[1] Published posthumously. “Stendhal” died in 1842.
[2] The towers of a palace at Granada.
[3] An expression which the Mussulmans have constantly in their mouths,
and apply to almost every event in their lives.
[4] This inscription, as well as several others, is still existing. It
is needless to say that I wrote this description of the Alhambra on the
spot.
[5] The public is already acquainted with this romance. I composed
the words for an air of the mountains of Auvergne, remarkable for its
sweetness and simplicity.
[6] In crossing the mountainous country between Algeciras and Cadiz,
I halted at a _venta_ situated in the midst of a wood. I found there
only a little boy of fourteen or fifteen, and a little girl of nearly
the same age, brother and sister, who were sitting by the fireside
and twisting mats. They sang a romance, the words of which I did
not understand, but the air was simple and naïve. The weather was
dreadfully stormy, and I remained two hours at the _venta_. My juvenile
hosts repeated so frequently the couplets of their romance, that it was
easy for me to get the air by heart. To this air I composed the romance
of the Abencerrage. Perhaps Aben-Hamet was mentioned in the romance of
my two little Spaniards. I may add that the dialogue of Granada and the
king of Leon is imitated from a Spanish romance.
[7] All the world knows the air of the _Follies of Spain_. This air
had no words, at least none which expressed its grave, religious and
chivalrous character. This character I have endeavoured to give in the
romance of the Cid. This romance, having got into the hands of the
public without my consent, some celebrated masters did me the honour
to set it to music. But, as I had expressly composed it for the air of
the _Follies of Spain_, one of the couplets becomes complete nonsense,
unless, reference is had to my original intention.
My song shall be a nobler theme than thine, Ere long it will become
_the folly of Spain_, etc.
In short, these three romances have little other merit than their
adaptation to three old airs of undoubted nationality: besides this,
they bring on the _dénouement_ of the story.
THE PRISONERS OF THE CAUCASUS
COUNT XAVIER DE MAISTRE
The Caucasian mountains have long been enclosed by the Russian empire
without belonging to it. Their fierce inhabitants, cut off by language
and by difference of interests, form a large number of petty tribes
which have little political intercourse one with another, but which are
all animated by the same love of independence and of plunder.
One of the most numerous and most formidable is that of the Tchetchens,
who inhabit the great and the little Kabarda, provinces whose lofty
valleys extend as far as the summits of the Caucasus. The men of this
tribe are handsome, brave, and intelligent, but they are robbers and
cruel, and in a continual state of war with the troops of “the line.”[8]
In the midst of these dangerous hordes, and in the very centre of
this immense chain of mountains, Russia has established a line of
communication with her possessions in Asia. Redoubts, placed at
intervals, protect the road as far as Georgia, but no traveller would
dare to venture alone across the space separating them. Twice a week a
convoy of infantry, with cannon and a considerable party of Cossacks,
escorts travellers and government dispatches. One of these redoubts,
situated at the outlet of the mountains, has become a village with a
fair-sized population. Its position has caused it to receive the name
of Vladikavkaz:[9] it is used as the residence of the commandant of the
troops who perform the troublesome duty which has just been mentioned.
Major Kaskambo, of the Vologda regiment, a Russian nobleman, belonging
to a family of Greek origin, was to go and take up the command of the
station at Lars, in the gorges of the Caucasus. Impatient to reach his
post, and brave to rashness, he had the imprudence to undertake this
journey with the escort of some fifty Cossacks whom he commanded, and
the still greater imprudence to talk of his plan and boast about it
before it was carried out.
The Tchetchens who live near the frontiers, and are called “peaceful
Tchetchens,” are subject to Russia, and have in consequence free
access to Mozdok; but most of them keep up friendly relations with
the mountaineers and are very often partners in their robberies.
These last, apprised of Kaskambo’s journey and of the very day of his
departure, proceeded in great numbers to the road by which he was
to travel, and prepared an ambush for him. About twenty versts from
Mozdok, at the turn of a little hill covered with brushwood, he was
attacked by seven hundred mounted men. Retreat was impossible: the
Cossacks dismounted and sustained the attack with great firmness,
hoping to be relieved by the troops of a redoubt which was not far
distant.
The inhabitants of the Caucasus, although individually very brave,
are incapable of a concerted attack, and consequently are not very
dangerous to a troop that presents a firm front; but they are well
armed and take excellent aim. Their large numbers, on this occasion,
made the fight too unequal. After a fairly long fusillade, more than
half of the Cossacks were killed or disabled; the rest had made for
themselves, with their dead horses, a circular rampart, from behind
which they fired their last cartridges. The Tchetchens, who are always
accompanied in their expeditions by Russian deserters, whom they use
if need arises as interpreters, made them shout to the Cossacks:
“Surrender the major to us, or you will be killed to the last man.”
Kaskambo, foreseeing the certain loss of his men, resolved to surrender
himself to save the lives of those who were left: he entrusted his
sword to the Cossacks and advanced alone towards the Tchetchens, who
ceased firing immediately, their aim being only to take him alive in
order to obtain a ransom. He had scarcely given himself up to his
enemies, when he saw appearing in the distance the relief that was
being sent to him: it was too late: the brigands rapidly withdrew.
His “denshchik” [10] had stayed behind with the mule that carried the
major’s baggage. Hidden in a ravine, he was awaiting the issue of
the fight, when the Cossacks found him and told him of his master’s
misfortune. The worthy servant at once determined to share his fate,
and set out in the direction whither the Tchetchens had retreated,
leading his mule with him, and following the track of the horses. When
he began to lose it in the darkness, he met a straggler of the enemy,
who conducted him to the Tchetchens’ rendezvous.
One can imagine the feelings of the prisoner when he saw his denshchik
come of his own accord to share his bad fortune. The Tchetchens at once
divided amongst themselves the booty thus brought to them. They left
to the major only a guitar which was with his baggage, and which they
restored to him in mockery. Ivan (this was the denshchik’s name)[11]
seized upon it and refused to throw it away, as his master advised him.
“Why should we lose heart?” he said, “‘the God of the Russians is
great’;[12] it is to the interest of the brigands to preserve you. They
will do you no harm.”
After a halt of some hours the horde were going to continue their
march, when one of their men, who had just joined them, announced
that the Russians were still advancing, and that probably the troops
from the other redoubts would unite to pursue them. The chiefs held
a council; it was a question of concealing their retreat, not only
in order to keep their prisoner, but also to turn the enemy aside
from their villages, and thus avoid reprisals. The horde dispersed by
various roads. Ten men on foot were told off to conduct the prisoners,
while about a hundred horsemen remained together, and marched in a
different direction from that which Kaskambo was to take. They took
away from the latter his nail-studded boots, which might have left a
recognizable track on the ground, and forced him, as well as Ivan, to
walk barefoot for a part of the morning.
Coming near a stream, the little escort followed its course, on the
grass, for a distance of half a verst, and climbed down the banks where
they were steepest, among thorny bushes, being careful to avoid leaving
any trace of their passage. The major was so weary, that, to bring him
down to the stream, they had to hold him up with belts. His feet were
bleeding; they decided to give him back his boots so that he might be
able to finish what remained of the journey.
When they reached the first village, Kaskambo, still more ill with
vexation than with fatigue, seemed to his guards so weak and exhausted,
that they feared for his life, and treated him more humanely. They
allowed him a short rest, and gave him a horse for the march; but to
turn aside the Russians from the search they might prosecute, and to
make it impossible for the prisoner himself to apprise his friends
of the place where he was hidden, they carried him from village to
village, and from one valley to another, taking the precaution of
blindfolding him several times. They thus passed a large river, which
he supposed to be the Sudja. They took great care of him during these
journeys, allowing him sufficient food and such rest as he needed.
But, when they had reached the distant village where he was to be kept
definitely, the Tchetchens suddenly changed their conduct towards him,
and subjected him to all kinds of ill treatment. They fettered his
hands and feet, and put round his neck a chain, to the end of which a
log of oak was fastened. The denshchik was less harshly treated, his
fetters were lighter, and permitted of his rendering some services to
his master.
