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    Hadji Murad
    Hadji Murad
    Hadji Murad
    Ebook209 pages3 hours

    Hadji Murad

    By Leo Tolstoy

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Tolstoy's novella blends fiction and historical fact to portray a legendary Avar chieftain who switched sides in the nineteenth-century Russo-Caucasian war. Inspired by the author's military service, Hadji Murád offers riveting views of warfare and treason, murder and vengeance, and behind-the-scenes political plotting. An uncharacteristically brief story by the creator of War and Peace, it voices Tolstoy's pacifist beliefs. 
    This novella also provides a compelling depiction of the Caucasus, a mountainous territory between the Black Sea and the Caspian, prized for its strategic location and natural resources. Located at the crossroads of three empires — Turkey, Persia, and Russia — the region has long struggled with incursions by its neighbors and remains a troubled corner of the world to this day. Tolstoy's realistic pictures of life in a war zone raise enduringly relevant issues of life and death.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDover Publications
    Release dateMar 12, 2012
    ISBN9780486112909
    Hadji Murad
    Author

    Leo Tolstoy

    Leo Tolstoy grew up in Russia, raised by a elderly aunt and educated by French tutors while studying at Kazen University before giving up on his education and volunteering for military duty. When writing his greatest works, War and Peace and Anna Karenina, Tolstoy drew upon his diaries for material. At eighty-two, while away from home, he suffered from declining health and died in Astapovo, Riazan in 1910.

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    Reviews for Hadji Murad

    3.5/5

    155 ratings12 reviews

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    • 3/5
      This is my first immersion in Tolstoy. This is novella-length, and tells the true story of a Chechen leader who goes over to the Russian side and assists Nicholas II conquer the Caucasus in 1852. Tolstoy's focus, I believe, is to bring out the pointlessness of war, and the horrific, wasteful-on-a-grand scale Czarist policies of the time.By reputation, I understand Russian translates well into English, but this edition of this story is not a good example. I wouldn't say it's stilted, but it is quite stiff in places.There are interesting descriptions of the broad landscapes, and the broad designs of the rapacious Russian royalty. I doubt this is high in the Tolstoy canon. It probably doesn't deserve to be.
    • 5/5
      The master.
    • 4/5
      I picked up this book at the library thinking, "Hey, Tolstoy! A book from the 1800s!" (for book bingo). But it's not! But, as a trade-off for being one of Tolstoy's last books, it does serve as my second book by an author over the age of 65. Which I'll happily take.

      This novella about a Chechen rebel is strangely relevant again. The things that I knew about Chechnya, present-day or in the time of this story, sum to approximately zero, so I spent a lot of time in the first dozen pages thumbing back and forth to the handy glossary in the back, which turned out to be a lot about clothes.

      The deeper you get into this story, the more its brilliance is revealed. All the characterizations of all the people involved in Murat's story, all of them acting along their personal, selfish interests. Whether or not their actions end up benefitting Murat, or Russia, or Chechnya, they are all, in the end, perfectly self-centered. Yet the story is somehow empathetic with each of the characters, even as it makes clear the sometimes disastrous effects of their selfishness.

