‘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.
‘Who is he?’ asked the old man, pointing to the newcomer.
‘My murid. Eldár is his name,’ said Hadji Murád.
‘That is well,’ said the old man, and motioned Eldár to a place on a piece of felt beside Hadji Murád. Eldár sat down, crossing his legs and fixing his fine ram-like eyes on the old man who, having now started talking, was telling how their brave fellows had caught two Russian soldiers the week before and had killed one and sent the other to Shamil in Vedén.
Hadji Murád heard him absently, looking at the door and listening to the sounds outside. Under the penthouse steps were heard, the door creaked, and Sado, the master of the house, came in. He was a man of about forty, with a small beard, long nose, and eyes as black, though not as glittering, as those of his fifteen-year-old son who had run to call him home and who now entered with his father and sat down by the door. The master of the house took off his wooden slippers at the door, and pushing his old and much-worn cap to the back of his head (which had remained unshaved so long that it was beginning to be overgrown with black hair), at once squatted down in front of Hadji Murád.
He too lifted his hands palms upwards, as the old man had done, repeated a prayer, and then stroked his face downwards. Only after that did he begin to speak. He told how an order had come from Shamil to seize Hadji Murád alive or dead, that Shamil’s envoys had left only the day before, that the people were afraid to disobey Shamil’s orders, and that therefore it was necessary to be careful.
‘In my house,’ said Sado, ‘no one shall injure my kunák while I live, but how will it be in the open fields?… We must think it over.’
Hadji Murád listened with attention and nodded approvingly. When Sado had finished he said:
‘Very well. Now we must send a man with a letter to the Russians. My murid will go but he will need a guide.’
‘I will send brother Bata,’ said Sado. ‘Go and call Bata,’ he added, turning to his son.