‘He is a great man.’
‘Had he been born in Europe he might have been another Napoleon,’ said the stupid Georgian prince with a gift of flattery.
He knew that every mention of Napoleon was pleasant to Vorontsóv, who wore the White Cross at his neck as a reward for having defeated him.
‘Well, not Napoleon perhaps, but a gallant cavalry general if you like,’ said Vorontsóv.
‘If not Napoleon, then Murat.’
‘And his name is Hadji Murád!’
‘Hadji Murád has surrendered and now there’ll be an end to Shamil too,’ someone remarked.
‘They feel that now’ (this ‘now’ meant under Vorontsóv) ‘they can’t hold out,’ remarked another.
‘Tout cela est grâce à vous!’13 said Manana Orbelyáni.
Prince Vorontsóv tried to moderate the waves of flattery which began to flow over him. Still, it was pleasant, and in the best of spirits he led his lady back into the drawing-room.
After dinner, when coffee was being served in the drawing-room, the prince was particularly amiable to everybody, and going up to the general with the red bristly moustaches he tried to appear not to have noticed his blunder.
Having made a round of the visitors he sat down to the card-table. He only played the old-fashioned game of ombre. His partners were the Georgian prince, an Armenian general (who had learnt the game of ombre from Prince Vorontsóv’s valet), and Doctor Andréevsky, a man remarkable for the great influence he exercised.
Placing beside him his gold snuff-box with a portrait of Alexander I on the lid, the prince tore open a pack of highly glazed cards and was going to spread them out, when his Italian valet, Giovanni, brought him a letter on a silver tray.
‘Another courier, your Excellency.’
Vorontsóv laid down the cards, excused himself, opened the letter, and began to read.
The letter was from his son, who described Hadji Murád’s surrender and his own encounter with Meller-Zakomélsky.
The princess came up and inquired what their son had written.
‘It’s all about the same matter.… Il a eu quelques désagréments avec le commandant de la place. Simon a eu tort.14 … But “All’s well that ends well”,’ he added in English, handing the letter to his wife; and turning to his respectfully waiting partners he asked them to draw cards.
When the first round had been dealt Vorontsóv did what he was in the habit of doing when in a particularly pleasant mood: with his white, wrinkled old hand he took out a pinch of French snuff, carried it to his nose, and released it.
X
WHEN Hadji Murád appeared at the prince’s palace next day, the waiting-room was already full of people. Yesterday’s general with the bristly moustaches was there in full uniform with all his decorations, having come to take leave. There was the commander of a regiment who was in danger of being court-martialled for misappropriating commissariat money, and there was a rich Armenian (patronized by Doctor Andréevsky) who wanted to obtain from the Government a renewal of his monopoly for the sale of vodka. There, dressed in black, was the widow of an officer who had been killed in action. She had come to ask for a pension, or for free education for her children. There was a ruined Georgian prince in a magnificent Georgian costume who was trying to obtain for himself some confiscated church property. There was an official with a large roll of paper containing a new plan for subjugating the Caucasus. There was also a Khan who had come solely to be able to tell his people at home that he had called on the prince.
They all waited their turn and were one by one shown into the prince’s cabinet and out again by the aide-de-camp, a handsome, fair-haired youth.
When Hadji Murád entered the waiting-room with his brisk though limping step all eyes were turned towards him and he heard his name whispered from various parts of the room.
He was dressed in a long white Circassian coat over a brown beshmét trimmed round the collar with fine silver lace. He wore black leggings and soft shoes of the same colour which were stretched over his instep as tight as gloves. On his head he wore a high cap draped turban-fashion – that same turban for which, on the denunciation of Akhmet Khan, he had been arrested by General Klügenau and which had been the cause of his going over to Shamil.
He stepped briskly across the parquet floor of the waiting-room, his whole slender figure swaying slightly in consequence of his lameness in one leg which was shorter than the other. His eyes, set far apart, looked calmly before him and seemed to see no one.
The handsome aide-de-camp, having greeted him, asked him to take a seat while he went to announce him to the prince, but Hadji Murád declined to sit down and, putting his hand on his dagger, stood with one foot advanced, looking round contemptuously at all those present.
The prince’s interpreter, Prince Tarkhánov, approached Hadji Murád and spoke to him. Hadji Murád answered abruptly and unwillingly. A Kumýk prince, who was there to lodge a complaint against a police official, came out of the prince’s room, and then the aide-de-camp called Hadji Murád, led him to the door of the cabinet, and showed him in.
The Commander-in-Chief received Hadji Murád standing beside his table, and his old white face did not wear yesterday’s smile but was rather stern and solemn.
On entering the large room with its enormous table and great windows with green venetian blinds, Hadji Murád placed his small sunburnt hands on his chest just where the front of his white coat overlapped, and lowering his eyes began, without hurrying, to speak distinctly and respectfully, using the Kumýk dialect which he spoke well.
‘I place myself under the powerful protection of the great Tsar and of yourself,’ said he, ‘and promise to serve the White Tsar in faith and truth to the last drop of my blood, and I hope to be useful to you in the war with Shamil who is my enemy and yours.’
Having heard the interpreter out, Vorontsóv glanced at Hadji Murád and Hadji Murád glanced at Vorontsóv.
The eyes of the two men met, and expressed to each other much that could not have been put into words and that was not at all what the interpreter said. Without words they told each other the whole truth. Vorontsóv’s eyes said that he did not believe a single word Hadji Murád was saying, and that he knew he was and always would be an enemy to everything Russian and had surrendered only because he was obliged to. Hadji Murád understood this and yet continued to give assurances of his fidelity. His eyes said, ‘That old man ought to be thinking of his death and not of war, but though he is old he is cunning, and I must be careful.’ Vorontsóv understood this also, but nevertheless spoke to Hadji Murád in the way he considered necessary for the success of the war.
‘Tell him’, said Vorontsóv, ‘that our sovereign is as merciful as he is mighty and will probably at my request pardon him and take him into his service.… Have you told him?’ he asked, looking at Hadji Murád.… ‘Until I receive my master’s gracious decision, tell him I take it on myself to receive him and make his sojourn among us pleasant.’
Hadji Murád again pressed his hands to the centre of his chest and began to say something with animation.
‘He says’, the interpreter translated, ‘that formerly, when he governed Avaria in 1839, he served the Russians faithfully and would never have deserted them had not his enemy, Akhmet Khan, wishing to ruin him, calumniated him to General Klügenau.’
‘I know, I know,’ said Vorontsóv (though if he had ever known he had long forgotten it). ‘I know,’ he repeated, sitting down and motioning Hadji Murád to the divan that stood beside the wall. But Hadji Murád did not sit down. Shrugging his powerful shoulders as a sign that he could not bring himself to sit in the presence of so important a man, he went on, addressing the interpreter: