Hadji Murád

I was returning home by the fields. It was midsummer; the hay harvest was over, and they were just beginning to reap the rye. At that season of the year there is a delightful variety of flowers⁠—red, white, and pink scented tufty clover; milk-white ox-eye daisies with their bright yellow centers and pleasant spicy smell; yellow honey-scented rape blossoms; tall campanulas with white and lilac bells, tulip-shaped; creeping vetch; yellow, red, and pink scabious; plantains with faintly-scented, neatly-arranged purple, slightly pink-tinged blossoms; cornflowers, bright blue in the sunshine and when still young, but growing paler and redder towards evening or when growing old; and delicate quickly-withering almond-scented dodder flowers. I gathered a large nosegay of these different flowers, and was going home, when I noticed in a ditch, in full bloom, a beautiful thistle plant of the crimson kind, which in our neighborhood they call “Tartar” and carefully avoid when mowing⁠—or, if they do happen to cut it down, throw out from among the grass for fear of pricking their hands. Thinking to pick this thistle and put it in the center of my nosegay, I climbed down into the ditch, and, after driving away a velvety bumblebee that had penetrated deep into one of the flowers and had there fallen sweetly asleep, I set to work to pluck the flower. But this proved a very difficult task. Not only did the stalk prick on every side⁠—even through the handkerchief I wrapped round my hand⁠—but it was so tough that I had to struggle with it for nearly five

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 neighbor 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.

Hadji Murád donned his weapons and then his burka. 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 neighboring sáklya, and, lattering with his wooden shoes, a man ran up the hill towards the mosque. 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, and rising above the other buildings, the mosque with its minarets in the upper part of the village. From the mosque came a hum of voices.

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

Vorontsóv received Hadji Murád standing beside his table. The white old 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 that part of his chest where the front of his white coat overlapped, and, having lowered his eyes, began without hurrying to speak in Tartar 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.”

“Thou are Hadji Murád’s son?”

“I am, Imam.”

“Thou knowest what he has done?”

“I know, Imam, and deplore it.”

“Canst thou write?”

“I was preparing myself to be a Mullah⁠—”

“Then write to thy father that if he will return to me now, before the Feast of Bairam, I will forgive him, and everything shall be as it was before; but if not, and if he remains with the Russians”⁠—and Shamil frowned sternly⁠—“I will give thy grandmother, thy mother, and the rest to the different aouls, and thee I will behead!”

Not a muscle of Yusúf’s face stirred, and he bowed his head to show that he understood Shamil’s words.

“Write that, and give it to my messenger.”

Shamil ceased speaking, and looked at Yusúf for a long time in silence.

“Write that I have had pity on thee and will not kill thee, but will put out thine eyes as I do to all traitors!⁠ ⁠… Go!”