Novels, Tales, Journeys

PREFACE

Not long ago there came into my hands a book published in Paris last year (1834) under the title Voyages en Orient entrepris par ordre du Gouvernement Français.^*1 1 The author, giving his own description of the campaign of 1829, ends his reflections with the following words:

Un poète distingué par son imagination a trouvé dans tant de hauts faits dont il a été témoin non le sujet d’un poème, mais celui d’une satyre.^*2

Of poets who took part in the Turkish campaign, I knew only A. S. Khomyakov and A. N. Muravyov. Both were in the army of Count Dibich.2 At that time the former wrote some fine lyric poems; the latter was thinking over his journey to the holy places, which was to produce such a strong impression. But I had not read any satire on the Arzrum campaign.

I could never have thought that the matter here concerned myself, if in that same book I had not found my own name among the names of generals of the Detached Caucasus Corps.3 Parmis les chefs qui la commandaient (l’armée du Prince Paskewitch) on distinguait le Général Mouravieff…le Prince Géorgian Tsitsevaze…le Prince Arménien Beboutof…le Prince Potemkine, le Général Raiewsky, et enfin—M-r Pouchkine…qui avait quitté la capitale pour chanter les exploits de ses compatriotes.^*3 4

I confess: the lines of the French traveler, despite the flattering epithets, vexed me far more than the abuse of Russian journals. To “seek inspiration” has always seemed to me a ridiculous and absurd fancy: inspiration cannot be sought out; it must find the poet. For me, to go to war in order to sing future exploits would have been, on the one hand, too vain, and on the other, too indecent. I do not meddle in military judgments. That is not my business. It may be that the bold march over Sagan-loo, a maneuver by which Count Paskevich cut the seraskir off from Osman Pasha,5 the defeat of two enemy corps in one day’s time, the quick march to Arzrum—it may be that all this, crowned with complete success, fully deserves to be made a laughingstock by military men (such as, for instance, Mr. Merchant Consul Fontanier, author of the Travels to the East), but I would be ashamed to write satires on the illustrious commander who graciously received me under the shade of his tent and who, in the midst of his great cares, found time to give me his flattering attention. A man who has no need of being patronized by the powerful values their cordiality and hospitality, because he has nothing else to ask of them. Unlike trifling criticism or literary abuse, an accusation of ingratitude should not go without objection. That is why I have decided to publish this preface and to bring out my travel notes as all that I have written about the campaign of 1829.6

A. PUSHKIN

CHAPTER ONE

The Steppes. A Kalmyk kibitka. The Caucasian hot springs. The Georgian military highway. Vladikavkaz. An Ossetian funeral. The Terek. The Darial gorge. Crossing the snowy mountains. The first glimpse of Georgia. Aqueducts. Khozrev-Mirza. The mayor of Dusheti.

…From Moscow I went to Kaluga, Belev, and Orel, and thus added an extra hundred and thirty miles; on the other hand I met Ermolov.7 He lives in Orel, his country estate being close by. I came to him at eight o’clock in the morning and did not find him at home. My driver told me that Ermolov did not visit anyone except his father, a simple, pious old man, that the only people he did not receive were town officials, and that anyone else had free access to him. An hour later I came to him again. Ermolov received me with his usual courtesy. At first glance I did not find in him the least resemblance to his portraits, painted usually in profile. A round face, fiery gray eyes, bushy gray hair. A tiger’s head on a herculean torso. His smile is unpleasant, because it is unnatural. But when he falls to thinking and frowns, he becomes superb and strikingly resembles the poetical portrait painted by Dawe.8 He was wearing a green Circassian jacket. On the walls of his study hung sabers and daggers, souvenirs of his rule over the Caucasus. He appears to bear his inaction with impatience. Several times he began talking about Paskevich, and always sarcastically; talking of the ease of his victories, he compared him to the son of Nun, before whom walls fell down at the sounding of trumpets, and called the count of Erevan the count of Jericho.9 “Let him run into a pasha who is not intelligent, not skillful, but merely stubborn—for instance, the pasha who ruled in Shumla,” said Ermolov, “and Paskevich is done for.” I passed on to Ermolov the words of Count Tolstoy,10 that Paskevich had acted so well during the Persian campaign that the only thing left for an intelligent man was to act worse, in order to be distinguished from him. Ermolov laughed, but did not agree. “Men and expenses could have been spared,” he said. I think he is writing or wants to write his memoirs. He is not pleased with Karamzin’s History;11 he wishes that an ardent pen would portray the transition of the Russian nation from insignificance to glory and power. He spoke of Prince Kurbsky’s writings con amore.12 The Germans took a beating. “Some fifty years hence,” he said, “people will think there was an auxiliary Prussian or Austrian army in our campaign, commanded by this or that German general.” I stayed with him for about two hours. He was vexed that he had not remembered my full name. He apologized by means of compliments. The conversation turned several times to literature. Of Griboedov’s verse he says that reading it makes his jaws ache.13 Of government and politics there was not a word.

My route lay through Kursk and Kharkov, but I turned off onto the direct road to Tiflis, sacrificing a good dinner in a Kursk inn (no trifling thing in our travels) and not curious to visit Kharkov University, which could not match a meal in Kursk.

The roads as far as Elets are terrible. My carriage sank several times into mud worthy of the mud of Odessa. Sometimes I managed to make no more than thirty miles in a day. Finally I saw the steppes of Voronezh and rolled on freely over the green plain. In Novocherkassk I found Count Pushkin, who was also going to Tiflis, and we agreed to travel together.14

The transition from Europe to Asia is felt more and more by the hour: forests disappear, hills smooth out, grass becomes thicker and shows more vegetative force; birds unknown in our forests appear; eagles sit like sentinels on the mounds that mark the high road and gaze proudly at the travelers; over the fertile pastures

Indomitable mares

Proudly stray in herds.15

Kalmyks settle around the station huts. Near their kibitkas graze their ugly, shaggy horses, known to you from the fine drawings of Orlovsky.16

The other day I visited a Kalmyk kibitka (crisscross wattle, covered with white felt). The whole family was preparing to have lunch. In the center a cauldron was boiling, and the smoke went out through an opening in the top of the kibitka. A young Kalmyk girl, not bad-looking at all, was sewing and smoking a pipe. I sat down beside her. “What’s your name?”—“* * *”—“How old are you?”—“Ten and eight.”—“What are you sewing?”—“Pant.”—“For whom?”—“For self.” She handed me her pipe and started on lunch. In the cauldron tea was boiling with mutton fat and salt. She offered me her dipper. I did not want to refuse and took a sip, trying to hold my breath. I do not think any other national cuisine could produce anything more vile. I asked for something to follow it up. They gave me a piece of dried mare’s meat; I was glad enough of that. Kalmyk coquetry scared me; I hastily got out of the kibitka and rode away from the Circe of the steppe.

—

In Stavropol I saw clouds on the edge of the sky that had struck my eyes exactly nine years earlier. They were still the same, still in the same place. These were the snowy peaks of the Caucasian mountain range.

From Georgievsk I went to see Hot Springs.17 There I found great changes: in my time the baths were in huts hastily slapped together. The springs, most of them in their primitive state, spurted, steamed, and poured down the mountain in all directions, leaving white or reddish traces behind them. We scooped up the seething water with a dipper made of bark, or with the bottom of a broken bottle. Now magnificent baths and houses have been built. A boulevard lined with lindens follows around the slope of Mashuk. Everywhere there are clean paths, green benches, regular flowerbeds, bridges, pavilions. The sources have been fitted out and lined with stone; police notices are tacked to the walls of the baths; everywhere there is order, cleanliness, prettiness…

I confess: The Caucasian springs now offer more conveniences; but I regretted their former wild state; I regretted the steep, stony paths, the bushes, and the unfenced precipices over which I once clambered. With sadness I left the springs and made my way back to Georgievsk. Night soon fell. The clear sky was strewn with millions of stars. I rode along the bank of the Podkumok. A. Raevsky18 used to sit there with me, listening to the melody of the waters. The outline of majestic Beshtau grew blacker and blacker in the distance, surrounded by its vassal mountains, and finally disappeared in the darkness…

The next day we went further on and arrived in Ekaterinograd, formerly the seat of the governor-general.

In Ekaterinograd the Georgian military highway begins; the post road ends. You hire horses to Vladikavkaz. You are provided with a convoy of Cossacks, foot soldiers, and one cannon. Mail is sent twice a week and travelers join it: this is known as an “occasion.” We did not have long to wait. The mail came the next day, and the morning after, at nine o’clock, we were ready to be on our way. At the assembly place a whole caravan gathered, consisting of somewhere around five hundred people. There was a drum roll. We set off. At the head went the cannon, surrounded by foot soldiers. After it stretched carriages, britzkas, kibitkas for the soldiers’ wives, who traveled from one fortress to another; behind them creaked a train of two-wheeled arbas.^*4 Alongside them ran herds of horses and oxen. Next to them galloped Nogai guides in burkas and with lassoes. All this pleased me very much at first, but I soon became bored. The cannon went at a walk, the match smoked and the soldiers lit their pipes from it. The slowness of our march (on the first day we made only ten miles), the insufferable heat, the shortage of supplies, the uncomfortable night stops, and finally the constant creaking of the Nogai arbas drove me out of all patience. The Tatars take pride in this creaking, saying that they drive around like honest people who have no need to hide. This time I would have found it more pleasant to travel in less respectable company. The road is rather monotonous: a plain; hills off to the sides. At the edge of the sky—the peaks of the Caucasus, getting higher and higher each day. Fortresses sufficient for these parts, with moats that any of us could have jumped across in the old days without a running start, with rusty cannon that have not been fired since the time of Count Gudovich,19 with dilapidated ramparts where a garrison of chickens and geese wanders about. Within the fortress several hovels, where you can obtain with difficulty a dozen eggs and some sour milk.

