A Hero of Our Time | Page 5

perceived on one side a faint glimmer of light, and by its aid I was able to find another opening by way of a door. And here a by no means uninteresting picture was revealed. The wide hut, the roof of which rested on two smoke-grimed pillars, was full of people. In the centre of the floor a small fire was crackling, and the smoke, driven back by the wind from an opening in the roof, was spreading around in so thick a shroud that for a long time I was unable to see about me. Seated by the fire were two old women, a number of children and a lank Georgian -- all of them in tatters. There was no help for it! We took refuge by the fire and lighted our pipes; and soon the teapot was singing invitingly.
"Wretched people, these!" I said to the staff-captain, indicating our dirty hosts, who were silently gazing at us in a kind of torpor.
"And an utterly stupid people too!" he replied. "Would you believe it, they are absolutely ignorant and incapable of the slightest civilisation! Why even our Kabardians or Chechenes, robbers and ragamuffins though they be, are regular dare-devils for all that. Whereas these others have no liking for arms, and you'll never see a decent dagger on one of them! Ossetes all over!"
"You have been a long time in the Chechenes' country?"
"Yes, I was quartered there for about ten years along with my company in a fortress, near Kamennyi Brod.[1] Do you know the place?"
[1] Rocky Ford.
"I have heard the name."
"I can tell you, my boy, we had quite enough of those dare-devil Chechenes. At the present time, thank goodness, things are quieter; but in the old days you had only to put a hundred paces between you and the rampart and wherever you went you would be sure to find a shaggy devil lurking in wait for you. You had just to let your thoughts wander and at any moment a lasso would be round your neck or a bullet in the back of your head! Brave fellows, though!" . . .
"You used to have many an adventure, I dare say?" I said, spurred by curiosity.
"Of course! Many a one." . . .
Hereupon he began to tug at his left moustache, let his head sink on to his breast, and became lost in thought. I had a very great mind to extract some little anecdote out of him -- a desire natural to all who travel and make notes.
Meanwhile, tea was ready. I took two travel- ling-tumblers out of my portmanteau, and, filling one of them, set it before the staff-captain. He sipped his tea and said, as if speaking to himself, "Yes, many a one!" This exclamation gave me great hopes. Your old Caucasian officer loves, I know, to talk and yarn a bit; he so rarely succeeds in getting a chance to do so. It may be his fate to be quartered five years or so with his company in some out-of-the-way place, and during the whole of that time he will not hear "good morning" from a soul (because the sergeant says "good health"). And, indeed, he would have good cause to wax loquacious -- with a wild and interesting people all around him, danger to be faced every day, and many a marvellous incident happening. It is in circum- stances like this that we involuntarily complain that so few of our countrymen take notes.
"Would you care to put some rum in your tea?" I said to my companion. "I have some white rum with me -- from Tiflis; and the weather is cold now."
"No, thank you, sir; I don't drink."
"Really?"
"Just so. I have sworn off drinking. Once, you know, when I was a sub-lieutenant, some of us had a drop too much. That very night there was an alarm, and out we went to the front, half seas over! We did catch it, I can tell you, when Aleksei Petrovich came to hear about us! Heaven save us, what a rage he was in! He was within an ace of having us court-martialled. That's just how things happen! You might easily spend a whole year without seeing a soul; but just go and have a drop and you're a lost man!"
On hearing this I almost lost hope.
"Take the Circassians, now," he continued; "once let them drink their fill of buza[1] at a wedding or a funeral, and out will come their knives. On one occasion I had some difficulty in getting away with a whole skin, and yet it was at the house of a 'friendly'[2] prince, where I was a guest, that the affair happened."
[1] A kind of beer made from millet.
[2] i.e. acknowledging Russian supremacy.
"How was that?" I asked.
"Here, I'll tell you."