Hadji Murád quotes

“

But what energy and tenacity! With what determination it defended itself, and how dearly it sold its life!

” thought I to myself, recollecting the effort it had cost me to pluck the flower. The way home led across black-earth fields that had just been ploughed up. I ascended the dusty path.

“What energy!” 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 eyewitnesses, and in part imagined.

“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!” added he, hoarsely and angrily.

“Very well. …

A rope should be long but a speech short

,” said Hadji Murád.

He knew that the inhabitants of the aoul might at any moment become aware of Hadji Murád’s presence in his house and might demand his surrender; but this not only did not frighten Sado, it even gave him pleasure.

He considered it his duty to protect his guest though it should cost him his life, and he was proud and pleased with himself because he was doing his duty.

“Whilst thou are in my house and my head is on my shoulders no one shall harm thee,” he repeated to Hadji Murád.

“

Whilst thou are in my house and my head is on my shoulders no one shall harm thee

,” he repeated to Hadji Murád.

There they stopped. It was at this plane tree that an ambush party was usually placed.

The bright stars, that had seemed to be running along the tree tops while the soldiers were walking through the forest, now stood still, shining brightly between the bare branches of the trees.

“A good job it’s dry,” said the noncommissioned officer, Panóv, bringing down his long gun and bayonet with a clang from his shoulder, and placing it against the plane tree. The three soldiers did the same.

He was a good master, who seldom struck him, but what kind of a life was it? “

He promised to free me when we return from the Caucasus, but where am I to go with my freedom?

… It’s a dog’s life!” thought Vovílo, and he felt so sleepy that, afraid lest someone should come in and steal something, he fastened the hook of the door and fell asleep.

When he had finished he returned to the place where the saddlebags lay, and sitting down on the burka he leant his elbows on his knees, and bowed his head and fell into deep thought.

Hadji Murád always had great faith in his own fortune.

When planning anything he always felt in advance firmly convinced of success, and fate smiled on him. It had been so, with a few rare exceptions, during the whole course of his stormy military life; and so he hoped it would be now.

Poltorátsky had never expected to see the terrible mountain chief look like that. He had expected to see a morose, hard-featured man; and here was a vivacious person, whose smile was so kindly that Poltorátsky felt as if he were an old acquaintance.

He had only one peculiarity: his eyes, set wide apart, which gazed from under their black brows calmly, attentively, and penetratingly into the eyes of others.

Hadji Murád’s suite consisted of five men. Among them was Khan Mahomá, who had been to see Prince Vorontsóv that night. He was a rosy, round-faced fellow, with black lashless eyes and a beaming expression, full of the joy of life.

As soon as Hadji Murád was alone in the room allotted to him his face altered. The pleased expression, now kindly and now stately, vanished, and a look of anxiety showed itself. Vorontsóv had received him far better than Hadji Murád had expected.

But the better the reception the less did Hadji Murád trust Vorontsóv and his officers.

He feared everything: that he might be seized, chained, and sent to Siberia, or simply killed; and therefore he was on his guard.

“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.

“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.

“

Each man gets what fate sends!

”

The disagreements between father and son had begun long ago—almost from the time Peter went as a soldier.

Even then the old man felt that he had parted with an eagle for a cuckoo.

It is true that it was right—as the old man understood it—for a childless man to go in place of a family man. Akím had four children, and Peter had none;

The old man regretted his going away, but there was no help for it.

Conscription in those days was like death. A soldier was a severed branch; and to think about him at home was to tear one’s heart uselessly.

Only occasionally, to prick his elder son, did the father mention him, as he had done that day.

He was ambitious, gentle, and kind in his manner with inferiors, and a finished courtier with superiors.

He did not understand life without power and submission.

He had obtained all the highest ranks and decorations, and was looked upon as a clever commander, and even as the conqueror of Napoleon at Krásnoye.

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.

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.

Only his officers came riding to us and played cards with Umma Khan. They made him drunk with wine and took him to bad places; and he lost all he had to them at cards.

His body was as strong as a bull’s, and he was as brave as a lion, but his soul was weak as water.