The first noteworthy place is the fortress of Minaret. Approaching it, our caravan went along a lovely valley, between burial mounds overgrown with lindens and plane trees. These are the graves of several thousands who died from the plague. Gay with flowers sprung from the infected ashes. To the right shone the snowy Caucasus; ahead loomed an enormous tree-clad mountain; beyond it lay the fortress. Around it can be seen the traces of a devastated aul called Tatartub, which was once the main village in Great Kabarda. A slight, solitary minaret testifies to the existence of the vanished settlement. It rises slenderly amidst the heaps of stones on the bank of a dried-up stream. The inner stairway had not yet collapsed. I climbed up it to the platform, from which the mullah’s voice is no longer heard. There I found several unknown names scratched into the bricks by fame-loving travelers.

Our road became picturesque. Mountains towered above us. Barely visible flocks crawled over their heights, looking like insects. We also made out a shepherd, maybe a Russian, taken prisoner once and grown old in captivity. We came upon more burial mounds, more ruins. Two or three tombstones stood on the side of the road. There, by Circassian custom, their horsemen are buried. A Tatar inscription, the image of a saber, a tribal emblem cut into the stone, are left to predatory grandsons in memory of a predatory ancestor.

The Circassians hate us. We have forced them out of their open grazing lands; their auls have been devastated, whole tribes have been wiped out. They withdraw further and further into the mountains and from there carry out their raids. The friendship of the peaceful Circassians20 is unreliable; they are always ready to help their violent fellow tribesmen. The spirit of their wild chivalry has noticeably declined. They rarely attack an equal number of Cossacks, never the foot soldiers, and they run away at the sight of a cannon. But they never miss a chance to attack a weaker troop or a defenseless man. The country roundabout is full of rumors of their villainies. There is almost no way to subdue them, so long as they are not disarmed, as the Crimean Tatars were, which is very hard to accomplish on account of the hereditary feuds and blood vengeance that reign among them. Dagger and saber are parts of their body, and a baby begins to wield them sooner than he can prattle. Among them killing is a simple body movement. They keep prisoners in hope of ransom, but they treat them with terrible inhumanity, force them to work beyond their strength, feed them raw dough, beat them whenever they like, and have them guarded by their young boys, who at one word have the right to cut them up with their children’s sabers. A peaceful Circassian who had shot at a soldier was recently captured. He justified it by the fact that his rifle had stayed loaded for too long. What to do with such people? It is to be hoped, however, that if we acquire the region east of the Black Sea, cutting the Circassians off from their trade with Turkey, that will force them to become friendlier to us. The influence of luxury could contribute to their taming: the samovar would be an important innovation. There is a means that is stronger, more moral, more consistent with the enlightenment of our age: the preaching of the Gospel. The Circassians embraced the Mohammedan faith very recently. They were carried away by the active fanaticism of the apostles of the Koran, the most notable of whom was Mansur, an extraordinary man, who for a long time stirred up the Caucasus against Russian dominion, was finally seized by our forces, and died in the Solovki monastery.21 The Caucasus awaits Christian missionaries. But it is easier for our idleness to pour out dead printed letters instead of the living word and to send mute books to people who are illiterate.

We reached Vladikavkaz, the former Kapkai, the threshold of the mountains. It is surrounded by Ossetian auls. I visited one of them and found myself at a funeral. People crowded around a saklia. In the yard stood an arba hitched to two oxen. Relatives and friends of the deceased arrived from all directions and with loud weeping went into the saklia, beating their foreheads with their fists. The women stood quietly. The dead man was carried out on a burka

…like a warrior taking his rest

With his martial cloak around him.22

They placed him on the arba. One of the guests took the deceased’s rifle, blew the powder off the pan, and placed it next to the body. The oxen set out. The guests followed. The body was to be buried in the mountains, some twenty miles from the aul. Unfortunately, nobody could explain these rites to me.

The Ossetes are the poorest tribe of the peoples inhabiting the Caucasus; their women are beautiful and, one hears, very well-disposed to travelers. At the gates of the fortress I met the wife and daughter of an imprisoned Ossete. They were bringing him dinner. Both seemed calm and bold; nevertheless, at my approach they both lowered their heads and covered themselves with their tattered chadras. In the fortress I saw Circassian amanats, frisky and handsome boys. They constantly play pranks and escape from the fortress. They are kept in pitiful conditions. They go around in rags, half naked and abominably filthy. On some I saw wooden fetters. The amanats, once they are set free, probably do not miss their stay in Vladikavkaz.

The cannon left us. We went on with the foot soldiers and the Cossacks. The Caucasus took us into its sanctuary. We heard a muted noise and saw the Terek pouring out in various directions. We rode along its left bank. Its noisy waves turn the wheels of the low Ossetian mills, which look like dog kennels. The deeper we penetrated into the mountains, the narrower the gorge became. The constrained Terek throws its muddy waves with a roar over the rocks that bar its way. The gorge meanders along its course. The stone feet of the mountains are polished by its waves. I went on foot and stopped every other minute, struck by the gloomy enchantment of nature. The weather was bleak; clouds stretched heavily along the black peaks. Count Pushkin and Stjernvall, looking at the Terek, recalled Imatra and preferred “the thundering river of the North.”23 But I had nothing with which to compare the spectacle before me.

Before we reached Lars, I lagged behind the convoy, unable to tear my eyes from the enormous cliffs between which the Terek gushes with indescribable fury. Suddenly a soldier comes running towards me, shouting from far off: “Don’t stop, Your Honor, they’ll kill you!” This warning, unaccustomed as I was, seemed extremely odd to me. The thing was that Ossetian bandits, safe in this narrow spot, shoot at travelers across the Terek. On the eve of our march they made such an attack on General Bekovich,24 who galloped through their gunfire. Visible on a cliff are the ruins of some citadel: they are stuck all over with the saklias of peaceful Ossetes, as with swallows’ nests.

We stopped for the night in Lars. Here we found a French traveler, who frightened us about the road ahead. He advised us to abandon the carriages in Kobi and continue on horseback. With him for the first time we drank Kakheti wine from a stinking wineskin, reminiscent of the feasting in the Iliad:

And in goatskins wine, our great delight!25

Here I found a soiled copy of The Prisoner of the Caucasus,26 and, I confess, I reread it with great pleasure. It is all weak, youthful, incomplete; but much of it is aptly divined and expressed.

The next morning we went on our way. Turkish prisoners were working on the road. They complained about the food they were given. They could never get used to Russian black bread. That reminded me of the words of my friend Sheremetev on his return from Paris: “Life in Paris is bad, brother: nothing to eat; no black bread for the asking!”

Five miles from Lars is the Darial outpost. The gorge bears the same name. The cliffs on both sides stand like parallel walls. Here it is so narrow, so narrow, one traveler writes, that you not only see but seem to feel the closeness.27 A scrap of sky like a ribbon shows blue over your head. Rivulets, falling down from the mountainous heights in small and splashing streams, reminded me of Rembrandt’s strange painting, The Rape of Ganymede.28 Besides that, the gorge is lighted perfectly in his taste. In some places the Terek washes right at the foot of the cliffs, and stones are piled along the road in the guise of a dam. Not far from the outpost, a little bridge is boldly thrown across the river. You stand on it as if on a mill. The little bridge shakes all over, and the Terek rumbles like the wheels that turn the millstone. Across from Darial on a steep cliff you can see the ruins of a fortress. Legend has it that a certain Queen Daria hid there, giving her name to the gorge: a tall tale. “Darial” in old Persian means “gate.” By Pliny’s testimony, the Caucasian Gate, which he mistakenly calls Caspian, was here.29 The gorge had a real gate across it, a wooden one, bound with iron. Under it, writes Pliny, flows the river Diriodoris. Here a fortress was erected to hold off the raids of the wild tribes, and so on. See the journey of Count J. Potocki, whose learned researches are as entertaining as his Spanish novels.30

From Darial we set out for Kazbek. We saw the Trinity Gate (an arch formed in the cliff by an explosion of powder)—a road used to pass under it, but now the Terek, which often changes its bed, flows there.

Not far from the settlement of Kazbek, we crossed the Furious Gully, a ravine which, during heavy rains, turns into a raging torrent. This time it was perfectly dry and roared in name only.

The village of Kazbek is located at the foot of Mount Kazbek and belongs to Prince Kazbek. The prince, a man of about forty-five, is taller than the fugelman of the Preobrazhensky regiment.31 We found him in the dukhan (the Georgian word for eateries, which are much poorer and no cleaner than Russian ones). In the doorway lay a fat-bellied burdyuk (an oxhide wineskin), spreading its four legs. The giant was sipping chikhir from it, and he asked me several questions, which I answered with a deference suited to his title and size. We parted great friends.

Impressions soon grow dull. Barely twenty-four hours went by, and already the roaring of the Terek and its shapeless waterfalls, already the cliffs and precipices, ceased to draw my attention. I was possessed only by impatience to reach Tiflis. I rode past Kazbek as indifferently as I once sailed past Chatyrdag. It is also true that the rainy and foggy weather prevented me from seeing its snowy heap, which, in a poet’s expression, “props up the heavenly vault.”32

A Persian prince was expected. At some distance from Kazbek several carriages came towards us and obstructed the narrow road. While the vehicles worked past each other, the convoy officer told us that he was accompanying a Persian court poet and, at my wish, introduced me to Fazil Khan.33 With the help of an interpreter, I started on a grandiloquent oriental greeting; how ashamed I was when Fazil Khan responded to my inappropriate whimsicality with the simple, intelligent courtesy of a decent man! He hoped to see me in Petersburg; he was sorry that our acquaintance would be of short duration, and so on. Embarrassed, I was forced to abandon my pompously jocular tone and descend to ordinary European phrases. This is a lesson for our Russian love of mockery. In the future, I will not judge a man by his lambskin papakha^*5 and painted nails.

The Kobi outpost is located right at the foot of the Mountain of the Cross, which we now had to go over. We spent the night there and started thinking about how to perform this dread exploit: should we abandon our carriages and mount Cossack horses or send for Ossetian oxen? Just in case, I wrote an official request on behalf of our whole caravan to Mr. Chilyaev, who was in command of these parts, and we went to sleep in expectation of the carts.

