Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine – Volume 53, No. 332, June, 1843

"Enter, pray enter," said the old woman, undoing the iron hasp with a trembling hand. The door flew open, and there entered a man of a middling stature, and of a handsome but melancholy countenance. He was clad in the Circassian dress: the water trickled down his bóurka and bashlík.[22 - Bashlík—a bonnet worn in bad weather.] Without any apologies, he threw it on the feather-bed, and began to untie the lopasti of his bashlík which half covered his face—Fatma, having in the mean time lighted a candle, stood before him with fear and trembling. The long-whiskered dog, with his tail between his legs, pressed himself into a corner, and the child, in a fright, climbed into the fire-place—which, used only for ornaments, was never heated.

"Well, Fatma, you are grown proud," said the unknown; "you do not recognize old friends."

Fatma gazed at the new-comer's features, and her heart grew light within her. She recognized Sultan Akhmet Khan, who had ridden in one night from Kiafir Kounik to Bouináki.

"May the sand fill my eyes that did not recognize their old master!" she replied, respectfully crossing her arms on her breast. "To say truth, they are blinded by tears, for her country—for Avár! Forgive an old woman, Khan!"

"What old age is yours, Fatma? I remember you a little girl, when I myself could hardly reach the young crows from their nests."

"A strange land makes every one old, Khan. In my native mountains I should still have been fresh as an apple, and here am I like a snowball fallen from the hill into the valley. Pray come hither, Khan, here it is more comfortable. What shall I entertain my precious guest with? Is there nothing the Khan's soul can wish for?"

"The Khan's soul wishes that you should entertain him with your goodwill."

"I am at your will; speak, command!"

"Listen to me, Fatma! I have no time to waste in words. This is why I am come here: render me a service with your tongue, and you shall have wherewithal to comfort your old teeth. I will make you a present of ten sheep; I will dress you in silk from top to toe."

"Ten sheep and a gown!—a silk gown! O gracious Aga! O kind Khan! I have not seen such a lord here since the accursed Tartars carried me away, and made me marry a hateful … I am ready to do every thing, Khan, that you wish. Cut my ears off even, if you will!"

"What would be the good of that? They must be kept sharp. This is the business. Ammalát will come to you to-day with the Colonel. The Shamkhál of Tárki will arrive also. This Colonel has attached your young Bek to him by witchcraft; and having taught him to eat swine's flesh, wants to make a Christian of him: from which Mahomet preserve him!"

The old woman spat around her, and lifted her eyes to heaven.

"To save Ammalát, we must make him quarrel with the Colonel. For this purpose you must go to him, throw yourself at his feet, and fall a-weeping as if at a funeral. As to tears, you will have no need to go and borrow them of your neighbours. Swear like a shopkeeper of Derbénd; remember that each oath of yours will bring you a dozen sheep; and at last tell him that you have heard a conversation between the Colonel and the Shamkhál: that the Shamkhál complained of his sending back his daughter: that he hates him out of fear that he should take possession of the crown of his Shamkhalát: that he implored the Colonel to allow him to kill him in an ambuscade, or to poison him in his food; but that the other consented only to send him to Siberia, beyond the end of the world. In one word, invent and describe every thing cleverly. You were formerly famous for your tales. Do not eat dirt now. And, above all, insist that the Colonel, who is going on a furlough, will take him with him to Georgieffsk, to separate him from his kinsmen and faithful nóukers; and from thence will dispatch him in chains to the devil."

Sultan Akhmet added to this all the particulars necessary to give the story the most probable form; and once or twice instructed the old woman how to introduce them more skilfully.

"Well, recollect every thing accurately, Fatma," said he, putting on his bóurka; "forget not, likewise, with whom you have to do."

"Vallah, billah! let me have ashes instead of salt; may a beggar's tchóurek close my eyes; may" …

"Do not feed the Shaitáns with your oaths; but serve me with your words. I know that Ammalát trusts you completely; and if, for his good, you will arrange this—he will come over to me, and bring you with him. You shall live, singing, under my wing. But I repeat, if, by chance or on purpose, you betray me, or injure me by your gossiping, I will make of your old flesh a kibab for the Shaitáns!"

"Be easy, Khan! They have nothing to do either for me or with me. I will keep the secret like the grave, and I will put my sarótchka[23 - Give him her feelings—a Tartar phrase.] on Ammalát."

"Well, be it so, old woman. Here is a golden seal for your lips. Take pains!"

"Bathóusta, ghez-óusta!"[24 - Willingly, if you please? Literally, "on my head, on my eyes."] exclaimed the old woman, seizing the ducat with greediness, and kissing the Khan's hand for his present. The Sultan Akhmet Khan looked contemptuously at the base creature, whilst he quitted the sákla.