Situated thus, at every fresh outrage he endured, a man who spoke
Russian would come to see him and advise him to write to his friends to
obtain his ransom, which had been fixed at ten thousand roubles. The
unhappy prisoner was unable to pay such a large sum, and had no hope
except in the protection of the government, which had redeemed, some
years before, a colonel who had fallen like himself into the hands of
the brigands. The interpreter promised to provide him with paper and
to see that his letter reached its destination; but after obtaining
his consent he did not reappear for several days, and during this time
the major was made to suffer increased miseries. They deprived him of
food, they took away from him the mat on which he had lain, and the pad
of a Cossack saddle which had served him for a pillow; and, when at
last the mediator returned, he announced, in confidence, that if the
sum demanded was refused at the line, or if payment of it was delayed,
the Tchetchens had decided to make away with him, in order to spare
themselves the expense and anxiety which he caused them. The object of
their cruel behaviour was to compel him to write more urgently. At last
he was supplied with paper and a reed cut in the Tartar fashion; they
took off the chains which bound his hands and neck, so that he might
write freely; and when the letter was written it was translated to the
chiefs, who undertook to see that it reached the commandant of the line.
From that time, he was treated less harshly, and was burdened with but
a single chain, which bound his right hand and foot.
His host, or rather his gaoler, was an old man of sixty, of enormous
stature, and with a savage appearance which his character did not
belie. Two of his sons had been killed in an encounter with the
Russians, which was the reason of his having been chosen, out of all
the inhabitants of the village, to be the prisoner’s keeper.
The family of this man, whose name was Ibrahim, consisted of the widow
of one of his sons, aged thirty-five, and a young child of seven or
eight, called Mamet. The mother was as ill-natured as the old keeper,
and more capricious. Kaskambo had much to suffer, but the caresses and
friendship of little Mamet were in the time that followed a diversion,
and even a real consolation in his misfortunes. This child conceived
for him so great an affection, that the threats and ill treatment of
his grandfather could not prevent him from coming and playing with the
prisoner whenever he found an opportunity. He had given to the latter
the name of “Kunakh,” which in the language of that country means a
guest or a friend. He secretly shared with him what fruit he could
obtain, and, during the forced abstinence which the major had been
compelled to endure, little Mamet, touched with pity, skilfully took
advantage of his relations’ momentary absence to bring him bread or
potatoes cooked in the ashes.
Some months had elapsed since the sending of the letter, without any
noteworthy event. During this interval, Ivan had been able to win the
good will of the woman and the old man, or at least had succeeded in
making himself necessary to them. He was versed in all the arts that
can be employed in a commanding officer’s mess. He made “kisliya shchi”
[13] to perfection, prepared pickled cucumbers, and had accustomed
his hosts to the little comforts which he had introduced into their
housekeeping.
To win greater confidence, he had placed himself with them on the
footing of a buffoon, every day inventing some new jest to amuse them;
Ibrahim especially loved to see him dance the Cossack dance. When any
one of the villagers came to visit them, Ivan’s fetters were removed,
and he was made to dance; which he always did with a good grace, each
time adding some new absurd gambol. By behaving thus continually he
had obtained for himself the freedom of the village, through which
he was generally followed by a crowd of children attracted by his
buffooneries; and, as he understood the Tartar language, he had soon
learnt that of the country, which is a closely related dialect.
The major himself was often forced to sing Russian songs with his
denshchik, and to play his guitar to amuse this fierce company. At
first they had taken off the chains which fettered his right hand
when this service was exacted from him; but, the woman having noticed
that he would sometimes play, in spite of his fetters, for his own
amusement, this favour was no longer allowed him, and the unfortunate
musician more than once repented that he had let his talent become
known. He did not know then that his guitar would one day assist him to
regain his liberty.
To attain that longed-for liberty, the two prisoners formed a thousand
plans, all very difficult to execute. At the time of their arrival
in the village, the inhabitants used to send each night, by turns,
a different man to augment the guard. Imperceptibly this precaution
was relaxed. Often the sentinel did not come: the woman and the child
slept in a neighbouring room, and old Ibrahim remained alone with
them; but he kept the key of the chains carefully on his person, and
woke up at the least sound. From day to day, the prisoner was treated
more harshly. As the answer to his letters never came, the Tchetchens
often visited his prison to insult him and threaten him with the most
cruel treatment. They deprived him of his meals, and he had one day the
vexation of seeing little Mamet pitilessly beaten for having brought
him a few medlars.
