A Hero of Our Time | Page 5

a travellers' room in the Station, we were assigned
a night's lodging in a smoky hut. I invited my fellow-traveller to drink a
tumbler of tea with me, as I had brought my cast-iron teapot -- my only
solace during my travels in the Caucasus.
One side of the hut was stuck against the cliff, and three wet and
slippery steps led up to the door. I groped my way in and stumbled up
against a cow (with these people the cow-house supplies the place of a
servant's room). I did not know which way to turn -- sheep were
bleating on the one hand and a dog growling on the other. Fortunately,
however, I 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