The Tiflis climate is said to be unhealthy. The local fevers are terrible; they are treated with mercury, the use of which is harmless because of the heat. Doctors feed it to their patients quite shamelessly. General Sipyagin died, they say, because his personal physician, who came with him from Petersburg, was frightened of the dose suggested by the local doctors and did not give it to the sick man.44 The local fevers resemble those of the Crimea and Moldavia and are treated in the same way.
The inhabitants drink the water of the Kura, cloudy but pleasant. The water of all the springs and wells has a strong taste of sulfur. However, wine here is in such general use that a lack of water would go unnoticed.
I was astonished by the low value of money in Tiflis. Having taken a cab through two streets and let it go after half an hour, I had to pay the cabbie two silver roubles. I thought at first that he wanted to profit from a visitor’s ignorance; but I was told that that was indeed the price. Everything else is correspondingly expensive.
We went to the German colony and had dinner there. We drank the beer they make, of a very unpleasant taste, and paid very dearly for a very bad meal. In my inn the food was just as expensive and bad. General Strekalov, a well-known gastronome, once invited me to dinner; unfortunately, the dishes were served according to rank and there were English officers with general’s epaulettes at the table.45 The servants bypassed me so assiduously that I got up from the table hungry. Devil take the Tiflis gastronome!
I waited impatiently for my fate to be decided. At last I received a note from Raevsky. He wrote that I should make haste to Kars, because in a few days the troops were to go further on. I left the next day.
I went on horseback, changing horses at the Cossack outposts. The earth around me was scorched by the heat. From a distance the Georgian villages looked to me like beautiful gardens, but, on riding up to them, I saw a few poor saklias overshaded by dusty poplars. The sun went down, but the air was still stifling:
Torrid nights!
Foreign stars!…
The moon shone; all was still; only the trot of my horse rang out in the night’s silence. I rode for a long time without meeting any signs of habitation. At last I saw a solitary saklia. I started knocking at the door. The owner came out. I asked for water, first in Russian, then in Tatar. He did not understand me. Amazing nonchalance! Twenty miles from Tiflis and on the road to Persia and Turkey, he did not know a word of Russian or of Tatar.
Having spent the night at a Cossack outpost, I headed further on at dawn. The road went through mountains and forests. I met some traveling Tatars; there were several women among them. They were on horseback, wrapped in chadras; all you could see were their eyes and heels.
I started going up Bezobdal, the mountain that separates Georgia from ancient Armenia. A wide road, overshaded by trees, winds around the mountain. On the summit of Bezobdal I rode through a small gorge, apparently called the Wolf Gate, and found myself on the natural border of Georgia. Before me were new mountains, a new horizon; below me spread fertile green wheatfields. I looked back once more at scorched Georgia and started down the gently sloping mountain to the fresh plains of Armenia. With indescribable pleasure I noticed that the heat suddenly became less intense: the climate was different.
My man with the pack horses lagged behind me. I rode alone in the blossoming desert surrounded by distant mountains. I absentmindedly rode past the post where I was meant to change horses. More than six hours went by, and I began to wonder about the distance I had gone. I saw heaps of stones to one side that looked like saklias, and headed for them. In fact, I came to an Armenian village. Several women in motley rags were sitting on the flat roof of an underground saklia. I expressed myself somehow or other. One of them went down into the saklia and brought up some cheese and milk. After resting for a few minutes, I went on and saw on a high bank opposite me the citadel of Gergeri. Three streams rushed with noise and foam down the high bank. I crossed the river. Two oxen hitched to an arba were going up the steep road. Several Georgians were accompanying it. “Where are you from?” I asked them. “Tehran.” “What are you carrying?” “Griboed.” It was the body of the slain Griboedov, which they were accompanying to Tiflis.46
I never thought I would meet our Griboedov again! I parted with him last year in Petersburg, before he left for Persia. He was sad and had strange premonitions. I began to reassure him; he said to me: “Vous ne connaissez pas ces gens-là; vous verrez qu’il faudra jouer des couteaux.”*8 He supposed the cause of the bloodshed would be the death of the shah and the internecine war among his seventy sons. But the elderly shah is still alive, and Griboedov’s prophetic words came true. He died under Persian daggers, a victim of ignorance and treachery. His disfigured corpse, which for three days was the plaything of the Tehran mob, was recognized only by the hand once pierced by a pistol bullet.
I made the acquaintance of Griboedov in 1817. His melancholy character, his embittered mind, his good-nature, his very weaknesses and vices, inevitable companions of humanity—everything in him was extraordinarily attractive. Born with an ambition equal to his gifts, he was caught for a long time in a web of petty needs and obscurity. His abilities as a statesman remained unemployed; his talent as a poet went unrecognized; even his cold and brilliant courage remained under suspicion for some time. A few friends knew his worth and saw a distrustful smile, that stupid, insufferable smile, when they happened to speak of him as an extraordinary man. People believe only in fame and do not understand that there might be among them some Napoleon, who has never commanded a single company of chasseurs, or another Descartes, who has not published a single line in the Moscow Telegraph. However, our respect for fame may well come from vanity: our own voice, too, goes into the making of fame.
Griboedov’s life was darkened by certain clouds: the consequence of ardent passions and powerful circumstances. He felt the necessity of settling accounts once and for all with his youth and making a sharp turn in his life. He said good-bye to Petersburg and idle dissipation, and went to Georgia, where he spent eight years in solitary, unremitting work. His return to Moscow in 1824 was a turnabout in his fate and the beginning of continuous successes. His comedy in manuscript, Woe from Wit, had an indescribable effect and suddenly placed him in the rank of our foremost poets. A short time after that his perfect knowledge of the region where a war was starting opened up a new career for him; he was appointed ambassador. On coming to Georgia, he married the woman he loved…I know of nothing more enviable than the last years of his stormy life. His death itself, overtaking him in the midst of courageous, unequal combat, had nothing terrible, nothing agonizing for Griboedov. It was instantaneous and beautiful.
What a pity that Griboedov did not leave us his memoirs! Writing his biography should be a task for his friends; but among us remarkable people disappear without leaving a trace behind. We are lazy and incurious…
In Gergeri I met Buturlin, who, like me, was going to the army.47 Buturlin traveled with every possible gratification. I had dinner with him as if we were in Petersburg. We decided to travel together; but the demon of impatience took possession of me again. My man asked me for permission to rest. I set out alone, even without a guide. There was only one road, and it was perfectly safe.
Having crossed the mountain and descended into a valley overshaded by trees, I saw a mineral spring flowing across the road. Here I met an Armenian priest who was going to Akhaltsikhe from Erevan. “What’s new in Erevan?” I asked him. “In Erevan there’s plague,” he replied, “and what about Akhaltsikhe?” “In Akhaltsikhe there’s plague,” I replied. Having exchanged this pleasant news, we parted.