Leo Tolstoy Archive
Written: 1887
Source: Original Text from Gutenberg.org
Transcription/Markup: Andy Carloff
Online Source: RevoltLib.com; 2021
Scarcely had the bright sun risen above the mountains, and begun to shine into the valley where we were riding, when the undulating clouds of mist scattered, and it grew warm. The soldiers with guns and knapsacks on their backs marched slowly along the dusty road. In the ranks were frequently heard Malo-Russian dialogues and laughter. A few old soldiers in white linen coats—for the most part noncommissioned officers—marched along the roadside with their pipes, engaged in earnest conversation. The triple rows of heavily laden wagons advanced step by step, and raised a thick dust, which hung motionless.
The mounted officers rode in advance; a few jiggited, as they say in the Caucasus;[13] that is, applying the whip to their horses, they spurred them on to make four or five leaps, and then reined them in suddenly, pulling the head back. Others listened to the song-singers, who notwithstanding the heat and the oppressive air indefatigably tuned up one song after another.
A hundred sazhens in advance of the infantry, on a great white horse, surrounded by mounted Tatars, rode a tall, handsome officer in Asiatic costume, known to the regiment as a man of reckless valor, one who cuts any one straight in the eyes![14] He wore a black Tatar* half-coat or beshmét trimmed with silver braid, similar trousers, new leggings[15] closely laced with chirazui as they call galloons in the Caucasus, and a tall, yellow Cherkessian cap worn jauntily on the back of his head. On his breast and back were silver lacings. His powder-flask and pistol were hung at his back; another pistol, and a dagger in a silver sheath, depended from his belt. Besides all this was buckled on a saber in a red morocco sheath adorned with silver; and over the shoulder hung his musket in a black case.
By his garb, his carriage, his manner, and indeed by every motion, it was manifest that his ambition was to ape the Tatars. He was just saying something, in a language that I did not understand, to the Tatars who rode with him; but from the doubtful, mocking glances which these latter gave each other, I came to the conclusion that they did not understand him either.
This was one of our young officers of the dare-devil, jigit order, who get themselves up à la Marlinski and Lermontof. These men look upon the Caucasus, as it were, through the prism of the "Heroes of our Time," Mulla-Nurof[16] and others, and in all their activities are I directed not by their own inclinations but by the example of these models.
This lieutenant, for instance, was very likely fond of the society of well-bred women and men of importance, generals, colonels, adjutants,—I may even go so far as to believe that he was very fond of this society, because he was in the highest degree vainglorious,—but he considered it his unfailing duty to show his rough side to all important people, although he offended them always more or less; and when any lady made her appearance at the fortress, then he considered* it his duty to ride by her windows with his cronies, or kunaki as they are called in the dialect of the Caucasus, dressed in a red shirt and nothing but chuviaki on his bare legs, and shouting and swearing at the top of his voice—but all this not only with the desire to insult her, but also to show her what handsome white legs he had, and how easy it would be to fall in love with him if only he himself were willing. Or he often went by at night with two or three friendly Tatars to the mountains into ambush by the road so as to take by surprise and kill hostile Tatars coming along; and though more than once his heart told him that there was nothing brave in such a deed, yet he felt himself under obligations to inflict suffering upon people in whom he thought that he was disappointed, and whom he affected to hate and despise. He always carried two things,—an immense holy image around his neck, and a dagger above his shirt. He never took them off, but even went to bed with them. He firmly believed that enemies surrounded him. It was his greatest delight to argue that he was under obligations to wreak vengeance on some one and wash out insults in blood. He was persuaded that spite, vengeance, and hatred of the human race were the highest and most poetical of feelings. But his mistress,—a Circassian girl course,—whom I happened afterwards to meet, said that he was the mildest and gentlest of men, and that every evening he wrote in his gloomy diary, cast up his accounts on ruled paper, and got on his knees to say his prayers. And how much suffering he endured, to seem to himself only what he desired to be, because his comrades and the soldiers could not comprehend him as he desired!
Once, in one of his nocturnal expeditions with his* Tatar friends, it happened that he put a bullet into the leg of a hostile Tchetchenets, and took him prisoner. This Tchetchenets for seven weeks thereafter lived with the lieutenant; the lieutenant dressed his wound, waited on him as though he were his nearest friend, and when he was cured sent him home with gifts. Afterwards, during an expedition when the lieutenant was retreating from the post, having been repulsed by the enemy, he heard some one call him by name, and his wounded kunák strode out from among the hostile Tatars, and by signs asked him to do the same. The lieutenant went to meet his kunák, and shook hands with him. The mountaineers stood at some little distance, and refrained from firing; but, as soon as the lieutenant turned his horse to go back, several shot at him, and one bullet grazed the small of his back.
Another time I myself saw a fire break out by night in the fortress, and two companies of soldiers were detailed to put it out. Amid the crowd, lighted up by the ruddy glare of the fire, suddenly appeared the tall form of the man on a coal-black horse. He forced his way through the crowd, and rode straight to the fire. As soon as he came near, the lieutenant leaped from his horse, and hastened into the house, which was all in flames on one side. At the end of five minutes he emerged with singed hair and burned sleeves, carrying in his arms two doves which he had rescued from the flames.
His name was Rosenkranz; but he often spoke of his ancestry, traced it back to the Varangians, and clearly showed that he and his forefathers were genuine Russians.