      Such an absorbing read. A wonderful book.
    • 4/5
      Hadji Murat feels like an epic read in spite of its relative brevity.The story contains portents for our modern era especially in understanding historic grievances between the Caucasus and Russia, Islam and Christianity, which have survived the Communist Soviet era. This tale of power and brutality,subterfuge and corruption, personal and military loyalties divided or switched in unlikely and unholy alliances depending upon who needs what most and when, kidnappings, human shields, sham religiosity, and so on resonates strongly today only the cult of personality, with princes and tsars inspiring military loyalty, was stronger pre World War 1 than the nationhood which supercedes it today especially with the demises of dictatorship.Tolstoy even manages to throw in romantic interludes with the rugged and elegant rebel dangerously and familiarly attractive to the otherwise loyal concubines.Ultimately it is a personal story which ends in sheer futility and the lesson that nothing changes so long as bad and morally weak men can inspire loyalty to the death in return for power and influence.Although at times I found keeping up with the various factions a little difficult and re read many passages for clarification, the book had my attention throughout and what I believe was the desired effect.
    • 1/5
      Hadji Murad is the last book written by Count Leo Tolstoy before his death. It's a sympathetic portrait of a real life Chechnyan Freedom Fighter going toe to toe with the Russian invaders (and his own tribal politics) circa 1850 in the Caucasus. It does not end well. The author begins the work with a little story about finding a brightly colored thistle in the fields, cut and broken by the reaper, but still standing proudly. It is the theme of the work - the individual standing upright and proud even under adversity. OK. So why did it leave me so cold? Maybe just that Hadji Murad is such a good and noble guy that he just ain't that interesting. And the comic set pieces about the Russian army in the fields - drinking, gambling, shuffling paperwork - seem rushed and formulaic and fails to engage. Usually Tolstoy is better at it than this. Perhaps we're meant to see the "Savage" tribesman as more civilized than the Western cultured Russians. OK. Tolstoy has written a lot of amazing books. He's entitled to take a Mulligan on this one. Read for a Book Circle.
    • 4/5
      Hadji Murad is a story difficult to interprete. Tolstoy seems to be taking shots at Czarism and Russian imperialism holding up for us with admiration Hadji Murad, a muslim and a Chechen repel commander. Bound by honor and duty and reverence for his religion. Yet there’s brutality on each side - maybe more a disillusionment attitude towards war of any kind seems to be preeminent in Tolstoy’s retelling of this story - a mixture of history and fiction, facts and myth.
    • 5/5
      Hadji Murat is a remembered story: "an old story from the Caucasus, part of which I saw, part of which I heard from witnesses, and part of which I imagined to myself." The story depicts the life of soldiers, of nobility, of family life, of the politics of war and the larger-than-life character of Hadji Murat.Hadji Murat was a real Chechen leader and Tolstoy probably first heard of him while he was serving in the Caucasus, based on his own letters home to his brother. Although it is historical the story reads like a myth in spite of its realism. The primary theme is Murat's struggle to resist his enemies while remaining faithful to himself and his family. But there are many other ideas that can be found in the novel, such as determinism, the struggle between a Christian Russia and Muslim Chechnya, and the classic West versus East theme.The story is told in short chapters or vignettes that ultimately introduce dozens of characters from all levels of Russian and Chechen society. The first two pages of the story are like an overture that depicts the discovery of a thistle bloom in the field that will not "submit" and that reminds the narrator of his memory of the hero, Hadji Murat. The story as remembered begins with Murat and two of his followers fleeing from Shamil, the commander of the Caucasian separatists, who is at war with the Russians. They find refuge at the house of Sado, a loyal supporter of Murat. However, the local people learn of his presence and chase him out of the village.Murat decides to make contact with the Russians and sends his aide to them eliciting a promise to meet Murat. Arriving at the fortress of Vozdvizhenskaya, he joins the Russian forces, in hopes of drawing their support in order to overthrow Shamil and save his family. Before his arrival, a small skirmish occurs with some Chechens outside the fortress, and Petrukha Avdeyev, a young Russian soldier bleeds out in a local military hospital after being shot. There is a chapter-length aside about the childless Petrukha who volunteered as a conscript in place of his brother who had a family of his own. Petrukha's father regrets this because he was a dutiful worker compared to his complacent brother.While at Vozdvizhenskaya, Murat befriends Prince Semyon Vorontsov, his wife Maria and his son, and wins over the good will of the soldiers stationed there. They are at once in awe of his physique and reputation, and enjoy his company and find him honest and upright. The Vorontsovs give him a present of a watch which fascinates him.On the fifth day of Murat's stay, the governor-general's adjutant, Mikhail Loris-Melikov arrives with orders to write down Murat's story, and through this some of his history is told. He was born in the village of Tselmes and early on became close to the local khans due to his mother being the royal family's wet nurse. When he was fifteen some followers of Muridism came into his village calling for a holy war (ghazavat) against Russia. Murat declines at first but after a learned man is sent to explain how it will be run, he tentatively agrees. However, in their first confrontation, Shamil—then a lieutenant for the Muslims hostile to the Russians—embarrasses Murat when he goes to speak with the leader Gamzat. Gamzat eventually launches an attack on the capital of Khunzakh and kills the pro-Russian khans, taking control of this part of Dagestan. The slaughter of the khans throws Hadji and his brother against Gamzat, and they eventually succeed in tricking and killing him, causing his followers to flee. Unfortunately, Murat's brother is killed in the attempt and Shamil replaces Gazmat as leader. He calls on Murat to join his struggle, but Murat refuses because the blood of his brother and the khans are on Shamil.Once Murat has joined the Russians, who are aware of his position and bargaining ability, they find him the perfect tool for getting to Shamil. However, Vorontsov's plans are ruined by the War Minister, Chernyshov. A rival prince who is jealous of him, and Murat has to remain in the fortress because the Tsar is told he is possibly a spy. The story digresses into a depiction of the Tsar Nicholas I of Russia, which reveals his lethargic and bitter nature and his egotistical complacency, as well as his contempt towards women, his brother-in-law, Frederick William IV of