"Reptile!" he grumbled to himself, "for a sheep, for a piece of cloth of gold, thou wouldst be ready to sell thy daughter's body, thy son's soul, and thy foster-son's happiness!"

He did not reflect upon what name he deserved himself, entangling his friend in deceit, and hiring such vile creatures for low slander and for villanous intentions.

Fragment of a Letter from Colonel Verkhóffsky to his Betrothed.

Camp near the Village of Kiafir Koumík, August.

… Ammalát loves, and how he loves! Never, not even in the hottest fire of my youth, did my love rise to such a frenzy. I burned, like a censer lighted by a sunbeam; he flames, like a ship set on fire by lightning on the stormy sea. With you, my Maria, I have read more than once Shakspeare's Othello; and only the frantic Othello can give an idea of the tropical passion of Ammalát. He loves to speak long and often of his Seltanetta, and I love to hear his volcanic eloquence. At times it is a turbid cataract thrown out by a profound abyss—at times a fiery fountain of the naphtha of Bakou. What stars his eyes scatter at that moment—what light plays on his cheeks—how handsome he is! There is nothing ideal in him: but then the earthly is grand, is captivating. I myself, carried away and deeply moved, receive on my breast the youth fainting from rapture: he breathes long, with slow sighs, and then casting down his eyes, lowering his head as if ashamed to look at the light—not only on me—presses my hand, and walks away with an uncertain step; and after that one cannot extract a word from him for the rest of the day.

Since the time of his return from Khounzákh, he is become still more melancholy than before; particularly the last few days. He hides the grandest, the noblest feeling which brings man near to divinity, as carefully as if it were a shameful weakness or a dreadful crime. He imploringly asked me to let him go once more to Khounzákh, to sigh at the feet of his fair one; and I refused him—refused him for his own good. I wrote long ago about my favourite to Alexéi Petróvitch, and he desired me to bring him with me to the waters, where he will be himself. He wishes to give him some message to Sultan Akhmet Khan, which will bring undoubted advantage to him and to Ammalát. Oh, how happy I shall be in his happiness! To me, to me, he will owe the bliss of his life—not only empty life. I will force him on his knees before you, and will make him say—"Adore her as a deity!" If my heart were not filled with love to Maria, thou wouldst not take possession of Seltanetta. Yesterday I received an express from the commander-in-chief—a noble-minded man! He gives wings to happy news. All is arranged; my darling, I go to meet you at the waters. I shall only lead the regiment to Derbénd—and then to the saddle! I shall know neither fatigue by day nor drowsiness by night, till I repose myself in your embrace. Oh, who will give me wings to fly to you! Who will give me strength to bear my—our—bliss! … I, in delicious agitation, pressed my bosom, that my heart might not burst forth. For a long time I could not sleep: imagination painted our meeting in a thousand forms, and in the intervals appeared the most trivial but delightful cares, about wedding trifles, dresses, presents. You will be clad in my favourite colour, green. … Is it not true, my soul? My fancies kept me from sleeping, like a strong perfume of roses; but the sweeter, the more brilliant was my sleep. I saw you by the light of dawn, and every time different, every time more lovely than before. My dreams were twined together like a wreath of flowers; but no! there was no connexion between them. They were wonderful phantoms, falling like colours from the kaleidoscope, and as impossible to retain. Notwithstanding all this, I awoke sorrowful this morning; my awakening took from my childish soul its favourite toy.... I went into Ammalát's tent; he was still asleep. His face was pale and angry—let him be angry with me! I taste beforehand the gratitude of the ardent youth. I, like fate, am preparing his happiness in secret....

To-day I bid adieu to these mountains for long—I hope for ever. I am very glad to quit Asia, the cradle of mankind, in which the understanding has remained till now in its swaddling-clothes. Astonishing is the immobility of Asiatic life, in the course of so many centuries. Against Asia all attempts of improvement and civilization have broken like waves; it seems not to belong to time, but to place. The Indian Brahmin, the Chinese Mandarin, the Persian Bek, the mountain Ouzdén, are unchanged—the same as they were two thousand years ago. A sad truth! They represent, in themselves, a monotonous though varied, a lively though soulless nature. The sword and the lash of the conqueror have left on them, as on the water, no trace. Books, and the examples of missionaries, have produced on them no influence. Sometimes, however, they have made an exchange of vices; but never have they learned the thoughts or the virtues of others. I quit the land of fruit to transport myself to the land of labour—that great inventor of every thing useful, that suggester of every thing great, that awakener of the soul of man, which has fallen asleep here, and sleeps in weakness on the bosom of the seducer—nature.

