by Leo Tolstoy
He has his coronation, his levées; he rewards, sentences, and pardons; and he also has his reviews, councils, laws, and courts of justice: just like other kings, only all on a smaller scale.
Now it happened a few years ago that a murder was committed in this toy King’s domains. The people of that kingdom are peaceable, and such a thing had not happened before. The judges assembled with much ceremony and tried the case in the most judicial manner. There were judges, and prosecutors, and jurymen, and barristers. They argued and judged, and at last they condemned the criminal to have his head cut off as the law directs. So far so good. Next they submitted the sentence to the King. The King read the sentence and confirmed it. ‘If the fellow must be executed, execute him.’
There was only one hitch in the matter; and that was that they had neither a guillotine for cutting heads off, nor an executioner. The Ministers considered the matter, and decided to address an inquiry to the French Government, asking whether the French could not lend them a machine and an expert to cut off the criminal’s head; and if so, would the French kindly inform them what the cost would be. The letter was sent. A week later the reply came: a machine and an expert could be supplied, and the cost would be 16,000 francs. This was laid before the King. He thought it over. Sixteen thousand francs! ‘The wretch is not worth the money,’ said he. ‘Can’t it be done, somehow, cheaper? Why, 16,000 francs is more than two francs a head on the whole population. The people won’t stand it, and it may cause a riot!’
So a Council was called to consider what could be done; and it was decided to send a similar inquiry to the King of Italy. The French Government is republican, and has no proper respect for kings; but the King of Italy was a brother monarch, and might be induced to do the thing cheaper. So the letter was written, and a prompt reply was received.
The Italian Government wrote that they would have pleasure in supplying both a machine and an expert; and the whole cost would be 12,000 francs, including travelling expenses. This was cheaper, but still it seemed too much. The rascal was really not worth the money. It would still mean nearly two francs more per head on the taxes. Another Council was called. They discussed and considered how it could be done with less expense. Could not one of the soldiers, perhaps, be got to do it in a rough and homely fashion? The General was called and was asked: ‘Can’t you find us a soldier who would cut the man’s head off? In war they don’t mind killing people. In fact, that is what they are trained for.’ So the General talked it over with the soldiers to see whether one of them would not undertake the job. But none of the soldiers would do it. ‘No,’ they said, ‘we don’t know how to do it; it is not a thing we have been taught.’
What was to be done? Again the Ministers considered and reconsidered. They assembled a Commission, and a Committee, and a Sub-Committee, and at last they decided that the best thing would be to alter the death sentence to one of imprisonment for life. This would enable the King to show his mercy, and it would come cheaper.
The King agreed to this, and so the matter was arranged. The only hitch now was that there was no suitable prison for a man sentenced for life. There was a small lock-up where people were sometimes kept temporarily, but there was no strong prison fit for permanent use. However, they managed to find a place that would do, and they put the young fellow there and placed a guard over him. The guard had to watch the criminal, and had also to fetch his food from the palace kitchen.
The prisoner remained there month after month till a year had passed. But when a year had passed, the Kinglet, looking over the account of his income and expenditure one day, noticed a new item of expenditure. This was for the keep of the criminal; nor was it a small item either. There was a special guard, and there was also the man’s food. It came to more than 600 francs a year. And the worst of it was that the fellow was still young and healthy, and might live for fifty years. When one came to reckon it up, the matter was serious. It would never do. So the King summoned his Ministers and said to them:
‘You must find some cheaper way of dealing with this rascal. The present plan is too expensive.’ And the Ministers met and considered and reconsidered, till one of them said: ‘Gentlemen, in my opinion we must dismiss the guard.’ ‘But then,’ rejoined another Minister, ‘the fellow will run away.’ ‘Well,’ said the first speaker, ‘let him run away, and be hanged to him!’ So they reported the result of their deliberations to the Kinglet, and he agreed with them. The guard was dismissed, and they waited to see what would happen. All that happened was that at dinner-time the criminal came out, and, not finding his guard, he went to the King’s kitchen to fetch his own dinner. He took what was given him, returned to the prison, shut the door on himself, and stayed inside. Next day the same thing occurred. He went for his food at the proper time; but as for running away, he did not show the least sign of it! What was to be done? They considered the matter again.
‘We shall have to tell him straight out,’ said they, ‘that we do not want to keep him.’ So the Minister of Justice had him brought before him.
‘Why do you not run away?’ said the Minister. ‘There is no guard to keep you. You can go where you like, and the King will not mind.’
‘I daresay the King would not mind,’ replied the man, ‘but I have nowhere to go. What can I do? You have ruined my character by your sentence, and people will turn their backs on me. Besides, I have got out of the way of working. You have treated me badly. It is not fair. In the first place, when once you sentenced me to death you ought to have executed me; but you did not do it. That’s one thing. I did not complain about that. Then you sentenced me to imprisonment for life and put a guard to bring me my food; but after a time you took him away again and I had to fetch my own food. Again I did not complain. But now you actually want me to go away! I can’t agree to that. You may do as you like, but I won’t go away!’