The next day around noon we heard noise, shouting, and saw an extraordinary spectacle: eighteen pair of skinny, puny oxen, prodded by a crowd of half-naked Ossetes, were dragging with great difficulty the light Viennese carriage of my friend O. This spectacle at once dispelled all my doubts. I decided to send my heavy Petersburg carriage back to Vladikavkaz and ride on horseback to Tiflis. Count Pushkin did not want to follow my example. He preferred to hitch his britzka, laden with all sorts of supplies, to the whole herd of oxen and cross the snowy ridge in triumph. We parted and I went further on with Colonel Ogarev, who was inspecting the local roads.

The road went through an avalanche that had occurred at the end of June, 1827. These things usually happen every seven years. An enormous block fell down, burying the gorge for a mile, and damming up the Terek. Sentries, standing downstream, heard a terrible noise and saw that the river was quickly getting shallow and in a quarter of an hour was completely still and drained. The Terek ate its way through the avalanche only two hours later. Oh, how terrifying it was!

We climbed steeply higher and higher. Our horses sank into the loose snow, under which streams gurgled. I looked at the road with amazement and did not understand how it was possible to travel on wheels.

Just then I heard a muted rumble. “That’s an avalanche,” said Mr. Ogarev. I turned and saw to one side a heap of snow crumbling and slowly sliding down the steep slope. Small avalanches are not uncommon here. Last year a Russian driver was going over the Mountain of the Cross; there was an avalanche: a frightful block of snow fell on his vehicle, swallowed cart, horse, and muzhik, tumbled across the road and down into the abyss with its booty. We reached the very top of the mountain. A granite cross had been set up there, an old monument, restored by Ermolov.

Here travelers usually get out of their carriages and go on foot. Recently some foreign consul came here: he was so shaky that he asked to be blindfolded; he was led under the arms, and when they took off his blindfold, he sank to his knees and thanked God, and so on, which greatly amazed the guides.

The instantaneous transition from the formidable Caucasus to winsome Georgia is ravishing. The air of the south suddenly begins to waft over the traveler. From the height of Mount Gut the Kaishaur valley opens out, with its inhabited cliffs, its gardens, its bright Aragva, meandering like a silver ribbon—and all this in miniature, at the bottom of a two-mile-deep chasm, along which goes a dangerous road.

We were descending into the valley. A young crescent moon appeared in the clear sky. The evening air was gentle and warm. I spent the night on the bank of the Aragva, in the house of Mr. Chilyaev. The next day I parted from my amiable host and went further on.

Here Georgia begins. Bright valleys watered by the merry Aragva replaced the gloomy gorges and the formidable Terek. Instead of bare cliffs I saw around me green mountains and fruit trees. Aqueducts demonstrated the presence of civilization. One of them struck me with a perfect optical illusion: the water seemed to be flowing uphill.

In Paisanaur I stopped to change horses. There I met a Russian officer who was accompanying the Persian prince. Soon I heard the sound of little bells, and a whole line of katars (mules), tied to one another and loaded in the Asian manner, stretched out along the road. I went on foot, without waiting for horses; and half a mile from Ananur, at a turn of the road, I met Khozrev-Mirza.34 His vehicles were standing there. He looked out of his carriage and nodded to me. A few hours after our meeting the prince was attacked by mountaineers. Hearing the whistle of bullets, Khozrev jumped out of his carriage, mounted a horse, and galloped off. The Russians who were with him marveled at his courage. The thing was that the young Asiatic, unaccustomed to a carriage, saw it as more of a trap than a shelter.

I reached Ananur, not feeling any fatigue. My horses had not come yet. I was told that it was no more than seven miles to the town of Dusheti, and I again set out on foot. But I did not know that the road went uphill. Those seven miles were worth a good fifteen.

Evening fell; I walked on, going higher and higher. It was impossible to lose my way; but in some places the clayey mud produced by the springs reached my knees. I was completely exhausted. It grew darker. I heard howling and barking and rejoiced, fancying that the town was near. I was mistaken: the barking came from the dogs of the Georgian shepherds, and the howling from jackals, common animals in those parts. I cursed my impatience, but there was nothing to be done. At last I saw lights, and around midnight I found myself near houses overshaded by trees. The first man I met volunteered to take me to the mayor and for that demanded an abaz from me.

My appearance at the mayor’s, an old Georgian officer, caused a great stir. I requested, first of all, a room where I could undress; second, a glass of wine; third, an abaz for my guide. The mayor did not know how to receive me, and kept glancing at me in perplexity. Seeing he was in no hurry to fulfill my requests, I began to undress in front of him, apologizing de la liberté grande.^*6 Fortunately, in my pocket I found my papers, proving that I was a peaceful traveler and not a Rinaldo Rinaldini.35 The blessed charter had an immediate effect: I was given a room, a glass of wine was brought, and an abaz was given to my guide, along with a fatherly reprimand for his money-grubbing, insulting to Georgian hospitality. I threw myself on the sofa, hoping after my exploit to sleep a hero’s sleep: nothing of the sort. Fleas, far more dangerous than jackals, fell upon me and gave me no rest all night. In the morning my man came to me and said that Count Pushkin had safely crossed the snowy mountains with his oxen and arrived in Dusheti. So much for my hurry! Count Pushkin and Stjernvall called on me and suggested that we go on our way together again. I left Dusheti with the pleasant thought that I would spend the night in Tiflis.

The road was pleasant and picturesque as well, though we rarely saw any signs of population. Several miles from Gartsiskal we crossed the Kura on an ancient bridge, a monument of the Roman campaigns, and at a long trot, at times even a gallop, rode to Tiflis, where we arrived without noticing it and found it was past ten o’clock in the evening.

CHAPTER TWO

Tiflis. The public baths. Noseless Hassan. Georgian ways. Songs. Kakheti wine. Causes of heat. High prices. Description of the city. Leaving Tiflis. The Georgian night. The sight of Armenia. Double distance. An Armenian village. Gergeri. Griboedov. Bezobdal. A mineral spring. A storm in the mountains. Night in Gyumri. Ararat. The border. Turkish hospitality. Kars. An Armenian family. Leaving Kars. Count Paskevich’s camp.

I stayed at an inn, and the next day headed for the famous Tiflis baths. The city seemed populous to me. The Asiatic buildings and the market reminded me of Kishinev.36 Donkeys with panniers ran along the narrow and crooked streets; arbas harnessed to oxen blocked the way. Armenians, Georgians, Circassians, Persians thronged in the irregular square; among them young Russian officials rode on Karabakh stallions. At the entrance to the baths sat the owner, an old Persian. He opened the door for me, I entered a spacious room, and what did I see? More than fifty women, young and old, half-dressed and completely undressed, sat and stood undressing and dressing at benches placed along the walls. I stopped. “Go on, go on,” the owner said to me. “Today is Tuesday: women’s day. Never mind, there’s no harm.” “Of course there’s no harm,” I replied. “On the contrary.” The appearance of men did not make any impression. They went on laughing and talking among themselves. Not one of them hastened to cover herself with her chadra; not one of them stopped undressing. It seemed I had entered invisibly. Many of them were indeed beautiful and justified the imagination of T. Moore:

…a lovely Georgian maid,

With all the bloom, the freshen’d glow

Of her own country maiden’s looks,

When warm they rise from Teflis’ brooks.

LALLA ROOKH37

But I know nothing more repulsive than Georgian old women: they are witches.

The Persian led me to the baths: the hot iron-sulfur spring spilled into a deep basin carved in the rock. Never in my life have I met, either in Russia or in Turkey, with anything more luxurious than the Tiflis baths. I will describe them in detail.

The owner left me in the charge of a Tatar bath attendant. I must inform you that he had no nose, but that did not prevent him from being a master of his trade. Hassan (that was the name of the noseless Tatar) began by laying me down on the warm stone floor; after which he started wringing my arms and legs, pulling the joints, beating me hard with his fists; I felt not the slightest pain, but an astonishing relief. (Asiatic bath attendants sometimes become ecstatic, jump onto your shoulders, slide their feet over your thighs, do a squatting dance on your back, è sempre bene.^*7) After that he rubbed me for a long time with a woolen mitten and, dousing me liberally with warm water, began to wash me with a soapy linen pouch. The feeling is ineffable: hot soap pours all over you like air! NB: the woolen mitten and linen pouch should definitely be adopted in Russian baths: connoisseurs will be grateful for such an innovation.

After the pouch, Hassan let me get into the bath; and with that the ceremony was over.

I hoped to find Raevsky in Tiflis, but learning that his regiment was already on the march, I decided to ask Count Paskevich’s permission to come to the army.

I spent around two weeks in Tiflis and became acquainted with the local society. Sankovsky, publisher of the Tiflis Gazette, told me many curious things about the local area, about Prince Tsitsianov, A. P. Ermolov, and so on.38 Sankovsky loves Georgia and foresees a brilliant future for her.

Georgia put herself under Russian protection in 1783, which did not prevent the famed Aga Mohammed from taking and destroying Tiflis and carrying off 20,000 of its inhabitants as prisoners (1795).39 Georgia came under the scepter of the emperor Alexander in 1802. The Georgians are a martial people. They have proved their courage under our banners. Their mental abilities could do with greater cultivation. They are generally of cheerful and sociable character. On holidays the men drink and carouse in the streets. The dark-eyed boys sing, leap, and turn somersaults; the women dance the lezghinka.

The voice of Georgian songs is pleasant. One of them was translated for me word for word; it seems to have been composed recently; there is some oriental nonsense in it, which has its poetic virtue. Here it is:

Soul, recently born in paradise! Soul, created for my happiness! From you, immortal one, I look for life.

From you, blossoming spring, two-week-old moon, from you, my guardian angel, from you I look for life.

Your face shines and your smile gladdens. I do not want to possess the world; I want your gaze. From you I look for life.

Mountain rose, fresh with dew! Chosen favorite of nature! Quiet, hidden treasure! From you I look for life.