And truly, how seducing is nature here! Having ridden up the high mountain to the left of Kiafir Koumík, I gazed with delight on the gradually lighted summit of the Caucasus. I looked, and could not look enough at them. What a wondrous beauty decks them as with a crown! Another thin veil, woven of light and shadow, lay on the lower hill, but the distant snows basked in the sky; and the sky, like a caressing mother, bending over them its immeasurable bosom, fed them with the milk of the clouds, carefully enfolding them with its swathe of mist, and refreshing them with its gently-breathing wind. Oh, with what a flight would my soul soar there, where a holy cold has stretched itself like a boundary between the earthly and the heavenly! My heart prays and thirsts to breathe the air of the inhabitants of the sky. I feel a wish to wander over the snows, on which man has never printed the seal of his blood-stained footsteps—which have never been darkened by the eagle's shadow—which the thunder has never reached—which the war spirits have never polluted; and on the ever-young summits where time, the continuation of eternity, has left no trace.

Time! A strange thought has come into my head. How many fractional names has the weak sense of man invented for the description of an infinitely small particle of time out of the infinitely large circle of eternity! Years, months, days, hours, minutes! God has nothing of all this: he has not even evening nor morrow. With him all this has united itself into one eternal now!… Shall we ever behold this ocean in which we have hitherto been drowning? But I ask, to what end will all this serve man? Can it be for the satisfaction of an idle curiosity? No! the knowledge of truth, i.e. the All-knowing Goodness, does the soul of the reflecting man thirst after. It wishes to draw a full cup from the fountain of light which falls on it from time to time in a fine dew!

And I shall imbibe it. The secret fear of death melts like snow before the beam of such a hope. I shall draw from it. My real love for my fellow-creatures is a security for it. The leaden ways of error will fall asunder before a few tears of repentance, and I shall lay down my heart as an expiating sacrifice before the judgment-seat which will have no terrors for me!

It is wonderful, my beloved—hardly do I look at the mountains, the sea, the sky, … but a solemn but inexpressibly sweet feeling o'er-burthens and expands my heart. Thoughts of you mingle with it; and, as in dreams, your form flits before me. Is this a foretaste of earthly bliss, which I have only known by name, or a foreboding of … etern …? O dearest, best, angelic soul, one look of yours and I am cured of dreaming! How happy am I that I can now say with assurance—au revoir!

CHAPTER XI

The poison of calumny burnt into the soul of Ammalát. By the instructions of the Khan, his nurse Fatma related, with every appearance of disinterested affection, the story which had been arranged beforehand, on the same evening that he came with Verkhóffsky to Bouináki, where they were met by the Shamkhál in obedience to the Colonel's request. The envenomed shaft struck deep; now doubt would have been welcomed by Ammalát, but conviction, it seemed, cast over all his former ties of friendship and blood, a bright but funereal light. In a frenzy of passion, he burned to drown his revenge in the blood of both; but respect for the rites of hospitality quenched his thirst for vengeance. He deferred his intention for a time—but could he forget it? Every moment of delay fell, like a drop of melted copper, on his heart. Memory, conviction, jealousy, love, tore his heart by turns; and this state of feeling was to him so new, so strange, so dreadful, that he fell into a species of delirium, the more dreadful that he was obliged to conceal his internal sensations from his former friend. Thus passed twenty-four hours; the detachment pitched their tents near the village Bougdén, the gate of which, built in a ravine, and which is closed at the will of the inhabitants of Bougdén, serves as a passage to Akóush. The following was written by Ammalát, to divert the agony of his soul while preparing itself for the commission of a black crime.... –

MIDNIGHT.

… Why, O Sultan Akhmet! have you cast lightning into my breast? A brother's friendship, a brother's treachery, and a brother's murder!… What dreadful extremes! And between them there is but a step, but a twinkling of the eye. I cannot sleep, I can think of nothing else. I am chained to this thought, like a criminal to his stake. A bloody sea swells, surges, and roars around me, and above gleams, instead of stars, the lightning-flash. My soul is like a naked peak, where only birds of prey and evil spirits assemble, to share their plunder, or to prepare misfortune. Verkhóffsky, Verkhóffsky! what have I done to you? Why would you tear from heaven the star of my liberty? Is it because I loved you so tenderly? And why do you approach me stealthily and thief-like? why do you slander—why do you betray me, by hypocrisy? You should say plainly, "I wish your life," and I would give it freely, without a murmur; would have laid it down a sacrifice like the son of Ibrahim, (Abraham!) I would have forgiven you, if you had but attempted my life, but to sell my freedom, to steal my Seltanetta from me, by burying me alive! Villain—and you still live!

