Novels, Tales, Journeys

by Alexander Pushkin

  Arzrum (incorrectly called Arzerum, Erzrum, Erzron) was founded around the year 415, in the time of Theodosius the Second,63 and was called Theodosiopolis. No historical memories are connected with his name. I knew only this about it, that here, by the testimony of Hajji-Baba, a Persian ambassador, in satisfaction for some offense, was presented with calf’s ears instead of human ones.64

  Arzrum is considered the main city of Asiatic Turkey. Its inhabitants are reckoned at 100,000, but the number seems greatly exaggerated. Its houses are of stone, the roofs are covered with turf, which gives the city a very odd appearance if you look at it from above.

  The main overland trade between Europe and the East is carried on through Arzrum. But few goods are on sale there; they are not displayed, something Tournefort also observed, who writes that in Arzrum a sick man may die from the impossibility of obtaining a spoonful of rhubarb, while whole sacks of it are to be found in the city.65

  I know of no expression more meaningless than the words “Asiatic luxury.” This saying probably originated in the time of the Crusades, when poor knights, having left the bare walls and oaken chairs of their castles, saw for the first time red couches, multicolored rugs, and daggers with flashy gems on their hilts. Nowadays we might say “Asiatic poverty,” “Asiatic swinishness,” and so on, but luxury is, of course, proper to Europe. In Arzrum you cannot buy for any amount of money what can be found in a grocer’s shop in any little country town of Pskov province.

  The Arzrum climate is harsh. The city is built in a hollow that is over 7,000 feet above sea level. The surrounding mountains are covered with snow for a great part of the year. The land is treeless but fertile. It is irrigated by many springs and crisscrossed everywhere with aqueducts. Arzrum is famous for its water. The Euphrates flows two miles from the city. But there are a great many fountains everywhere. Beside each of them hangs a tin dipper on a chain, and the good Muslims drink and cannot praise it enough. Timber is supplied from Sagan-loo.

  In the Arzrum arsenal we found a great many old weapons, helmets, cuirasses, swords, rusting there probably since the time of Godfrey.66 The mosques are low and dark. Outside the city there is a cemetery. The tombstones usually consist of posts adorned with stone turbans. The tombs of two or three pashas are distinguished by a greater fancifulness, but there is nothing refined about them: no taste, no thought…One traveler writes that of all Asiatic cities, in Arzrum alone did he find a clock tower, and it was broken.

  The innovations undertaken by the sultan have not yet penetrated to Arzrum. The troops still wear their picturesque eastern garb. Between Arzrum and Constantinople there is rivalry, as there is between Kazan and Moscow. Here is the beginning of a satirical poem composed by the janissary Amin-Oglu.67

  Stambul is praised now by the giaours,

  But tomorrow with an iron heel,

  Like a sleeping snake, they’ll crush it,

  And off they’ll ride—and leave it so.

  Stambul dozes in the face of trouble.

  Stambul has renounced the prophet;

  There the truth of the ancient East

  By the cunning West is clouded.

  Stambul for the sweets of vice

  Betrays both sabre and devotion.

  Stambul forgets the battle’s sweat

  And drinks wine at the hour of prayer.

  There has died the faith’s pure fire,

  In graveyards there the women walk,

  They send old crones out to the crossroads

  And to the harems bring back men,

  While the bribed eunuch lies there sleeping.

  Not so is Arzrum in the mountains,

  Our Arzrum of the many roads;

  We sleep not in shameful luxury,

  We dip no disobedient cup

  In the wine of depravity, noise, and fire.

  We fast: and from the streams of sober

  Holy water we quench our thirst;

  In multitudes both swift and dauntless

  Our horsemen into battle fly;

  Our harems are inaccessible,

  Our eunuchs incorrupt and stern,

  And our women sit there peacefully.