What was to be done? Once more the Council was summoned. What course could they adopt? The man would not go. They reflected and considered. The only way to get rid of him was to offer him a pension. And so they reported to the King. ‘There is nothing else for it,’ said they; ‘we must get rid of him somehow.’ The sum fixed was 600 francs, and this was announced to the prisoner.
‘Well,’ said he, ‘I don’t mind, so long as you undertake to pay it regularly. On that condition I am willing to go.’
So the matter was settled. He received one-third of his annuity in advance, and left the King’s dominions. It was only a quarter of an hour by rail; and he emigrated, and settled just across the frontier, where he bought a bit of land, started market-gardening, and now lives comfortably. He always goes at the proper time to draw his pension. Having received it, he goes to the gaming tables, stakes two or three francs, sometimes wins and sometimes loses, and then returns home. He lives peaceably and well.
It is a good thing that he did not commit his crime in a country where they do not grudge expense to cut a man’s head off, or to keeping him in prison for life.
HADJI MURÁD
A LIST OF TARTAR WORDS USED IN
‘HADJI MURÁD’
THROUGHOUT this edition I have tried to avoid the use of Russian words, employing their English equivalents wherever possible. In the following story, however, Tolstoy makes use of a number of Tartar words which he does not translate. As there are generally no one- or two-word equivalents for them in English, it would be difficult to avoid following his example and retaining these Tartar words. I have therefore done so, and the reader should refer to the following alphabetical list when he encounters one of them that needs explanation.
AYLMER MAUDE.
Aoul
A Tartar village.
Bar
Have.
Beshmét
A Tartar undergarment with sleeves.
Búrka
A long round felt cape.
Dzhigít
The same as a
brave
among the Red Indians, but the word is inseparably connected wit
h the idea of skilful horsemanship.
Ghazavát
Holy War against the infidels.
Imám
The leader in the Holy War, uniting in himself supreme spiritual and temporal power.
Khansha
Khan’s wife.
Kizyák
A fuel made of straw and manure.
Kunák
A sworn friend, an adopted brother.
Murid
A disciple or follower: ‘One who desires’ to find the way in Muridism.
Muridism
Almost identical with Sufism.
Murshíd
‘One who shows’ the way in Muridism.
Naïb
A Tartar lieutenant or governor.
Pilau
An Oriental dish, prepared with rice and mutton or chicken.
Sáklya
A Caucasian house, clay-plastered and often built of earth.
Shariát
The written Mohammedan law.
Tarikát
‘The Path’ leading to the higher life.
Yok
No, not.
I
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 centres 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 plantains 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 neighbourhood 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 centre of my nosegay, I climbed down into the ditch, and after driving away a velvety humble-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 fibres 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 its 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 ploughed up. I ascended the dusty path. The ploughed 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 Hadji Murád rode into Makhmet, a hostile Chechen aoul that lay some fifteen miles from Russian territory and was filled with the scented smoke of burning kizyák. The strained chant of the muezzin had just ceased, and through the clear mountain air, impregnated with kizyák smoke, above the lowing of the cattle and the bleating of the sheep that were dispersing among the sáklyas (which were crowded together like the cells of a 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 Hadji Murád was Shamil’s naïb, 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 hood and búrka, 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 sáklya, 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 sáklya itself, behind the freshly plastered clay chimney, lay a man covered with a sheepskin. Hadji Murád touched him with the handle of his leather-plaited whip and clicked his tongue, and an old man, wearing a greasy old beshmét and a nightcap, rose from under the sheepskin. His moist red eyelids had no lashes, and he blinked to get them unstuck. Hadji Murád, 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, shrivelled sunburnt neck and mumbling something with his toothless mouth. As soon as he reached the ground he hospitably seized Hadji Murád’s bridle and right stirrup; but the strong active murid had quickly dismounted and, motioning the old man aside, took his place. Hadji Murád 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 sáklya.
As Hadji Murád entered the outer door, a slight, spare, middle-aged woman in a yellow smock, red beshmét, 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 Hadji Murád, taking off his búrka, 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.
Hadji Murád 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. Hadji Murád did the same; then after repeating a prayer they both stroked their faces, passing their hands downwards till the palms joined at the end of their beards.
‘Ne habar?’ (‘Is there anything new?’) asked Hadji Murád, addressing the old man.
‘Habar yok’ (‘Nothing new’), replied the old man, looking with his lifeless red eyes not at Hadji Murád’s face but at his breast. ‘I live at the apiary and have only to-day come to see my son.… He knows.’
Hadji Murád, understanding that the old man did not wish to say what he knew and what Hadji Murád 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.
Hadji Murád’s murid entered the room, his strong legs striding softly over the earthen floor. Retaining only his dagger and pistol, he took off his búrka, rifle, and sword as Hadji Murád had done, and hung them up on the same nails as his leader’s weapons.
