I observed, but the captain did not reply. Instead he pointed to a tall mountain rising directly ahead of us.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Mount Gud.”
“Yes?”
“See how it smokes?”
Indeed, Mount Gud was smoking. Light wisps of mist crept along its sides while a black cloud rested on the summit, so black that it stood out as a blotch even against the dark sky.
We could already make out the stage coach station and the roofs of the huts around it, and welcoming lights were dancing ahead when the gusts of cold raw wind came whistling down the gorge and it began to drizzle. Barely had I thrown a felt cape over my shoulders than the snow came. I looked at the captain with respect now…
“We’ll have to stay here overnight,” he said, annoyed. “You can’t get through the hills in a blizzard like this. Seen any avalanches on Cross Mountain?” he asked a coachman.
“No, sir,” the Ossetian replied. “But there’s a lot just waiting to come down.”
As there was no room for travelers at the inn, we were given a place to stay in a smoky hut. I invited my fellow traveler to join me for tea, since I had with me a cast-iron tea-kettle – my sole comfort on my Caucasian travels.
The hut was built against a cliff. Three wet, slippery steps led up to the door. I groped my way in and stumbled upon a cow, for these people have a cow shed for an entry room. I couldn’t figure out where to go. On one side sheep were bleating and on the other a dog growled. Fortunately a glimmer of light showed through the gloom and guided me to another opening that looked like a door. Here a rather interesting scene confronted me: the spacious hut with a roof supported by two smoke-blackened posts was full of people. A fire built on the bare earth crackled in the middle, and the smoke, forced back by the wind through the opening in the roof, hung so thick that it took some time before I could see anything around me. By the fire sat two old women, a swarm of children and a lean Georgian man, all of them dressed in rags. There was nothing to do but to make ourselves comfortable by the fire and light up our pipes, and soon the tea-kettle was singing happily.
“Pitiable creatures!” I observed to the captain, nodding toward our grimy hosts who stared at us silently with something like stupid shock.
“A dull-witted people,” he replied. “Believe me, they can’t do anything, nor can they learn anything either. Our Kabardians or Chechens might be bums and tramps, but at least they’re brave fighters. However, these guys take no interest in weapons or war: you won’t find a decent knife on a single one of them. But what can you expect from Ossetians!”
“Were you long in the Chechen region?”
“Quite a while – ten years stationed at a fort with a company, out by the Stone Ford. You know the place?”
“Heard of it.”
“Yes, sir, we had enough of those gangs – now, thank God, things are quieter, but there was a time when you didn’t dare go out a hundred paces beyond the rampart without some hairy devil stalking you, ready to put a noose around your neck or a bullet through the back of your head the minute he caught you napping. But they were brave men anyway.”
“You must have had a whole lot of adventures?” I asked, with burning curiosity.
“Aye, many indeed…”
He began to pull at the left tip of his mustache, his head drooped, and he sank into deep thought. I very badly wanted to get some sort of tale out of him – a desire that is natural to anyone who travels about taking notes. In the meantime the tea came to the boil. I dug out two travelers’ glasses from my suitcase, poured out tea and placed one before the captain. He took a sip and muttered as if to himself: “Yes, many indeed!” The exclamation raised my hopes, for I knew that Caucasian old-timers like to talk and tell a story: they seldom have a chance to do so, for a man may be stationed a full five years with a company somewhere in the back woods without anyone to greet him with a “Hello” (his sergeant always says, “Good morning, sir.”) And there is so much to talk about: the wild, strange people all around, the constant dangers, and the remarkable adventures – one can’t help thinking it sad that we write down so little of it.
“Like to add a little rum?” I asked. “I have some white rum from Tiflis, it’ll warm you up in this cold.”
“No, thanks, I don’t drink.”
“How come?”
“Well… swore off the stuff. Once when I was still a second lieutenant we went on a brief spree, you know how it is, and that very night there was an alert. So we showed up before the ranks a little bit high, and there was hell to pay when old Yermolov found out. Lord preserve me from seeing a man as furious as he was. We escaped being court-martialed by a whisker. That’s the way it is: sometimes you spend a whole year without seeing anyone, and if you get drunk you’ve had it.”
On hearing this I nearly lost hope.
“Take even the Circassians,” he went on, “as soon as they drink their fill of booza at a wedding or a funeral the knife fight begins. Once i barely managed to escape alive although I was the guest of a neutral prince.”
“How did it happen?”
“Well,” he filled and lit his pipe, took a long pull on it, and began the story, “you see, I was stationed at the time at a fort beyond the Terek with a company – that was nearly five years back. Once in the fall a supply convoy came up, and with it an officer, a young man of about twenty-five. he reported to me in full dress uniform and announced that he had been ordered to join me at the fort. He was so slim and white, and so fashionably dressed up that I could tell at once that he was a newcomer to the Caucasus. ‘You must’ve been transferred here from Russia?’ I asked him. ‘Yes, sir,’ he replied. I took his hand and said: ‘Glad to have you here, very glad. It’ll be a bit dull for you… but we’ll get along real good, I’m sure, us two. Just call me Maksim Maksimich, if you like, and, another thing – please don’t bother wearing full dress uniform. Just come around in your service cap.’ he was shown his quarters and he settled down in the fort.”
“What was his name?” I asked Maksim Maksimich.
“Grigoriy Aleksandrovich Pechorin. A fine man he was, I assure you, though a bit odd. For instance, he would spend days on end hunting in rain or cold – everybody else would be chilled and exhausted, but not he. Yet sometimes a mere draft in his room would be enough for him to declare he had caught cold – a banging shutter might make him jump and turn pale, yet I myself saw him go at a wild boar single-handed. Sometimes you couldn’t get a word out of him for hours on end, but when he occasionally did start telling stories you’d split your sides laughing… Yes, sir, a most odd sort of young man he was, and, apparently, rich too, judging by the load of expensive trinkets he had.”
“How long was he with you?” I asked.
“Just about a year. But it was a year I won’t forget. He caused me plenty of trouble, God forgive him! – though that’s not what I remember about him. But after all, there are people who, when they are born, the big book of life has it already written down that all sorts of amazing things will happen to them!”
“Amazing things?” I exclaimed eagerly as I poured him some more tea.
“I’ll tell you the story. Some four miles from the fort there lives