Georgians drink—not as we do, and with amazing fortitude. Their wines do not travel and quickly go bad, but in place they are excellent. Kakheti and Karabakh wines are worth some burgundies. Wine is kept in marans, enormous jars, buried in the ground. They are opened with solemn rituals. Recently a Russian dragoon, having secretly unearthed such a jar, fell into it and drowned in Kakheti wine, like unfortunate Clarence in a barrel of Malaga.40

Tiflis is situated on the banks of the Kura, in a valley surrounded by stony mountains. They shield it on all sides from the winds, and, turned burning hot by the sun, do not so much heat as boil the motionless air. That is the cause of the unbearable heat that reigns in Tiflis, even though the city is situated only at just under forty-one degrees latitude. Its very name (Tbilis-kalar) means “Hot City.”41

The greater part of the city is built in the Asiatic way: low houses, flat roofs. In the northern part houses of European architecture rise, and around them regular squares are beginning to form. The market is divided into several rows; the shops are filled with Turkish and Persian goods, rather cheap, if you take into account the universally high prices. Tiflis weapons are highly valued everywhere in the East. Count Samoilov and V., reputed to be mighty men here, used to try out their new swords by cutting a sheep in two or chopping off a bull’s head at one stroke.42

Armenians make up the main part of the population of Tiflis: in 1825 there were as many as 2,500 families. During the present wars their number has increased still more. Georgian families amount to 1,500. Russians do not consider themselves local residents. The military, bound by duty, live in Georgia because they have been ordered to. Young titular councilors come here in pursuit of the much-desired rank of assessor.43 Both the former and the latter look upon Georgia as exile.

The Tiflis climate is said to be unhealthy. The local fevers are terrible; they are treated with mercury, the use of which is harmless because of the heat. Doctors feed it to their patients quite shamelessly. General Sipyagin died, they say, because his personal physician, who came with him from Petersburg, was frightened of the dose suggested by the local doctors and did not give it to the sick man.44 The local fevers resemble those of the Crimea and Moldavia and are treated in the same way.

The inhabitants drink the water of the Kura, cloudy but pleasant. The water of all the springs and wells has a strong taste of sulfur. However, wine here is in such general use that a lack of water would go unnoticed.

I was astonished by the low value of money in Tiflis. Having taken a cab through two streets and let it go after half an hour, I had to pay the cabbie two silver roubles. I thought at first that he wanted to profit from a visitor’s ignorance; but I was told that that was indeed the price. Everything else is correspondingly expensive.

We went to the German colony and had dinner there. We drank the beer they make, of a very unpleasant taste, and paid very dearly for a very bad meal. In my inn the food was just as expensive and bad. General Strekalov, a well-known gastronome, once invited me to dinner; unfortunately, the dishes were served according to rank and there were English officers with general’s epaulettes at the table.45 The servants bypassed me so assiduously that I got up from the table hungry. Devil take the Tiflis gastronome!

I waited impatiently for my fate to be decided. At last I received a note from Raevsky. He wrote that I should make haste to Kars, because in a few days the troops were to go further on. I left the next day.

I went on horseback, changing horses at the Cossack outposts. The earth around me was scorched by the heat. From a distance the Georgian villages looked to me like beautiful gardens, but, on riding up to them, I saw a few poor saklias overshaded by dusty poplars. The sun went down, but the air was still stifling:

Torrid nights!

Foreign stars!…

The moon shone; all was still; only the trot of my horse rang out in the night’s silence. I rode for a long time without meeting any signs of habitation. At last I saw a solitary saklia. I started knocking at the door. The owner came out. I asked for water, first in Russian, then in Tatar. He did not understand me. Amazing nonchalance! Twenty miles from Tiflis and on the road to Persia and Turkey, he did not know a word of Russian or of Tatar.

Having spent the night at a Cossack outpost, I headed further on at dawn. The road went through mountains and forests. I met some traveling Tatars; there were several women among them. They were on horseback, wrapped in chadras; all you could see were their eyes and heels.

I started going up Bezobdal, the mountain that separates Georgia from ancient Armenia. A wide road, overshaded by trees, winds around the mountain. On the summit of Bezobdal I rode through a small gorge, apparently called the Wolf Gate, and found myself on the natural border of Georgia. Before me were new mountains, a new horizon; below me spread fertile green wheatfields. I looked back once more at scorched Georgia and started down the gently sloping mountain to the fresh plains of Armenia. With indescribable pleasure I noticed that the heat suddenly became less intense: the climate was different.

My man with the pack horses lagged behind me. I rode alone in the blossoming desert surrounded by distant mountains. I absentmindedly rode past the post where I was meant to change horses. More than six hours went by, and I began to wonder about the distance I had gone. I saw heaps of stones to one side that looked like saklias, and headed for them. In fact, I came to an Armenian village. Several women in motley rags were sitting on the flat roof of an underground saklia. I expressed myself somehow or other. One of them went down into the saklia and brought up some cheese and milk. After resting for a few minutes, I went on and saw on a high bank opposite me the citadel of Gergeri. Three streams rushed with noise and foam down the high bank. I crossed the river. Two oxen hitched to an arba were going up the steep road. Several Georgians were accompanying it. “Where are you from?” I asked them. “Tehran.” “What are you carrying?” “Griboed.” It was the body of the slain Griboedov, which they were accompanying to Tiflis.46

I never thought I would meet our Griboedov again! I parted with him last year in Petersburg, before he left for Persia. He was sad and had strange premonitions. I began to reassure him; he said to me: “Vous ne connaissez pas ces gens-là; vous verrez qu’il faudra jouer des couteaux.”^*8 He supposed the cause of the bloodshed would be the death of the shah and the internecine war among his seventy sons. But the elderly shah is still alive, and Griboedov’s prophetic words came true. He died under Persian daggers, a victim of ignorance and treachery. His disfigured corpse, which for three days was the plaything of the Tehran mob, was recognized only by the hand once pierced by a pistol bullet.

I made the acquaintance of Griboedov in 1817. His melancholy character, his embittered mind, his good-nature, his very weaknesses and vices, inevitable companions of humanity—everything in him was extraordinarily attractive. Born with an ambition equal to his gifts, he was caught for a long time in a web of petty needs and obscurity. His abilities as a statesman remained unemployed; his talent as a poet went unrecognized; even his cold and brilliant courage remained under suspicion for some time. A few friends knew his worth and saw a distrustful smile, that stupid, insufferable smile, when they happened to speak of him as an extraordinary man. People believe only in fame and do not understand that there might be among them some Napoleon, who has never commanded a single company of chasseurs, or another Descartes, who has not published a single line in the Moscow Telegraph. However, our respect for fame may well come from vanity: our own voice, too, goes into the making of fame.

Griboedov’s life was darkened by certain clouds: the consequence of ardent passions and powerful circumstances. He felt the necessity of settling accounts once and for all with his youth and making a sharp turn in his life. He said good-bye to Petersburg and idle dissipation, and went to Georgia, where he spent eight years in solitary, unremitting work. His return to Moscow in 1824 was a turnabout in his fate and the beginning of continuous successes. His comedy in manuscript, Woe from Wit, had an indescribable effect and suddenly placed him in the rank of our foremost poets. A short time after that his perfect knowledge of the region where a war was starting opened up a new career for him; he was appointed ambassador. On coming to Georgia, he married the woman he loved…I know of nothing more enviable than the last years of his stormy life. His death itself, overtaking him in the midst of courageous, unequal combat, had nothing terrible, nothing agonizing for Griboedov. It was instantaneous and beautiful.

What a pity that Griboedov did not leave us his memoirs! Writing his biography should be a task for his friends; but among us remarkable people disappear without leaving a trace behind. We are lazy and incurious…

In Gergeri I met Buturlin, who, like me, was going to the army.47 Buturlin traveled with every possible gratification. I had dinner with him as if we were in Petersburg. We decided to travel together; but the demon of impatience took possession of me again. My man asked me for permission to rest. I set out alone, even without a guide. There was only one road, and it was perfectly safe.

Having crossed the mountain and descended into a valley overshaded by trees, I saw a mineral spring flowing across the road. Here I met an Armenian priest who was going to Akhaltsikhe from Erevan. “What’s new in Erevan?” I asked him. “In Erevan there’s plague,” he replied, “and what about Akhaltsikhe?” “In Akhaltsikhe there’s plague,” I replied. Having exchanged this pleasant news, we parted.

I rode amidst fertile wheatfields and blossoming meadows. The harvest swayed, waiting for the sickle. I admired the beautiful land, the fruitfulness of which was proverbial in the East. By evening I arrived in Pernike. Here was a Cossack outpost. The sergeant predicted a storm and advised me to stay the night, but I wanted to reach Gyumri without fail that same day.

I was to cross some not very high mountains, the natural border of the Kars pashalik. The sky was covered with dark clouds; I hoped that the wind, which was growing stronger every minute, would scatter them. But rain began to sprinkle and kept getting heavier and steadier. It is eighteen miles from Pernike to Gyumri. I tightened the belt of my burka, drew a bashlik over my visored cap, and entrusted myself to Providence.

More than two hours went by. The rain would not let up. Water poured in streams from my now sodden burka and rain-soaked bashlik. Finally a cold stream began to penetrate behind my tie, and soon the rain had soaked me to the skin. The night was dark; a Cossack rode ahead showing me the way. We started up the mountains. Meanwhile the rain stopped and the clouds scattered. It was about six miles to Gyumri. The wind, blowing freely, was so strong that in a quarter of an hour it dried me out completely. I had no hope of avoiding a fever. Finally I reached Gyumri at around midnight. The Cossack led me straight to the outpost. We stopped by a tent, which I hurriedly entered. There I found twelve Cossacks sleeping side by side. Room was made for me; I collapsed on my burka, insensible from fatigue. That day I had ridden fifty miles. I fell into a dead sleep.

