not in Petersburg -- in a room filled with tobacco
smoke, turning down the corners of cards and gambling, hating the holder
of the bank and feeling a dull pain in his head -- but was really here
in this glorious region among these brave Caucasians.
The major and the daughter of a surgeon's orderly, formerly known as
Masha, but now generally called by the more respectful name of Marya
Dmitrievna, lived together as man and wife. Marya Dmitrievna was a
handsome, fair-haired, very freckled, childless woman of thirty.
Whatever her past may have been she was now the major's faithful
companion and looked after him like a nurse -- a very necessary matter,
since he often drank himself into oblivion.
When they reached the fort everything happened as the major had
foreseen. Marya Dmitrievna gave him and Butler, and two other officers
of the detachment who had been invited, a nourishing and tasty dinner,
and the major ate and drank till he was unable to speak, and then went
off to his room to sleep.
Butler, having drunk rather more chikhir wine than was good for him,
went to his bedroom, tired but contented, and hardly had time to undress
before he fell into a sound, dreamless, and unbroken sleep with his hand
under his handsome curly head.
The soul which had been destroyed was that in which Hajji Murad had
spent the night before he went over to the Russians. Sado and his family
had left the aoul on the approach of the Russian detachment, and when he
returned he found his saklya in ruins -- the roof fallen in, the door
and the posts supporting the penthouse burned, and the interior filthy.
His son, the handsome bright-eyed boy who had gazed with such ecstasy at
Hajji Murad, was brought dead to the mosque on a horse covered with a
barka; he had been stabbed in the back with a bayonet. the dignified
woman who had served Hajji Murad when he was at the house now stood over
her son's body, her smock torn in front, her withered old breasts
exposed, her hair down, and she dug her hails into her face till it
bled, and wailed incessantly. Sado, taking a pick-ax and spade, had gone
with his relatives to dig a grave for his son. The old grandfather sat
by the wall of the ruined saklya cutting a stick and gazing stolidly in
front of him. He had only just returned from the apiary. The two stacks
of hay there had been burnt, the apricot and cherry trees he had planted
and reared were broken and scorched, and worse still all the beehives
and bees had been burnt. The wailing of the women and the little
children, who cried with their mothers, mingled with the lowing of the
hungry cattle for whom there was no food. The bigger children, instead
of playing, followed their elders with frightened eyes. The fountain was
polluted, evidently on purpose, so that the water could not be used. The
mosque was polluted in the same way, and the Mullah and his assistants
were cleaning it out. No one spoke of hatred of the Russians. The
feeling experienced by all the Chechens, from the youngest to the
oldest, was stronger than hate. It was not hatred, for they did not
regard those Russian dogs as human beings, but it was such repulsion,
disgust, and perplexity at the senseless cruelty of these creatures,
that the desire to exterminate them -- like the desire to exterminate
rats, poisonous spiders, or wolves -- was as natural an instinct as that
of self-preservation.
The inhabitants of the aoul were confronted by the choice of remaining
there and restoring with frightful effort what had been produced with
such labor and had been so lightly and senselessly destroyed, facing
every moment the possibility of a repetition of what had happened; or to
submit to the Russians -- contrary to their religion and despite the
repulsion and contempt they felt for them. The old men prayed, and
unanimously decided to send envoys to Shamil asking him for help. Then
they immediately set to work to restore what had been destroyed.
On the morning after the raid, not very early, Butler left the house by
the back porch meaning to take a stroll and a breath of fresh air before
breakfast, which he usually had with Petrov. The sun had already risen
above the hills and it was painful to look at the brightly lit-up white
walls of the houses on the right side of the street. But then as always
it was cheerful and soothing to look to the left, at the dark receding
and ascending forest-clad hills and at the dim line of snow peaks, which
as usual pretended to be clouds. Butler looked at these mountains,
inhaling deep breaths and rejoicing that he was alive, that it was just
he that was alive, and that he lived in this beautiful place.
He was also rather pleased that he had behaved so well in yesterday's
affair both during the advance and especially during the retreat when
things were pretty hot; he was also pleased to remember how Masha (or
Marya Dmitrievna), Petrov's mistress, had treated them at dinner on
their return after the raid, and how she had been particularly nice and
simple with everybody, but specially kind -- as he thought -- to him.
Marya Dmitrievna with her thick plait of hair, her broad shoulders, her
high bosom, and the radiant smile on her kindly freckled face,
involuntarily attracted Butler, who was a healthy young bachelor. It
sometimes even seemed to him that she wanted him, but he considered that
that would be doing his good-natured simple-hearted comrade a wrong, and
he maintained a simple, respectful attitude towards her and was pleased
with himself for doing so.
He was thinking of this when his meditations were disturbed by the tramp
of many horses' hoofs along the dusty road in front of him, as if
several men were riding that way. He looked up and saw at the end of the
street a group of horsemen coming towards him at a walk. In front of a
score of Cossacks rode two men: one in a white Circassian coat with a
tall turban on his head, the other an officer in the Russian service,
dark, with an aquiline nose, and much silver on his uniform and weapons.
The man with the turban rode a fine chestnut horse with mane and tail of
a lighter shade, a small head, and beautiful eyes. The officer's was a
large, handsome Karabakh horse. Butler, a lover of horses, immediately
recognized the great strength of the first horse and stopped to learn
who these people were.
The officer addressed him. "this the house of commanding officer?" he
asked, his foreign accent and his words betraying his foreign origin.
Butler replied that it was. "And who is that?" he added, coming nearer
to the officer and indicating the man with the turban.
"That Hajji Murad. He come here to stay with the commander," said the
officer.
Butler knew about Hajji Murad and about his having come over to the
Russians, but he had not at all expected to see him here in this little
fort. Hajji Murad gave him a friendly look.
"Good day, Kotkildy," said Butler, repeating the Tartar greeting he had
learned.
"Saubul!" ("Be well!") replied Hajji Murad, nodding. He rode up to
Butler and held out his hand, from two fingers of which hung his whip.
"Are you the chief?" he asked.
"No, the chief is in here. I will go and call him," said Butler
addressing the officer, and he went up the steps and pushed the door.
But the door of the visitors' entrance, as Marya Dmitrievna called it,
was locked, and as it still remained closed after he had knocked, Butler
went round to the back door. He called his orderly but received no
reply, and finding neither of the two orderlies he went into the
kitchen, where Marya Dmitrievna -- flushed with a kerchief tied round
her head and her sleeves rolled up on her plump white arms -- was
rolling pastry, white as her hands, and cutting it into small pieces to
make pies of.
"Where have the orderlies gone to?" asked Butler.
"Gone to drink," replied Marya Dmitrievna. "What do you want?"
"To have the front door opened. You have a whole horde of mountaineers
in front of your house. Hajji Murad has come!"
"Invent something else!" said Marya Dmitrievna, smiling.
"I am not joking, he is really waiting by the porch!"
"Is it really true?" said she.
"Why should I wish to deceive you? Go and see, he's just at the porch!"
"Dear me, here's a go!" said Marya Dmitrievna pulling down her sleeves
and putting up her hand to feel whether the hairpins in her thick plait
were all in order. "Then I will go and wake Ivan Matveich."
"No, I'll go myself. and you Bondarenko, go and open the door," said he
to Petrov's orderly who had just appeared.
"Well, so much the better!" said Marya Dmitrievna and returned to her
work.
When he heard that Hajji Murad had come to his house, Ivan Matveich
Petrov, the major, who had already heard that Hajji Murad was in Grozny,
was not at all surprised. Sitting up in bed he rolled a cigarette, lit
it, and began to dress, loudly clearing his throat and grumbling at the
authorities who had sent "that devil" to him.
When he was ready he told his orderly to bring him some medicine. The
orderly knew that "medicine" meant vodka, and brought some.
"There is nothing so bad as mixing," muttered the major when he had
drunk the vodka and taken a bite of rye bread. "Yesterday I drank a
little chikhir and now I have a headache. ... Well, I'm ready," he
added, and went to the parlor, into which Butler had already shown Hajji
Murad and the officer who accompanied him.
The officer handed the major orders from the commander of the left flank
to the effect that he should receive Hajji Murad and should allow him to
have intercourse with the mountaineers through spies, but was on no
account to allow him to leave the fort without a convoy of Cossacks.
Having read the order the major looked intently at Hajji Murad and again
scrutinized the paper. After passing his eyes several times from one to
the other in this manner, he at last fixed them on Hajji Murad and said:
"Yakshi, Bek; yakshi! ("very well, sir, very well!") Let him stay here,
and tell him I have orders not to let him out -- and what is commanded
is sacred! Well, Butler, where do you think we'd better lodge him? Shall
we put him in the office?"
Butler had not time to answer before Marya Dmitrievna -- who had come
from the kitchen and was standing in the doorway -- said to the major:
"Why? Keep him here! We will give him the guest chamber and the
storeroom. Then at any rate he will be within sight," said she, glancing
at Hajji Murad; but meeting his eyes she turned quickly away.
"do you know, I think marya Dmitrievna is right," said Butler.
"Now then, now then, get away! Women have no business here," said the
major frowning.
