‘I ask you why I was not informed?’
‘I intended to inform you, Baron, but …’
‘You are not to address me as “Baron”, but as “Your Excellency”!’ And here the baron’s pent-up irritation suddenly broke out and he uttered all that had long been boiling in his soul.
‘I have not served my sovereign twenty-seven years in order that men who began their service yesterday, relying on family connexions, should give orders under my very nose about matters that do not concern them!’
‘Your Excellency, I request you not to say things that are incorrect!’ interrupted Vorontsóv.
‘I am saying what is correct, and I won’t allow …’ said the general, still more irritably.
But at that moment Márya Vasílevna entered, rustling with her skirts and followed by a modest-looking little lady, Meller-Zakomélsky’s wife.
‘Come, come, Baron! Simon did not wish to displease you,’ began Márya Vasílevna.
‘I am not speaking about that, Princess.…’
‘Well, well, let’s forget it all!… You know, “A bad peace is better than a good quarrel!” … Oh dear, what am I saying?’ and she laughed.
The angry general capitulated to the enchanting laugh of the beauty. A smile hovered under his moustache.
‘I confess I was wrong,’ said Vorontsóv, ‘but—’
‘And I too got rather carried away,’ said Meller, and held out his hand to the prince.
Peace was re-established, and it was decided to leave Hadji Murád with the general for the present, and then to send him to the commander of the left flank.
Hadji Murád sat in the next room and though he did not understand what was said, he understood what it was necessary for him to understand – namely, that they were quarrelling about him, that his desertion of Shamil was a matter of immense importance to the Russians, and that therefore not only would they not exile or kill him, but that he would be able to demand much from them. He also understood that though Meller-Zakomélsky was the commanding-officer, he had not as much influence as his subordinate Vorontsóv, and that Vorontsóv was important and Meller-Zakomélsky unimportant; and therefore when Meller-Zakomélsky sent for him and began to question him, Hadji Murád bore himself proudly and ceremoniously, saying that he had come from the mountains to serve the White Tsar and would give account only to his Sirdar, meaning the commander-in-chief, Prince Vorontsóv senior, in Tiflis.
VII
THE wounded Avdéev was taken to the hospital – a small wooden building roofed with boards at the entrance of the fort – and was placed on one of the empty beds in the common ward. There were four patients in the ward: one ill with typhus and in high fever; another, pale, with dark shadows under his eyes, who had ague, was just expecting another attack and yawned continually; and two more who had been wounded in a raid three weeks before: one in the hand – he was up – and the other in the shoulder. The latter was sitting on a bed. All of them except the typhus patient surrounded and questioned the newcomer and those who had brought him.
‘Sometimes they fire as if they were spilling peas over you, and nothing happens … and this time only about five shots were fired,’ related one of the bearers.
‘Each man gets what fate sends!’
‘Oh!’ groaned Avdéev loudly, trying to master his pain when they began to place him on the bed; but he stopped groaning when he was on it, and only frowned and moved his feet continually. He held his hands over his wound and looked fixedly before him.
The doctor came, and gave orders to turn the wounded man over to see whether the bullet had passed out behind.
‘What’s this?’ the doctor asked, pointing to the large white scars that crossed one another on the patient’s back and loins.
‘That was done long ago, your honour!’ replied Avdéev with a groan.
They were scars left by the flogging Avdéev had received for the money he drank.
Avdéev was again turned over, and the doctor probed in his stomach for a long time and found the bullet, but failed to extract it. He put a dressing on the wound, and having stuck plaster over it went away. During the whole time the doctor was probing and bandaging the wound Avdéev lay with clenched teeth and closed eyes, but when the doctor had gone he opened them and looked around as though amazed. His eyes were turned on the other patients and on the surgeon’s orderly, though he seemed to see not them but something else that surprised him.
His friends Panóv and Serógin came in, but Avdéev continued to lie in the same position looking before him with surprise. It was long before he recognized his comrades, though his eyes gazed straight at them.
‘I say, Peter, have you no message to send home?’ said Panóv.
Avdéev did not answer, though he was looking Panóv in the face.
‘I say, haven’t you any orders to send home?’ again repeated Panóv, touching Avdéev’s cold, large-boned hand.
Avdéev seemed to come to.
‘Ah!… Panóv!’
‘Yes, I’m here … I’ve come! Have you nothing for home? Serógin would write a letter.’
‘Serógin …’ said Avdéev moving his eyes with difficulty towards Serógin, ‘will you write?… Well then, write so: “Your son,” say, “Peter, has given orders that you should live long.7 He envied his brother” … I told you about that today … “and now he is himself glad. Don’t worry him.… Let him live. God grant it him. I am glad!” Write that.’
Having said this he was silent for some time with his eyes fixed on Panóv.
‘And did you find your pipe?’ he suddenly asked.
Panóv did not reply.
‘Your pipe … your pipe! I mean, have you found it?’ Avdéev repeated.
‘It was in my bag.’
‘That’s right!… Well, and now give me a candle to hold … I am going to die,’ said Avdéev.
Just then Poltorátsky came in to inquire after his soldier.
‘How goes it, my lad! Badly?’ said he.
Avdéev closed his eyes and shook his head negatively. His broad-cheeked face was pale and stern. He did not reply, but again said to Panóv:
‘Bring a candle.… I am going to die.’
A wax taper was placed in his hand but his fingers would not bend, so it was placed between them and held up for him.
Poltorátsky went away, and five minutes later the orderly put his ear to Avdéev’s heart and said that all was over.
Avdéev’s death was described in the following manner in the report sent to Tiflis:
‘23rd Nov. – Two companies of the Kurín regiment advanced from the fort on a wood-felling expedition. At midday a considerable number of mountaineers suddenly attacked the wood-fellers. The sharpshooters began to retreat, but the 2nd Company charged with the bayonet and overthrew the mountaineers. In this affair two privates were slightly wounded and one killed. The mountaineers lost about a hundred men killed and wounded.’
VIII
ON the day Peter Avdéev died in the hospital at Vozdvízhensk, his old father with the wife of the brother in whose stead he had enlisted, and that brother’s daughter – who was already approaching womanhood and almost of age to get married – were threshing oats on the hard-frozen threshing-floor.
There had been a heavy fall of snow the previous night, followed towards morning by a severe frost. The old man woke when the cocks were crowing for the third time, and seeing the bright moonlight through the frozen window-panes got down from the stove, put on his boots, his sheepskin coat and cap, and went out to the threshing-floor. Having worked there for a couple of hours he returned to the hut and awoke his son and the women. When the woman and the girl came to the threshing-floor they found it ready swept, with a wooden shovel sticking in the dry white snow, beside which were birch brooms with the twigs upwards and two rows of oat-sheaves laid ears to ears in a long line the whole length of the clean threshing-floor. They chose their flails and started threshing, keeping time with their triple blows. The old man struck powerfully with his heavy flail, breaking the straw, the girl struck the ears from above with measured blows, and the daughter-in-law turned the oats over with her flail.