The muzhiks bowed and went to their labor as if nothing had happened.
Shvabrin’s wound turned out not to be mortal. He was sent to Kazan under convoy. I saw from the window how they laid him in a cart. Our eyes met, he lowered his head, and I quickly stepped away from the window. I was afraid to seem as if I were triumphing over my unfortunate and humiliated enemy.
Zurin had to move further on. I decided to follow him, despite my wish to spend a few more days amidst my family. On the eve of the march I came to my parents and, following the custom of the time, bowed at their feet, asking their blessing for my marriage to Marya Ivanovna. The old people raised me up and with joyful tears gave their consent. I brought Marya Ivanovna to them, pale and trembling. They blessed us…What I felt then I am not going to describe. Whoever has been in my situation will understand me without that; whoever has not, I can only pity and advise, while there is still time, to fall in love and receive the blessing of his parents.
The next day the regiment made ready. Zurin took leave of our family. We were all certain that military action would soon be over; I hoped to be a husband within a month. Marya Ivanovna, saying good-bye to me, kissed me in front of everyone. I mounted up. Savelyich again followed me—and the regiment left.
For a long time I looked back at the country house I was again abandoning. A dark foreboding troubled me. Someone was whispering to me that my misfortunes were not all behind me. My heart sensed a new storm.
I will not describe our march and the end of the war with Pugachev. We passed through villages devastated by Pugachev, and of necessity took from the poor inhabitants what the brigands had left them.
They did not know whom to obey. Order broke down everywhere. Landowners hid in the forests. Bands of brigands spread their villainies everywhere. The commanders of separate detachments, sent in pursuit of Pugachev, who was then fleeing towards Astrakhan, arbitrarily punished the guilty and the guiltless…The condition of the whole region where the conflagration raged was terrible. God keep us from ever seeing a Russian rebellion—senseless and merciless. Those among us who plot impossible revolutions are either young and do not know our people, or are hard-hearted men, for whom another man’s head is worth little, and their own but little more.
Pugachev fled, pursued by Iv. Iv. Mikhelson. Soon we learned of his total defeat. Zurin finally received from his general the news of the impostor’s capture, and with it the order to halt. I could finally go home. I was in raptures; but a strange feeling clouded my joy.
*1 to be an ouchitel (the French spelling of the Russian word for tutor)
*2 ‘Madame, please, some vodka.’ (Russified French)
*3 “Very well.” (Tatar)
*4 rogue (German)
*5 The “omitted chapter” (see this page), rejected by Pushkin and preserved only in rough draft, would have gone here. Translator.
*6 This chapter was not included in the final version of The Captain’s Daughter; it was preserved in a rough draft with the title “The Omitted Chapter.” It would have formed a continuation or extension of chapter 13. In it Grinyov is called Bulanin and Zurin is called Grinyov, but we have kept the names as they are in the rest of the novel. Translator.
Journey to Arzrum
During the Campaign of 1829
PREFACE
Not long ago there came into my hands a book published in Paris last year (1834) under the title Voyages en Orient entrepris par ordre du Gouvernement Français.*1 1 The author, giving his own description of the campaign of 1829, ends his reflections with the following words:
Un poète distingué par son imagination a trouvé dans tant de hauts faits dont il a été témoin non le sujet d’un poème, mais celui d’une satyre.*2
Of poets who took part in the Turkish campaign, I knew only A. S. Khomyakov and A. N. Muravyov. Both were in the army of Count Dibich.2 At that time the former wrote some fine lyric poems; the latter was thinking over his journey to the holy places, which was to produce such a strong impression. But I had not read any satire on the Arzrum campaign.