  I lived in the seraskir’s palace, in the rooms where the harem used to be. For a whole day I wandered through countless passages, from room to room, from roof to roof, from stairway to stairway. The palace seemed to have been looted; the seraskir, intending to flee, took with him all that he could. The couches were stripped, the rugs removed. When I strolled around the town, the Turks beckoned to me and showed me their tongues. (They take every Frank for a doctor.) I was tired of it and ready to pay them back in kind. My evenings I spent with the intelligent and amiable Sukhorukov; the similarity of our pursuits brought us together. He told me of his literary intentions, his historical research, once embarked upon with such zeal and success. The limited nature of his wishes and expectations is truly touching. It will be a pity if they are not realized.68

  The seraskir’s palace was a picture of perpetual animation: where the sullen pasha had silently smoked amidst his wives and dishonorable boys, his vanquisher received reports of his generals’ victories, gave out pashaliks, discussed new novels. The pasha of Mush came to Count Paskevich to ask for his nephew’s post. Walking through the palace, the imposing Turk stopped in one of the rooms, uttered a few words with animation, and then fell to brooding: in that very room his father had been beheaded at the command of the seraskir. There you have real Eastern impressions! The famous Bey-bulat, the terror of the Caucasus,69 came to Arzrum with the headmen of two Circassian villages that had revolted during the last wars. They dined with Count Paskevich. Bey-bulat is a man of about thirty-five, short and broad-shouldered. He does not speak Russian, or pretends not to. I was glad of his arrival in Arzrum: he had already been my guarantee of a safe passage through the mountains and Kabarda.

  Osman Pasha, taken prisoner in Arzrum and sent to Tiflis together with the seraskir, asked Count Paskevich for the safekeeping of the harem he was leaving in Arzrum. During the first few days this was forgotten. One day at dinner, talking about the calm of the Muslim town, occupied by 10,000 troops and in which not one of the inhabitants had made a single complaint about soldierly violence, the count remembered Osman Pasha’s harem and told Mr. Abramovich70 to go to the pasha’s house and ask his wives if they were content and there had been no offense against them. I asked leave to accompany Mr. A. We set out. Mr. A. took along as an interpreter a Russian officer who had a curious story. At the age of eighteen he had been taken prisoner by the Persians. They had castrated him, and for more than twenty years he had served as a eunuch in the harem of one of the shah’s sons. He told of his misfortune and his life in Persia with touching simple-heartedness. With respect to physiology, his testimony was precious.

  We came to Osman Pasha’s house; we were shown into an open room, decorated very properly, even with taste—verses from the Koran were written on the stained-glass windows. One of them seemed to me very ingenious for a Muslim harem: “It befits you to bind and to loose.” We were treated to coffee in little cups mounted in silver. An old man with a venerable white beard, Osman Pasha’s father, came on behalf of the wives to thank Count Paskevich—but Mr. A. said flatly that he had been sent to the wives of Osman Pasha and wished to see them, so as to ascertain from them personally that in the absence of their spouse they were content with everything. The Persian prisoner had barely managed to translate all that, when the old man clucked his tongue in a sign of indignation and declared that he could not possibly agree to our request, and that if the pasha, on his return, found out that other men had seen his wives, he would order that he, the old man, and all the servants of the harem have their heads cut off. The servants, among whom there was not a single eunuch, confirmed the old man’s words, but Mr. A. stood firm. “You are afraid of your pasha,” he said to them, “and I of my seraskir, and I dare not disobey his orders.” There was nothing to be done. They led us through a garden, where two meager fou
ntains spurted. We approached a small stone building. The old man stood between us and the door, opened it warily, not letting go of the latch, and we saw a woman covered from head to yellow slippers in a white chadra. Our interpreter repeated the question for her: we heard the mumbling of a seventy-year-old woman. Mr. A. cut her off: “This is the pasha’s mother,” he said, “and I’ve been sent to the wives; bring out one of them.” Everyone was amazed at the giaour’s shrewdness: the old woman left and a moment later came back with a woman covered in the same way she was—from under the cover came a young, pleasant little voice. She thanked the count for his attentiveness to the poor widows and praised the way the Russians treated them. Mr. A. artfully managed to engage her in further conversation. Meanwhile, gazing around me, I suddenly saw a round window right over the door and in this round window five or six round heads with dark, curious eyes. I was about to tell Mr. A. of my discovery, but the heads began to wag, to wink, and several little fingers made warning signs to me, letting me know that I should keep quiet. I obeyed and did not share my find. They all had pleasant faces, but there was not a single beauty; the one who was talking by the door with Mr. A. was probably the ruler of the harem, the treasury of hearts, the rose of love—so at least I imagined.

