Collected Shorter Fiction, Volume 2

by Leo Tolstoy

III

  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 Mikhaílovich Vorontsóv, Commander of the Kurín Regiment, an Imperial Aide-de-Camp and son of the Commander-in-Chief. Vorontsóv’s wife, Márya Vasílevna, a famous Petersburg beauty, was with him and they lived in this little Caucasian fort more luxuriously than anyone had ever lived there before. To Vorontsóv, and even more to his wife, it seemed that they were not only living a very modest life, but one full of privations, while to the inhabitants of the place their luxury was surprising and extraordinary.

  Just now, at midnight, the host and hostess sat playing cards with their visitors, at a card-table lit by four candles, in the spacious drawing-room with its carpeted floor and rich curtains drawn across the windows. Vorontsóv, who had a long face and wore the insignia and gold cords of an aide-de-camp, was partnered by a shaggy young man of gloomy appearance, a graduate of Petersburg University whom Princess Vorontsóv had lately had sent to the Caucasus to be tutor to her little son (born of her first marriage). Against them played two officers: one a broad, red-faced man, Poltorátsky, a company commander who had exchanged out of the Guards; and the other the regimental adjutant, who sat very straight on his chair with a cold expression on his handsome face.

  Princess Márya Vasílevna, a large-built, large-eyed, black-browed beauty, sat beside Poltorátsky – her crinoline touching his legs – and looked over his cards. In her words, her looks, her smile, her perfume, and in every movement of her body, there was something that reduced Poltorátsky to obliviousness of everything except the consciousness of her nearness, and he made blunder after blunder, trying his partner’s temper more and more.

  ‘No … that’s too bad! You’ve wasted an ace again,’ said the regimental adjutant, flushing all over as Poltorátsky threw out an ace.

  Poltorátsky turned his kindly, wide-set black eyes towards the dissatisfied adjutant uncomprehendingly, as though just aroused from sleep.

  ‘Do forgive him!’ said Márya Vasílevna, smiling. ‘There, you see! Didn’t I tell you so?’ she went on, turning to Poltorátsky.

  ‘But that’s not at all what you said,’ replied Poltorátsky, smiling.

  ‘Wasn’t it?’ she queried, with an answering smile, which excited and delighted Poltorátsky to such a degree that he blushed crimson and seizing the cards began to shuffle.

  ‘It isn’t your turn to deal,’ said the adjutant sternly, and with his white ringed hand he began to deal himself, as though he wished to get rid of the cards as quickly as possible.

  The prince’s valet entered the drawing-room and announced that the officer on duty wanted to speak to him.

  ‘Excuse me, gentlemen,’ said the prince, speaking Russian with an English accent. ‘Will you take my place, Márya?’

  ‘Do you all agree?’ asked the princess, rising quickly and lightly to her full height, rustling her silks, and smiling the radiant smile of a happy woman.

  ‘I always agree to everything,’ replied the adjutant, very pleased that the princess – who could not play at all – was now going to play against him.

  Poltorátsky only spread out his hands and smiled.

  The rubber was nearly finished when the prince returned to the drawing-room, animated and obviously very pleased.

  ‘Do you know what I propose?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That we have some champagne.’

  ‘I am always ready for that,’ said Poltorátsky.

  ‘Why not? We shall be delighted!’ said the adjutant.

  ‘Bring some, Vasíli!’ said the prince.

  ‘What did they want you for?’ asked Márya Vasílevna.

  ‘It was the officer on duty and another man.’

  ‘Who? What about?’ asked Márya Vasílevna quickly.

  ‘I mustn’t say,’ said Vorontsóv, shrugging his shoulders.

  ‘You mustn’t say!’ repeated Márya Vasílevna. ‘We’ll see about that.’

  When the champagne was brought each of the visitors drank a glass, and having finished the game and settled the scores they began to take their leave.

  ‘Is it your company that’s ordered to the forest to-morrow?’ the prince asked Poltorátsky as they said good-bye.

  ‘Yes, mine … why?’

  ‘Then we shall meet to-morrow,’ said the prince, smiling slightly.

  ‘Very pleased,’ replied Poltorátsky, not quite understanding what Vorontsóv was saying to him and preoccupied only by the thought that he would in a minute be pressing Márya Vasílevna’s hand.