But sometimes like a dove, whose wings have been scorched in the smoke of a fire, appears thy form to me, Seltanetta. How is it, then, that I am no longer gay when I dream of you, as of old?…

They would part us, my love—they would give you to another, to marry me on the grave-stone. But I will go to you—I will go to you over a bloody carpet—I will fulfil a bloody promise, in order to possess you. Invite not only your maiden friends to your marriage feast—invite also the vultures and the ravens, they shall all be regaled abundantly. I will pay a rich dower. On the pillow of my bride I will lay a heart which once I reckoned more precious than the throne-cushion[25 - This cushion is embroidered with jewels, and is invaluable.] of the Persian Padishah. Wonderful destiny!… Innocent girl!… You will be the cause of an unheard of deed. Kindest of beings, for you friends will tear each other like ferocious beasts—for you and through you—and is it really for you alone—with ferocity—with ferocity only! Verkhóffsky said, that to kill an enemy by stealth, is base and cowardly. But if I cannot do it otherwise? But can he be believed?… Hypocrite! He wished to entangle me beforehand; not my hands alone, but even my conscience. It was in vain.

… I have loaded my rifle. What a fine round barrel—what admirable ornaments! The rifle I received from my father—my father got it from my grandfather. I have heard of many celebrated shots made with it—and not one, not one was fired by stealth.... Always in battle—always before the whole army, it sent death; but wrong, but treachery, but you, Seltanetta!… My hand will not tremble to level a shot at him, whose name it is afraid even to write. One loading, one fire, and all is over!…

One loading! How light, but how heavy will be each grain of powder in the scales of Allah! How far—how immeasurably will this load bear a man's soul? Accursed thou, the inventor of the grey dust, which delivers a hero into the hand of the vilest craven, which kills from afar the foe, who, with a glance, could have disarmed the hand raised against him! So, this shot will tear asunder all my former ties, but it will clear a road to new ones. In the cool Caucasus—on the bosom of Seltanetta, will my faded heart be refreshed. Like a swallow will I build myself a nest in a stranger land—like a swallow, the spring shall be my country. I will cast from me old sorrows, as the bird sheds its feathers.... But the reproaches of conscience, can they fade?… The meanest Lézghin, when he sees in battle the man with whom he has shared bread and salt, turns aside his horse, and fires his gun in the air. It is true he deceives me; but have I been the less happy? Oh, if with these tears I could weep away my grief—drown with them the thirst for vengeance—buy with them Seltenetta! Why comes on the dawn of day so slowly? Let it come! I will look, without blushing, at the sun—without turning pale, into the eyes of Verkhóffsky. My heart is like iron—it is locked against mercy; treachery calls for treachery … I am resolved … Quick, quick!

Thus incoherently, thus wildly wrote Ammalát, in order to cheat time and to divert his soul. Thus he tried to cheat himself, rousing himself to revenge, whilst the real cause of his bloody intentions, viz. the desire of possessing Seltanetta, broke through every word.

In order to embolden himself for his crime, he drank deeply of wine, and maddened, threw himself, with his gun, into the Colonel's tent; but perceiving sentinels at the door, he changed his intention. The natural feeling of self-preservation did not abandon him, even in his madness. Ammalát put off till the morning the consummation of the murder; but he could neither sleep nor distract his thoughts … and re-entering his tent, he seized Saphir Ali by the throat, who was lying fast asleep, and shaking him roughly: "Get up, sleepy rascal!"; he cried to him, "it is already dawn."

Saphir Ali raised his head in a discontented mood, and yawning, answered: "I see only the dawn of wine on your cheek—good-night, Ammalát!"

"Up, I tell you! The dead must quit their graves to meet the new-comer whom I have promised to send to keep them company!"

"Why, brother, am I dead?… Even the forty Imaums[26 - The Mussulmans believe, that in the northern burial-ground of Derbénd, are buried the forty first true believers, who were martyred by the idolaters.] may get up from the burial-ground of Derbénd—but I will sleep."

"But you love to drink, Giaour, and you must drink with me."

"That is quite another affair. Pour fuller, Allah verdi![27 - God gave—Much good may it do you.] I am always ready to drink and to make love."

"And to kill an enemy!… Come, some more! A health to the devil!—who changes friends into mortal enemies."

"So be it! Here goes, then, to the devil's health! The poor fellow wants health. We will drive him into a consumption out of spite, because he cannot make us quarrel!"

"True, true, he is always ready for mischief. If he had seen Verkhóffsky and me, he would have thrown down his cards. But you, too, will not, I hope, part from me?"

"Ammalát, I have not only quaffed wine from the same bottle with thee, but I have drained milk from the same breast. I am thine, even if you take it into your head to build yourself, like a vulture, a nest on the rock of Khounzákh.... However, my advice would be"–