One very remarkable circumstance in the painful position in which
Kaskambo was placed, was the confidence which his persecutors had in
him, and the respect with which he had inspired them. Whilst these
barbarians subjected him to continual outrages, they would often come
to consult him and to make him arbiter in their transactions and in
their contests with one another. Amongst other disputes of which he
was made the judge the following deserves mention on account of its
peculiarity.
One of these men had entrusted a Russian note for five roubles to
his friend, who was leaving for a neighbouring valley, asking him to
deliver it to a certain person. The messenger lost his horse, which
died on the way, and came to the conclusion that he had a right to
keep the five roubles to repay him for the loss he had sustained. This
reasoning, worthy of the Caucasus, was not at all relished by the owner
of the money. On the traveller’s return, there was a great commotion in
the village. These two men had gathered around them all their relations
and friends, and the quarrel might have led to bloodshed if the old
men of the band, after having vainly tried to pacify them, had not
induced them to submit their case to the decision of the prisoner. The
whole population of the village tumultuously took their way to him, the
sooner to learn the issue of this farcical trial. Kaskambo was brought
out of his prison and led on to the platform which constituted the roof
of the house.
The greater number of the dwellings in the Caucasian valleys are partly
hollowed out of the earth, and only rise three or four feet above the
ground; the roof is horizontal, and is formed of a layer of beaten
clay. The inhabitants, especially the women, come to rest on these
terraces after sunset, and often pass the night there in the fine
season.
When Kaskambo appeared on the roof there was a profound silence.
It must doubtless have been extraordinary, to see, at this strange
tribunal, furious litigants, armed with pistols and daggers, submitting
their cause to a judge in chains, half dead with hunger and distress,
who nevertheless passed judgement in the last resort, and whose
decisions were always respected.
Despairing of making the accused listen to reason, the major made him
come forward, and, in order to put the laughers at least on the side
of justice, questioned him as follows. “If, instead of giving you five
roubles to take to his creditor, your friend had only asked you to give
him his greeting, your horse would be dead all the same, would it not?”
“Perhaps,” answered the defendant.
“And in that case,” continued the judge, “what would you have done with
the greeting? Would you not have been obliged to keep it as payment and
to be content with it? My sentence is, therefore, that you return the
note, and that your friend gives you his greeting.”
When this decision was translated to the spectators, shouts of laughter
proclaimed far and wide the wisdom of the new Solomon. The condemned
man himself, after arguing for some time, was obliged to yield, and
said, as he looked at the note: “I knew beforehand that I should lose
if that dog of a Christian interfered.” This singular confidence shows
the idea entertained by these people of European superiority, and the
innate feeling for justice that exists among the fiercest of men.
Kaskambo had written three letters since his detention without
receiving any answer: a year had passed. The wretched prisoner, without
linen, and in want of all the comforts of life, found his health
declining, and gave way to despair. Ivan himself had been ill for some
time. The severe Ibrahim, to the major’s great surprise, had however
freed the young man from his fetters during his sickness, and still
left him at liberty. The major questioning him one day on this matter:
“Master,” Ivan said to him, “I have been wanting for a long time to
consult you about a plan which has come into my head. I think that I
should do well to turn Mahometan.”
“You are certainly going mad!”
“No, I am not mad: this is the only way in which I can be useful to
you. The priest has told me that if I were circumcised they could no
longer keep me in chains; then I could do you service, procure you at
least good food and linen, and at last, who knows? when I am free ...
the God of the Russians is great! We shall see....”
“But God Himself will desert you, poor wretch, if you betray Him.”
Kaskambo, even while scolding his servant, could hardly refrain from
laughing at his whimsical plan, but, when he went so far as to forbid
it formally: “Master,” Ivan answered, “I can no longer obey you, and
it would be useless for me to try to hide it from you; it is already
done: I have been a Mahometan since the day when you thought I was
ill and they took off my chains. I am called Hussein now. What is the
harm? Can I not be a Christian again when I wish and when you are free!
See, already! I no longer have chains, I can break yours on the first
favourable opportunity, and I have a strong hope that it will present
itself.”