The Cossacks awakened me at dawn. My first thought was: have I come down with a fever? But, thank God, I felt hale and hearty; there was no trace, not only of illness, but even of fatigue. I came out of the tent into the fresh morning air. The sun was rising. Against the clear sky stood a white, snowy, two-headed mountain. “What mountain is that?” I asked, stretching, and heard the answer: “It’s Ararat.” How strong is the effect of sounds! I gazed greedily at the biblical mountain, saw the ark, moored to its top in hopes of renewal and life—and the raven and the dove flying off, symbols of punishment and reconciliation…

My horse was ready. I set out with a guide. The morning was beautiful. The sun was shining. We rode across a wide meadow, over thick green grass, washed with dew and the drops of yesterday’s rain. Before us sparkled a river, which we would have to ford. “Here is the Arpachai,” the Cossack said to me. The Arpachai! Our border! That was worth Ararat. I galloped to the river with an indescribable feeling. I had never yet seen a foreign land. For me there was something mysterious in a border; since childhood travel had been my favorite dream. Later I led a nomadic life for a long time, wandering now in the south, now in the north, but I had never yet escaped the limits of boundless Russia. I joyfully rode into the cherished river, and my good horse carried me to the Turkish bank. But that bank had already been conquered: I was still in Russia.

—

I still had fifty miles to go to reach Kars. I hoped to see our camp by evening. I did not stop anywhere. Halfway there, in an Armenian village, built in the mountains on the bank of a little river, I ate, instead of dinner, a cursed churek, Armenian flatbread, baked half with ashes, which the Turkish prisoners in the Darial gorge missed so much. I would have paid dearly for a slice of Russian black bread, which they found so disgusting. I was accompanied by a young Turk, a terrible chatterbox. He babbled in Turkish all the way, caring less whether I understood him or not. I strained my attention and tried to guess what he meant. He seemed to be scolding the Russians, and, as he was used to seeing them all in uniform, took me by my clothes for a foreigner. We met a Russian officer going the opposite way. He was coming from our camp and told me that the Russian army had already marched out of Kars. I cannot describe my despair: the thought that I would have to go back to Tiflis, exhausting myself for nothing in deserted Armenia, simply killed me. The officer went on his way; the Turk again began his monologue; but I was past listening to him. I changed from an amble to a long trot and by evening came to a Turkish village located thirteen miles from Kars.

Having leaped off my horse, I was about to enter the first saklia, but the owner appeared in the doorway and pushed me away with curses. I responded to his greeting with my whip. The Turk started shouting; people gathered. My guide apparently intervened for me. They showed me to the caravansarai; I went into a big saklia that resembled a cattle shed; there was no room in it to spread my burka. I requested a horse. The Turkish headman came. To all his incomprehensible talk I made one reply: verbana at (give me a horse). The Turks would not consent. Finally it occurred to me to show them some money (which is what I should have done in the first place). A horse was brought at once, and I was given a guide.

I rode through a wide valley surrounded by mountains. Soon I saw Kars, showing white against one of them. My Turk pointed it out to me, repeating “Kars! Kars!” and sent his horse into a gallop; I followed him, suffering from anxiety: my fate would be decided in Kars. There I would find out where our camp was and whether it would still be possible to catch up with the army. Meanwhile the sky clouded over and it rained again; but I no longer cared about that.

We rode into Kars. Riding up to the gate in the wall, I heard a Russian drum: they were beating retreat. A sentry took my pass and went to the commandant. I stood in the rain for about half an hour. Finally they let me in. I told my guide to take me straight to the baths. We rode along the steep and winding streets. The horses slid on the bad Turkish pavement. We stopped in front of a house of rather poor appearance. This was the baths. The Turk dismounted and started knocking on the door. No one answered. Rain poured down on me. Finally a young Armenian came out of a neighboring house and, having talked with my Turk, invited me in, speaking rather good Russian. He led me up a narrow stairway to the second part of the house. In a room furnished with low couches and threadbare carpets sat an old woman, his mother. She came up to me and kissed my hand. Her son told her to start a fire and prepare dinner for me. I took off my burka and sat down by the fire. My host’s younger brother, a boy of about seventeen, came in. Both brothers had been in Tiflis and lived there for several months at a time. They told me that our troops had left the day before and that our camp was seventeen miles from Kars. That set me completely at ease. Soon the old woman had prepared me some lamb with onion, which I thought the height of culinary art. We all lay down to sleep in the same room; I sprawled in front of the dying fire and fell asleep in the pleasant hope of seeing Count Paskevich’s camp the next day.

In the morning I went to look at the town. The younger of my hosts volunteered to be my cicerone. Examining the fortifications and the citadel, built on an inaccessible cliff, I could not understand how we could have taken Kars. My Armenian explained to me as well as he could the military actions that he himself had witnessed. Noticing an inclination for war in him, I proposed that he go to the army with me. He accepted at once. I sent him for horses. He came back together with an officer, who demanded a written order from me. Judging by the Asiatic features of his face, I did not deem it necessary to rummage among my papers and took from my pocket the first scrap I chanced upon. The officer, having gravely studied it, at once gave instructions that horses be brought to his honor in accordance with the order and gave me back my paper: it was a poem to a Kalmyk girl that I had scribbled in one of the Cossack way stations.48 Half an hour later I rode out of Kars, and Artemy (the name of my Armenian) was already riding beside me on a Turkish stallion, a supple Kurdish javelin in his hand, a dagger behind his belt, and raving about Turks and battles.

I rode over land sown everywhere with grain; I could see villages around, but they were empty: the inhabitants had fled. The road was excellent and paved in marshy places—stone bridges had been built across the streams. The land was rising noticeably—the advance hills of the Sagan-loo ridge, the ancient Tauris, were beginning to appear. Some two hours went by; I rode up a gentle slope and suddenly saw our camp, pitched on the bank of the Kars-chai; a few minutes later I was already in Raevsky’s tent.

CHAPTER THREE

Crossing over Sagan-loo. A skirmish. Camp life. Yazidis. Battle with the seraskir of Arzrum. A blown-up saklia.

I arrived just in time. That same day (June 13) the army received the order to move forward. Having dinner at Raevsky’s, I listened to the young generals discussing the maneuver prescribed for them. General Burtsov49 was dispatched to the left down the Arzrum high road, straight toward the Turkish camp, while the rest of the army was to move to the right side around the enemy.

The troops set out between four and five. I rode with the Nizhegorodsky dragoon regiment, conversing with Raevsky, whom I had not seen for several years. Night fell; we stopped in the valley where the whole army had made a halt. Here I had the honor of being introduced to Count Paskevich.

I found the count in quarters before a campfire, surrounded by his staff. He was cheerful and received me amicably. A stranger to the military art, I did not suspect that the fate of the campaign was being decided at that moment. Here I saw our Volkhovsky,50 covered with dust from head to foot, overgrown with beard, exhausted with cares. He found time, however, to talk with me as an old schoolmate. Here I also saw Mikhail Pushchin,51 who had been wounded the year before. He is loved and respected as a fine comrade and a brave soldier. Many of my old friends surrounded me. How changed they were! How quickly time passes!

Eheu, fugaces, Postume, Postume

labuntur anni…^*9

I went back to Raevsky and spent the night in his tent. In the middle of the night I was awakened by terrible shouting: you might have thought the enemy had made a surprise attack. Raevsky sent to find out the cause of the alarm: several Tatar horses, torn loose from their tethers, were running around the camp, and the Muslims (as the Tatars who serve in our army are called) were trying to catch them.

At dawn the army moved forward. We rode up to the tree-clad mountains. We went down into a gorge. The dragoons talked among themselves: “Watch out, brother, steady now: you’ll catch some case shot.” In fact, the location was favorable for an ambush; but the Turks, sidetracked by General Burtsov’s maneuver, did not take advantage of it. We passed safely through the dangerous gorge and stopped on the heights of Sagan-loo, seven miles from the enemy camp.

The nature around us was dreary. The air was cold, the mountains covered with mournful pines. Snow lay in the glens.

…nec Armeniis in oris,

amice Valgi, stat glacies iners

menses per omnis…^*10

We barely had time to rest and have dinner when we heard gunfire. Raevsky sent for information. The report was that the Turks had started a skirmish on our advance picket lines. I went with Semichev52 to have a look at a picture that was new to me. We met a wounded Cossack: he sat swaying in the saddle, pale and bloody. Two Cossacks were supporting him. “Are there many Turks?” asked Semichev. “A whole swiny swarm, Your Honor,” replied one of them. Having passed through the gorge, we suddenly saw on the slope of the mountain opposite no less than two hundred Cossacks, formed into a single line, and above them about five hundred Turks. The Cossacks were slowly retreating; the Turks were driving ahead with great boldness, taking aim at twenty paces, firing, galloping back. Their high turbans, handsome dolmans, and brightly caparisoned horses were in sharp contrast with the blue uniforms and simple harness of the Cossacks. Some fifteen of our soldiers had already been wounded. Lieutenant Colonel Basov sent for reinforcements. Just then he himself was wounded in the leg. The Cossacks were in confusion. But Basov mounted up again and remained in command. The reinforcements came quickly. Noticing it, the Turks disappeared at once, leaving on the mountainside a naked Cossack corpse, decapitated and truncated. The Turks send cut-off heads to Constantinople, and the hands they dip in blood and put the prints on their banners. The shooting died down. Eagles, the companions of armies, hovered over the mountain, seeking their prey from on high. Just then a group of generals and officers appeared: Count Paskevich arrived and went up the mountain behind which the Turks had vanished. They were reinforced by four thousand cavalry concealed in the hollow and the ravines. From the top of the mountain the view of the Turkish camp opened out, separated from us by ravines and elevations. We came back late. Going through our camp, I saw our wounded, five of whom died that same night and the next day. In the evening I visited young Osten-Sacken,53 wounded that day in another battle.

I liked camp life very much. A cannon shot roused us at dawn. Sleeping in a tent was remarkably healthy. At dinner we washed down Asiatic shashlik with English beer and champagne chilled in the snows of Taurida. Our company was diverse. In General Raevsky’s tent the beks of the Muslim regiments gathered; the conversation was conducted through an interpreter. In our army there were both people of our Transcaucasian territories and inhabitants of recently conquered areas. Among them I looked with curiosity at the Yazidis, reputed in the East to be devil worshippers.54 About three hundred families live at the foot of Ararat. They have recognized the rule of the Russian sovereign. Their chief, a tall, ugly man in a red cape and a black hat, occasionally came with his respects to General Raevsky, commander of all the cavalry. I tried to find out from the Yazidi the truth about their beliefs. To my questions he replied that the rumor of the Yazidis supposedly worshipping Satan was an empty fable; that they believe in one God; that, true, by their law it was considered improper and ignoble to curse the devil, for he is now unhappy, but that in time he may be forgiven, for it is impossible to set limits to Allah’s mercy. This explanation set me at ease. I was very glad for the Yazidis that they did not worship Satan; and their errors now seemed to me much more forgivable.