  Márya Vasílevna, according to her wont, not only pressed his hand firmly but shook it vigorously, and again reminding him of his mistake in playing diamonds, she gave him what he took to be a delightful, affectionate, and meaning smile.

  Poltorátsky went home in an ecstatic condition only to be understood by people like himself who, having grown up and been educated in society, meet a woman belonging to their own circle after months of isolated military life, and moreover a woman like Princess Vorontsóv.

  When he reached the little house in which he and his comrade lived he pushed the door, but it was locked. He knocked, with no result. He felt vexed, and began kicking the door and banging it with his sword. Then he heard a sound of footsteps and Vovílo – a domestic serf of his – undid the cabin-hook which fastened the door.

  ‘What do you mean by locking yourself in, blockhead?’

  ‘But how is it possible, sir …?’

  ‘You’re tipsy again! I’ll show you “how it is possible!” ’ and Poltorátsky was about to strike Vovílo but changed his mind. ‘Oh, go to the devil!… Light a candle.’

  ‘In a minute.’

  Vovílo was really tipsy. He had been drinking at the name-day party of the ordnance-sergeant, Iván Petróvich. On returning home he began comparing his life with that of the latter. Iván Petróvich had a salary, was married, and hoped in a year’s time to get his discharge.

  Vovílo had been taken ‘up’ when a boy – that is, he had been taken into his owner’s household service – and now although he was already over forty he was not married, but lived a campaigning life with his harum-scarum young master. He was a good master, who seldom struck him, but what kind of a life was it? ‘He promised to free me when we return from the Caucasus, but where am I to go with my freedom?… It’s a dog’s life!’ thought Vovílo, and he felt so sleepy that, afraid lest someone should come in and steal something, he fastened the hook of the door and fell asleep.

  * * *

  Poltorátsky entered the bedroom which he shared with his comrade Tíkhonov.

  ‘Well, have you lost?’ asked Tíkhonov, waking up.

  ‘No, as it happens, I haven’t. I’ve won seventeen rubles, and we drank a bottle of Cliquot!’

  ‘And you’ve looked at Márya Vasílevna?’

  ‘Yes, and I’ve looked at Márya Vasílevna,’ repeated Poltorátsky.

  ‘It will soon be time to get up,’ said Tíkhonov. ‘We are to start at six.’

  ‘Vovílo!’ shouted Poltorátsky, ‘see that you wake me up properly to-morrow at five!’

  ‘How can I wake you if you fight?’

  ‘I tell you you’re to wake me! Do you hear?’

  ‘All right.’ Vovílo went out, taking Poltorátsky’s boots and clothes with him. Poltorátsky got into bed and smoked a cigarette and put out his candle, smiling the while. In the dark he saw before him the smiling face of Márya Vasílevna.

  * * *

  The Vorontsóvs did not go to bed at once. When the visitors had left, Márya Vasílevna went up to her husband and standing in front of him, said severely –

  ‘Eh bien! Vous allez me dire ce que c’est.’

  ‘Mais, ma chère …’

  ‘Pas de “ma chère”! C’était un émissaire, n’est-ce pas?’

  ‘Quand měme, je ne puis pas vous le dire.’

 
‘Vous ne pouvez pas? Alors, c’est moi qui vais vous le dire!’

  ‘Vous?’2

  ‘It was Hadji Murád, wasn’t it?’ said Márya Vasílevna, who had for some days past heard of the negotiations and thought that Hadji Murád himself had been to see her husband. Vorontsóv could not altogether deny this, but disappointed her by saying that it was not Hadji Murád himself but only an emissary to announce that Hadji Murád would come to meet him next day at the spot where a wood-cutting expedition had been arranged.

  In the monotonous life of the fortress the young Vorontsóvs – both husband and wife – were glad of this occurrence, and it was already past two o’clock when, after speaking of the pleasure the news would give his father, they went to bed.

