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HADJI MURAD

CHAPTER VI

     Young Vorontsov was much pleased that it was he, and no one else, who had succeeded in winning over and receiving Hadji 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 Hadji Murad's henchmen to the regimental adjutant and himself showed Hadji Murad into the house.

     Princess Marya Vasilevna, elegantly dressed and smiling, and her little son, a handsome curly-headed child of six, met Hadji 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.

     Hadji 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 Hadji Murad, whom he had always heard spoken of as a great warrior.

     Leaving Hadji Murad with his wife, Vorontsov went to his office to do what was necessary about reporting the fact of Hadji 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.  Hadji 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, Hadji 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.

     Hadji 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 Hadji 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 Hadji Murad desired.

     As soon as Hadji 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 Hadji Murad had expected.  But the better the reception the less did Hadji 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.

     Hadji 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 pilau, 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 Hadji Murad she asked him through the interpreter when he would pray again.  Hadji 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 Hadji 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 Hadji 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 Hadji Murad's arrival, was highly displeased that this had not been reported to him, and required Hadji Murad to be brought to him without delay.  Vorontsov replied that the general's command should be obeyed, and through the interpreter informed Hadji 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 Hadji 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 Hadji 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 Hadji 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 moustache.

     "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 re-established, and it was decided to leave Hadji Murad with the general for the present, and then to send him to the commander of the left flank.

     Hadji 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 quarrelling 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, Hadji Murad bore himself proudly and ceremoniously, saying that he had come from the mountains to serve the White Tsar and would give account only to his Sirdar, meaning the commander-in-chief, Prince Vorontsov senior, in Tiflis.

HADJI MURAD

CHAPTER VII

     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."

HADJI MURAD

CHAPTER VIII

     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 shovelling 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, skilful, 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 woollen 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 Tsar, 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.

HADJI MURAD

CHAPTER IX 

     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 Hadji 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 Hadji 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 Hadji 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 Hadji 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 Hadji 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 Tsar -- 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 Hadji 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 Hadji 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 Hadji 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 Hadji Murad's.

     In fact, Hadji 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 Hadji Murad!"

     "Hadji 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 ombre.  His partners were the Georgian prince, an Armenia general (who had learned the game of ombre 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 Hadji 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.

HADJI MURAD

CHAPTER X 

     When Hadji 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 martialled 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 Hadji 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 Hadji 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 Hadji Murad and spoke to him.  Hadji 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 Hadji Murad, led him to the door of the cabinet, and showed him in.

     The Commander-in-Chief received Hadji 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, Hadji 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 Tsar and of yourself," said he, "and promise to serve the White Tsar 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 Hadji Murad and Hadji 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 Hadji 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. Hadji 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 Hadji 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 Hadji 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."

     Hadji 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 Hadji Murad to the divan that stood beside the wall.  But Hadji 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."

     Hadji 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!"

     Hadji 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 Hadji Murad.

     Hadji Murad pondered.

     "Tell the Sirdar one thing more," Hadji 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 Hadji 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 Hadji 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 Hadji 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 Hadji Murad could not help being pleased at what he saw.  Hadji 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 Hadji 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 Hadji Murad that this was the place to talk about business.

     When it struck eleven Hadji 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 Hadji Murad did not stay, but drove in the phaeton placed at his disposal to the quarters that had been assigned to him.

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