“To our surprise, the older boy didn’t hold it against us; thanks to us, he was promoted to ‘corporal.’ You see, the cadets did not consider those who had never been whipped to be real cadets. Only the first caning conferred the title of cadet. The second enabled one to move on to corporal, and the third to noncommissioned officer. And so on.
“Six months after arriving, Jamal Eddin was already a Field Marshal, which signified that he had been beaten eighteen times. I remember a certain Count Buxhöwden, a long-time Field Marshal, who was beaten every week. This was a problem, because there was no higher rank of the army to promote him to. So we invented children for him, entire generations that could continue to rise through the ranks in his place. Every time Buxhöwden was caned, we imagined for example that it was his son who was promoted to first cadet, then NCO, and so on. When Buxhöwden’s son had made Field Marshal, it was his grandson’s turn to take over. After fifty-four beatings, Buxhöwden gave birth to a great-grandson who began a new career with us.
“Buxhöwden was two or three years older than we were and belonged to an illustrious family from the Baltics. He became Jamal Eddin’s friend and remained so throughout our studies. I don’t know what became of him, but if he is still alive today, he would surely have memories to share with our readers about daily life at the Cadet Corps.
“After a while—readers will forgive an old head like mine if I mix up the years a bit—when I finally had my uniform jacket, to my great dismay, they placed another bed in between Jamal Eddin’s and mine. This bed was assigned to a boy named Youssouf, who was the son of a wealthy khan who had allied himself with the Czar. His father had presented Youssouf at the Russian Court with great pomp, in hopes that the Czar would take him under his protection. Youssouf and Jamal Eddin despised each other immediately.
“Several months after Youssouf had settled in—probably a year or so after our arrival, in 1842 or 1843—Czar Nicholas made one of his surprise lightning visits to the school. These unexpected visits terrified the director, who always had a guard posted at the Isakievsky Bridge to warn him. The problem was that the Emperor came into town every day, alone or with a few aides-de-camp, to ‘breathe the air of his capital.’ He drove in in his summer carriage or his little sleigh in the winter, and generally made a quick loop. When the sentinel arrived, breathless, with the terrible news that the Czar was headed in this direction, we had only a few minutes to prepare ourselves.
“The Czar’s arrival filled everyone with dread. Even the cadets who had done nothing wrong felt guilty. The smallest transgression could incur the severest of sanctions. There was no such thing as a venial sin. He visited each class, interrupting the courses with irrelevant questions that we answered, terrified, with nonsense.
“‘Don’t disturb the order of the day,’ he’d say. ‘Just go on as if I weren’t here.’
“I remember his rage at the conduct of Cadet Buxhöwden—our Field Marshal with the long line of descendants—who forgot himself in His August Presence and leaned his elbow on the desk during a lesson. As a result, the Czar immediately demanded that his teacher be sacked. As for Count Buxhöwden, he earned another great-great-great-grandson.
“This time, after having visited the house, His Majesty came to our room, the dormitory of the Cherkesses. He walked up to Youssouf and asked him amiably how he was, and had he received any letters from home?
“‘No,’ replied Youssouf.
“The Czar turned to the director, furious, and barked, ‘Teach him how to speak correctly!’
“Then he turned to Jamal Eddin and put his hand on his shoulder.
“‘If you would like to write to your father, you may do so, my boy. I grant you authorization and will personally see to it that your letters reach him.’
“‘I am happy to thank Your Imperial Majesty,’ Jamal Eddin replied, politely and spontaneously.
“‘You have learned how to express yourself suitably. Bravo, my boy. And your arm, is it better? Show me.’
“Jamal Eddin quickly pushed up the sleeve of his cherkeska and revealed his scar, between the wrist and elbow of his left arm, which had healed well.
“‘That’s perfect. Continue on this path. I’ll be back soon to have a look at your progress and collect your letters.’
“Then His Majesty left, leaving us all breathless.
“Jamal Eddin did not revel in the Czar’s favor, but acted instead as though he found it perfectly natural. He refused to take part in any of our games from then until the next imperial visit. Instead, he holed up in a corner and wrote frenetically, covering sheet after sheet of stationery. He was probably afraid that the Czar would return before he had finished his letter to his father.
“Jamal Eddin remained a mystery to me. He never confided in me. All I knew of him was what my brother Dmitri had told me. I don’t think he even revealed his feelings to Buxhöwden, his best friend, of whom I was jealous.
“He was fiercely sensitive, and dignified, in a haughty way that sometimes made him aggressive—and dangerous to anyone who insulted him or was suspected of doing so. But he knew how to laugh and have a good time, too. He had an instinctive curiosity about everything around him and was always game for pranks and mischief. A great teaser, and an excellent comrade. In other circumstances, I believe he really would have been full of joie de vivre. He liked to clown around, especially on horseback, when he became downright impish and droll.
“But his own lightheartedness seemed to shock and displease him, and he tried to contain it. When he found he was enjoying something too much, as was often the case, when he was learning how to draw, for example, or how to dance—he was the best dancer, the most agile of all of us—sooner or later he would become annoyed with himself and tone it down. He stifled his own impulses and, in the end, he always tried to break himself.
“As for his arm, though he had scars all over both of his arms, this wound that the Czar knew about had attracted our curiosity. As usual, he was very discreet about it, and we had to worm it out of him. He told us, with great reserve and difficulty, that a Cossack of the Don had wounded him with a lance when his family was escaping from Akulgo. His family had managed to get away when he, Jamal Eddin, had fallen from his horse. That was when he had been captured and made a prisoner.
“I think he doctored the truth a little and mixed up several incidents, because he couldn’t admit that his own people had given him up. He still couldn’t bear the idea.
“But I did not understand that until later, in our room, when Youssouf, humiliated by the Emperor’s remarks and probably envious, started shouting that, if Jamal Eddin was in Russia, it wasn’t because he had been captured when he was running away, but because he had been betrayed and given away by his father.
“The fight that followed cost them both dearly.
“As luck would have it, after the Czar left, our company had been assigned a new captain—Captain Argamakov, also known as The Beast—who loved the sight of blood. The usual punishment for insubordination was twenty-five lashes with the cane. But twenty-five lashes from Argamakov were like the knout used in public beatings of true delinquents. In this case, the punishment was forty lashes for each of the two Muslims.