My man appeared in the camp three days later. He came with the baggage train, which in full view of the enemy had safely joined the army. NB: During the whole campaign not one arba of our numerous train was captured by the enemy. The orderliness with which the train followed the troops was indeed amazing.

On the morning of June 17 we again heard shooting and two hours later we saw a Karabakh regiment returning with eight Turkish banners: Colonel Frideriks55 had had a run-in with the enemy, who lodged themselves behind heaps of stone, had forced them out and driven them away; Osman Pasha, commander of the cavalry, had barely managed to escape.

On June 18 the camp moved to another site. On the 19th, the cannon had no sooner roused us than everything in the camp started moving. The generals went to their posts. Regiments formed up; officers went and stood by their platoons. I remained alone, not knowing which way to go and letting my horse take me wherever God willed. I met General Burtsov, who invited me to the left flank. “What is the left flank?” I thought and rode on. I caught sight of General Muravyov, who was positioning cannon. Soon the Turkish delibash appeared and circled around in the valley, exchanging fire with our Cossacks. Meanwhile a dense throng of their infantry was moving along the hollow. General Muravyov gave orders to fire. The case shot struck the very center of their throng. The Turks swarmed to one side and hid behind a rise. I saw Count Paskevich surrounded by his staff. The Turks were flanking our troops, separated from them by a deep ravine. The count sent Pushchin to reconnoiter the ravine. Pushchin galloped off. The Turks took him for a raider and fired a volley at him. Everybody laughed. The count ordered cannon brought up and fired. The enemy scattered over the mountain and into the hollow. On the left flank, where Burtsov had invited me, things were getting hot. In front of us (opposite the center) the Turkish cavalry galloped. Against them the count sent General Raevsky, who ordered his Nizhegorodsky regiment into the attack. The Turks disappeared. Our Tatars surrounded the wounded and promptly stripped them, leaving them naked in the middle of the field. General Raevsky stopped at the edge of the ravine. Two squadrons, separated from the regiment, had gotten carried away in their pursuit; they were rescued by Colonel Simonich.

The battle died down. Before our eyes the Turks began digging in the ground and lugging stones, fortifying themselves in their usual way. They were left in peace. We dismounted and began to dine on whatever God sent us. Just then several prisoners were brought to the count. One of them was badly wounded. They were questioned. At around six o’clock the troops again received orders to go against the enemy. The Turks began to stir behind their rubble-work, met us with cannon fire, and soon beat a retreat. Our cavalry was in the advance; we began to descend into the ravine; the earth broke loose and crumbled under the horses’ hooves. My horse might have fallen down at any moment, and then the Combined Uhlan regiment would have ridden over me. But God brought me through. No sooner did we come out onto the wide road that goes through the mountains than our entire cavalry broke into full gallop. The Turks fled; the Cossacks lashed at the cannon abandoned on the road with their whips and raced past. The Turks plunged into the ravines on both sides of the road; they were no longer shooting; at least not a single bullet whizzed past my ears. First in the pursuit were our Tatar regiments, whose horses are notable for their speed and strength. My horse, taking the bit in his teeth, did not lag behind them; it was all I could do to hold him back. We stopped before the corpse of a young Turk lying across the road. He seemed to be about eighteen years old; his pale, girlish face was not disfigured. His turban lay in the dust; the back of his shaven head had been pierced by a bullet. I rode at a walk; soon Raevsky caught up with me. He wrote a report to Count Paskevich in pencil on a scrap of paper about the total defeat of the enemy and rode on. I followed him at a distance. Night fell. My tired horse lagged behind and stumbled at every step. Count Paskevich gave orders not to call off the pursuit and took command of it himself. I was overtaken by our cavalry detachments; I saw Colonel Polyakov, commander of the Cossack artillery, which had played an important role that day, and together with him arrived at the abandoned village where Count Paskevich had stopped, having called off the pursuit on account of nightfall.

We found the count on the roof of an underground saklia, in front of a fire. Prisoners were brought to him. He questioned them. Almost all the commanders were there as well. The Cossacks held their horses by the reins. The fire cast its light on a picture worthy of Salvator Rosa;56 a river murmured in the darkness. Just then it was reported to the count that powder stores had been hidden in the village and there was danger of an explosion. The count left the saklia with all his retinue. We rode to our camp, which by now was twenty miles from the place where we had spent the night. The road was full of cavalry detachments. We had only just reached the place when the sky was lit up as if by a meteor and we heard a muffled explosion. The saklia we had left fifteen minutes earlier was blown up into the air: there had been stores of powder in it. The hurtling stones crushed several Cossacks.

That was all I managed to see at that time. In the evening I learned that in this battle we had crushed the seraskir of Arzrum, who was going to join Hakki Pasha with 30,000 troops.57 The seraskir fled to Arzrum; his troops, flung over Sagan-loo, were dispersed, his artillery taken, and only Hakki Pasha was left on our hands. Count Paskevich gave him no time to prepare himself.

CHAPTER FOUR

The battle with Hakki Pasha. The death of a Tatar bek. A hermaphrodite. The captive pasha. Araks. Shepherd’s Bridge. Hassan-Kalé. A hot spring. The march to Arzrum. Negotiations. The taking of Arzrum. Turkish prisoners. A dervish.

The next day before five o’clock the camp woke up and received orders to move on. Coming out of my tent, I met Count Paskevich, who got up before everybody else. He saw me. “Êtes-vous fatigué de la journée d’hier?”– “Mais un peu, m. le Comte.”—“J’en suis fâché pour vous, car nous allons faire encore une marche pour joindre le Pacha, et puis il faudra poursuivre l’ennemi encore une trentaine de verstes.”^*11

We set out and by eight o’clock we came to an elevation from which the camp of Hakki Pasha could be seen as on the palm of your hand. The Turks opened fire harmlessly from all their batteries. Meanwhile great commotion could be seen in their camp. Fatigue and the morning heat made many of us dismount and lie down on the fresh grass. I wound the reins around my hand and fell into a sweet sleep, while awaiting orders to go forward. A quarter of an hour later I was awakened. Everything was in movement. On one side, columns marched towards the Turkish camp; on the other, the cavalry was preparing to pursue the enemy. I was following the Nizhegorodsky regiment, but my horse limped. I lagged behind. The Uhlan regiment raced past me. Then Volkhovsky galloped by with three cannon. I found myself alone in the wooded mountains. I ran across a dragoon who told me that the woods were full of the enemy. I went back. I met General Muravyov with his infantry regiment. He detached a company to the woods to clear them. Drawing near a hollow, I saw an extraordinary picture. Under a tree lay one of our Tatar beks, mortally wounded. Beside him a boy, his favorite, was sobbing. A mullah, kneeling, was reciting prayers. The dying bek was extremely calm and looked steadily at his young friend. In the hollow some five hundred prisoners were gathered. Several wounded Turks made signs for me to approach, probably taking me for a doctor and seeking help that I could not give them. A Turk emerged from the woods, pressing a bloody rag to his wound. Some soldiers went up to him, intending to finish him off, perhaps out of charity. That aroused my indignation; I interceded for the poor Turk, and with difficulty brought him, exhausted and losing blood, to a group of his comrades. With them was Colonel Anrep.58 He was amicably smoking their pipes, though there were rumors that the plague had broken out in the Turkish camp. The prisoners sat calmly talking among themselves. They were almost all young men. Having rested, we moved on. There were bodies lying everywhere along the road. After some ten miles I found the Nizhegorodsky regiment, which had paused on the bank of a stream among the rocks. The pursuit went on for several more hours. Towards evening we came to a valley surrounded by a dense forest, and I could finally sleep as long as I liked, having ridden over fifty miles that day.

The next day the troops pursuing the enemy received orders to return to the camp. There we learned that among the prisoners there was a hermaphrodite. At my request, Raevsky ordered him brought. I saw a tall, rather fat muzhik with the face of an old, pug-nosed Finnish woman. We examined him in the presence of a doctor. Erat vir, mammosus ut femina, habebat t. non evolutos, p. que parvum et puerilem. Quaerebamus, sit ne exsectus?– Deus, respondit, castravit me.^*12 On the testimony of travelers, this illness, known to Hippocrates, is frequently met with among the nomadic Tatars and the Turks. Hoss is the Turkish name for these alleged hermaphrodites.

Our troops were stationed in the Turkish camp taken the day before. Count Paskevich’s tent stood near the green pavilion of Hakki Pasha, taken prisoner by our Cossacks. I went to him and found him surrounded by our officers. He was sitting cross-legged and smoking a pipe. He looked to be about forty. Dignity and profound calm showed on his handsome face. When he surrendered himself, he asked to be given a cup of coffee and to be spared questions.

We were stationed in a valley. The snowy and wooded mountains of Sagan-loo were already behind us. We moved forward, no longer meeting the enemy anywhere. The settlements were empty. The surrounding country was dismal. We saw the Araks flowing swiftly between its stony banks. Ten miles from Hassan-Kalé there was a bridge, beautifully and boldly built on seven unequal arches. Legend ascribes its construction to a shepherd who had grown rich, and had died a hermit on a hilltop, where to this day they show his grave, overshaded by two solitary pines. Neighboring settlers come there to venerate it. The bridge is called Chaban-Kepri (Shepherd’s Bridge). The road to Tebriz crosses over it.

I visited the dark ruins of a caravansarai a few paces from the bridge. I found no one there except for a sick donkey, probably abandoned by the fleeing villagers.

On the morning of June 24 we marched to Hassan-Kalé, the ancient fortress, taken the day before by Prince Bekovich. It was ten miles from our night camp. The long marches had tired me. I hoped to get some rest; but it turned out otherwise.

