The farther Olénin 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. Stavrópol, 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 Stavrópol everything was satisfactory—wild and also
beautiful and warlike, and Olénin 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 Olénin, 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 Stavrópol it became so warm that
Olénin travelled without wearing his fur coat. It was already spring—an
unexpected joyous spring for Olénin. At night he was no longer allowed
to leave the Cossack villages, and they said it was dangerous to travel
in the evening. Vanyúsha began to be uneasy, and they carried a loaded
gun in the cart. Olénin 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 Olénin, and kept expecting to see the
snowy mountains of which mention was so often made. Once, towards
evening, the Nogáy driver pointed with his whip to the mountains
shrouded in clouds. Olénin looked eagerly, but it was dull and the
mountains were almost hidden by the clouds. Olénin 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 Nogáy driver with indifference.
“And I too have been looking at them for a long while,” said Vanyúsha.
“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
Olénin 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
Térek, 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 Vanyúsha, 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 Térek rises the smoke from
a Tartar village... and the mountains! The sun has risen and glitters
on the Térek, 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!”