He would have gambled away his last horses and weapons if I had not made him come away.

but a woman has as much sense in her head as an egg has hair. She ordered her son to go. Abu Nutsal Khan did not wish to. Then she said, ‘I see thou are afraid!’

Like a bee she knew where to sting him most painfully.

Abu Nutsal Khan flushed, and did not speak to her any more, but ordered his horse to be saddled. I went with him.

“Never after that. …

Since then I have always remembered that shame, and when I recalled it I feared nothing!

”

“Yes, lámorey means mountaineer,” replied Gamzálo. “

It is in the mountains that the eagles dwell.

”

Lóris-Mélikov quite understood what sort of men Khan Mahomá and Eldár were. Khan Mahomá was a merry fellow, careless and ready for any spree. He did not know what to do with his superfluous vitality.

He was always gay and reckless, and played with his own and other people’s lives.

For the sake of that sport with life he had now come over to the Russians, and for the same sport he might go back to Shamil tomorrow.

Khan Mahomá was a merry fellow, careless and ready for any spree. He did not know what to do with his superfluous vitality. He was always gay and reckless, and played with his own and other people’s lives.

For the sake of that sport with life he had now come over to the Russians, and for the same sport he might go back to Shamil tomorrow.

Eldár was also quite easy to understand. He was a man entirely devoted to his Murshíd; calm, strong, and firm.

“What could he do? …

Where the forelegs have gone, the hind legs must follow!

He killed off the whole family. Shamil killed the youngest son—threw him over a precipice. …

“There never was any friendship between me and Shamil,” said Hadji Murád at the end of his story, “but he feared me and needed me. But it so happened that I was asked who should be Imam after Shamil, and I replied: ‘

He will be Imam whose sword is sharpest!

’

“Take pains, do try! … What is mine is thine, only help me with the Prince!

I am tied up, and the end of the rope is in Shamil’s hands

,” said Hadji Murád concluding his story.

Therefore I think that I could not act otherwise than as I have done, though at the same time I feel that I may be accused of having made a great mistake if Hadji Murád should take it into his head again to escape.

In the service, and especially in a complicated situation such as this, it is difficult, not to say impossible, to follow any one straight path without risking mistakes, and without accepting responsibility; but once a path seems to be the right one I must follow it, happen what may.

“I beg of you, dear Prince, to submit this to his Majesty the Emperor for his consideration; and I shall be happy if it pleases our most august monarch to approve my action.

On catching sight of the angry figure of Nicholas, drawn up to its full height, the fair-haired woman quickly covered her face with her mask, but the Uhlan officer, rigid with fear, without rising from the sofa, gazed at Nicholas with fixed eyes.

Used as he was to the terror he inspired in others, that terror always pleased Nicholas, and by way of contrast he sometimes liked to astound those plunged in terror by addressing kindly words to them.

He did so on this occasion.

“Kopervine … Kopervine—” he repeated several times (it was the name of yesterday’s girl). “Horrid … horrid—”

He did not think of what he said, but stifled his feelings by listening to it.

“Yes, what would Russia do without me?” said he, feeling his former dissatisfaction returning; “yes, what would—not Russia alone but Europe be, without me?” and calling to mind the weakness and stupidity of his brother-in-law, the King of Prussia, he shook his head.

Nicholas heard the report of the embezzlement silently, with compressed lips, his large white hand—with one ring on the fourth finger—stroking some sheets of paper, and his eyes steadily fixed on Chernyshóv’s forehead and on the tuft of hair above it.

Nicholas was convinced that everybody stole.

He knew he would have to punish the commissariat officials now, and decided to send them all to serve in the ranks; but he also knew that this would not prevent those who succeeded them from acting in the same way.

“

It seems there is only one honest man in Russia!

” said he.

Nicholas frowned.

He had done much evil to the Poles. To justify that evil he had to feel certain that all Poles were rascals, and hated them accordingly in proportion to the evil he had done to them.

“Wait a little,” he said, closing his eyes and bowing his head.

“There,” he said, “read it.”

Chernyshóv read it, and bowed his head as a sign of respectful amazement at the wisdom of the decision.

