Hadji Murád, Leo Tolstoy [romantic books to read txt] 📗

“Well, what else is there?” said he.

“A courier from the Caucasus,” said Chernyshóv, and he reported what Vorontsóv had written about Hadji Murád’s surrender.

“Dear me!” said Nicholas. “Well, it’s a good beginning!”

“Evidently the plan devised by your Majesty begins to bear fruit,” said Chernyshóv.

This approval of his strategic talents was particularly pleasant to Nicholas because, though he prided himself upon those talents, at the bottom of his heart he knew that they did not really exist; and he now desired to hear more detailed praise of himself.

“How do you mean?” he asked.

“I understand it this way⁠—that if your Majesty’s plans had been adopted long ago, and we had moved forward steadily though slowly, cutting down forests and destroying the supplies of food, the Caucasus would have been subjugated long ago. I attribute Hadji Murád’s surrender entirely to his having come to the conclusion that they can hold out no longer.”

“True,” said Nicholas.

Although the plan of a gradual advance into the enemy’s territory by means of felling forests and destroying the food supplies was Ermolóv’s and Velyamínov’s plan, and was quite contrary to Nicholas’s own plan of seizing Shamil’s place of residence and destroying that nest of robbers⁠—which was the plan on which the dargo expedition in 1845 (that cost so many lives) had been undertaken⁠—Nicholas nevertheless attributed to himself also the plan of a slow advance and a systematic felling of forests and devastation of the country. It would seem that to believe the plan of a slow movement by felling forests and destroying food supplies was his own, necessitated the hiding the fact that he had insisted on quite contrary operations in 1845. But he did not hide it, and was proud of the plan of the 1845 expedition, and also of the plan of a slow advance⁠—though the two were obviously contrary to one another. Continual brazen flattery from everybody round him in the teeth of obvious facts, had brought him to such a state that he no longer saw his own inconsistencies or measured his actions and words by reality, logic, or even simple common sense; but was quite convinced that all his orders, however senseless, unjust, and mutually contradictory they might be, became reasonable, just, and mutually accordant simply because he gave them. His decision in the case next reported to him⁠—that of the student of the Academy of Medicine⁠—was of that senseless kind.

The case was as follows: A young man who had twice failed in his examinations was being examined a third time, and when the examiner again would not pass him, the young man, whose nerves were deranged, considering this to be an injustice, in a paroxysm of fury seized a penknife from the table and, rushing at the professor, inflicted on him several trifling wounds.

“What’s his name?” asked Nicholas.

“Bzhezóvski.”

“A Pole?”

“Of Polish descent and a Roman Catholic,” answered Chernyshóv.

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

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

Chernyshóv, having more than once heard Nicholas say so, knew that when the Emperor had to take a decision, it was only necessary for him to concentrate his attention for a few moments, and the spirit moved him, and the best possible decision presented itself, as though an inner voice had told him what to do. He was now thinking how most fully to satisfy the feeling of hatred against the Poles which this incident had stirred up within him; and the inner voice suggested the following decision. He took the report and in his large handwriting wrote on its margin with three orthographical mistakes:

“Diserves deth, but, thank God, we have no capitle punishment, and it is not for me to introduce it. Make him run the gauntlet of a thousand men twelve times. —Nicholas.”

He signed, adding his unnaturally huge flourish.

Nicholas knew that twelve thousand strokes with the regulation rods were not only certain death with torture, but were a superfluous cruelty, for five thousand strokes were sufficient to kill the strongest man. But it pleased him to be ruthlessly cruel, and it also pleased him to think that we have abolished capital punishment in Russia.

Having written his decision about the student, he pushed it across to Chernyshóv.

“There,” he said, “read it.”

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

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

“It will do them good! I will abolish this revolutionary spirit, and will tear it up by the roots!” he thought.

“It shall be done,” replied Chernyshóv; and after a short pause he straightened the tuft on his forehead and returned to the Caucasian report.

“What do you command me to write in reply to Prince Vorontsóv’s dispatch?”

“To keep firmly to my system of destroying the dwellings and food supplies in Chechnya, and to harass them by raids.” answered Nicholas.

“And what are your Majesty’s commands with reference to Hadji Murád?” asked Chernyshóv.

“Well, Vorontsóv writes that he wants to make use of him in the Caucasus.”

“Is it not dangerous?” said Chernyshóv, avoiding Nicholas’s gaze. “Prince Vorontsóv is, I’m afraid, too confiding.”

“And you⁠—what do you think?” asked Nicholas sharply, detecting Chernyshóv’s intention of presenting Vorontsóv’s decision in an unfavorable light.

“Well, I should have thought it would be safer to deport him to Central Russia.”

“You would have thought!” said Nicholas ironically. “But I don’t think so, and agree with Vorontsóv. Write to him accordingly.”

“It shall be done,” said Chernyshóv, rising and bowing himself out.

Dolgorúky also bowed himself out, having during the whole audience only uttered a few words (in reply to a question from Nicholas) about the movement of the army.

After Chernyshóv, Nicholas received Bíbikov, General-Governor of the Western Provinces. Having expressed his approval of the measures taken by Bíbikov against the mutinous peasants