Prussia, and Russian students.The Tsar orders an attack on the Chechens and Murat's remains in the fortress. Meanwhile, Murat's mother, wife and eldest son Yusuf, whom Shamil hold captive, are moved to a more defensible location. Realizing his position (neither trusted by the Russians to lead an army against Shamil, nor able to return to Shamil because he will be killed), Hadji Murat decides to flee the fortress to gather men to save his family.At this point the narrative jumps forward in time, to the arrival of a group of soldiers at the fortress bearing Murat's severed head. While Maria Dimitriyevna—the companion of one of the officers and a friend of Murat—comments on the cruelty of men during times of war calling them 'butchers', the soldiers then tell the story of Murat's death. The nightingales, which stopped singing during the battle, begin again and the narrator ends by recalling the thistle that had been the catalyst for his original remembrance of Hadji Murat.The story is filled with realistic details that bring the family of Murat and his comrades to life. His original decision to go over to the Russian side, while understandable, ultimately puts Murat in an untenable position. A scene between his son and Shamil, who his holding him captive, is both poignant and terrifying when Shamil tells the boy that he will slice off his head. The two cultures seem to be both very different yet similar. For example, the Tsar demonstrates condescension and enmity for his peers but this is also true of Shamil. The literary style of Tolstoy where every detail is important and the structure is held together by the mystical union of man and nature makes this short novel a major masterpiece.
    • 3/5
      Book Circle Reads 160TITLE: [HADJI MURAD]Author: [[LEO TOLSTOY]]Rating: 3* of fiveThe Publisher Says: In [Hadji Murat], Tolstoy recounts the extraordinary meeting of two polarized cultures--the refined, Europeanized court of the Russian tsar and the fierce Muslim chieftains of the Chechen hills. This brilliant, culturally resonant fiction was written towards the end of Tolstoy's life, but the conflict it describes has obvious, ironic parallels with current affairs today. It is 1852, and Hadji Murat, one of the most feared mountain chiefs, is the scourge of the Russian army. When he comes to surrender, the Russians are delighted. Or have they naively welcomed a double-agent into their midst? With its sardonic portraits--from the inscrutable Hadji Murat to the fat and bumbling tsar--Tolstoy's story is an astute and witty commentary on the nature of political relations and states at war. Leo Tolstoy is one of the world's greatest writers. Best known for his brilliantly crafted epic novels [War and Peace] and [Anna Karenina], he used his works to address the problems of Russian society, politics, and traditions.My Review: Flat prose exposing the bones of a story better told in the Wikipedia entry on Hadji Murad, the historical Avar leader.The story was among Tolstoy's papers at his death. Louise Shanks Maude, the wife of Tolstoy's good friend and primary translator of non-fiction Aylmer Maude, included Hadji Murad in their 21-volume Oxford University Press edition of the Collected Works of Tolstoy. The Maudes were Fenians, communal-living enthusiasts, and both came from English families firmly rooted in Russia. This constellation of characteristics made them uniquely sympathetic to Tolstoy's rather unusual social views.Louise Maude did no service to Tolstoy's memory by publishing this story after Tolstoy's death. His own attitude towards the work, based on his correspondence, seems to have focused more on finishing it and with it putting a flourish on his life-long argument with the deterministic world he saw about him. Tragedy being inevitable, Tolstoy takes the historical tale of Hadji Murad (known to him from his service to Russia in the Caucasus) and presents an honorable man's desperate struggle to escape the inescapable fate awaiting him: Death in the attempt to save his beloved family from death, which they will suffer anyway because of his foredoomed death attempting to save them from death.How Russian.There's a very involving tale here. What there isn't is a novel or novella of any satisfying substance. The story as it's published reads more like notes towards a novel. The action and the characters are crudely carved from Tolstoy's accustomed fine marble, but lack any fine detail and indeed are only partially revealed; most of the work needed to create a memorable character is left to the imagination of the reader. That it can be done at all is down to the artist's eye for good materials that Tolstoy possessed, refined by a long lifetime's work. What a pity that its audience isn't legally confined to Tolstoy scholars.
    • 4/5
      Hadji Murat is a really good story. Tolstoy seems to send a message about understanding other cultures, and decides to write about a non-Russian protagonist. You sympathize with Hadji and have a vested interest in the character by the end.
    • 4/5
      I found Hadji Murad to be reminiscent of some of the great American western movies of the mid-twentieth century, which made me wonder how many western authors and movie-makers had been influenced by this book. The book had many aspects of the American western including political intrigue, blood feuds, frontier skirmishes, and a woman who understands the horrors of war and violence much more than the men do.On the whole, I would say that this was a good read that was very interesting because of all of the aforementioned elements. On the other hand, I would not say that it is a great novel because it never really left me reconsidering or challenging preconceptions or even empathizing with others, which I believe are hallmarks of great literature. Instead, it was a very entertaining read that just never quite lived up to some of Tolstoy's other works.
    • 5/5
      The struggle to stay alive ... to exist. How strong the life force is in some people ... and what a waste to see such strength carelessly crushed.
    • 4/5
      A fictionalized account of a real event that occurred during the Russian/Chechen conflict in the Caucasus in the late 1800's. Hadji Murad was a great chieftain, both feared and revered. He breaks with the Chechen leader, and attempts to negotiate with the Russians for assistance to rescue his family. As the political events play out, he is unable to trust either side, and is killed in a final battle. This book may initially be more difficult for many to appreciate than Anna Karenina or Resurrection. It contains Tartar words and descriptions of Chechen villages, dress, and customs that may be just as confusing as the details of the 19th century Russian court. Luckily, the persistent will discover that Hadji Murad also contains the key elements that make Tolstoy's longer works so enjoyable to read. It is his gift for realistic description and his omniscient narrator that make the characters come alive. Since the story of Hadji Murad is a true one, there are several characters that each play a smallish part, but each character is presented clearly and concisely, with insight that allows the reader to know them better than they know themselves. Recommended for fans of Tolstoy.