“Yes, and let all the students be present on the drill-ground at the punishment,” added Nicholas.

Having received all the New Year congratulations, he passed on to church, where God, through His servants the priests, greeted and praised Nicholas just as worldly people did; and weary as he was of these greetings and praises, Nicholas duly accepted them.

All this was as it should be, because the welfare and happiness of the whole world depended on him; and though the matter wearied him, he still did not refuse the universe his assistance.

When at the end of the service the magnificently arrayed deacon, his long hair crimped and carefully combed, began the chant “Many Years,” which was heartily caught up by the splendid choir, Nicholas looked round and noticed Nelídova, with her fine shoulders, standing by a …

In a black coat and tall cap, shouldering his sword, at the head of the 5th Company marched Butler, a tall handsome officer who had recently exchanged from the Guards.

He was filled with a buoyant sense of the joy of living, the danger of death, and a wish for action, and the consciousness of being part of an immense whole directed by a single will.

This was the second time he was going into action, and he thought how in a moment they would be fired at, and he would not only not stoop when the shells flew overhead, nor heed the whistle of the bullets, but would carry his …

Butler felt buoyant, calm, and joyful. War presented itself to him as consisting only in his exposing himself to danger and to possible death, thereby gaining rewards and the respect of his comrades here, as well as of his friends in Russia.

Strange to say, his imagination never pictured the other aspect of war: the death and wounds of the soldiers, officers, and mountaineers. To retain this poetic conception he even unconsciously avoided looking at the dead and wounded.

So that day, when we had three dead and twelve wounded, he passed by a corpse lying on its back, and only saw with one eye the strange position of the waxen hand and a dark red spot on the head, and did not stop …

The fountain was polluted, evidently on purpose, so that the water could not be used. The mosque was polluted in the same way, and the Mullah and his assistants were cleaning it out.

No one spoke of hatred of the Russians. The feeling experienced by all the Chechens, from the youngest to the oldest, was stronger than hate.

It was not hatred, for they did not regard those Russian dogs as human beings;

but then, as always, it was cheerful and soothing to look to the left, at the dark receding and ascending forest-clad hills, and at the dim line of snow peaks which as usual pretended to be clouds.

Butler looked at these mountains, inhaling deep breaths and rejoicing that he was alive, that it was just he that was alive, and that he lived in this beautiful place.

He was also rather pleased that he had behaved so well in yesterday’s affair, both during the advance and especially during the retreat, when things were pretty hot;

… wore nothing bright—no gold or silver—and his tall, erect, powerful figure, clothed in garments without any ornaments, surrounded by murids with gold and silver on their clothes and weapons, produced on the people just the impression and influence he desired and knew how to produce.

His pale face, framed by a closely trimmed reddish beard, with his small eyes always screwed up, was as immovable as though hewn out of stone.

As he rode through the aoul he felt the gaze of a thousand eyes turned eagerly on him, but he himself looked at no one.

His pale face, framed by a closely trimmed reddish beard, with his small eyes always screwed up, was as immovable as though hewn out of stone.

As he rode through the aoul he felt the gaze of a thousand eyes turned eagerly on him, but he himself looked at no one.

Hadji Murád’s wives had come out into the penthouse with the rest of the inmates of the sáklya, to see the Imam’s entry.

She, like her son, had always hated Shamil; and now she hated him more than ever, and had no wish to see him. Neither did Hadji Murád’s son see Shamil’s triumphal entry.

Sitting in the dark and fetid pit, he heard the firing and singing, and endured tortures such as can only be felt by the young who are full of vitality and deprived of freedom.

He only saw his unfortunate, dirty, and exhausted fellow-prisoners—embittered, and for the most part filled with hatred of one another. He now passionately envied those who, enjoying fresh air and light and freedom, caracoled on fiery steeds around their chief, shooting and heartily singing:

“

Judge of the future by the past.

It is better to die in enmity with the Russians than to live with the Unbelievers. Endure for a little while, and I will come with the Koran and the sword, and will lead you against the enemy.

“Judge of the future by the past.

