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 ... (From: Wikisource.org.)
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 ... (From: Wikisource.org.)
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 ... (From: Wikisource.org.)
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 contract... (From: Wikisource.org.)
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 ... (From: Wikisource.org.)
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 curl... (From: Wikisource.org.)
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 ... (From: Wikisource.org.)
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... (From: Wikisource.org.)
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 p... (From: Wikisource.org.)
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 try... (From: Wikisource.org.)
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 w... (From: Wikisource.org.)
"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... (From: Wikisource.org.)
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 h... (From: Wikisource.org.)
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 ... (From: Wikisource.org.)
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 la... (From: Wikisource.org.)
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 sub... (From: Wikisource.org.)
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 ... (From: Wikisource.org.)
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 be... (From: Wikisource.org.)
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... (From: Wikisource.org.)
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 d... (From: Wikisource.org.)
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 ... (From: Wikisource.org.)
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 Sham... (From: Wikisource.org.)
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 ... (From: Wikisource.org.)
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,... (From: Wikisource.org.)
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, a... (From: Wikisource.org.)