During the whole of this discussion Hajji Murad sat with his hand on the
hilt of his dagger and a faint smile of contempt on his lips. He said it
was all the same to him where he lodged, and that he wanted nothing but
what the Sirdar had permitted -- namely, to have communication with the
mountaineers, and that he therefore wished they should be allowed to
come to him.
The major said this should be done, and asked Butler to entertain the
visitors till something could be got for them to eat and their rooms
prepared. Meanwhile he himself would go across to the office to write
what was necessary and to give some orders.
Hajji Murad's relations with his new acquaintances were at once very
clearly defined. From the first he was repelled by and contemptuous of
the major, to whom he always behaved very haughtily. Marya Dmitrievna,
who prepared and served up his food, pleased him particularly. He liked
her simplicity and especially the -- to him -- foreign type of her
beauty, and he was influenced by the attraction she felt towards him and
unconsciously conveyed. He tried not to look at her or speak to her, but
his eyes involuntarily turned towards her and followed her movements.
With butler, from their first acquaintance, he immediately made friends
and talked much and willingly with him, questioning him about his life,
telling him of his own, communicating to him the news the spies brought
him of his family's condition, and even consulting him as to how he
ought to act.
The news he received through the spies was not good. During the first
four days of his stay in the fort they came to see him twice and both
times brought bad news.
Hajji Murad's family had been removed to Vedeno soon after his desertion
to the Russians, and were there kept under guard awaiting Shamil's
decision. The women -- his old mother Patimat and his two wives with
their five little children -- were kept under guard in the saklya of the
officer Ibrahim Raschid, while Hajji Murad's son Yusuf, a youth of
eighteen, was put in prison - - that is, into a pit more than seven feet
deep, together with seven criminals, who like himself were awaiting a
decision as to their fate.
The decision was delayed because Shamil was away on a campaign against
the Russians.
On January 6, 1852, he returned to Vedeno after a battle, in which
according to the Russians he had been vanquished and had fled to Vedeno;
but in which according to him and all the murids he had been victorious
and had repulsed the Russians. In this battle he himself fired his rifle
-- a thing he seldom did -- and drawing his sword would have charged
straight at the Russians had not the murids who accompanied him held him
back. Two of them were killed on the spot at his side.
It was noon when Shamil, surrounded by a party of murids who caracoled
around him firing their rifles and pistols and continually singing Lya
illya il Allah! rode up to his place of residence.
All the inhabitants of the large aoul were in the street or on their
roofs to meet their ruler, and as a sign of triumph they also fired off
rifles and pistols. Shamil rode a white Arab steed which pulled at its
bit as it approached the house. The horse had no gold or silver
ornaments, its equipment was of the simplest -- a delicately worked red
leather bridle with a stripe down the middle, metal cup-shaped stirrups,
and a red saddlecloth showing a little from under the saddle. The Imam
wore a brown cloth cloak liked with black fur showing at the neck and
sleeves, and was tightly girded round his long thin waist with a black
strap which held a dagger. On his head he wore a tall cap with flat
crown and black tassel, and round it was wound a white turban, one end
of which hung down on his neck. He wore green slippers, and black
leggings trimmed with plain braid.
He wore nothing bright -- no gold or silver -- and his tall, erect,
powerful figure, clothed in garments without any ornaments, surrounded
by murids with gold and silver on their clothes and weapons produced on
the people just the impression and influence he desired and knew how to
produce. His pale face framed by a closely trimmed reddish beard, with
his small eyes always screwed up, was as immovable as though hewn out of
stone. As he rode through the aoul he felt the gaze of a thousand eyes
turned eagerly on him, but he himself looked at no one.
Hajji Murad's wives had come out into the penthouse with the rest of the
inmates of the saklya to see the Imam's entry. Only Patimat, Hajji
Murad's old mother, did not go out but remained sitting on the floor of
the saklya with her gray hair down, her long arms encircling her thin
knees, blinking with her fiery black eyes as she watched the dying
embers in the fireplace. Like her son she had always hated Shamil, and
now she hated him more than ever and had no wish to see him. Neither did
Hajji Murad's son see Shamil's triumphal entry. Sitting in the dark and
fetid pit he heard the firing and singing and endured tortures such as
can only be felt by the young who are full of vitality and deprived of
freedom. He only saw his unfortunate, dirty, and exhausted
fellow-prisoners -- embittered and for the most part filled with hatred
of one another. He now passionately envied those who, enjoying fresh air
and light and freedom, caracoled on fiery steeds around their chief,
shooting and heartily singing: Lya illyah il Allah!
When he had crossed the aoul Shamil rode into the large courtyard
adjoining the inner court where his seraglio was. Two armed Lesghians
met him at the open gates of this outer court, which was crowded with
people. Some had come from distant parts about their own affairs, some
had come with petitions, and some had been summoned by Shamil to be
tried and sentenced. As the Imam rode in, they all respectfully saluted
him with their hands on their breasts, some of them kneeling down and
remaining on their knees while he rode across the court from the outer
to the inner gates. Though he recognized among the people who waited in
the court many whom he disliked, and many tedious petitioners who wanted
his attention, Shamil passed them all with the same immovable, stony
expression on his face, and having entered the inner court dismounted at
the penthouse in front of his apartment, to the left of the gate. He was
worn out, mentally rather than physically, by the strain of the
campaign, for in spite of the public declaration that he had been
victorious he knew very well that his campaign had been unsuccessful,
that many Chechen aouls had been burnt down and ruined, and that the
unstable and fickle Chechens were wavering and those nearest the border
line were ready to go over to the Russians.
All this had to be dealt with, and it oppressed him, for at that moment
he did not wish to think at all. He only desired one thing: rest and the
delights of family life, and the caresses of his favorite wife, the
black-eyed quick-footed eighteen-year-old Aminal, who at that very
moment was close at hand behind the fence that divided the inner court
and separated the men's from the women's quarters (Shamil felt sure she
was there with his other wives, looking through a chink in the fence
while he dismounted). but not only was it impossible for him to go to
her, he could not even lie down on his feather cushions and rest from
his fatigue; he had first of all to perform the midday rites for which
he had just then not the least inclination, but which as the religious
leader of the people he could not omit, and which moreover were as
necessary to him himself as his daily food. So he performed his
ablutions and said his prayers and summoned those who were waiting for
him.
The first to enter was Jemal Eddin, his father-in-law and teacher, a
tall gray-haired good-looking old man with a beard white as snow and a
rosy red face. He said a prayer and began questioning Shamil about the
incidents of the campaign and telling him what had happened in the
mountains during his absence.
Among events of many kinds -- murders connected with blood- feuds,
cattle stealing, people accused of disobeying the Tarikat (smoking and
drinking wine) -- Jemal Eddin related how Hajji Murad had sent men to
bring his family over to the Russians, but that this had been detected
and the family had been brought to Vedeno where they were kept under
guard and awaited the Imam's decision. In the next room, the
guest-chamber, the Elders were assembled to discuss all these affairs,
and Jemal Eddin advised Shamil to finish with them and let them go that
same day, as they had already been waiting three days for him.
After eating his dinner -- served to him in his room by Zeidat, a dark,
sharp-nosed, disagreeable-looking woman whom he did not love but who was
his eldest wife -- Shamil passed into the guest chamber.
The six old men who made up his council -- white, gray, or red-bearded,
with tall caps on their heads, some with turbans and some without,
wearing new beshmets and Circassian coats girdled with straps on which
their daggers were suspended -- rose to greet him on his entrance.
Shamil towered a head above them all. On entering the room he, as well
as all the others, lifted his hands, palms upwards, closed his eyes and
recited a prayer, and then stroked his face downward with both hands,
uniting them at the end of his beard. Having done this they all sat
down, Shamil on a larger cushion than the others, and discussed the
various cases before them.
In the case of the criminals the decisions were given according to the
Shariat: two were sentenced to have a hand cut off for stealing, one man
to be beheaded for murder, and three were pardoned. Then they came to
the principal business: how to stop the Chechens from going over to the
Russians. To counteract that tendency Jemal Eddin drew up the following
proclamation:
"I wish you eternal peace with God the Almighty!
"I hear that the Russians flatter you and invite you to surrender to
them. Do not believe what they say, and do not surrender but endure. If
ye be not rewarded for it in this life ye shall receive your reward in
the life to come. Remember what happened before when they took your arms
from you! If God had not brought you to reason then, in 1840, ye would
now be soldiers, and your wives would be dishonored and would no longer
wear trousers.
"Judge of the future by the past. It is better to die in enmity with the
Russians than to live with the Unbelievers. Endure for a little while
and I will come with the Koran and the sword and will lead you against
the enemy. But now I strictly command you not only to entertain no
intention, but not even a thought, of submitting to the Russians!"
Shamil approved this proclamation, signed it, and had it sent out.
After this business they considered Hajji Murad's case. This was of the
utmost importance to Shamil. Although he did not wish to admit it, he
knew that if Hajji Murad with his agility, boldness, and courage, had
been with him, what had now happened in Chechnya would not have
occurred. It would therefore be well to make it up with Hajji Murad and
have the benefit of his services again. But as this was possible it
would never do to allow him to help the Russians, and therefore he must
enticed back and killed. They might accomplish this either by sending a
man to Tiflis who would kill him there, or by inducing him to come back
and then killing him. The only means of doing the latter was by making
use of his family and especially his son, whom Shamil knew he loved
passionately. Therefore they must act through the son.