It is better to die in enmity with the Russians than to live with the Unbelievers.

Endure for a little while, and I will come with the Koran and the sword, and will lead you against the enemy. But now I strictly command you not only to entertain no intention, but not even a thought, of submitting to the Russians!”

“We have a proverb,” said Hadji Murád to the interpreter, “ ‘The dog gave meat to the ass, and the ass gave hay to the dog, and both went hungry,’ ” and he smiled. “

Its own customs seem good to each nation.

”

“We have a proverb,” said Hadji Murád to the interpreter, “ ‘

The dog gave meat to the ass, and the ass gave hay to the dog, and both went hungry

,’ ” and he smiled. “Its own customs seem good to each nation.”

“

Well, if he kills me it will prove that such is Allah’s will.

… Goodbye,” he said again in Russian, taking his horse by the withers. Glancing round at everybody who had come out to see him off, his eyes rested kindly on Márya Dmítrievna.

Khanéfi and Eldár also mounted, and having taken a friendly leave of their hosts and of the officers, rode off at a trot, following their Murshíd.

As usual after anyone’s departure, those who remained behind began to discuss those who had left.

“Plucky fellow! Didn’t he rush at Arslán Khan like a wolf! His face quite changed!”

“

God grant there were more Russian rogues of such a kind!

” suddenly put in Márya Dmítrievna with vexation. “He has lived a week with us and we have seen nothing but good from him. He is courteous, wise, and just,” she added.

“Well, and if I am smitten? What’s that to you? But why run him down if he’s a good man?

Though he’s a Tartar, he’s still a good man!

”

That was his last evening there. He need only have refrained from playing, and gone to the Vorontsóvs who had invited him, and all would have been well, thought he; but now it was not only not well, but terrible.

Having taken leave of his comrades and acquaintances he rode home and went to bed, and slept for eighteen hours as people usually sleep after losing heavily.

From the fact that he asked her to lend him fifty kopeks to tip the Cossack who had escorted him, and from his sorrowful looks and short answers, Márya Dmítrievna guessed that he had lost at cards, and she reproached the Major for having given …

Butler’s only consolation all this time was the poetry of warfare, to which he gave himself up not only during his hours of service, but also in private life.

Dressed in his Circassian costume he rode and swaggered about, and twice went into ambush with Bogdanóvich, though neither time did they discover or kill anyone. This closeness to and friendship with Bogdanóvich, famed for his courage, seemed pleasant and warlike to Butler.

Dressed in his Circassian costume he rode and swaggered about, and twice went into ambush with Bogdanóvich, though neither time did they discover or kill anyone. This closeness to and friendship with Bogdanóvich, famed for his courage, seemed pleasant and warlike to Butler.

He had paid his debt, having borrowed the money of a Jew at an enormous rate of interest⁠—that is to say, he had postponed his difficulties without solving them.

He tried not to think of his position, and to find oblivion not only in the poetry of warfare, but also in wine. He drank more and more every day, and day by day grew morally weaker.

He tried not to think of his position, and to find oblivion not only in the poetry of warfare, but also in wine.

He drank more and more every day, and day by day grew morally weaker.

He was now no longer the chaste Joseph he had been towards Márya Dmítrievna, but on the contrary began courting her grossly, but to his surprise, met with a strong and decided repulse which put him to shame.

Márya Dmítrievna turned back and walked beside him.

The moon shone so brightly that round the shadows of their heads a halo seemed to move along the road.

Butler was looking at this halo and making up his mind to tell her that he liked her as much as ever, but he did not know how to begin. She waited to hear what he would say.

“Humbug! You won’t get away!” shouted Nazárov, stung to the quick. He gave his big roan gelding a cut with his whip, and rising in his stirrups and bending forward, flew full speed in pursuit of Hadji Murád.

The sky was so bright, the air so clear, and life played so joyously in Nazárov’s soul as, becoming one with his fine strong horse, he flew along the smooth road behind Hadji Murád, that the possibility of anything sad or dreadful happening never occurred to him.

He rejoiced that with every step he was gaining on Hadji Murád.