Before me I saw a dense heaving wall followed by some dark moving spots; this was the cavalry vanguard and the general with his suite. Another similar dark mass, only lower, moved beside us; this was the infantry.
The silence that reigned over the whole division was so great that all the mingling sounds of night with their mysterious charm were distinctly audible: the far-off mournful howling of jackals, now like agonized weeping, now like chuckling; the monotonous resounding song of crickets, frogs, and quails; a sort of rumbling I could not at all account for but which seemed to draw nearer; and all those scarcely audible motions of Nature which can neither be understood nor defined, mingled into one beautiful harmony which we call the stillness of night. This stillness was interrupted by, or rather combined with, the dull thud of hoofs and the rustling of the tall grass caused by the slowly advancing detachment.
Only very occasionally could the clang of a heavy gun, the sound of bayonets touching one another, hushed voices, or the snorting of a horse, be heard. [By the scent of the wet juicy grass which sank under our horses’ feet, by the light steam rising from the ground and by the horizons seen on two sides of us, it was evident that we were moving across a wide, luxuriant meadow.) Nature seemed to breathe with pacifying beauty and power.
Can it be that there is not room for all men on this beautiful earth under those immeasurable starry heavens? Can it be possible that in the midst of this entrancing Nature feelings of hatred, vengeance, or the desire to exterminate their fellows, can endure in the souls of men? All that is unkind in the hearts of men should, one would think, vanish at contact with Nature – that most direct expression of beauty and goodness.
[War! What an incomprehensible phenomenon! When one’s reason asks: ‘Is it just, is it necessary?’ an inner voice always replies ‘No’. Only the persistence of this unnatural occurrence makes it seem natural, and a feeling of self-preservation makes it seem just.
Who will doubt that in the war of the Russians against the mountain-tribes, justice – resulting from a feeling of self-preservation – is on our side? Were it not for this war, what would secure the neighbouring rich and cultured Russian territories from robbery, murder, and raids by wild and warlike tribes? But consider two private persons. On whose side is the feeling of self-preservation and consequently of justice? Is it on the side of this ragamuffin – some Djemi or other – who hearing of the approach of the Russians snatches down his old gun from the wall, puts three or four charges (which he will only reluctantly discharge) in his pouch and runs to meet the giaours, and on seeing that the Russians still advance, approaching the fields he has sown which they will tread down and his hut which they will burn, and the ravine where his mother, his wife, and his children have hidden themselves, shaking with fear – seeing that he will be deprived of all that constitutes his happiness – in impotent anger and with a cry of despair tears off his tattered jacket, flings down his gun, and drawing his sheepskin cap over his eyes sings his death-song and flings himself headlong onto the Russian bayonets with only a dagger in his hand? Is justice on his side or on that of this officer on the general’s staff” who is singing French chansonettes so well just as he rides past us? He has a family in Russia, relations, friends, serfs, and obligations towards them, but has no reason or desire to be at enmity with the hillsmen, and has come to the Caucasus just by chance and to show his courage. Or is it on the side of my acquaintance the adjutant, who only wishes to obtain a captaincy and a comfortable position as soon as possible and for that reason has become the hillsmen’s enemy? Or is it on the side of this young German who, with a strong German accent, is demanding a linstock from the artillerymen? What devil has brought him from his fatherland and set him down in this distant region? Why should this Saxon, Kaspar Lavréntich, mix himself up in our blood-thirsty conflict with these turbulent neighbours?]
Chapter VII
WE had been riding for more than two hours. I was beginning to shiver and feel drowsy. Through the gloom I still seemed to see the same indefinite forms; a little way in front the same black wall and the moving spots. Close in front of me I could see the crupper of a white horse which swung its tail and threw its hind legs wide apart, the back of a white Circassian coat on which could be discerned a musket in a black case, and the glimmering butt of a pistol in an embroidered holster; the glow of a cigarette lit up a fair moustache, a beaver collar and a hand in a chamois glove. Every now and then I leant over my horse’s neck, shutting my eyes and forgetting myself for a few minutes, then startled by the familiar tramping and rustling I glanced round, and felt as if I were standing still and the black wall in front was moving towards me, or that it had stopped and I should in a moment ride into it. At one such moment the rumbling which increased and seemed to approach, and the cause of which I could not guess, struck me forcibly: it was the sound of water. We were entering a deep gorge and approaching a mountain-stream that was overflowing its banks.7 The rumbling increased, the damp grass became thicker and taller and the bushes closer, while the horizon gradually narrowed. Now and then bright lights appeared here and there against the dark background of the hills, and vanished instantly.
‘Tell me, please, what are those lights?’ I asked in a whisper of a Tartar riding beside me.
‘Don’t you know?’ he replied.
‘No.’
‘The hillsmen have tied straw to poles and are waving it about alight.’
‘Why are they doing that?’
‘So that everyone should know that the Russians have come. Oh, oh! What a bustle is going on now in the aouls! Everybody’s dragging his belongings into the ravine,’ he said laughing.
‘Why, do they already know in the mountains that a detachment is on its way?’ I asked him.
‘How can they help knowing? They always know. Our people are like that.’
‘Then Shamyl8 too is preparing for action?’ I asked.
‘No,’ he answered, shaking his head, ‘Shamyl won’t go into action; Shamyl will send his naibs,9 and he himself will look on through a telescope from above.’
‘Does he live far away?’
‘Not far. Some eight miles to the left.’
‘How do you know?’ I asked. ‘Have you been there?’
‘I have. Our people have all been.’
‘Have you seen Shamyl?’
‘Such as we don’t see Shamyl! There are a hundred, three hundred, a thousand murids10 all round him, and Shamyl is in the centre,’ he said, with an expression of servile admiration.
Looking up, it was possible to discern that the sky, now cleared, was beginning to grow lighter in the east and the pleiades to sink towards the horizon, but the ravine through which we were marching was still damp and gloomy.
Suddenly a little way in front of us several lights flashed through the darkness; at the same moment some bullets flew whizzing past amid the surrounding silence [and sharp abrupt firing could be heard and loud cries, as piercing as cries of despair but expressing instead of fear such a passion of brutal audacity and rage that one could not but shudder at hearing it.] It was the enemy’s advanced picket. The Tartars who composed it whooped, fired at random, and then ran in different directions.
All became silent again. The general called up an interpreter. A Tartar in a white Circassian coat rode up to him and, gesticulating and whispering, talked with him for some time.
‘Colonel Khasánov! Order the cordon to take open order,’ commanded the general with a quiet but distinct drawl.