When the councilors had talked all this over, Shamil closed his eyes and
sat silent.
The councilors knew that this meant that he was listening to the voice
of the Prophet, who spoke to him and told him what to do.
After five minutes of solemn silence Shamil opened his eyes, and
narrowing them more than usual, said:
"Bring Hajji Murad's son to me."
"He is here," replied Jemal Eddin, and in fact Yusuf, Hajji Murad's son,
thin, pale, tattered, and evil-smelling, but still handsome in face and
figure, with black eyes that burnt like his grandmother Patimat's, was
already standing by the gate of the outside court waiting to be called
in.
Yusuf did not share his father's feelings towards Shamil. He did not
know all that had happened in the past, or if he knew it, not having
lived through it he still did not understand why his father was so
obstinately hostile to Shamil. To him who wanted only one thing -- to
continue living the easy life that, as the naib's son, he had led in
Kuhzakh -- it seemed quite unnecessary to be at enmity with Shamil. Out
of defiance and a spirit of contradiction to his father he particularly
admired Shamil, and shared the ecstatic adoration with which he was
regarded in the mountains. With a peculiar feeling of tremulous
veneration for the Imam he now entered the guest chamber. As he stopped
by the door he met the steady gaze of Shamil's half- closed eyes. He
paused for a moment, and then approached Shamil and kissed his large,
long-fingered hand.
"Thou are Hajji Murad's son?"
"I am, Imam."
"Thou knowest what he has done?"
"I know, Imam, and deplore it."
"Canst thou write?"
"I was preparing myself to be a Mullah -- "
"then write to thy father that if he will return to me now, before the
Feast of Bairam, I will forgive him and everything shall be as it was
before; but if not, and if he remains with the Russians" -- and Shamil
frowned sternly -- "I will give thy grandmother, thy mother, and the
rest to the different aouls, and thee I will behead!"
Not a muscle of Yusuf's face stirred, and he bowed his head to show that
he understood Shamil's words.
"Write that and give it to my messenger."
Shamil ceased speaking, and looked at Yusuf for a long time in silence.
"Write that I have had pity on thee and will not kill thee, but will put
out thine eyes as I do to all traitors! ... Go!"
While in Shamil's presence Yusuf appeared calm, but when he had been led
out of the guest chamber he rushed at his attendant, snatched the man's
dagger from its sheath and tried to stab himself, but he was seized by
the arms, bound, and led back to the pit.
That evening at dusk after he had finished his evening prayers, Shamil
put on a white fur-lined cloak and passed out to the other side of the
fence where his wives lived, and went straight to Aminal's room, but he
did not find her there. She was with the older wives. Then Shamil,
trying to remain unseen, hid behind the door and stood waiting for her.
But Aminal was angry with him because he had given some silk stuff to
Zeidat and not to her. She saw him come out and go into her room looking
for her, and she purposely kept away. She stood a long time at the door
of Zeidat's room, laughing softly at Shamil's white figure that kept
going in and out of her room.
Having waited for her in vain, Shamil returned to his own apartments
when it was already time for the midnight prayers.
Hajji Murad had been a week in the major's house at the fort. Although
Marya Dmitrievna quarreled with the shaggy Khanefi (Hajji Murad had only
brought two of his murids, Khanefi and Eldar, with him) and had turned
him out of her kitchen -- for which he nearly killed her -- she
evidently felt a particular respect and sympathy for Hajji Murad. She
now no longer served him his dinner, having handed that duty over to
Eldar, but she seized every opportunity of seeing him and rendering him
service. She always took the liveliest interest in the negotiations
about his family, knew how many wives and children he had, and their
ages, and each time a spy came to see him she inquired as best she could
into the results of the negotiations.
Butler during that week had become quite friendly with Hajji Murad.
Sometimes the latter came to Butler's room, sometimes Butler went to
Hajji Murad's: sometimes they conversed by the help of the interpreter,
and sometimes they got on as best they could with signs and especially
with smiles.
Hajji Murad had evidently taken a fancy to Butler, as could be gathered
from Eldar's relations with the latter. When Butler entered Hajji
Murad's room Eldar met him with a pleased smile showing his glittering
teeth, and hurried to put down a cushion for him to sit on and to
relieve him of his sword if he was wearing one.
Butler also got to know, and became friendly with, the shaggy Khanefi,
Hajji Murad's sworn brother. Khanefi knew many mountain songs and sang
them well, and to please Butler, Hajji Murad often made Khanefi sing,
choosing the songs he considered best. Khanefi had a high tenor voice
and sang with extraordinary clearness and expression. One of the songs
Hajji Murad specially liked impressed Butler by its solemnly mournful
tone and he asked the interpreter to translate it.
The subject of the song was the very blood-feud that had existed between
Khanefi and Hajji Murad. It ran as follows:
The earth will dry on my grave,
Mother, my Mother!
And thou wilt forget me!
And over me rank grass will wave,
Father, my Father!
Nor wilt thou regret me
When tears cease thy dark eyes to lave,
Sister, dear Sister
But thou, my Brother the elder, wilt never forget,
With vengeance denied me!
And thou, my Brother the younger, wilt ever regret,
Till thou liest beside me!
Hotly thou camest, O death-bearing ball that I spurned,
For thou wast my slave!
And thou, black earth, that battle-steed trampled and churned
Wilt cover my grave!
Cold art Thou, O Death, yet I was thy Lord and thy Master!
My body sinks fast to the earth, my soul to Heaven flies
faster.
Hajji Murad always listened to this song with closed eyes and when it
ended on a long gradually dying note he always remarked in Russian --
"Good song! Wise song!"
After Hajji Murad's arrival and his intimacy with him and his murids,
the poetry of the stirring mountain life took a still stronger hold on
Butler. He procured for himself a beshmet and a Circassian coat and
leggings, and imagined himself a mountaineer living the life those
people lived.
On the day of Hajji Murad's departure the major invited several officers
to see him off. They were sitting, some at the table where Marya
Dmitrievna was pouring out tea, some at another table on which stood
vodka, chekhir, and light refreshments, when Hajji Murad dressed for the
journey came limping into the room with soft, rapid footsteps.
They all rose and shook hands with him. the major offered him a seat on
the divan, but Hajji Murad thanked him and sat down on a chair by the
window.
The silence that followed his entrance did not at all abash him. He
looked attentively at all the faces and fixed an indifferent gaze on the
tea-table with the samovar and refreshments. Petrovsky, a lively officer
who now met Hajji Murad for the first time, asked him through the
interpreter whether he liked Tiflis.
"Alya!" he replied.
"He says 'Yes'," translated the interpreter.
"What did he like there?"
Hajji Murad said something in reply.
"He liked the theater best of all."
"And how did he like the ball at the house of the commander- in-chief?"
Hajji Murad frowned. "Every nation has its own customs! Our women do not
dress in such a way," said he, glancing at Marya Dmitrievna.
"Well, didn't he like it?"
"We have a proverb," said Hajji Murad to the interpreter, "'The dog gave
meat to the ass and the ass gave hay to the dog, and both went hungry,'"
and he smiled. "Its own customs seem good to each nation."
the conversation went no farther. Some of the officers took tea, some
other refreshments. Hajji Murad accepted the tumbler of tea offered him
and put it down before him.
"Won't you have cream and a bun?" asked Marya Dmitrievna, offering them
to him.
Hajji Murad bowed his head.
"Well, I suppose it is good-bye!" said Butler, touching his knee. "When
shall we meet again?"
"Good-bye, good-bye!" said Hajji Murad, in Russian, with a smile. "Kunak
bulug. Strong kunak to thee! Time -- ayda -- go!" and he jerked his head
in the direction in which he had to go.
Eldar appeared in the doorway carrying something large and white across
his shoulder and a sword in his hand. Hajji Murad beckoned to him and he
crossed the room with big strides and handed him a white burka and the
sword. Hajji Murad rose, took the burka, threw it over his arm, and
saying something to the interpreter handed it to Marya Dmitrievna.
"He says thou has praised the burka, so accept it," said the
interpreter.
"Oh, why?" said Marya Dmitrievna blushing.
"It is necessary. Like Adam," said Hajji Murad.
"Well, thank you," said Marya Dmitrievna, taking the burka. "God grant
that you rescue your son," she added. "Ulan yakshi. Tell him that I wish
him success in releasing his son."
Hajji Murad glanced at Marya Dmitrievna and nodded his head approvingly.
Then he took the sword from Eldar and handed it to the major. The major
took it and said to the interpreter, "Tell him to take my chestnut
gelding. I have nothing else to give him."
Hajji Murad waved his hand in front of his face to show that he did not
want anything and would not accept it. Then, pointing first to the
mountains and then to his heart, he went out.
All the household followed him as far as the door, while the officers
who remained inside the room drew the sword from its scabbard, examined
its blade, and decided that it was a real Gurda.
Butler accompanied Hajji Murad to the porch, and then came a very
unexpected incident which might have ended fatally for Hajji Murad had
it not been for his quick observation, determination, and agility.
the inhabitants of the Kumukh aoul, Tash-Kichu, which was friendly to
the Russians, respected Hajji Murad greatly and had often come to the
fort merely to look at the famous naib. They had sent messengers to him
three days previously to ask him to visit their mosque on the Friday.