As a matter of fact, they kept their word to him: he was no longer
fettered, and from that time enjoyed greater freedom; but this very
freedom was nearly fatal to him. The chief authors of the expedition
against Kaskambo soon began to fear that the new Mussulman might
desert. His long stay in their midst and his knowledge of their
language put him in a position to know them all by name, and to give a
description of them to the line if he returned there; which would have
exposed them personally to the vengeance of the Russians; they highly
disapproved of the priest’s misplaced zeal. On the other hand, the
good Mussulmans, who had favoured him from the time of his conversion,
noticed that, when he was saying his prayer on the roof of the house,
according to custom, and as the mullah had expressly enjoined him,
that he might gain the public good-will, he often, through habit and
inadvertently, mixed up signs of the cross with the prostrations he
made towards Mecca, to which it sometimes happened that he turned his
back; this made them doubt the reality of his conversion.
A few months after his pretended apostasy he noticed a great change
in his intercourse with the inhabitants, and could not mistake the
manifest signs of their ill will. He was vainly seeking to discover
its cause, when the young men with whom he chiefly associated came
to propose that he should accompany them in an expedition which they
intended to undertake. Their plan was to cross the Terek, to attack
some merchants who would be going to Mozdok; Ivan agreed to their
proposal without hesitation. He had long been desiring to procure
himself arms; they promised him a share of the spoils. He thought that
when they saw him return to his master’s side the people who suspected
him of wishing to desert would no longer have the same reasons for
distrusting him. However, the major having strongly opposed the plan,
he seemed to be thinking of it no longer, when one morning Kaskambo,
on awaking, saw the mat on which Ivan slept rolled up against the wall;
he had gone during the night. His companions were to pass the Terek on
the following night, and attack the merchants, of whose progress they
knew from their spies.
The trustfulness of the Tchetchens ought to have aroused some suspicion
in Ivan’s mind: it was not natural that men so wily and suspicious
should admit a Russian, their prisoner, into an expedition directed
against his compatriots. In fact it transpired from what followed
that they had only asked him to accompany them with the intention of
assassinating him. As his character of a new convert compelled them
to use some caution, they had planned to keep him in sight during
the march, and afterwards to rid themselves of him at the instant of
attack, letting it be believed that he had been killed in the fight.
Only a few members of the expedition were in the secret; but the event
upset their calculations. At the moment when the band had laid their
ambush to attack the merchants, they were themselves surprised by a
regiment of Cossacks, who charged them so vigorously that they had
great difficulty in recrossing the river. Their great peril made them
forget the plot against Ivan, who followed them in their retreat.
As their disordered troop crossed the Terek, the waters of which are
very rapid, a young Tchetchen’s horse broke down in the middle of
the river and was immediately carried away by the waves. Ivan, who
was following him, urged his horse into the current, at the risk
of being carried off himself, and, seizing the young man just when
he was disappearing beneath the water, succeeded in bringing him
to the opposite shore. The Cossacks, who, favoured by the dawning
day, recognized him by his uniform and “furazhka,”[14] aimed at him,
shouting: “Deserter! catch the deserter!” His clothes were riddled
with bullets. At last, after fighting desperately and firing all his
cartridges, he returned to the village with the glory of having saved
the life of one of his companions, and been of service to the whole
troop.
If his conduct on this occasion did not win over to him the minds of
all, it gained him at least one friend; the young man whom he had
saved adopted him for his “kunakh” (a sacred title which the Caucasian
mountaineers never violate), and swore to defend him against every
one. But this intimacy was not sufficient to shelter him from the
hatred of the principal inhabitants. The courage which he had just
shown, and his attachment to his master, increased the fears with which
he had inspired them. They could no longer regard him as a buffoon
incapable of any enterprise, as they had done until then; and, when
they considered the abortive expedition in which he had taken part,
they wondered how Russian troops had happened to be at the right moment
in a spot so far from their usual haunts, and suspected that he had had
the means of warning them. Although this conjecture was without any
real foundation, they watched him more closely. Old Ibrahim himself,
fearing some plot for the escape of his prisoners, no longer allowed
them to engage in continued conversation, and the honest denshchik was
threatened, sometimes even beaten, when he tried to talk to his master.
In this situation, the two prisoners contrived a means of conversing
without arousing their keeper’s suspicions. As they were in the habit
of singing Russian songs together, the major would take his guitar
when he had anything important to communicate to Ivan in Ibrahim’s
presence, and sing while he questioned him: the latter answered in
the same manner, and his master accompanied him with his guitar. As
this arrangement was by no means a novelty, nobody ever noticed a
trick which besides they took the precaution to practise only on rare
occasions.
