He had known so little tenderness in his life that he could not even imagine how tenderly he was loved.
“She is a goddess. With this kind of woman, it was inevitable. Something had to happen,” said Sacha Milyutin. He continued, without any irony, “Something dreadful, terrible, irremediable—like marriage.”
Buxhöwden and Jamal Eddin were so used to Sacha’s ranting about women and conjugal ties that they hadn’t paid any serious attention to him in ages.
With their hands behind their heads and eyes gazing up at the sky above, each of them was dreaming of his own love. Lying in the hay, they were waiting for the appropriate time to present themselves at Machouk. There, Lisa, Tatiana, and all the young ladies were resting beneath the mosquito nets. The men would join them after their siesta for the evening’s entertainment.
They were not the only ones waiting there at midday. Behind a nearby haystack, Shibshiev was spying on them. Jamal Eddin’s attentiveness to the giaours at Machouk had revived his old worries, and a sense of foreboding had taken shape in the back of his mind.
Though the memory of his beating had made Shibshiev more prudent, he had nonetheless returned to his former ways as a spy.
Indifferent to this hostile presence, the three friends lay still in the sun. Though they shared the same hopes and dreams, the similarities among them ended there. Despite the broad red moustache that dominated his face, Sacha still looked like a child. With close-cropped hair and a square, clean-shaven jaw, Buxhöwden—“Bux”—had become a blond giant whose imposing stature belied a more gentle soul than one might have imagined. The two comrades had followed Jamal Eddin down the same romantic path and found themselves, like him, at the mercy of their feelings.
Bux was smitten with the youngest of the Lvov cousins. “In love, absolutely cooked,” in the words of Sacha, who admitted that he loved young Tatiana “more than life itself.” As for Jamal Eddin, his fascination with the eldest of the Olenin daughters was no secret—except, perhaps, to the young lady in question.
That August, the girls seemed to have bewitched the Uhlans of Torjok. The officers of the seventh division rivaled for the hearts of Lisa, Tatiana, Marina, and the others. Rumors of a conflict with Turkey, which had been threatening to break out since April, only added to the urgency of their sentiments. The brief separation they had just suffered due to the rites of the grand maneuvers had merely fanned the flames of their respective passions.
Not that springtime at the camp at Krasnoye Sielo had been a failure. On the contrary, it had been a great success. That year, even more so than in 1848, the emperor had sought to discourage any foreigners’ inclinations to enter into an alliance against him. The show had been particularly brilliant. With the simulated battles performed before the Persian ambassador, the parades for the American senator, and the drills and charges done before the European diplomatic corps, the lancers had outdone themselves. In addition to their heartache, strict discipline, tension, and exhaustion made Jamal Eddin and his comrades eager to return to Machouk. Each one set out on the path to the manor with renewed fervor.
As for La Potemkina, she would not have missed the Indian summer season at her nephew’s for anything in the world. The speed of the train that carried her to the new station of Tver on the recently inaugurated railway line joining the two capitals had definitively converted her to celerity and modernity.
But summer was almost over, and time was short.
“Yes or no, did Tatiana miss me while we were gone?” Sacha wanted to know.
“Who cares?” grumbled Buxhöwden, a man of few words. “As long as she loves you today.”
“But tell me frankly, do you think she’s too young for me?”
“For you? No.”
“For me to marry her?”
“You’re not the one who should get married. He is.”
These few words—uttered in Buxhöwden’s typically offhand way—resounded for an instant in the leaden heat.
Sacha, always ready for a counterpunch, yelped, “‘He,’ meaning whom?”
“Him,” Buxhöwden replied, with a slight gesture of the chin in Jamal Eddin’s direction. “He’s the one who should be getting married,” he repeated.
Jamal Eddin had closed his eyes and remained perfectly still.
Sacha looked at him for a moment, then announced, “Bux is right. Marry her, old man. Propose now, the sooner the better.”
The piece of straw that Jamal Eddin had been absently chewing on was suddenly still.
Scarcely unclenching his teeth, he muttered, “Impossible.”
“Why impossible?”
“Because.”
“Why impossible?” Sacha repeated insistently.
Jamal Eddin said nothing.
“Is it that fanatic?” murmured Buxhöwden, gesturing toward the shadow of Shibshiev behind the haystack. “Is he the one who has poisoned your blood and driven you crazy, to the point of preventing you from living?”
At this, Jamal Eddin opened his eyes. Explicitly formulated criticism was not generally Bux’s style. His judgments—and Buxhöwden’s frequent disapproval of his superiors seriously threatened his military career—were normally expressed with innuendo, contempt, and the force of inertia.
Jamal Eddin did not move but continued simply to gaze at the sun.
“Do you want my advice?” Milyutin cut in pompously. “Marry her, my friend, marry her. Without a doubt, you will never find a finer girl than Elizaveta Petrovna.”
“He knows that,” Buxhöwden snorted. “He’s persuaded that this woman is the companion destined for him by God or the devil. Just look at him, he’s burning with love, he’s drying up and withering away. And she, poor thing, is literally dying of hunger and thirst right next to him. If this imbecile keeps this up, he’ll end up instilling doubts in her mind, and then he’ll lose her. And it will serve him right.”
“I agree with Bux, hurry up. She loves you, she’ll say yes, it’s obvious.”
Jamal Eddin abandoned any pretext of composure.
“A woman like Elizaveta Petrovna cannot accept a man without a birthright. Without a name, without a title. Without wealth.”
“That’s what you think,” Buxhöwden countered sourly.
“You’re forgetting your own merit,” Milyutin seconded him.
“What future could I offer her?” Jamal Eddin’s features hardened. “What destiny? Just stop!”
He softened his tone. “Quiet, Bux, you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“And you, Jamal Eddin, you’re talking about destiny, but you’re still vacillating, a prisoner of yourself and paralyzed with fear. As long as you are incapable of choosing your camp, of risking everything for what you feel, that is what you will remain: a man without freedom, a pawn caught between two worlds and two loyalties, a hostage to both Shamil and the czar. And he who has not dared all is a man of little substance.”
Jamal-Eddin paled at Buxhöwden’s attack.
“Do you think her father would give her to a Muslim?” he shot back vehemently.
He was silent for a moment before adding, “The subject is closed.”
Sacha shrugged his shoulders.
“I don’t see the problem: you love her, she loves you, her parents love you, the czar loves you. It’s your move, old man, convert.”
“The subject is closed,” he repeated, his tone final.