Before the departure of our cavalry, some Armenians who lived in the mountains appeared in our camp, asking to be protected against the Turks, who had driven off their cattle three days earlier. Colonel Anrep, before grasping very well what they wanted, imagined that there was a Turkish detachment in the mountains, and with one squadron of the Uhlan regiment went galloping off in that direction, informing Raevsky that there were three thousand Turks in the mountains. Raevsky set out after him, to reinforce him in case of danger. I considered myself attached to the Nizhegorodsky regiment and in great vexation galloped off to deliver the Armenians. Having gone some fifteen miles, we rode into a village and saw several stray Uhlans with bared swords hurriedly pursuing a few chickens. Here one villager explained to Raevsky that it was a matter of three thousand oxen driven off by the Turks three days earlier and which could be overtaken quite easily in a couple of days. Raevsky ordered the Uhlans to quit pursuing the chickens and sent orders to Colonel Anrep to turn around. We rode back and, emerging from the mountains, arrived at Hassan-Kalé. Thus we made a thirty-mile detour to save the lives of a few Armenian chickens, which I did not find at all amusing.

Hassan-Kalé is considered the key to Arzrum. The town is built at the foot of a cliff crowned by a citadel. In it there were about a hundred Armenian families. Our camp stood on a wide plain spread out in front of the citadel. Here I visited a round stone edifice inside of which was a hot iron-sulfur spring.

The round pool was about twenty feet in diameter. I swam across it twice and, suddenly feeling dizzy and nauseous, barely had strength enough to get out onto the stone edge of the spring. These waters are famous in the East, but, having no proper doctors, the inhabitants use them haphazardly and probably without great success.

Under the walls of Hassan-Kalé flows the little river Murts; its banks are full of ferrous springs which well up from under the stones and feed into the river. They do not have as pleasant a taste as the Caucasian narzan, and they smack of copper.

On June 25, the birthday of the sovereign emperor, the regiments attended a prayer service in our camp, under the walls of the citadel. During dinner at Count Paskevich’s, when we drank the health of the emperor, the count announced the march to Arzrum. At five o’clock in the afternoon the troops were already setting out.

On June 26 we stopped in the mountains three miles from Arzrum. These mountains are called Ak-Dag (the white mountains); they are of chalk. Their caustic white dust stung our eyes; their mournful look inspired sadness. The nearness of Arzrum and the certainty of the campaign’s end comforted us.

In the evening Count Paskevich rode out to survey the terrain. The Turkish horsemen, who had been circling about in front of our pickets all day, began to shoot at him. The count brandished his whip at them several times, not stopping his conversation with General Muravyov. Their shots went unanswered.

Meanwhile there was great confusion in Arzrum. The seraskir, who had fled to the city after his defeat, spread the rumor that the Russians had been completely crushed. Following him, the released prisoners delivered Count Paskevich’s appeal to the citizens. The fugitives exposed the seraskir in his lie. Soon news came of the rapid approach of the Russians. The people started talking about surrender. The seraskir and his army were considering defense. Riots ensued. Several Franks59 were killed by an angry mob.

Deputies from the people and from the seraskir came to our camp (the morning of the 26th); the day was spent in negotiations; at five o’clock in the afternoon the deputies went back to Arzrum and with them went General Bekovich, who had a good knowledge of Asiatic languages and customs.

The next morning our troops moved forward. On the eastern side of Arzrum, on the height of Top-Dag, was a Turkish battery. The regiments went towards it, responding to the Turkish fire with drumbeats and music. The Turks fled, and Top-Dag was taken. I arrived there with the poet Yuzefovich.60 At the abandoned battery we found Count Paskevich and his whole retinue. From the top of the mountain the view opened onto Arzrum in a hollow, with its citadel, minarets, green roofs stuck one on top of the other. The count was on horseback. Before him on the ground sat the Turkish deputies, who had come with the keys of the city. But in Arzrum agitation could be seen. Suddenly, on the city wall, fire flashed, smoke puffed, and cannonballs came flying at Top-Dag. Several of them flew over Count Paskevich’s head. “Voyez les Turcs,” he said to me, “on ne peut jamais se fier à eux.”^*13 Just then Prince Bekovich, who had been negotiating in Arzrum since the previous day, came galloping to Top-Dag. He announced that the seraskir and the people had long since agreed to surrender, but that several disobedient Arnauts,61 under the leadership of Topcha Pasha, had taken over the city batteries and started a rebellion. The generals approached the count, asking permission to silence the Turkish batteries. The Arzrum dignitaries, sitting under the fire of their own cannon, seconded their request. The count did not reply for some time; finally he gave orders, saying: “Enough of their tomfoolery.” Cannon were brought at once, started firing, and the enemy fire gradually subsided. Our regiments entered Arzrum, and on June 27, the anniversary of the battle of Poltava,62 at six o’clock in the evening the Russian flag unfurled over the citadel of Arzrum.

Raevsky set out for the city—I went with him; we rode into the city, which presented an amazing picture. The Turks from their flat roofs looked at us sullenly. Armenians thronged noisily in the narrow streets. Their little boys ran in front of our horses, crossing themselves and repeating: “Christiyan! Christiyan!…” We approached the fortress, where our artillery was entering; with extreme astonishment I met my Artemy here, riding about town in spite of the strict order that no one should absent himself from the camp without special permission.

The streets of the city are narrow and crooked. The houses are rather tall. Multitudes of people—the shops were closed. Having spent some two hours in the city, I went back to the camp: the seraskir and the four captured pashas were already there. One of the pashas, a lean old man, a terrible bustler, was talking animatedly with our generals. Seeing me in a tailcoat, he asked who I was. Pushchin gave me the title of poet. The pasha crossed his arms on his chest and bowed to me, saying through an interpreter: “Blessed is the hour when we meet a poet. The poet is brother to the dervish. He has neither fatherland nor earthly goods; and while we poor men concern ourselves with glory, with power, with treasures, he stands equal with the rulers of the earth and they bow to him.”

The pasha’s oriental greeting was very much to our liking. I went to have a look at the seraskir. At the entrance to his tent I met his favorite page, a dark-eyed boy of about fourteen, in rich Arnaut dress. The seraskir, a gray-haired old man of the most ordinary appearance, sat in deep dejection. Around him was a crowd of our officers. On coming out of his tent, I saw a young man, half-naked, in a sheepskin hat, with a club in his hand and a wineskin on his shoulder. He was shouting at the top of his lungs. They told me that this was my brother, the dervish, who had come to greet the victors. We had trouble driving him away.

CHAPTER FIVE

Arzrum. Asiatic luxury. The climate. A cemetery. Satirical verses. The palace of the seraskir. A Turkish pasha’s harem. The plague. The death of Burtsov. Leaving Arzrum. The return trip. A Russian journal.

Arzrum (incorrectly called Arzerum, Erzrum, Erzron) was founded around the year 415, in the time of Theodosius the Second,63 and was called Theodosiopolis. No historical memories are connected with his name. I knew only this about it, that here, by the testimony of Hajji-Baba, a Persian ambassador, in satisfaction for some offense, was presented with calf’s ears instead of human ones.64

Arzrum is considered the main city of Asiatic Turkey. Its inhabitants are reckoned at 100,000, but the number seems greatly exaggerated. Its houses are of stone, the roofs are covered with turf, which gives the city a very odd appearance if you look at it from above.

The main overland trade between Europe and the East is carried on through Arzrum. But few goods are on sale there; they are not displayed, something Tournefort also observed, who writes that in Arzrum a sick man may die from the impossibility of obtaining a spoonful of rhubarb, while whole sacks of it are to be found in the city.65

I know of no expression more meaningless than the words “Asiatic luxury.” This saying probably originated in the time of the Crusades, when poor knights, having left the bare walls and oaken chairs of their castles, saw for the first time red couches, multicolored rugs, and daggers with flashy gems on their hilts. Nowadays we might say “Asiatic poverty,” “Asiatic swinishness,” and so on, but luxury is, of course, proper to Europe. In Arzrum you cannot buy for any amount of money what can be found in a grocer’s shop in any little country town of Pskov province.

The Arzrum climate is harsh. The city is built in a hollow that is over 7,000 feet above sea level. The surrounding mountains are covered with snow for a great part of the year. The land is treeless but fertile. It is irrigated by many springs and crisscrossed everywhere with aqueducts. Arzrum is famous for its water. The Euphrates flows two miles from the city. But there are a great many fountains everywhere. Beside each of them hangs a tin dipper on a chain, and the good Muslims drink and cannot praise it enough. Timber is supplied from Sagan-loo.

In the Arzrum arsenal we found a great many old weapons, helmets, cuirasses, swords, rusting there probably since the time of Godfrey.66 The mosques are low and dark. Outside the city there is a cemetery. The tombstones usually consist of posts adorned with stone turbans. The tombs of two or three pashas are distinguished by a greater fancifulness, but there is nothing refined about them: no taste, no thought…One traveler writes that of all Asiatic cities, in Arzrum alone did he find a clock tower, and it was broken.

The innovations undertaken by the sultan have not yet penetrated to Arzrum. The troops still wear their picturesque eastern garb. Between Arzrum and Constantinople there is rivalry, as there is between Kazan and Moscow. Here is the beginning of a satirical poem composed by the janissary Amin-Oglu.67

Stambul is praised now by the giaours,

But tomorrow with an iron heel,

Like a sleeping snake, they’ll crush it,

And off they’ll ride—and leave it so.

Stambul dozes in the face of trouble.

Stambul has renounced the prophet;

There the truth of the ancient East

By the cunning West is clouded.

Stambul for the sweets of vice

Betrays both sabre and devotion.

Stambul forgets the battle’s sweat

And drinks wine at the hour of prayer.

There has died the faith’s pure fire,

In graveyards there the women walk,

They send old crones out to the crossroads

And to the harems bring back men,

While the bribed eunuch lies there sleeping.

Not so is Arzrum in the mountains,

Our Arzrum of the many roads;

We sleep not in shameful luxury,

We dip no disobedient cup

In the wine of depravity, noise, and fire.