I could never have thought that the matter here concerned myself, if in that same book I had not found my own name among the names of generals of the Detached Caucasus Corps.3 Parmis les chefs qui la commandaient (l’armée du Prince Paskewitch) on distinguait le Général Mouravieff…le Prince Géorgian Tsitsevaze…le Prince Arménien Beboutof…le Prince Potemkine, le Général Raiewsky, et enfin—M-r Pouchkine…qui avait quitté la capitale pour chanter les exploits de ses compatriotes.*3 4
I confess: the lines of the French traveler, despite the flattering epithets, vexed me far more than the abuse of Russian journals. To “seek inspiration” has always seemed to me a ridiculous and absurd fancy: inspiration cannot be sought out; it must find the poet. For me, to go to war in order to sing future exploits would have been, on the one hand, too vain, and on the other, too indecent. I do not meddle in military judgments. That is not my business. It may be that the bold march over Sagan-loo, a maneuver by which Count Paskevich cut the seraskir off from Osman Pasha,5 the defeat of two enemy corps in one day’s time, the quick march to Arzrum—it may be that all this, crowned with complete success, fully deserves to be made a laughingstock by military men (such as, for instance, Mr. Merchant Consul Fontanier, author of the Travels to the East), but I would be ashamed to write satires on the illustrious commander who graciously received me under the shade of his tent and who, in the midst of his great cares, found time to give me his flattering attention. A man who has no need of being patronized by the powerful values their cordiality and hospitality, because he has nothing else to ask of them. Unlike trifling criticism or literary abuse, an accusation of ingratitude should not go without objection. That is why I have decided to publish this preface and to bring out my travel notes as all that I have written about the campaign of 1829.6
A. PUSHKIN
CHAPTER ONE
The Steppes. A Kalmyk kibitka. The Caucasian hot springs. The Georgian military highway. Vladikavkaz. An Ossetian funeral. The Terek. The Darial gorge. Crossing the snowy mountains. The first glimpse of Georgia. Aqueducts. Khozrev-Mirza. The mayor of Dusheti.
…From Moscow I went to Kaluga, Belev, and Orel, and thus added an extra hundred and thirty miles; on the other hand I met Ermolov.7 He lives in Orel, his country estate being close by. I came to him at eight o’clock in the morning and did not find him at home. My driver told me that Ermolov did not visit anyone except his father, a simple, pious old man, that the only people he did not receive were town officials, and that anyone else had free access to him. An hour later I came to him again. Ermolov received me with his usual courtesy. At first glance I did not find in him the least resemblance to his portraits, painted usually in profile. A round face, fiery gray eyes, bushy gray hair. A tiger’s head on a herculean torso. His smile is unpleasant, because it is unnatural. But when he falls to thinking and frowns, he becomes superb and strikingly resembles the poetical portrait painted by Dawe.8 He was wearing a green Circassian jacket. On the walls of his study hung sabers and daggers, souvenirs of his rule over the Caucasus. He appears to bear his inaction with impatience. Several times he began talking about Paskevich, and always sarcastically; talking of the ease of his victories, he compared him to the son of Nun, before whom walls fell down at the sounding of trumpets, and called the count of Erevan the count of Jericho.9 “Let him run into a pasha who is not intelligent, not skillful, but merely stubborn—for instance, the pasha who ruled in Shumla,” said Ermolov, “and Paskevich is done for.” I passed on to Ermolov the words of Count Tolstoy,10 that Paskevich had acted so well during the Persian campaign that the only thing left for an intelligent man was to act worse, in order to be distinguished from him. Ermolov laughed, but did not agree. “Men and expenses could have been spared,” he said. I think he is writing or wants to write his memoirs. He is not pleased with Karamzin’s History;11 he wishes that an ardent pen would portray the transition of the Russian nation from insignificance to glory and power. He spoke of Prince Kurbsky’s writings con amore.12 The Germans took a beating. “Some fifty years hence,” he said, “people will think there was an auxiliary Prussian or Austrian army in our campaign, commanded by this or that German general.” I stayed with him for about two hours. He was vexed that he had not remembered my full name. He apologized by means of compliments. The conversation turned several times to literature. Of Griboedov’s verse he says that reading it makes his jaws ache.13 Of government and politics there was not a word.