“Simon a eu de la chance!”
And he began to tell aloud, so that everyone could hear, the striking news (for him alone not quite unexpected, because negotiations had long been going on) that Hadji Murad, the bravest and most famous of Shamil’s officers, had come over to the Russians and would in a day or two be brought to Tiflis.
Everybody — even the young aides-de-camp and officials who sat at the far ends of the table and who had been quietly laughing at something among themselves — became silent and listened.
“And you, General, have you ever met this Hadji Murad?” asked the princess of her neighbor, the carroty general with the bristly mustaches, when the prince had finished speaking.
“More than once, Princess.”
And the general went on to tell how Hadji Murad, after the mountaineers had captured Gergebel in 1843, had fallen upon General Pahlen’s detachment and killed Colones Zolotukhin almost before their very eyes.
Vorontsov listened to the general and smiled amiably, evidently pleased that the latter had joined in the conversation.
But suddenly his face assumed an absent-minded and depressed expression.
The general, having started talking, had begun to tell of his second encounter with Hadji Murad.
“Why, it was he, if your Excellency will please remember,” said the general, “who arranged the ambush that attacked the rescue party in the ‘Biscuit’ expedition.”
“Where?” asked Vorontsov, screwing up his eyes.
What the brave general spoke of as the “rescue” was the affair in the unfortunate Dargo campaign in which a whole detachment, including Prince Vorontsov who commanded it, would certainly have perished had it not been rescued by the arrival of fresh troops.
Every one knew that the whole Dargo campaign under Vorontsov’s command — in which the Russians lost many killed and wounded and several cannon — had been a shameful affair, and therefore if any one mentioned it in Vorontsov’s presence they did so only in the aspect in which Vorontsov had reported it to the Tsar — as a brilliant achievement of the Russian army.
But the word “rescue” plainly indicated that it was not a brilliant victory but a blunder costing many lives.
Everybody understood this and some pretended not to notice the meaning of the general’s words, others nervously waited to see what would follow, while a few exchanged glances, and smiled.
Only the carroty general with the bristly mustaches noticed nothing, and carried away by his narrative quietly replied:
“At the rescue, your Excellency.”
Having started on his favorite theme, the general recounted circumstantially how Hadji Murad had so cleverly cut the detachment in two that if the rescue party had not arrived (he seemed to be particularly fond of repeating the word “rescue”) not a man in the division would have escaped, because . . .
He did not finish his story, for Manana Orbelyani, having understood what was happening, interrupted him by asking if he had found comfortable quarters in Tiflis.
The general, surprised, glanced at everybody all round and saw his aides-de-camp from the end of the table looking fixedly and significantly at him, and he suddenly understood!
Without replying to the princess’s question, he frowned, became silent, and began hurriedly swallowing the delicacy that lay on his plate, the appearance and taste of which both completely mystified him.
Everybody felt uncomfortable, but the awkwardness of the situation was relieved by the Georgian prince — a very stupid man but an extraordinarily refined and artful flatterer and courtier — who sat on the other side of Princess Vorontsova.
Without seeming to have noticed anything he began to relate how Hadji Murad had carried off the widow of Akhmet Khan of Mekhtuli.
“He came into the village at night, seized what he wanted, and galloped off again with the whole party.”
“Why did he want that particular woman?” asked the princess.
“Oh, he was her husband’s enemy, and pursued him but could never once succeed in meeting him right up to the time of his death, so he revenged himself on the widow.”
The princess translated this into French for her old friend Countess Choiseuil, who sat next to the Georgian prince.
“Quelle horreur!” said the countess, closing her eyes and shaking her head.
“Oh no!” said Vorontsov, smiling. “I have been told that he treated his captive with chivalrous respect and afterwards released her.”
“Yes, for a ransom!”
“Well, of course. But all the same he acted honorably.”
These words of Vorontsov’s set the tone for the further conversation.
The courtiers understood that the more importance was attributed to Hadji Murad the better the prince would be pleased.
“The man’s audacity is amazing.
A remarkable man!”
“Why, in 1849 he dashed into Temir Khan Shura and plundered the shops in broad daylight.”
An Armenian sitting at the end of the table, who had been in Temir Khan Shura at the time, related the particulars of that exploit of Hadji Murad’s.
In fact, Hadji Murad was the sole topic of conversation during the whole dinner.
Everybody in succession praised his courage, his ability, and his magnanimity.
Someone mentioned his having ordered twenty six prisoners to be killed, but that too was met by the usual rejoinder,
“What’s to be done?
A la guerre, comme al la guerre!”
“He is a great man.”
“Had he been born in Europe he might have been another Napoleon,” said the stupid Georgian prince with a gift of flattery.
He knew that every mention of Napoleon was pleasant to Vorontsov, who wore the White Cross at his neck as a reward for having defeated him.
“Well, not Napoleon perhaps, but a gallant cavalry general if you like,” said Vorontsov.
“If not Napoleon, then Murat.”
“And his name is Hadji Murad!”
“Hadji Murad has surrendered and now there’ll be an end to Shamil too,” someone remarked.
“They feel that now” (this “now” meant under Vorontsov) “they can’t hold out,” remarked another.