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the

interest of that future. Now, with unprecedented courage and a

strength that amazed everyone, he slew and subdued an innumerable

host of hillsmen; now he was himself a hillsman and with them was

maintaining their independence against the Russians. As soon as he

pictured anything definite, familiar Moscow figures always

appeared on the scene. Sashka B–fights with the Russians or the

hillsmen against him. Even the tailor Cappele in some strange way

takes part in the conqueror’s triumph. Amid all this he remembered

his former humiliations, weaknesses, and mistakes, and the

recollection was not disagreeable. It was clear that there among

the mountains, waterfalls, fair Circassians, and dangers, such

mistakes could not recur. Having once made full confession to

himself there was an end of it all. One other vision, the sweetest

of them all, mingled with the young man’s every thought of the

future—the vision of a woman.

 

And there, among the mountains, she appeared to his imagination as

a Circassian slave, a fine figure with a long plait of hair and

deep submissive eyes. He pictured a lonely hut in the mountains,

and on the threshold she stands awaiting him when, tired and

covered with dust, blood, and fame, he returns to her. He is

conscious of her kisses, her shoulders, her sweet voice, and her

submissiveness. She is enchanting, but uneducated, wild, and

rough. In the long winter evenings he begins her education. She is

clever and gifted and quickly acquires all the knowledge

essential. Why not? She can quite easily learn foreign languages,

read the French masterpieces and understand them: Notre Dame de

Paris, for instance, is sure to please her. She can also speak

French. In a drawing-room she can show more innate dignity than a

lady of the highest society. She can sing, simply, powerfully, and

passionately…. ‘Oh, what nonsense!’ said he to himself. But here

they reached a post-station and he had to change into another

sledge and give some tips. But his fancy again began searching for

the ‘nonsense’ he had relinquished, and again fair Circassians,

glory, and his return to Russia with an appointment as aide-de-camp and a lovely wife rose before his imagination. ‘But there’s

no such thing as love,’ said he to himself. ‘Fame is all rubbish.

But the six hundred and seventy-eight rubles? … And the

conquered land that will bring me more wealth than I need for a

lifetime? It will not be right though to keep all that wealth for

myself. I shall have to distribute it. But to whom? Well, six

hundred and seventy-eight rubles to Cappele and then we’ll see.’

… Quite vague visions now cloud his mind, and only Vanyusha’s

voice and the interrupted motion of the sledge break his healthy

youthful slumber. Scarcely conscious, he changes into another

sledge at the next stage and continues his journey.

 

Next morning everything goes on just the same: the same kind of

post-stations and tea-drinking, the same moving horses’ cruppers,

the same short talks with Vanyusha, the same vague dreams and

drowsiness, and the same tired, healthy, youthful sleep at night.

Chapter III

The farther Olenin travelled from Central Russia the farther he

left his memories behind, and the nearer he drew to the Caucasus

the lighter his heart became. “I’ll stay away for good and never

return to show myself in society,” was a thought that sometimes

occurred to him. “These people whom I see here are NOT people.

None of them know me and none of them can ever enter the Moscow

society I was in or find out about my past. And no one in that

society will ever know what I am doing, living among these

people.” And quite a new feeling of freedom from his whole past

came over him among the rough beings he met on the road whom he

did not consider to be PEOPLE in the sense that his Moscow

acquaintances were. The rougher the people and the fewer the signs

of civilization the freer he felt. Stavropol, through which he had

to pass, irked him. The signboards, some of them even in French,

ladies in carriages, cabs in the marketplace, and a gentleman

wearing a fur cloak and tall hat who was walking along the

boulevard and staring at the passersby, quite upset him. “Perhaps

these people know some of my acquaintances,” he thought; and the

club, his tailor, cards, society … came back to his mind. But

after Stavropol everything was satisfactory—wild and also

beautiful and warlike, and Olenin felt happier and happier. All

the Cossacks, post-boys, and post-station masters seemed to him

simple folk with whom he could jest and converse simply, without

having to consider to what class they belonged. They all belonged

to the human race which, without his thinking about it, all

appeared dear to Olenin, and they all treated him in a friendly

way.

 

Already in the province of the Don Cossacks his sledge had been

exchanged for a cart, and beyond Stavropol it became so warm that

Olenin travelled without wearing his fur coat. It was already

spring—an unexpected joyous spring for Olenin. At night he was no

longer allowed to leave the Cossack villages, and they said it was

dangerous to travel in the evening. Vanyusha began to be uneasy,

and they carried a loaded gun in the cart. Olenin became still

happier. At one of the post-stations the post-master told of a

terrible murder that had been committed recently on the high road.

They began to meet armed men. “So this is where it begins!”

thought Olenin, and kept expecting to see the snowy mountains of

which mention was so often made. Once, towards evening, the Nogay

driver pointed with his whip to the mountains shrouded in clouds.

