University of Virginia Library

X

WHEN, next day, Hadji Murád appeared at the Prince's palace, 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 commisarriat money; and there was a rich Armenian (patronised by Doctor Andréevsky) who wanted to get from the Government a renewal of his monopoly for the sale of vódka. 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.

Hadji Murád 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 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.

Vorontsóv received Hadji Murád standing beside his table. The old white face of the commander-in-chief 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 old he is cunning, and I must be careful." Vorontsóv understood this also, but nevertheless he 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 to 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 before, when he governed Avaria in 1839, he served the Russians faithfully, and would never have deserted them had 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," said he, 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 make up his mind to sit in the presence of so important a man, he went on, addressing the interpreter,—

"Akhmet Khan and Shamil are both my enemies. Tell the Prince that Akhmet Khan is dead, and I cannot revenge myself on him; but Shamil lives, and I will not die without taking vengeance on him," said he, knitting his brows and tightly closing his mouth.

"Yes, yes; but how does he want to revenge himself on Shamil?" said Vorontsóv quietly to the interpreter. "And tell him he may sit down."

Hadji Murád again declined to sit down; and, in answer to the question, replied that his object in coming over to the Russians was to help them to destroy Shamil.

"Very well, very well," said Vorontsóv; "but what exactly does he wish to do? ... Sit down, sit down!"

Hadji Murád sat down, and said that if only

they would send him to the Lesghian line, and would give him an army, he would guarantee to raise the whole of Daghestan, and Shamil would then be unable to hold out.

"That would be excellent.... I'll think it over," said Vorontsóv.

The interpreter translated Vorontsóv's words to Hadji Murád.

Hadji Murád pondered.

"Tell the Sirdar one thing more," Hadji Murád began again: "That my family are in the hands of my enemy, and that as long as they are in the mountains I am bound, and cannot serve him. Shamil would kill my wife and my mother and my children if I went openly against him. Let the Prince first exchange my family for the prisoners he has, and then I will destroy Shamil or die!"

"All right, all right," said Vorontsóv. "I will think it over.... Now let him go to the chief of the staff, and explain to him in detail his position, intentions, and wishes."

Thus ended the first interview between Hadji Murád and Vorontsóv.

That evening, at the new theater, which was

decorated in Oriental style, an Italian opera was performed. Vorontsóv was in his box when the striking figure of the limping Hadji Murád wearing a turban appeared in the stalls. He came in with Lóris-Mélikov,[28] Vorontsóv's aide-de-camp, in whose charge he was placed, and took a seat in the front row. Having sat through the first act with Oriental, Mohammedan dignity, expressing no pleasure, but only obvious indifference, he rose and looking calmly round at the audience went out, drawing to himself everybody's attention.

The next day was Monday, and there was the usual evening party at the Vorontsóvs'. In the large brightly-lighted hall a band was playing, hidden among trees. Young and not very young women, in dresses displaying their bare necks arms and breasts, turned round and round in the embrace of men in bright uniforms. At the buffet footmen in red swallow-tail coats and wearing shoes and knee-breeches, poured out champagne and served sweetmeats

to the ladies. The "Sirdar's" wife also, in spite of her age, went about half-dressed among the visitors, affably smiling, and through the interpreter said a few amiable words to Hadji Murád, who glanced at the visitors with the same indifference he had shown yesterday in the theatre. After the hostess, other half-naked women came up to him, and all of them stood shamelessly before him and smilingly asked him the same question: How he liked what he saw? Vorontsóv himself, wearing gold epaulets and gold shoulder-knots, with his white cross and ribbon at his neck, came up and asked him the same question, evidently feeling sure, like all the others, that Hadji Murád could not help being pleased at what he saw. Hadji Murád replied to Vorontsóv, as he had replied to them all, that among his people nothing of the kind was done, without expressing an opinion as to whether it was good or bad that it was so.

Here at the ball Hadji Murád tried to speak to Vorontsóv about buying out his family; but Vorontsóv, pretending he had not heard him, walked away; and Lóris-Mélikov afterwards

told Hadji Murád that this was not the place to talk about business.

When it struck eleven Hadji Murád, having made sure of the time by the watch the Vorontsóvs had given him, asked Lóris-Mélikov whether he might now leave. Lóris-Mélikov said he might, though it would be better to stay. In spite of this Hadji Murád did not stay, but drove in the phaeton placed at his disposal to the quarters that had been assigned to him.