But the Kumukh princes who lived in Tash-Kichu hated Hajji Murad because
there was a blood- feud between them, and on hearing of this invitation
they announced to the people that they would not allow him to enter the
mosque. The people became excited and a fight occurred between them and
the princes' supporters. The Russian authorities pacified the
mountaineers and sent word to Hajji Murad not to go to the mosque.
Hajji Murad did not go and everyone supposed that the matter was
settled.
But at the very moment of his departure, when he came out into the porch
before which the horses stood waiting, Arslan Khan, one of the Kumukh
princes and an acquaintance of Butler and the major, rode up to the
house.
When he saw Hajji Murad he snatched a pistol from his belt and took aim,
but before he could fire, Hajji Murad in spite of his lameness rushed
down from the porch like a cat towards Arslan Khan who missed him.
Seizing Arslan Khan's horse by the bridle with one hand, Hajji Murad
drew his dagger with the other and shouted something to him in Tartar.
Butler and Eldar both ran at once towards the enemies and caught them by
the arms. The major, who had heard the shot, also came out.
"What do you mean by it, Arslan -- starting such a nasty business on my
premises?" said he, when he heard what had happened. "It's not right,
friend! 'To the foe in the field you need not yield!' -- but to start
this kind of slaughter in front of my house -- '
Arslan Khan, a little man with black mustaches, got off his horse pale
and trembling, looked angrily at Hajji Murad, and went into the house
with the major. Hajji Murad, breathing heavily and smiling, returned to
the horses.
"Why did he want to kill him?" Butler asked the interpreter.
"He says it is a law of theirs," the interpreter translated Hajji
Murad's reply. "Arslan must avenge a relation's blood and so he tried to
kill him."
"and supposing he overtakes him on the road?" asked Butler.
Hajji Murad smiled.
"Well, if he kills me it will prove that such is Allah's will. ...
Good-bye," he said again in Russian, taking his horse by the withers.
Glancing round at everybody who had come out to see him off, his eyes
rested kindly on Marya Dmitrievna.
"Good-bye, my lass," said he to her. "I thank you."
"God help you -- Gold help you to rescue your family!" repeated Marya
Dmitrievna.
He did not understand her words, but felt her sympathy for him and
nodded to her.
"Mind, don't forget your kunak," said Butler.
"Tell him I am his true friend and will never forget him," answered
Hajji Murad to the interpreter, and in spite of his short leg he swung
himself lightly and quickly into the high saddle, barely touching the
stirrup, and automatically feeling for his dagger and adjusting his
sword. Then, with that peculiarly proud look with which only a Caucasian
hill-man sits his horse -- as though he were one with it -- he rode away
from the major's house. Khanefi and Eldar also mounted and having taken
a friendly leave of their hosts and of the officers, rode off at a trot,
following their murshid.
As usual after a departure, those who remained behind began to discuss
those who had left.
"Plucky fellow! He rushed at Arslan Khan like a wolf! His face quite
changed!"
"But he'll be up to tricks -- he's a terrible rogue, I should say,"
remarked Petrovsky.
"It's a pity there aren't more Russian rogues of such a kind!" suddenly
put in Marya Dmitrievna with vexation. "He has lived a week with us and
we have seen nothing but good from him. He is courteous, wise, and
just," she added.
"How did you find that out?"
"No matter, I did find it out!"
"She's quite smitten, and that's a fact!" said the major, who had just
entered the room.
"Well, and if I am smitten? What's that to you? Why run him down if he's
a good man? Though he's a Tartar he's still a good man!"
"Quite true, Marya Dmitrievna," said Butler, "and you're quite right to
take his part!"
Life in our advanced forts in the Chechen lines went on as usual. Since
the events last narrated there had been two alarms when the companies
were called out and militiamen galloped about; but both times the
mountaineers who had caused the excitement got away, and once at
Vozdvizhensk they killed a Cossack and succeeded in carrying off eight
Cossack horses that were being watered. there had been no further raids
since the one in which the aoul was destroyed, but an expedition on a
large scale was expected in consequence of the appointment of a new
commander of the left flank, Prince Baryatinsky. He was an old friend of
the Viceroy's and had been in command of the Kabarda Regiment. On his
arrival at Grozny as commander of the whole left flank he at once
mustered a detachment to continue to carry out the Czar's commands as
communicated by Chernyshov to Vorontsov. The detachment mustered at
Vozdvizhensk left the fort and took up a position towards Kurin, where
the troops were encamped and were felling the forest. Young Vorontsov
lived in a splendid cloth tent, and his wife, Marya Vasilevna, often
came to the camp and stayed the night. Baryatinsky's relations with
Marya Vasilevna were no secret to anyone, and the officers who were not
in the aristocratic set and the soldiers abused her in coarse terms --
for her presence in camp caused them to be told off to lie in ambush at
night. The mountaineers were in the habit of bringing guns with range
and firing shells at the camp. The shells generally missed their aim and
therefore at ordinary times no special measures were taken to prevent
such firing, but now men were placed in ambush to hinder the
mountaineers from injuring or frightening Marya Vasilevna with their
cannon. To have to be always lying in ambush at night to save a lady
from being frightened, offended and annoyed them, and therefore the
soldiers, as well as the officers not admitted to the higher society,
called Marya Vasilevna bad names.
Having obtained leave of absence from his fort, Butler came to the camp
to visit some old mess-mates from the cadet corps and fellow officers of
the Kurin regiment who were serving as adjutants and orderly officers.
When he first arrived he had a very good time. He put up in
Poltoratsky's tent and there met many acquaintances who gave him a
hearty welcome. He also called on Vorontsov, whom he knew slightly,
having once served in the same regiment with him. Vorontsov received him
very kindly, introduced him to Prince Baryatinsky, and invited him to
the farewell dinner he was giving in honor of General Kozlovsky, who
until Baryatinsky's arrival had been in command of the left flank.
The dinner was magnificent. Special tents were erected in a line, and
along the whole length of them a table was spread as for a dinner-party,
with dinner services and bottles. Everything recalled life in the Guards
in Petersburg. Dinner was served at two o-clock. Kozlovsky sat in the
middle on one side. Baryatinsky on the other. At Kozlovsky's right and
left hand sat the Vorontsovs, husband and wife. All along the table on
both sides sat the officers of the Kabarda and Kurin regiments. Butler
sat next to Poltoratsky and they both chatted merrily and drank with the
officers around them. When the roast was served and the orderlies had
gone round and filled the champagne glasses, Poltoratsky said to Butler,
with real anxiety:
"Our Kozlovsky will disgrace himself!"
"Why?"
"Why, he'll have to make a speech, and what good is he at that? ...
.It's not as easy as capturing entrenchments under fire! And with a lady
beside him too, and these aristocrats!"
"Really it's painful to look at him," said the officers to one another.
And now the solemn moment had arrived. Baryatinsky rose and lifting his
glass, addressed a short speech to Kozlovsky. When he had finished,
Kozlovsky -- who always had a trick of using the word "how"
superfluously -- rose and stammeringly began:
"In compliance with the august will of his Majesty I am leaving you --
parting from you, gentlemen," said he. "But consider me as always
remaining among you. The truth of the proverb, how 'One man in the field
is no warrior', is well known to you, gentlemen. ... Therefore, how
every reward I have received...how all the benefits showered on me by
the great generosity of our sovereign the Emperor...how all my position
-- how my good name...how everything decidedly ... how ... " (here his
voice trembled) "... how I am indebted to you for it, to you alone, my
friends!" The wrinkled face puckered up still more, he gave a sob and
tears came into his eyes. "How from my heart I offer you my sincerest,
heartfelt gratitude!"
Kozlovsky could not go on but turned round and began to embrace the
officers. The princess hid her face in her handkerchief. The prince
blinked, with his mouth drawn awry. Many of the officers' eyes grew
moist and Butler, who had hardly known Kozlovsky, could also not
restrain his tears. He liked all this very much.
Then followed other toasts. Healths were drunk to Baryatinsky,
Vorontsov, the officers, and the soldiers, and the visitors left the
table intoxicated with wine and with the military elation to which they
were always so prone. The weather was wonderful, sunny and calm, and the
air fresh and bracing. Bonfires crackled and songs resounded on all
sides. It might have been thought that everybody was celebrating some
joyful event. Butler went to Poltoratsky's in the happiest, most
emotional mood. Several officers had gathered there and a card table was
set. An adjutant started a bank with a hundred rubles. Two or three
times Butler left the tent with his hand gripping the purse in his
trousers-pocket, but at last he could resist the temptation no longer,
and despite the promise he had given to his brother and to himself not
to play, he began to do so. Before an hour was past, very red,
perspiring, and soiled with chalk, he was sitting with both elbows on
the table and writing on it -- under cards bent for "corners" and
"transports -- the figures of his stakes. He had already lost so much
that he was afraid to count up what was scored against him. But he knew
without counting that all the pay he could draw in advance, added to the
value of his horse, would not suffice to pay what the adjutant, a
stranger to him, had written down against him. He would still have gone
on playing, but the adjutant sternly laid down the cards he held in his
large clean hands and added up the chalked figures of the score of
Butler's losses. Butler, in confusion began to make excuses for being
unable to pay the whole of his debt at once, and said he would send it
from home. When he said this he noticed that everybody pitied him and
that they all -- even Poltoratsky -- avoided meeting his eye. That was
his last evening there. He reflected that he need only have refrained
from playing and gone to the Vorontsovs who had invited him, and all
would have been well, but now it was not only not well -- it was
terrible.
