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

Makhmet, a hostile Chechen aoul,2 that was filled with the scented smoke of burning kizyák,3 and that lay some fifteen miles from Russian territory. The strained chant of the muezzin had just ceased, and though the clear mountain air, impregnated with kizyák smoke, above the lowing of the cattle and the bleating of the sheep that were dispersing among the sáklyas4 (which were crowded together like the cells of honeycomb), could be clearly heard the guttural voices of disputing men, and sounds of women’s and children’s voices rising from near the fountain below.

This Hadji Murád was Shamil’s naïb,5 famous for his exploits, who used never to ride out without his banner, and was always accompanied by some dozens of murids, who caracoled and showed off before him. Now, with one murid only, wrapped in a hood and burka,6 from under which protruded a rifle, he rode, a fugitive, trying to attract as little attention as possible and peering with his quick black eyes into the faces of those he met on his way.

When he entered the aoul, Hadji Murád did not ride up the road leading to the open square, but turned to the left into a narrow side street; and on reaching the second sáklya, which was cut into the hillside, he stopped and looked round. There was no one under the penthouse in front; but on the roof of the sáklya itself, behind the freshly plastered clay chimney, lay a man covered with a sheepskin. Hadji Murád touched him with the handle of his leather-plaited whip, and clicked his tongue. An old man rose from under the sheepskin. He had on a greasy old beshmét7 and a nightcap. His moist red eyelids had no lashes, and he blinked to get them unstuck. Hadji Murád, repeating the customary “Selaam aleikum!” uncovered his face. “Aleikum, selaam!” said the old man, recognizing him, and smiling with his toothless mouth; and raising himself on his thin legs he began thrusting his feet into the wooden-heeled slippers that stood by the chimney. Then he leisurely slipped his arms into the sleeves of his crumpled sheepskin, and going to the ladder that leant against the roof, he descended backwards. While he dressed, and as he climbed down, he kept shaking his head on its thin, shrivelled sunburnt neck, and mumbling something with his toothless mouth. As soon as he reached the ground he hospitably seized Hadji Murád’s bridle and right stirrup; but the strong, active murid had quickly dismounted and, motioning the old man aside, took his place. Hadji Murád also dismounted and, walking with a slight limp, entered under the penthouse. A boy of fifteen, coming quickly out of the door, met him and wonderingly fixed his sparkling eyes, black as ripe sloes, on the new arrivals.

“Run to the mosque and call your father,” ordered the old man, as he hurried forward to open the thin, creaking door into the sáklya for Hadji Murád.

As Hadji Murád entered the outer door, a slight, spare, middle-aged woman in a yellow smock, red beshmét, and wide blue trousers came through an inner door carrying cushions.

“May thy coming bring happiness!” said she, and, bending nearly double, began arranging the cushions along the front wall for the guest to sit on.

“May thy sons live!” answered Hadji Murád, taking off his burka, his rifle, and his sword, and handing them to the old man, who carefully hung the rifle and sword on a nail beside the weapons of the master of the house, which were suspended between two large basins that glittered against the clean clay-plastered and carefully whitewashed wall.

Hadji Murád adjusted the pistol at his back, came up to the cushions and, wrapping his Circassian coat closer round him, sat down. The old man squatted on his bare heels beside him, closed his eyes, and lifted his hands palms upwards. Hadji Murád did the same; then after repeating a prayer they both stroked their faces, passing their hands downwards till the palms joined at the end of their beards.

“Ne habar?” (“Is there anything new?”) asked Hadji Murád, addressing the old man.

“Habar yok” (“Nothing new”), replied the old man, looking with his lifeless red eyes not at Hadji Murád’s face but at his breast. “I live at the apiary, and have only today come to see my son.⁠ ⁠… He knows.”

Hadji Murád, understanding that the old man did not wish to say what he knew and what Hadji Murád wanted to know, slightly nodded his head and asked no more questions.

“There is no good news,” said the old man. “The only news is that the hares keep discussing how to drive away the eagles; and the eagles tear first one and then another of them. The other day the Russian dogs burnt the hay in the Mitchit aoul.⁠ ⁠… May their faces be torn!” added he, hoarsely and angrily.

Hadji Murád’s murid entered the room, his strong legs striding softly over the earthen floor. Retaining only his dagger and pistol, he took off his burka, rifle, and sword as Hadji Murád had done, and hung them up on the same nails with his leader’s weapons.

“Who is he?” asked the old man, pointing to the newcomer.

“My murid. Eldár is his name,” said Hadji Murád.

“That is well,” said the old man, and motioned Eldár to a place on a piece of felt beside Hadji Murád. Eldár sat down, crossing his legs and fixing his fine ram-like eyes on the old man, who, having now started talking, was telling how their brave fellows had caught two Russian soldiers the week before, and had killed one and sent the other to Shamil in Vedén.

Hadji Murád heard