  IV

  AFTER the three sleepless nights he had passed flying from the murids Shamil had sent to capture him, Hadji Murád fell asleep as soon as Sado, having bid him good-night, had gone out of the sáklya. 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 Eldár. He lay on his back, his strong young limbs stretched out so that his high chest, with the black cartridge-pouches sewn into the front of his white Circassian coat, was higher than his freshly shaven, blue-gleaming head, which had rolled off the pillow and was thrown back. His upper lip, on which a little soft down was just appearing, pouted like a child’s, now contracting and now expanding, as though he were sipping something. Like Hadji Murád he slept with pistol and dagger in his belt. The sticks in the grate burnt low, and a night-light in a niche in the wall gleamed faintly.

  In the middle of the night the floor of the guest-chamber creaked, and Hadji Murád immediately rose, putting his hand to his pistol. Sado entered, treading softly on the earthen floor.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Hadji Murád, as if he had not been asleep at all.

  ‘We must think,’ replied Sado, squatting down in front of him. ‘A woman from her roof saw you arrive and told her husband, and now the whole aoul knows. A neighbour has just been to tell my wife that the Elders have assembled in the mosque and want to detain you.’

  ‘I must be off!’ said Hadji Murád.

  ‘The horses are saddled,’ said Sado, quickly leaving the sáklya.

  ‘Eldár!’ whispered Hadji Murád. And Eldár, hearing his name, and above all his master’s voice, leapt to his feet, setting his cap straight as he did so.

  Hadji Murád put on his weapons and then his búrka. Eldár did the same, and they both went silently out of the sáklya into the penthouse. The black-eyed boy brought their horses. Hearing the clatter of hoofs on the hard-beaten road, someone stuck his head out of the door of a neighbouring sáklya, and a man ran up the hill towards the mosque, clattering with his wooden shoes. There was no moon, but the stars shone brightly in the black sky so that the outlines of the sáklya roofs could be seen in the darkness, the mosque with its minarets in the upper part of the village rising above the other buildings. From the mosque came a hum of voices.

  Quickly seizing his gun, Hadji Murád placed his foot in the narrow stirrup, and silently and easily throwing his body across, swung himself on to the high cushion of the saddle.

  ‘May God reward you!’ he said, addressing his host while his right foot felt instinctively for the stirrup, and with his whip he lightly touched the lad who held his horse, as a sign that he should let go. The boy stepped aside, and the horse, as if it knew what it had to do, started at a brisk pace down the lane towards the principal street. Eldár rode behind him. Sado in his sheepskin followed, almost running, swinging his arms and crossing now to one side and now to the other of the narrow side-street. At the place where the streets met, first one moving shadow and then another appeared in the road.

  ‘Stop … who’s that? Stop!’ shouted a voice, and several men blocked the path.

  Instead of stopping, Hadji Murád drew his pistol from his belt and increasing his speed rode straight at those who blocked the way. They separated, and without looking round he started down the road at a swift canter. Eldár followed him at a sharp trot. Two shots cracked behind them and two bullets whistled past without hitting either Hadji Murád or Eldár. Hadji Murád continued riding at the same pace, but having gone some three hundred yards he stopped his slightly panting horse and listened.

  In front of him, lower down, gurgled rapidly running water. Behind him in the aoul cocks crowed, answering one another. Above these sounds he heard behind him the approaching tramp of horses and the voices of several men. Hadji Murád touched his horse and rode on at an even pace. Those behind him galloped and soon overtook him. They were some twenty mounted men, inhabitants of the aoul, who had decided to detain Hadji Murád or at least to make a show of detaining him in order to justify themselves in Shamil’s eyes. When they came near enough to be seen in the darkness, Hadji Murád stopped, let go his bridle, and with an accustomed movement of his left hand unbuttoned the cover of his rifle, which he drew forth with his right. Eldár did the same.

  ‘What do you want?’ cried Hadji Murád. ‘Do you wish to take me?… Take me, then!’ and he raised his rifle. The men from the aoul stopped, and Hadji Murád, rifle in hand, rode down into the ravine. The mounted men followed him but did not draw any nearer. When Hadji Murád had crossed to the other side of the ravine the men shouted to him that he should hear what they had to say. In reply he fired his rifle and put his horse to a gallop. When he reined it in his pursuers were no longer within hearing and the crowing of the cocks could also no longer be heard; only the murmur of the water in the forest sounded more distinctly and now and then came the cry of an owl. The black wall of the forest appeared quite close. It was in this forest that his murids awaited him.