Having taken leave of his comrades and acquaintances he rode home and
went to bed, and slept for eighteen hours as people usually sleep after
losing heavily. From the fact that he asked her to lend him fifty
kopecks to tip the Cossack who had escorted him, and from his sorrowful
looks and short answers, Marya Dmitrievna guessed that he had lost at
cards and she reproached the major for having given him leave of
absence.
When he woke up at noon next day and remembered the situation he was in
he longed again to plunge into the oblivion from which he had just
emerged, but it was impossible. Steps had to be taken to repay the four
hundred and seventy rubles he owed to the stranger. The first step he
took was to write to his brother, confessing his sin and imploring him
for the last time, to lend him five hundred rubles on the security of
the mill they still owned in common. Then he wrote to a stingy relative
asking her to lend him five hundred rubles at whatever rate of interest
she liked. Finally he went to the major, knowing that he -- or rather
Marya Dmitrievna -- had some money, and asked him to lend him five
hundred rubles.
"I'd let you have them at once," said the major, "but Masha won't! These
women are so close-fisted -- who the devil can understand them? ... And
yet you must get out of it somehow, devil take him! ... Hasn't that
brute the canteen-keeper got something?"
But it was no use trying to borrow from the canteen-keeper, so Butler's
salvation could only come from his brother or his stingy relative.
Not having attained his aim in Chechnya, Hajji Murad returned to Tiflis
and went every day to Vorontsov's, and whenever he could obtain audience
he implored the Viceroy to gather together the mountaineer prisoners and
exchange them for his family. He said that unless that were done his
hands were tied and he could not serve the Russians and destroy Shamil
as he desired to do. Vorontsov vaguely promised to do what he could, but
put it off, saying that he would decide when General Argutinski reached
Tiflis and he could talk the matter over with him.
Then Hajji Murad asked Vorontsov to allow him to go to live for a while
in Nukha, a small town in Transcaucasia where he thought he could better
carry on negotiations about his family with Shamil and with the people
who were attached to himself. Moreover Nukha, being a Mohammedan town,
had a mosque where he could more conveniently perform the rites of
prayer demanded by the Mohammedan law. Vorontsov wrote to Petersburg
about it but meanwhile gave Hajji Murad permission to go to Nukha.
For Vorontsov and the authorities in Petersburg, as well as for most
Russians acquainted with Hajji Murad's history, the whole episode
presented itself as a lucky turn in the Caucasian war, or simply as an
interesting event. For Hajji Murad it was a terrible crisis in his life
-- especially laterally. He had escaped from the mountains partly to
save himself and partly out of hatred of Shamil, and difficult as this
flight had been he had attained his object, and for a time was glad of
his success and really devised a plan to attack Shamil, but the rescue
of his family -- which he had thought would be easy to arrange -- had
proved more difficult than he expected.
Shamil had seized the family and kept them prisoners, threatening to
hand the women over to the different aouls and to blind or kill the son.
Now Hajji Murad had gone to Nukha intending to try by the aid of his
adherents in Daghestan to rescue his family from Shamil by force or by
cunning. The last spy who had come to see him in Nukha informed him that
the Avars, who were devoted to him, were preparing to capture his family
and themselves bring them over to the Russians, but that there were not
enough of them and they could not risk making the attempt in Vedeno,
where the family was at present imprisoned, but could do so only if the
family were moved from Vedeno to some other place -- in which case they
promised to rescue them on the way.
Hajji Murad sent word to his friends that he would give three thousand
rubles for the liberation of his family.
At Nukha a small house of five rooms was assigned to Hajji Murad near
the mosque and the Khan's palace. The officers in charge of him, his
interpreter, and his henchmen, stayed in the same house. Hajji Murad's
life was spent in the expectation and reception of messengers from the
mountains and in rides he was allowed to take in the neighborhood.
On 24th April, returning from one of these rides, Hajji Murad learned
that during his absence an official sent by Vorontsov had arrived from
Tiflis. In spite of his longing to know what message the official had
brought him he went to his bedroom and repeated his noonday prayer
before going into the room where the officer in charge and the official
were waiting. This room served him both as drawing room and reception
room. The official who had come from Tiflis, Councilor Kirillov,
informed Hajji Murad of Vorontsov's wish that he should come to Tiflis
on the 12th to meet General Argutinski.
"Yakshi!" said Hajji Murad angrily. The councilor did not please him.
"Have you brought money?"
"I have," answered Kirillov.
"For two weeks now," said Hajji Murad, holding up first both hands and
then four fingers. "Give here!"
"We'll give it you at once," said the official, getting his purse out of
his traveling bag. "What does he want with the money?" he sent on in
Russian, thinking that Hajji Murad would not understand. But Hajji Murad
had understood, and glanced angrily at him. While getting out the money
the councilor, wishing to begin a conversation with Hajji Murad in order
to have something to tell Prince Vorontsov on his return, asked through
the interpreter whether he was not feeling dull there. Hajji Murad
glanced contemptuously out of the corner of his eye at the fat, unarmed
little man dressed as a civilian, and did not reply. The interpreter
repeated the question.
"Tell him that I cannot talk with him! Let him give me the money!" and
having said this, Hajji Murad sat down at the table ready to count it.
Hajji Murad had an allowance of five gold pieced a day, and when
Kirillov had got out the money and arranged it in seven piles of ten
gold pieces each and pushed them towards Hajji Murad, the latter poured
the gold into the sleeve of his Circassian coat, rose, quite
unexpectedly smacked Councilor Kirillov on his bald pate, and turned to
go.
The councilor jumped up and ordered the interpreter to tell Hajji Murad
that he must not dare to behave like that to him who held a rank equal
to that of colonel! The officer in charge confirmed this, but Hajji
Murad only nodded to signify that he knew, and left the room.
"What is one to do with him?" said the officer in charge. "He'll stick
his dagger into you, that's all! One cannot talk with those devils! I
see that he is getting exasperated."
As soon as it began to grow dusk two spies with hoods covering their
faces up to their eyes, came to him from the hills. The officer in
charge led them to Hajji Murad's room. One of them was a fleshy, swarthy
Tavlinian, the other a thin old man. The news they brought was not
cheering. Hajji Murad's friends who had undertaken to rescue his family
now definitely refused to do so, being afraid of Shamil, who threatened
to punish with most terrible tortures anyone who helped Hajji Murad.
Having heard the messengers he sat with his elbows on his crossed legs,
and bowing his turbaned head remained silent a long time.
He was thinking and thinking resolutely. He knew that he was now
considering the matter for the last time and that it was necessary to
come to a decision. At last he raised his head, gave each of the
messengers a gold piece, and said: "Go!"
"What answer will there be?"
"The answer will be as God pleases. ... Go!"
The messengers rose and went away, and Hajji Murad continued to sit on
the carpet leaning his elbows on his knees. He sat thus a long time and
pondered.
"What am I to do? To take Shamil at his word and return to him?" he
thought. "He is a fox and will deceive me. Even if he did not deceive me
it would still be impossible to submit to that red liar. It is
impossible ... because now that I have been with the Russians he will
not trust me," thought Hajji Murad; and he remembered a Tavlinian fable
about a falcon who had been caught and lived among men and afterwards
returned to his own kind in the hills. He returned, wearing jesses with
bells, and the other falcons would not receive him. "Fly back to where
they hung those silver bells on thee!" said they. "We have no bells and
no jesses." The falcon did not want to leave his home and remained, but
the other falcons did not wish to let him stay there and pecked him to
death.
"And they would peck me to death in the same way," thought Hajji Murad.
"Shall I remain here and conquer Caucasia for the Russian Czar and earn
renown, titles, riches?"
"That could be done," thought he, recalling his interviews with
Vorontsov and the flattering things the prince had said; "but I must
decide at once, or Shamil will destroy my family."
That night he remained awake thinking.
By midnight his decision had been formed. He had decided that he must
fly to the mountains, and break into Vedeno with the Avars still devoted
to him, and either die or rescue his family. Whether after rescuing them
he would return to the Russians or escape to Khunzakh and fight Shamil,
he had not made up his mind. All he knew was that first of all he must
escape from the Russians into the mountains, and he at once began to
carry out his plan.
He drew his black wadded beshmet from under his pillow and went into his
henchmen's room. They lived on the other side of the hall. As soon as he
entered the hall, the outer door of which stood open, he was at once
enveloped by the dewy freshness of the moonlit night and his ears were
filled by the whistling and trilling of several nightingales in the
garden by the house.
Having crossed the hall he opened the door of his henchmen's room. There
was no light there, but the moon in its first quarter shone in at the
window. A table and two chairs were standing on one side of the room,
and four of his henchmen were lying on carpets or on burkas on the
floor. Khanefi slept outside with the horses. Gamzalo heard the door
creak, rose, turned round, and saw him. On recognizing him he lay down
again, but Eldar, who lay beside him, jumped up and began putting on his
beshmet, expecting his master's orders. Khan Mahoma and Bata slept on.