Olenin looked eagerly, but it was dull and the mountains were

almost hidden by the clouds. Olenin made out something grey and

white and fleecy, but try as he would he could find nothing

beautiful in the mountains of which he had so often read and

heard. The mountains and the clouds appeared to him quite alike,

and he thought the special beauty of the snow peaks, of which he

had so often been told, was as much an invention as Bach’s music

and the love of women, in which he did not believe. So he gave up

looking forward to seeing the mountains. But early next morning,

being awakened in his cart by the freshness of the air, he glanced

carelessly to the right. The morning was perfectly clear. Suddenly

he saw, about twenty paces away as it seemed to him at first

glance, pure white gigantic masses with delicate contours, the

distinct fantastic outlines of their summits showing sharply

against the far-off sky. When he had realized the distance between

himself and them and the sky and the whole immensity of the

mountains, and felt the infinitude of all that beauty, he became

afraid that it was but a phantasm or a dream. He gave himself a

shake to rouse himself, but the mountains were still the same.

 

“What’s that! What is it?” he said to the driver.

 

“Why, the mountains,” answered the Nogay driver with indifference.

 

“And I too have been looking at them for a long while,” said

Vanyusha. “Aren’t they fine? They won’t believe it at home.”

 

The quick progress of the three-horsed cart along the smooth road

caused the mountains to appear to be running along the horizon,

while their rosy crests glittered in the light of the rising sun.

At first Olenin was only astonished at the sight, then gladdened

by it; but later on, gazing more and more intently at that snow-peaked chain that seemed to rise not from among other black

mountains, but straight out of the plain, and to glide away into

the distance, he began by slow degrees to be penetrated by their

beauty and at length to FEEL the mountains. From that moment all

he saw, all he thought, and all he felt, acquired for him a new

character, sternly majestic like the mountains! All his Moscow

reminiscences, shame, and repentance, and his trivial dreams about

the Caucasus, vanished and did not return. ‘Now it has begun,’ a

solemn voice seemed to say to him. The road and the Terek, just

becoming visible in the distance, and the Cossack villages and the

people, all no longer appeared to him as a joke. He looked at

himself or Vanyusha, and again thought of the mountains. … Two

Cossacks ride by, their guns in their cases swinging rhythmically

behind their backs, the white and bay legs of their horses

mingling confusedly … and the mountains! Beyond the Terek rises

the smoke from a Tartar village… and the mountains! The sun has

risen and glitters on the Terek, now visible beyond the reeds …

and the mountains! From the village comes a Tartar wagon, and

women, beautiful young women, pass by… and the mountains!

‘Abreks canter about the plain, and here am I driving along and do

not fear them! I have a gun, and strength, and youth… and the

mountains!’

Chapter IV

That whole part of the Terek line (about fifty miles) along which

lie the villages of the Grebensk Cossacks is uniform in character

both as to country and inhabitants. The Terek, which separates the

Cossacks from the mountaineers, still flows turbid and rapid

though already broad and smooth, always depositing greyish sand on

its low reedy right bank and washing away the steep, though not

high, left bank, with its roots of century-old oaks, its rotting

plane trees, and young brushwood. On the right bank lie the

villages of pro-Russian, though still somewhat restless, Tartars.

Along the left bank, back half a mile from the river and standing

five or six miles apart from one another, are Cossack villages. In

olden times most of these villages were situated on the banks of

the river; but the Terek, shifting northward from the mountains

year by year, washed away those banks, and now there remain only

the ruins of the old villages and of the gardens of pear and plum

trees and poplars, all overgrown with blackberry bushes and wild

vines. No one lives there now, and one only sees the tracks of the

deer, the wolves, the hares, and the pheasants, who have learned

to love these places. From village to village runs a road cut

through the forest as a cannon-shot might fly. Along the roads are

cordons of Cossacks and watch-towers with sentinels in them. Only

a narrow strip about seven hundred yards wide of fertile wooded

soil belongs to the Cossacks. To the north of it begin the sand-drifts of the Nogay or Mozdok steppes, which fetch far to the

north and run, Heaven knows where, into the Trukhmen, Astrakhan,

and Kirghiz-Kaisatsk steppes. To the south, beyond the Terek, are

the Great Chechnya river, the Kochkalov range, the Black

Mountains, yet another range, and at last the snowy mountains,

which can just be seen but have never yet been scaled. In this

fertile wooded strip, rich in vegetation, has dwelt as far back as

memory runs the fine warlike and prosperous Russian tribe

belonging to the sect of Old Believers, and called the Grebensk

Cossacks.

 

Long long ago their Old Believer ancestors fled from Russia and

settled beyond the Terek among the Chechens on the Greben, the

first range of wooded mountains of Chechnya. Living among the

Chechens the Cossacks intermarried with them and adopted the

manners and customs of the hill tribes, though they still retained

the Russian language in all its purity, as well as their Old

Faith. A tradition, still fresh among them, declares that Tsar

Ivan the Terrible came to the Terek, sent for their Elders, and

gave them the land on this side of the river, exhorting them to

remain friendly to Russia and promising

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