We fast: and from the streams of sober

Holy water we quench our thirst;

In multitudes both swift and dauntless

Our horsemen into battle fly;

Our harems are inaccessible,

Our eunuchs incorrupt and stern,

And our women sit there peacefully.

I lived in the seraskir’s palace, in the rooms where the harem used to be. For a whole day I wandered through countless passages, from room to room, from roof to roof, from stairway to stairway. The palace seemed to have been looted; the seraskir, intending to flee, took with him all that he could. The couches were stripped, the rugs removed. When I strolled around the town, the Turks beckoned to me and showed me their tongues. (They take every Frank for a doctor.) I was tired of it and ready to pay them back in kind. My evenings I spent with the intelligent and amiable Sukhorukov; the similarity of our pursuits brought us together. He told me of his literary intentions, his historical research, once embarked upon with such zeal and success. The limited nature of his wishes and expectations is truly touching. It will be a pity if they are not realized.68

The seraskir’s palace was a picture of perpetual animation: where the sullen pasha had silently smoked amidst his wives and dishonorable boys, his vanquisher received reports of his generals’ victories, gave out pashaliks, discussed new novels. The pasha of Mush came to Count Paskevich to ask for his nephew’s post. Walking through the palace, the imposing Turk stopped in one of the rooms, uttered a few words with animation, and then fell to brooding: in that very room his father had been beheaded at the command of the seraskir. There you have real Eastern impressions! The famous Bey-bulat, the terror of the Caucasus,69 came to Arzrum with the headmen of two Circassian villages that had revolted during the last wars. They dined with Count Paskevich. Bey-bulat is a man of about thirty-five, short and broad-shouldered. He does not speak Russian, or pretends not to. I was glad of his arrival in Arzrum: he had already been my guarantee of a safe passage through the mountains and Kabarda.

Osman Pasha, taken prisoner in Arzrum and sent to Tiflis together with the seraskir, asked Count Paskevich for the safekeeping of the harem he was leaving in Arzrum. During the first few days this was forgotten. One day at dinner, talking about the calm of the Muslim town, occupied by 10,000 troops and in which not one of the inhabitants had made a single complaint about soldierly violence, the count remembered Osman Pasha’s harem and told Mr. Abramovich70 to go to the pasha’s house and ask his wives if they were content and there had been no offense against them. I asked leave to accompany Mr. A. We set out. Mr. A. took along as an interpreter a Russian officer who had a curious story. At the age of eighteen he had been taken prisoner by the Persians. They had castrated him, and for more than twenty years he had served as a eunuch in the harem of one of the shah’s sons. He told of his misfortune and his life in Persia with touching simple-heartedness. With respect to physiology, his testimony was precious.

We came to Osman Pasha’s house; we were shown into an open room, decorated very properly, even with taste—verses from the Koran were written on the stained-glass windows. One of them seemed to me very ingenious for a Muslim harem: “It befits you to bind and to loose.” We were treated to coffee in little cups mounted in silver. An old man with a venerable white beard, Osman Pasha’s father, came on behalf of the wives to thank Count Paskevich—but Mr. A. said flatly that he had been sent to the wives of Osman Pasha and wished to see them, so as to ascertain from them personally that in the absence of their spouse they were content with everything. The Persian prisoner had barely managed to translate all that, when the old man clucked his tongue in a sign of indignation and declared that he could not possibly agree to our request, and that if the pasha, on his return, found out that other men had seen his wives, he would order that he, the old man, and all the servants of the harem have their heads cut off. The servants, among whom there was not a single eunuch, confirmed the old man’s words, but Mr. A. stood firm. “You are afraid of your pasha,” he said to them, “and I of my seraskir, and I dare not disobey his orders.” There was nothing to be done. They led us through a garden, where two meager fountains spurted. We approached a small stone building. The old man stood between us and the door, opened it warily, not letting go of the latch, and we saw a woman covered from head to yellow slippers in a white chadra. Our interpreter repeated the question for her: we heard the mumbling of a seventy-year-old woman. Mr. A. cut her off: “This is the pasha’s mother,” he said, “and I’ve been sent to the wives; bring out one of them.” Everyone was amazed at the giaour’s shrewdness: the old woman left and a moment later came back with a woman covered in the same way she was—from under the cover came a young, pleasant little voice. She thanked the count for his attentiveness to the poor widows and praised the way the Russians treated them. Mr. A. artfully managed to engage her in further conversation. Meanwhile, gazing around me, I suddenly saw a round window right over the door and in this round window five or six round heads with dark, curious eyes. I was about to tell Mr. A. of my discovery, but the heads began to wag, to wink, and several little fingers made warning signs to me, letting me know that I should keep quiet. I obeyed and did not share my find. They all had pleasant faces, but there was not a single beauty; the one who was talking by the door with Mr. A. was probably the ruler of the harem, the treasury of hearts, the rose of love—so at least I imagined.

Finally Mr. A. ended his questioning. The door closed. The faces in the window disappeared. We looked over the garden and the house and went back very pleased with our embassy.

And so I saw a harem: it is a rare European who manages that. There you have the basis for an oriental novel.

—

The war seemed to be over. I was preparing for the return journey. On July 14, I went to the public baths and was not glad to be alive. I cursed the dirty sheets, the bad service, and so on. How can you compare the baths of Arzrum with those of Tiflis!

On returning to the palace, I learned from Konovnitsyn,71 who was standing guard, that plague had broken out in Arzrum. I immediately pictured the horrors of quarantine, and that same day I decided to leave the army. The thought of being in the presence of the plague is very disagreeable if you are not used to it. Wishing to erase this impression, I went for a stroll in the bazaar. Stopping in front of an armorer’s shop, I began to examine a dagger, when someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned: behind me stood a frightful beggar. He was pale as death; tears flowed from his red, festering eyes. The thought of the plague again flashed in my imagination. I pushed the beggar away with a feeling of indescribable revulsion and returned home very displeased with my stroll.

Curiosity, however, got the upper hand; the next day I went with the army doctor to the camp where the plague victims were. I did not dismount and took the precaution of standing upwind. A sick man was brought out to us from a tent: he was very pale and staggered as if drunk. Another sick man lay unconscious. Having looked over the plague victim and promised the unfortunate man a speedy recovery, I turned my attention to the two Turks who had led him out under the arms, undressed him, probed him, as if the plague were no more than a cold. I confess, I was ashamed of my European timidity in the presence of such indifference and hastened back to the city.

On July 19, having come to say good-bye to Count Paskevich, I found him in great distress. The sad news had come that General Burtsov had been killed at Bayburt. It was a pity about brave Burtsov, but the incident could also be fatal for our whole small-numbered army, finding itself deep in a foreign land and surrounded by hostile peoples, ready to rebel at the rumor of the first setback. And so the war started again! The count suggested that I be a witness to further undertakings. But I was hurrying to Russia…The count gave me a Turkish sabre as a souvenir. I keep it as a reminder of my travels in the wake of the brilliant hero through the conquered wastes of Armenia. On that same day I left Arzrum.

I went back to Tiflis by the road already familiar to me. Places still recently animated by the presence of an army of 15,000 men were silent and sad. I crossed over Sagan-loo and could scarcely recognize the place where our camp stood. In Gyumri I endured a three-day quarantine. Again I saw Bezobdal and left the high plains of cold Armenia for torrid Georgia. I arrived in Tiflis on the first of August. There I stayed for several days in amiable and merry company. Several evenings were spent in the gardens to the sounds of Georgian music and songs. I went on. My crossing of the mountains was remarkable for me in that I was caught in a storm at night near Kobi. In the morning, going past Kazbek, I saw a marvelous sight: ragged white clouds stretched across the peak of the mountain, and the solitary monastery, lit by the rays of the sun, seemed to be floating in the air, borne up by the clouds. The Furious Gully also showed itself to me in all its grandeur: the ravine, filled with rainwater, surpassed the raging Terek itself, roaring menacingly just beside it. The banks were torn to pieces; enormous rocks were dislodged and blocked the stream. A multitude of Ossetes were working on the road. I crossed over safely. Finally I rode out of the narrow gorge into the expanse of the wide plains of Great Kabarda. In Vladikavkaz I found Dorokhov72 and Pushchin. They were on their way to the waters to treat the wounds they had received in the present campaigns. On Pushchin’s table I found Russian magazines. The first article I happened upon was a review of one of my works. In it I and my verses were denounced in all possible ways. I started reading it aloud. Pushchin interrupted me, demanding that I read with greater mimetic art. It should be noted that the review was decked out with the usual whimsies of our critics: it was a conversation between a sexton, a prosphora baker, and a proofreader, the Mr. Commonsense of this little comedy. I found Pushchin’s request so amusing that the vexations produced in me by the reading of the article vanished completely, and we burst into wholehearted laughter.

Such was my first greeting in my dear fatherland.

*1 “Travels to the East undertaken by order of the French Government.”

*2 A poet distinguished by his imagination found in the many lofty deeds he witnessed the subject, not of a poem, but of a satire.

*3 Among the leaders who commanded it (the army of Prince Paskevich) one singled out General Muraviev…the Georgian Prince Chavchavadze…the Armenian Prince Bebutov…Prince Potemkin, General Raevsky, and finally—Mr. Pushkin…who had left the capital in order to sing the exploits of his compatriots.

*4 See the glossary of Caucasian terms on this page.

*5 So Persian caps are called. Author.

*6 for the great liberty

*7 it is always good (Italian)

*8 “You don’t know those people; you’ll see it will come to playing with knives.”

*9 Alas, Postumus, Postumus, the fleeting / years slip by…(Horace, Odes, II, 14).

*10 …nor in Armenia, / friend Valgius, does the ice stay inert / for months on end…(Horace, Odes, II, 9).

*11 “Are you tired from yesterday?”—“Just a little, monsieur le Comte.”—“That upsets me, because we’re going to make another march to catch up with the pasha, and then we’ll have to pursue the enemy another thirty versts [twenty miles].”

*12 He was a man with a woman’s breasts, had undeveloped t[esticles], a puny and boyish p[enis]. We inquired, had he been emasculated?—God, he replied, castrated me.

*13 “Just look at the Turks…you can never trust them.” (French)