Hajji Murad put down the beshmet he had brought on the table, which it
hit with a dull sound, caused by the bold sewn up in it.
"Sew these in too," said Hajji Murad, handing Eldar the gold pieces he
had received that day. Eldar took them and at once went into the
moonlight, drew a small knife from under his dagger and started
unstitching the lining of the beshmet. Gamzalo raised himself and sat up
with his legs crossed.
"And you, Gamzalo, tell the men to examine the rifles and pistols and
get the ammunition ready. Tomorrow we shall go far," said Hajji Murad.
"We have bullets and powder, everything shall be ready," replied
Gamzalo, and roared out something incomprehensible. He understood why
Hajji Murad had ordered the rifles to be loaded. From the first he had
desired only one thing -- to slay and stab as many Russians as possible
and to escape to the hills -- and this desire had increased day by day.
Now at last he saw that Hajji Murad also wanted this and he was
satisfied.
When Hajji Murad went away Gamzalo roused his comrades, and all four
spent the rest of the night examining their rifles, pistols, flints, and
accouterments; replacing what was damaged, sprinkling fresh powder onto
the pans, and stoppering with bullets wrapped in oiled rags, packets
filled with the right amount of powder for each charge, sharpening their
swords and daggers and greasing the blades with tallow.
Before daybreak Hajji Murad again came out into the hall to get water
for his ablutions. The songs of the nightingales that had burst into
ecstasy at dawn were now even louder and more incessant, while from his
henchmen's room, where the daggers were being sharpened, came the
regular screech and rasp of iron against stone.
Hajji Murad got himself some water from a tub, and was already at his
own door when above the sound of the grinding he heard from his murids'
room the high tones of Khanefi's voice singing a familiar song. He
stopped to listen. The song told of how a dzhigit, Hamzad, with his
brave followers captured a herd of white horses from the Russians, and
how a Russian prince followed him beyond the Terek and surrounded him
with an army as large as a forest; and then the song went on to tell how
Hamzad killed the horses, entrenched his men behind this gory bulwark,
and fought the Russians as long as they had bullets in their rifles,
daggers in their belts, and blood in their veins. But before he died
Hamzad saw some birds flying in the sky and cried to them:
Fly on, ye winged ones, fly to our homes!
Tell ye our mothers, tell ye our sisters,
Tell the white maidens, that fighting we died
For Ghazavat! Tell them our bodies
Never will lie and rest in a tomb!
Wolves will devour and tear them to pieces,
Ravens and vultures will pluck out our eyes.
With that the song ended, and at the last words, sung to a mournful air,
the merry Bata's vigorous voice joined in with a loud shout of
"Lya-il-lyakha-il Allakh!" finishing with shrill shriek. Then all was
quiet again, except for the tchuk, tchuk, tchuk, tchuk and whistling of
the nightingales from the garden and from behind the door the even
grinding, and now and then the whiz, of iron sliding quickly along the
whetstone.
Hajji Murad was so full of thought that he did not notice how he tilted
his jug till the water began to pour out. He shook his head at himself
and reentered his room. After performing his morning ablutions he
examined his weapons and sat down on his bed. There was nothing more for
him to do. To be allowed to ride out he would have to get permission
from the officer in charge, but it was not yet daylight and the officer
was still asleep.
Khanefi's song reminded him of the song his mother had composed just
after he was born -- the song addressed to his father that Hajji Murad
had repeated to Loris-Melikov.
And he seemed to see his mother before him -- not wrinkled and
gray-haired, with gaps between her teeth, as he had lately left her, but
young and handsome, and strong enough to carry him in a basket on her
back across the mountains to her father's when he was a heavy
five-year-old boy.
And the recollection of himself as a little child reminded him of his
beloved son, Yusuf, whose head he himself had shaved for the first time;
and now this Yusuf was a handsome young dzhigit. He pictured him as he
was when last he saw him on the day he left Tselmess. Yusuf had brought
him his horse and asked to be allowed to accompany him. He was ready
dressed and armed, and led his own horse by the bridle, and his rosy
handsome young face and the whole of his tall slender figure (he was
taller than his father) breathed of daring, youth, and the joy of life.
The breadth of his shoulders, though he was so young, the very side
youthful hips, the long slender waist, the strength of his long arms,
and the power, flexibility, and agility of all his movements had always
rejoiced Hajji Murad, who admired his son.
"Thou hadst better stay. Thou wilt e alone at home now. Take care of thy
mother and thy grandmother," said Hajji Murad. And he remembered the
spirited and proud look and the flush of pleasure with which Yusuf had
replied that as long as he lived no one should injure his mother or
grandmother. All the same, Yusuf had mounted and accompanied his father
as far as the stream. There he turned back, and since then Hajji Murad
had not seen his wife, his mother, or his son. And it was this son whose
eyes Shamil threatened to put out! Of what would be done to his wife
Hajji Murad did not wish to think.
These thoughts so excited him that he could not sit still any longer. He
jumped up and went limping quickly to the door, opened it, and called
Eldar. The sun had not yet risen, but it was already quite light. The
nightingales were still singing.
"Go and tell the officer that I want to go out riding, and saddle the
horses," said he.
Butler's only consolation all this time was the poetry of warfare, to
which he gave himself up not only during his hours of service but also
in private life. Dressed in his Circassian costume, he rode and
swaggered about, and twice went into ambush with Bogdanovich, though
neither time did they discover or kill anyone. This closeness to and
friendship with Bogdanovich, famed for his courage, seemed pleasant and
warlike to Butler. He had paid his debt, having borrowed the money of a
Jew at an enormous rate of interest -- that is to say, he had postponed
his difficulties but had not solved them. He tried not to think of his
position, and to find oblivion not only in the poetry of warfare but
also in wine. He drank more and more every day, and day by day grew
morally weaker. He was now no longer the chaste Joseph he had been
towards marya Dmitrievna, but on the contrary began courting her
grossly, meeting to his surprise with a strong and decided repulse which
put him to shame.
At the end of April there arrived at the fort a detachment with which
Baryatinsky intended to effect an advance right through Chechnya, which
had till then been considered impassable. In that detachment were two
companies of the Kabarda regiment, and according to Caucasian custom
these were treated as guests by the Kurin companies. The soldiers were
lodged in the barracks, and were treated not only to supper, consisting
of buckwheat porridge and beef, but also to vodka. The officers shared
the quarters of the Kurin officers, and as usual those in residence gave
the new-comers a dinner at which the regimental singers performed and
which ended up with a drinking bout. Major Petrov, very drunk and no
longer red but ash pale, sat astride a chair and, drawing his sword,
hacked at imaginary foes, alternately swearing and laughing, now
embracing someone and now dancing to the tune of his favorite song.
Shamil, he began to riot
In the days gone by;
Try, ry, rataty,
In the years gone by!
Butler was there too. He tried to see the poetry of warfare in this
also, but in the depth of his soul he was sorry for the major. To stop
him, however, was quite impossible; and Butler, feeling that the fumes
were mounting to his own head, quietly left the room and went home.
The moon lit up the white houses and the stones on the road. It was so
light that every pebble, every straw, every little heap of dust was
visible. As he approached the house he met Marya Dmitrievna with a shawl
over her head and neck. After the rebuff she had given him Butler had
avoided her, feeling rather ashamed, but now in the moonlight and after
the wine he had drunk he was pleased to meet her and wished to make up
to her again.
"Where are you off to?" he asked.
"Why, to see after my old man," she answered pleasantly. Her rejection
of Butler's advances was quite sincere and decided, but she did not like
his avoiding her as he had done lately.
"Why bother about him? He'll soon come back."
"But will he?"
"If he doesn't they'll bring him."
"Just so. ... That's not right, you know! ... But you think I'd better
not go?"
"Yes, I do. We'd better go home."
Marya Dmitrievna turned back and walked beside him. The moon shone so
brightly that a halo seemed to move along the road round the shadows of
their heads. Butler was looking at this halo and making up his mind to
tell her that he liked her as much as ever, but he did not know how to
begin. She waited for him to speak, and they walked on in silence almost
to the house, when some horsemen appeared from round the corner. These
were an officer with an escort.
"Who's that coming now?" said marya Dmitrievna, stepping aside. The moon
was behind the rider so that she did not recognize him until he had
almost come up to them. It was Peter Nikolaevich Kamenev, an officer who
had formerly served with the major and whom Marya Dmitrievna therefore
knew.
"Is it you, Peter Nikolaevich?" said she, addressing him.
"It's me," said Kamenev. "ah, Butler, how d'you do? ... Not asleep yet?
Having a walk with Marya Dmitrievna! You'd better look out or the major
will give it you. ... Where is he?"
"why, there. ... Listen!" replied Marya Dmitrievna pointing in the
direction whence came the sounds of a tulumbas and songs. "They're on
the spree."
"Why? Are your people having a spree on their own?"
"No; some officers have come from Hasav-Yurt, and they are being
entertained."
"Ah, that's good! I shall be in time. ... I just want the major for a
moment."
"On business?" asked Butler.
"Yes, just a little business matter."
"Good or bad?"
"It all depends. ... Good for us but bad for some people," and Kamenev
laughed.
By this time they had reached the major's house.