  On reaching it Hadji Murád paused, and drawing much air into his lungs he whistled and then listened silently. The next minute he was answered by a similar whistle from the forest. Hadji Murád turned from the road and entered it. When he had gone about a hundred paces he saw among the trunks of the trees a bonfire, the shadows of some men sitting round it, and, half lit-up by the firelight, a hobbled horse which was saddled. Four men were seated by the fire.

  One of them rose quickly, and coming up to Hadji Murád took hold of his bridle and stirrup. This was Hadji Murád’s sworn brother who managed his household affairs for him.

  ‘Put out the fire,’ said Hadji Murád, dismounting.

  The men began scattering the pile and trampling on the burning branches.

  ‘Has Bata been here?’ asked Hadji Murád, moving towards a búrka that was spread on the ground.

  ‘Yes, he went away long ago with Khan Mahomá.’

  ‘Which way did they go?’

  ‘That way,’ answered Khanéfi pointing in the opposite direction to that from which Hadji Murád had come.

  ‘All right,’ said Hadji Murád, and unslinging his rifle he began to load it.

  ‘We must take care – I have been pursued,’ he said to a man who was putting out the fire.

  This was Gamzálo, a Chechen. Gamzálo approached the búrka, took up a rifle that lay on it wrapped in its cover, and without a word went to that side of the glade from which Hadji Murád had come.

  When Eldár had dismounted he took Hadji Murád’s horse, and having reined up both horses’ heads high, tied them to two trees. Then he shouldered his rifle as Gamzálo had done and went to the other side of the glade. The bonfire was extinguished, the forest no longer looked as black as before, but in the sky the stars still shone, though faintly.

  Lifting his eyes to the stars and seeing that the Pleiades had already risen half-way up the sky, Hadji Murád calculated that it must be long past midnight and that his nightly prayer was long overdue. He asked Khanéfi for a ewer (they always carried one in their packs), and putting on his búrka went to the water.

  Having taken off his shoes and performed his ablutions, Hadji Murád stepped onto the búrka with bare feet and then squatted do
wn on his calves, and having first placed his fingers in his ears and closed his eyes, he turned to the south and recited the usual prayer.

  When he had finished he returned to the place where the saddle-bags lay, and sitting down on the búrka he leant his elbows on his knees and bowed his head and fell into deep thought.

  Hadji Murád always had great faith in his own fortune. When planning anything he always felt in advance firmly convinced of success, and fate smiled on him. It had been so, with a few rare exceptions, during the whole course of his stormy military life; and so he hoped it would be now. He pictured to himself how – with the army Vorontsóv would place at his disposal – he would march against Shamil and take him prisoner, and revenge himself on him; and how the Russian Tsar would reward him and how he would again rule not only over Avaria, but over the whole of Chechnya, which would submit to him. With these thoughts he unwittingly fell asleep.

  He dreamt how he and his brave followers rushed at Shamil with songs and with the cry, ‘Hadji Murád is coming!’ and how they seized him and his wives and how he heard the wives crying and sobbing. He woke up. The song, Lya-ilallysha, and the cry, ‘Hadji Murád is coming!’ and the weeping of Shamil’s wives, was the howling, weeping, and laughter of jackals that awoke him. Hadji Murád lifted his head, glanced at the sky which, seen between the trunks of the trees, was already growing light in the east, and inquired after Khan Mahomá of a murid who sat at some distance from him. On hearing that Khan Mahomá had not yet returned, Hadji Murád again bowed his head and at once fell asleep.

  He was awakened by the merry voice of Khan Mahomá returning from his mission with Bata. Khan Mahomá at once sat down beside Hadji Murád and told him how the soldiers had met them and had led them to the prince himself, and how pleased the prince was and how he promised to meet them in the morning where the Russians would be felling trees beyond the Mitchík in the Shalín glade. Bata interrupted his fellow-envoy to add details of his own.

  Hadji Murád asked particularly for the words with which Vorontsóv had answered his offer to go over to the Russians, and Khan Mahomá and Bata replied with one voice that the prince promised to receive Hadji Murád as a guest, and to act so that it should be well for him.