More than three months had passed since the unfortunate expedition
which has been mentioned, when Ivan fancied that he noticed an unusual
disturbance in the village. Some mules loaded with powder had arrived
in the plain. The men were cleaning their arms and preparing their
cartridges. He soon learnt that a great expedition was on foot. The
whole nation was to unite to attack a neighbouring tribe who had put
themselves under the protection of the Russians, and had allowed them
to build a redoubt on their territory. It was a question of nothing
less than exterminating the whole tribe, as well as the Russian
battalion which was protecting the building of the fort.
A few days later, Ivan, leaving the hut one morning, found the village
deserted. All the men able to bear arms had gone during the night. In
the visit which he made to the village to seek news, he obtained fresh
proofs of the evil intentions they had against him. The old men avoided
talking to him. A little boy told him openly that his father wanted
to kill him. Finally, when he was returning very thoughtfully to his
master, he saw on the roof of a house a young woman who raised her
veil, and, with an appearance of the greatest terror, made signs to him
to escape, pointing out the road to Russia; it was the sister of the
Tchetchen whom he had saved at the crossing of the Terek.
When he re-entered the house, he found the old man engaged in
inspecting Kaskambo’s fetters. A newcomer was seated in the room: it
was a man whom an intermittent fever had prevented from accompanying
his comrades and who had been sent to Ibrahim to augment the prisoners’
guard till the inhabitants returned. Ivan noticed this precaution
without evincing the least surprise. The absence of the men of the
village presented a favourable opportunity for the execution of his
plans; but the more active vigilance of their keeper, and above
all the presence of the fever patient, made success very uncertain.
However, his death would be inevitable if he awaited the return of the
inhabitants; he foresaw that their expedition would be unsuccessful
and that their rage would not spare him. No resource remained for him
except either to desert his master or to deliver him immediately. The
faithful servant would have died a thousand deaths rather than choose
the former alternative.
Kaskambo, who was beginning to lose all hope, had fallen for some time
into a kind of stupor, and maintained a profound silence. Ivan, more
calm and cheerful than usual, surpassed himself in preparing the meal,
and while he did it he sang Russian songs, which he interspersed with
words of encouragement to his master.
“The time has come,” he said, adding to each sentence the meaningless
refrain of a popular Russian song, “hey lully, hey lully, the time has
come to end our misery or to perish. To-morrow, hey lully, we shall be
on the way to a town, a pretty town, hey lully, which I will not name.
Courage, master! don’t let yourself lose heart. The God of the Russians
is great.”
Kaskambo, indifferent alike to life and death, not knowing his
denshchik’s plan, contented himself with answering: “Do what you like,
and be silent.” Towards evening the fever patient, whom they had
entertained bountifully in order to detain him, and who, besides the
good meal he had made, had amused himself for the rest of the day with
eating “shashlyk,”[15] was seized with such a violent fit of fever,
that he left the company and withdrew to his own home. They let him go
without much difficulty, Ivan having entirely reassured the old man
by his gaiety. The more to remove any kind of suspicion, he retired
early to the back of the room and lay down on a bench against the wall,
until Ibrahim should fall asleep; but the latter had resolved to stay
awake all night. Instead of lying down on the mat by the fire, as he
generally did, he sat down on a log opposite his prisoner, and sent
away his daughter-in-law, who withdrew to the next room, where her
child was, and shut the door after her.
From the dark corner where he had settled himself, Ivan looked
attentively at the scene before him. In the light of the fire which
flared up from time to time, an axe glittered in a recess of the wall.
The old man, overcome by drowsiness, let his head fall at times on his
breast. Ivan saw that the time had come, and stood up. The suspicious
gaoler noticed it immediately. “What are you doing there?” he asked
sharply. Ivan, instead of replying, drew near the fire, yawning like
a man waking from a deep sleep. Ibrahim, who himself felt his eyelids
growing heavy, ordered Kaskambo to play the guitar to keep him awake.
The latter refused, but Ivan handed him the instrument, at the same
time making the sign arranged. “Play, master,” he said, “I have
something to say to you.” Kaskambo tuned the instrument, and, beginning
to sing, they commenced the terrible duet which follows.