"Chikhirev," shouted Kamenev to one of his Cossacks, "come here!"
A Don Cossack rode up from among the others. He was dressed in the
ordinary Don Cossack uniform with high boots and a mantle, and carried
saddle-bags behind.
"Well, take the thing out," said Kamenev, dismounting.
The Cossack also dismounted, and took a sack out of his saddle bag.
Kamenev took the sack from him and inserted his hand.
"Well, shall I show you a novelty? You won't be frightened, Marya
Dmitrievna?"
"Why should I be frightened?" she replied.
"Here it is!" said Kamenev taking out a man's head and holding it up in
the light of the moon. "Do you recognize it?"
It was a shaven head with salient brows, black short-cut beard and
mustaches, one eye open and the other half-closed. The shaven skull was
cleft, but not right through, and there was congealed blood in the nose.
The neck was wrapped in a blood- stained towel. Notwithstanding the many
wounds on the head, the blue lips still bore a kindly childlike
expression.
Marya Dmitrievna looked at it, and without a word turned away and went
quickly into the house.
butler could not tear his eyes from the terrible head. It was the head
of that very Hajji Murad with whom he had so recently spent his evenings
in such friendly intercourse.
"What does this mean? Who has killed him?" he asked.
"He wanted to give us the slip, but was caught," said Kamenev, and he
gave the head back to the Cossack and went into the house with butler.
"He died like a hero," he added.
"But however did it all happen?"
"Just wait a bit. When the major comes I'll tell you all about it.
That's what I am sent for. I take it round to all the forts and aouls
and show it."
The major was sent for, and came back accompanied by two other officers
as drunk as himself, and began embracing Kamenev.
"And I have brought you Hajji Murad's head," said Kamenev.
"No? ... Killed?"
"Yes; wanted to escape."
"I always said he would bamboozle them! ... and where is it? The head, I
mean. ... Let's see it."
The Cossack was called, and brought in the bag with the head. It was
taken out and the major looked long at it with drunken eyes.
"All the same, he was a fine fellow," said he. "Let me kiss him!"
"Yes, it's true. It was a valiant head," said one of the officers.
When they had all looked at it, it was returned to the Cossack who put
it in his bag, trying to let it bump against the floor as gently as
possible.
"I say, Kamenev, what speech do you make when you show the head?" asked
an officer.
"No! ... Let me kiss him. He gave me a sword!" shouted the major.
Butler went out into the porch.
Marya Dmitrievna was sitting on the second step. She looked round at
Butler and at once turned angrily away again.
"What's the matter, marya Dmitrievna?" asked he.
"You're all cut-throats! ... I hate it! You're cut-throats, really," and
she got up.
"It might happen to anyone," remarked Butler, not knowing what to say.
"That's war."
"War? War, indeed! ... Cut-throats and nothing else. A dead body should
be given back to the earth, and they're grinning at it there! ...
Cut-throats, really," she repeated, as she descended the steps and
entered the house by the back door.
Butler returned to the room and asked Kamenev to tell them in detail how
the thing had happened.
And Kamenev told them
This is what had happened.
Hajji Murad was allowed to go out riding in the neighborhood of the
town, but never without a convoy of Cossacks. There was only half a
troop of them altogether in Nukha, ten of whom were employed by the
officers, so that if ten were sent out with Hajji Murad (according to
the orders received) the same men would have had to go every other day.
Therefore after ten had been sent out the first day, it was decided to
send only five in future and Hajji Murad was asked not take all his
henchmen with him. But on April the 25th he rode out with all five. When
he mounted, the commander, noticing that all five henchmen were going
with him, told him that he was forbidden to take them all, but Hajji
Murad pretended not to hear, touched his horse, and the commander did
not insist.
With the Cossacks rode a noncommissioned officer, Nazarov, who had
received the Cross of St. George for bravery. He was a young, healthy,
brown-haired lad, as fresh as a rose. He was the eldest of a poor family
belonging to the sect of Old Believers, had grown up without a father,
and had maintained his old mother, three sisters, and two brothers.
"Mind, Nazarov, keep close to him!" shouted the commander.
"All right, your honor!" answered Nazarov, and rising in his stirrups
and adjusting the rifle that hung at his back he started his fine large
roan gelding at a trot. Four Cossacks followed him: Ferapontov, tall and
thin, a regular thief and plunderer (it was he who had sold gunpowder to
Gamzalo); Ignatov, a sturdy peasant who boasted of his strength, though
he was no longer young and had nearly completed his service; Mishkin, a
weakly lad at whom everybody laughed; and the young fair-haired
Petrakov, his mother's only son, always amiable and jolly.
The morning had been misty, but it cleared up later on and the opening
foliage, the young virgin grass, the sprouting corn, and the ripples of
the rapid river just visible to the left of the road, all glittered in
the sunshine.
Hajji Murad rode slowly along followed by the Cossacks and by his
henchmen. They rode out along the road beyond the fort at a walk. They
met women carrying baskets on their heads, soldiers driving carts, and
creaking wagons drawn by buffaloes. When he had gone about a mile and a
half Hajji Murad touched up his white Kabarda horse, which started at an
amble that obliged the henchmen and Cossacks to ride at a quick trot to
keep up with him.
"Ah, he's got a fine horse under him," said Ferapontov. "If only he were
still an enemy I'd soon bring him down."
"Yes, mate. Three hundred rubles were offered for that horse in Tiflis."
"But I can get ahead of him on mine," said Nazarov.
"You get ahead? A likely thing!"
Hajji kept increasing his pace.
"Hey, kunak, you mustn't do that. Steady!" cried Nazarov, starting to
overtake Hajji Murad.
Hajji Murad looked round, said nothing, and continued to ride at the
same pace.
"Mind, they're up to something, the devils!" said Ignatov. "See how they
are tearing along."
So they rode for the best part of a mile in the direction of the
mountains.
"I tell you it won't do!" shouted Nazarov.
Hajji Murad did not answer or look round, but only increased his pace to
a gallop.
"Humbug! You won't get away!" shouted Nazarov, stung to the quick. He
gave his big roan gelding a cut with his whip and, rising in his
stirrups and bending forward, flew full speed in pursuit of Hajji Murad.
The sky was so bright, the air so clear, and life played so joyously in
Nazarov's soul as, becoming one with his fine strong horse, he flew
along the smooth road behind Hajji Murad, that the possibility of any
thing sad or dreadful happening never occurred to him. He rejoiced that
with every step he was gaining on Hajji Murad.
Hajji Murad judged by the approaching tramp of the big horse behind him
that he would soon be overtaken, and seizing his pistol with his right
hand, with his left he began slightly to rein in his Kabarda horse which
was excited by hearing the tramp of hoofs behind it.
"You mustn't, I tell you!" shouted Nazarov, almost level with Hajji
Murad and stretching out his hand to seize the latter's bridle. But
before he reached it a shot was fired. "What are you doing?" he
screamed, clutching at his breast. "At them, lads!" and he reeled and
fell forward on his saddle bow.
but the mountaineers were beforehand in taking to their weapons, and
fired their pistols at the Cossacks and hewed at them with their swords.
Nazarov hung on the neck of his horse, which careered round his
comrades. the horse under Ignatov ell, crushing his leg, and two of the
mountaineers, without dismounting, drew their swords and hacked at his
head and arms. Petrakov was about to rush to his comrade's rescue when
two shots -- one in his back and the other in his side -- stung him, and
he fell from his horse like a sack.
Mishkin turned round and galloped off towards the fortress. Khanefi and
Bata rushed after him, but he was already too far away and they could
not catch him. When they saw that they could not overtake him they
returned to the others.
Petrakov lay on his back, his stomach ripped open, his young face turned
to the sky, and while dying he gasped for breath like a fish.
Gamzalo having finished off Ignatov with his sword, gave a cut to
Nazarov too and threw him from his horse. Bata took their
cartridge-pouches from the slain. Khanefi wished to take Nazarov's
horse, but Hajji Murad called out to him to leave it, and dashed forward
along the road. His murids galloped after him, driving away Nazarov's
horse that tried to follow them. they were already among rice-fields
more than six miles from Nukha when a shot was fired from the tower of
that place to give the alarm.
"O good Lord! O God! my God! What have they done?" cried the commander
of the fort seizing his head with his hands when he heard of Hajji
Murad's escape. "They've done for me! They've let him escape, the
villains!" cried he, listening to Mishkin's account.
An alarm was raised everywhere and not only the Cossacks of the place
were sent after the fugitives but also all the militia that could be
mustered from the pro-Russian aouls. A thousand rubles reward was
offered for the capture of Hajji Murad alive or dead, and two hours
after he and his followers had escaped from the Cossacks more than two
hundred mounted men were following the officer in charge at a gallop to
find and capture the runaways.
After riding some miles along the high road Hajji Murad checked his
panting horse, which, wet with sweat, had turned from white to gray.
To the right of the road could be seen the saklyas and minarets of the
aoul Benerdzhik, on the left lay some fields, and beyond them the river.
Although the way to the mountains lay to the right, Hajji Murad turned
to the left, in the opposite direction, assuming that his pursuers would
be sure to go to the right, while he, abandoning the road, would cross
the Alazan and come out onto the high road on the other side, where no
one would expect him -- ride along it to the forest, and then after
recrossing the river make his way to the mountains.