  Finally Mr. A. ended his questioning. The door closed. The faces in the window disappeared. We looked over the garden and the house and went back very pleased with our embassy.

  And so I saw a harem: it is a rare European who manages that. There you have the basis for an oriental novel.

  —

  The war seemed to be over. I was preparing for the return journey. On July 14, I went to the public baths and was not glad to be alive. I cursed the dirty sheets, the bad service, and so on. How can you compare the baths of Arzrum with those of Tiflis!

  On returning to the palace, I learned from Konovnitsyn,71 who was standing guard, that plague had broken out in Arzrum. I immediately pictured the horrors of quarantine, and that same day I decided to leave the army. The thought of being in the presence of the plague is very disagreeable if you are not used to it. Wishing to erase this impression, I went for a stroll in the bazaar. Stopping in front of an armorer’s shop, I began to examine a dagger, when someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned: behind me stood a frightful beggar. He was pale as death; tears flowed from his red, festering eyes. The thought of the plague again flashed in my imagination. I pushed the beggar away with a feeling of indescribable revulsion and returned home very displeased with my stroll.

  Curiosity, however, got the upper hand; the next day I went with the army doctor to the camp where the plague victims were. I did not dismount and took the precaution of standing upwind. A sick man was brought out to us from a tent: he was very pale and staggered as if drunk. Another sick man lay unconscious. Having looked over the plague victim and promised the unfortunate man a speedy recovery, I turned my attention to the two Turks who had led him out under the arms, undressed him, probed him, as if the plague were no more than a cold. I confess, I was ashamed of my European timidity in the presence of such indifference and hastened back to the city.

  On July 19, having come to say good-bye to Count Paskevich, I found him in great distress. The sad news had come that General Burtsov had been killed at Bayburt. It was a pity about brave Burtsov, but the incident could also be fatal for our whole small-numbered army, finding itself deep in a foreign land and surrounded by hostile peoples, ready to rebel at the rumor of the first setback. And so the war started again! The count suggested that I be a witness to further undertakings. But I was hurrying to Russia…The count gave me a Turkish sabre as a souvenir. I keep it as a reminder of my travels in the wake of the brilliant hero through the conquered wastes of Armenia. On that same day I left Arzrum.

  I went back to Tiflis by the road already familiar to me. Places still recently animated by the presence of an army of 15,000 men were silent and sad. I crossed over Sagan-loo and could scarcely recognize the place where our camp stood. In Gyumri I endured a three-day quarantine. Again I saw Bezobdal and left the high plains of cold Armenia for torrid Georgia. I arrived in Tiflis on the first of August. There I stayed for several days in amiable and merry company. Several evenings were spent in the gardens to the sounds of Georgian music and songs. I went on. My crossing of the mountains was remarkable for me in that I was caught in a storm at night near Kobi. In the morning, going past Kazbek, I saw a marvelous sight: ragged white clouds stretched across the peak of the mountain, and the solitary monastery, lit by the rays of the sun, seemed to be floating in the air, borne up by the clouds. The Furious Gully also showed itself to me in all its grandeur: the ravine, filled with rainwater, surpassed the raging Terek itself, roaring menacingly just beside it. The banks were torn to pieces; enormous rocks were dislodged and blocked the stream. A multitude of Ossetes were working on the road. I crossed over safely. Finally I rode out of the narrow gorge into the expanse of the wide plains of Great Kabarda. In Vladikavkaz I found Dorokhov72 and Pushchin. They were on their way to the waters to treat the wounds they had received in the present campaigns. On Pushchin’s table I found Russian magazines. The first article I happened upon was a review of one of my works. In it I and my verses were denounced in all possible ways. I started reading it aloud. Pushchin interrupted me, demanding that I read with greater mimetic art. It should be noted that the review was decked out with the usual whimsies of our critics: it was a conversation between a sexton, a prosphora baker, and a proofreader, the Mr. Commonsense of this little comedy. I found Pushchin’s request so amusing that the vexations produced in me by the reading of the article vanished completely, and we burst into wholehearted laughter.