Having come to this conclusion he turned to the left; but it proved
impossible to reach the river. The rice-field which had to be crossed
had just been flooded, as is always done in spring, and had become a bog
in which the horses's legs sank above their pasterns. Hajji Murad and
his henchmen rode now to the left, now to the right, hoping to find
drier ground; but the field they were in had been equally flooded all
over and was now saturated with water. The horses drew their feet out of
the sticky mud into which they sank, with a pop like that of a cork
drawn from a bottle, and stopped, panting, after every few steps. They
struggled in this way so long that it began to grow dusk and they had
still not reached the river. To their left lay a patch of higher ground
overgrown with shrubs and Hajji Murad decided to ride in among these
clumps and remain there till night to rest their exhausted horses and
let them graze. The men themselves at some bread and cheese they had
brought with them. At last night came on and the moon that had been
shining at first, hid behind the hill and it became dark. There were a
great many nightingales in that neighborhood and there were two of them
in these shrubs. As long as Hajji Murad and his men were making a noise
among the bushes the nightingales had been silent, but when they became
still the birds again began to call to one another and to sing.
Hajji Murad, awake to all the sounds of night, listened to them
involuntarily, and their trills reminded him of the song about Hamzad
which he had heard the night before when he went to get water. He might
now at any moment find himself in the position in which Hamzad had been.
He fancied that it would be so, and suddenly his soul became serious. He
spread out his burka and performed his ablutions, and scarcely had he
finished before a sound was heard approaching their shelter. It was the
sound of many horses' feet splashing through the bog.
The keen-sighted Bata ran out to one edge of the clump, and peering
through the darkness saw black shadows, which were men on foot and on
horseback. Khanefi discerned a similar crowd on the other side. It was
Karganov, the military commander of the district, with his militia.
"Well, then, we shall fight like Hamzad," thought Hajji Murad.
When the alarm was given, Karganov with a troop of militiamen and
Cossacks had rushed off in pursuit of Hajji Murad, but had been unable
to find any trace of him. He had already lost hope and was returning
home when, towards evening, he met an old man and asked him if he had
seen any horsemen about. The old man replied that he had. He had seen
six horsemen floundering in the rice-field, and then had seen them enter
the clump where he himself was getting wood. Karganov turned back,
taking the old man with him, and seeing the hobbled horses he made sure
that Hajji Murad was there. In the night he surrounded the clump and
waited till morning to take Hajji Murad alive or dead.
Having understood that he was surrounded, and having discovered an old
ditch among the shrubs, Hajji Murad decided to entrench himself in it
and to resist as long as strength and ammunition lasted. He told his
comrades this, and ordered them to throw up a bank in front of the
ditch, and his henchmen at once se to work to cut down branches, dig up
the earth with their daggers, and make an entrenchment. Hajji Murad
himself worked with them.
As soon as it began to grow light the commander of the militia troop
rode up to a clump and shouted:
"Hey! Hajji Murad, surrender! We are many and you are few!"
In reply came the report of a rifle, a cloudlet of smoke rose from the
ditch and a bullet hit the militiaman's horse, which staggered under him
and began to fall. The rifles of the militiamen who stood at the
outskirts of the clump of shrubs began cracking in their turn, and their
bullets whistled and hummed, cutting off leaves and twigs and striking
the embankment, but not the men entrenched behind it. Only Gamzalo's
horse, that had strayed from the others, was hit in the head by a
bullet. It did not fall, but breaking its hobbles and rushing among the
bushes it ran to the other horses, pressing close to them and watering
the young grass with its blood. Hajji Murad and his men fired only when
any of the militiamen came forward, and rarely missed their aim. Three
militiamen were wounded, and the others, far from making up their minds
to rush the entrenchment, retreated farther and farther back, only
firing from a distance and at random.
So it continued for more than an hour. The sun had risen to about half
the height of the trees, and Hajji Murad was already thinking of leaping
on his horse and trying to make his way to the river, when the shouts
were heard of many men who had just arrived. These were Hajji Aga of
Mekhtuli with his followers. There were about two hundred of them. Hajji
Aga had once been Hajji Murad's kunak and had lived with him in the
mountains, but he had afterwards gone over to the Russians. With him was
Akhmet Khan, the son of Hajji Murad's old enemy.
Like Karganov, Hajji Aga began by calling to Hajji Murad to surrender,
and Hajji Murad answered as before with a shot.
"Swords out, my men!" cried Hajji Aga, drawing his own; and a hundred
voices were raised by men who rushed shrieking in among the shrubs.
The militiamen ran in among the shrubs, but from behind the entrenchment
came the crack of one shot after another. Some three men fell, and the
attackers stopped at the outskirts to the clump and also began firing.
As they fired they gradually approached the entrenchment, running across
from behind one shrub to another. Some succeeded in getting across,
others fell under the bullets of Hajji Murad or of his men. Hajji Murad
fired without missing; Gamzalo too rarely wasted a shot, and shrieked
with joy every time he saw that his bullet had hit its aim. Khan Mahoma
sat at the edge of the ditch singing "Il lyakha il Allakh!" and fired
leisurely, but often missed. Eldar's whole body trembled with impatience
to rush dagger in hand at the enemy, and he fired often and at random,
constantly looking round at Hajji Murad and stretching out beyond the
entrenchment. The shaggy Khanefi, with his sleeves rolled up, did the
duty of a servant even here. He loaded the guns which Hajji Murad and
Khan Mahoma passed to him, carefully driving home with a ramrod the
bullets wrapped in greasy rags, and pouring dry powder out of the powder
flask onto the pans. Bata did not remain in the ditch as the others did,
but kept running to the horses, driving them away to a safer place and
shrieking incessantly, fired without using a prop for his gun. He was
the first to be wounded. A bullet entered his neck and he sat down
spitting blood and swearing. Then Hajji Murad was wounded, the bullet
piercing his shoulder. He tore some cotton wool from the lining of his
beshmet, plugged the wound with it, and went on firing.
"Let us fly at them with our swords!" said Eldar for the third time, and
he looked out from behind the bank of earth ready to rush at the enemy;
but at that instant a bullet struck him and he reeled and fell backwards
onto Hajji Murad's leg. Hajji Murad glanced at him. His eyes, beautiful
like those of a ram, gazed intently and seriously at Hajji Murad. His
mouth, the upper lip pouting like a child's, twitched without opening.
Hajji Murad drew his leg away from under him and continued firing.
Khanefi bent over the dead Eldar and began taking the unused ammunition
out of the cartridge cases of his coat.
Khan Mahoma meanwhile continued to sing, loading leisurely and firing.
The enemy ran from shrub to shrub, hallooing and shrieking and drawing
ever nearer and nearer.
Another bullet hit Hajji Murad in the left side. He lay down in the
ditch and again pulled some cotton wool out of his beshmet and plugged
the wound. This wound in the side was fatal and he felt that he was
dying. Memories and pictures succeeded one another with extraordinary
rapidity in his imagination. now he saw the powerful Abu Nutsal Khan,
dagger in hand and holding up his severed cheek as he rushed at his foe;
then he saw the weak, bloodless old Vorontsov with his cunning white
face, and heard his soft voice; then he saw his son Yusuf, his wife
Sofiat, and then the pale, red-bearded face of his enemy Shamil with its
half-closed eyes. All these images passed through his mind without
evoking any feeling within him -- neither pity nor anger nor any kind of
desire: everything seemed so insignificant in comparison with what was
beginning, or had already begun, within him.
Yet his strong body continued the thing that he had commenced. Gathering
together his last strength he rose from behind the bank, fired his
pistol at a man who was just running towards him, and hit him. The man
fell. Then Hajji Murad got quite out of the ditch, and limping heavily
went dagger in hand straight at the foe.
Some shots cracked and he reeled and fell. Several militiamen with
triumphant shrieks rushed towards the fallen body. But the body that
seemed to be dead suddenly moved. First the uncovered, bleeding, shaven
head rose; then the body with hands holding to the trunk of a tree. He
seemed so terrible, that those who were running towards him stopped
short. But suddenly a shudder passed through him, he staggered away from
the tree and fell on his face, stretched out at full length like a
thistle that had been mown down, and he moved no more.
He did not move, but still he felt.
When Hajji Aga, who was the first to reach him, struck him on the head
with a large dagger, it seemed to Hajji Murad that someone was striking
him with a hammer and he could not understand who was doing it or why.
That was his last consciousness of any connection with his body. He felt
nothing more and his enemies kicked and hacked at what had no longer
anything in common with him.
Hajji Aga placed his foot on the back of the corpse and with two blows
cut off the head, and carefully -- not to soil his shoes with blood --
rolled it away with his foot. Crimson blood spurted from the arteries of
the neck, and black blood flowed from the head, soaking the grass.
Karganov and Hajji Aga and Akhmet Khan and all the militiamen gathered
together -- like sportsmen round a slaughtered animal -- near the bodies
of Hajji Murad and his men (Khanefi, Khan Mahoma, and Gamzalo they
bound), and amid the powder-smoke which hung over the bushes they
triumphed in their victory.
the nightingales, that had hushed their songs while the firing lasted,
now started their trills once more: first one quite close, then others
in the distance.