  Such was my first greeting in my dear fatherland.

  * * *

  *1 “Travels to the East undertaken by order of the French Government.”

  *2 A poet distinguished by his imagination found in the many lofty deeds he witnessed the subject, not of a poem, but of a satire.

  *3 Among the leaders who commanded it (the army of Prince Paskevich) one singled out General Muraviev…the Georgian Prince Chavchavadze…the Armenian Prince Bebutov…Prince Potemkin, General Raevsky, and finally—Mr. Pushkin…who had left the capital in order to sing the exploits of his compatriots.

  *4 See the glossary of Caucasian terms on this page.

  *5 So Persian caps are called. Author.

  *6 for the great liberty

  *7 it is always good (Italian)

  *8 “You don’t know those people; you’ll see it will come to playing with knives.”

  *9 Alas, Postumus, Postumus, the fleeting / years slip by…(Horace, Odes, II, 14).

  *10 …nor in Armenia, / friend Valgius, does the ice stay inert / for months on end…(Horace, Odes, II, 9).

  *11 “Are you tired from yesterday?”—“Just a little, monsieur le Comte.”—“That upsets me, because we’re going to make another march to catch up with the pasha, and then we’ll have to pursue the enemy another thirty versts [twenty miles].”

  *12 He was a man with a woman’s breasts, had undeveloped t[esticles], a puny and boyish p[enis]. We inquired, had he been emasculated?—God, he replied, castrated me.

  *13 “Just look at the Turks…you can never trust them.” (French)

  Glossary of Caucasian Terms

  abaz: a silver coin minted by the Russians for use in Georgia

  amanat: hostage or hostages, used in the Caucasus for diplomatic purposes

  arba: a two- or four-wheeled horse-drawn cart

  aul: village

  bashlik: a pointed hood with long flaps for tying around the neck

  bek: alternate spelling of bey, “chieftain”

  burdyuk: a Caucasian wineskin

  chadra: a long garment with a headcover or veil

  chikhir: young wine

  delibash: Turkish cavalrymen

  dolman: a long, loose Turkish robe, open in front

  pashalik: the territory governed by a Turkish pasha, a high military/poli
tical officer

  saklia: a flat-roofed Caucasian mountain dwelling, most often of one room

  seraskir: a Turkish army commander

  FRAGMENTS AND SKETCHES

  The Guests Were Arriving at the Dacha

  I

  The guests were arriving at * * *’s dacha. The reception room was filling with ladies and gentlemen, all coming at the same time from the theater, where a new Italian opera had been performed. Order was gradually established. The ladies seated themselves on the sofas. Around them formed a circle of men. Games of whist were set up. Several young men remained standing; and an inspection of Parisian lithographs took the place of general conversation.

  Two men sat on the balcony. One of them, a traveling Spaniard, seemed to take a keen delight in the loveliness of the northern night. He gazed admiringly at the clear, pale sky, the majestic Neva illumined by an ineffable light, and the neighboring dachas silhouetted in the transparent twilight.

  “How beautiful your northern night is,” he said finally, “and how shall I help missing its loveliness even under the sky of my own fatherland?”

  “One of our poets,” the other answered him, “compared it to a flaxen-haired Russian beauty.1 I must admit that a swarthy, dark-eyed Italian or Spanish woman, full of vivacity and southern voluptuousness, captivates my imagination more. However, the ancient argument between la brune et la blonde has yet to be resolved. By the way, do you know how a certain foreign lady explained to me the strictness and purity of Petersburg morals? She claimed that for amorous adventures our winter nights are too cold and our summer nights too bright.”

  The Spaniard smiled.

  “So it’s all thanks to the influence of the climate,” he said. “Petersburg is the promised land of beauty, amiability, and irreproachability.”

  “Beauty is a matter of taste,” the Russian answered, “but there’s no point in talking about our amiability. It’s not fashionable; no one even thinks of it. The women are afraid of being taken for coquettes, the men of losing their dignity. They all strive to be nonentities with taste and decorum. As for purity of morals, so as not to take advantage of a foreigner’s trustfulness, I shall tell you…”