    Book preview

    Hadji Murad - Leo Tolstoy

    Bibliographical Note

    This Dover edition, first published in 2009, is an unabridged republication of the Aylmer Maude translation of the work, originally published by Dodd, Mead and Company, New York, in 1912. The footnotes are not part of the original work by Tolstoy; they were added later for the English translation.

    Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

    Tolstoy, Leo, graf, 1828–1910.

    [Khadzhi-Murat. English]

    Hadji Murád / Leo Tolstoy; translated by Aylmer Maude. p. cm.

    Unabridged republication of the Aylmer Maude translation of the work, originally published by Dodd, Mead and Company, New York, in 1912.

    9780486112909

    I. Maude, Aylmer, 1858–1938. II. Title. PG3366.K5 2009 891.73’3—dc22

    2009023061

    Manufactured in the United States by Courier Corporation

    47366X01

    www.doverpublications.com

    Table of Contents

    Title Page

    Copyright Page

    Preface

    Chapter I

    Chapter II

    Chapter III

    Chapter IV

    Chapter V

    Chapter VI

    Chapter VII

    Chapter VIII

    Chapter IX

    Chapter X

    Chapter XI

    Chapter XII

    Chapter XIII

    Chapter XIV

    Chapter XV

    Chapter XVI

    Chapter XVII

    Chapter XVIII

    Chapter XIX

    Chapter XX

    Chapter XXI

    Chapter XXII

    Chapter XXIII

    Chapter XXIV

    Chapter XXV

    Preface

    I am writing to you specially to say how glad I have been to be your contemporary, and to express my last and sincere request. My friend, return to literary activity! That gift came to you from whence comes all the rest.... Great writer of our Russian land, listen to my wish!

    So wrote Turgénev on his deathbed to Tolstoy, when the latter, absorbed in religious struggles and studies, had for five years produced no work of art save one short story.

    Nor was it long before the wish was realised, for three years later Tolstoy was writing The Death of Iván Ilyítch, and that tremendous drama, The Power of Darkness; and these were followed by a number of short stories, some plays, a long novel (Resurrection) and the works now posthumously published. Among these latter a foremost place belongs to Hadji Murád, in which Tolstoy again tells of that Caucasian life which supplied him with the matter for some of his earliest tales as well as for his great story The Cossacks, which Turgénev declared to be the best story that has been written in our (Russian) language.

    The Caucasus indeed offered a rich variety of material on which Tolstoy drew at every stage of his literary career. It was there that, at the age of twenty-three, he first saw war as a volunteer; there he served for two years as a cadet; and there finally he became an officer, before leaving to serve in the Crimean war—which in its turn gave him material for his sketches of Sevastopol.

    In his letters from the Caucasus he often complained of the dulness and emptiness of his life there; yet it certainly attracted him for a while, and was not devoid of stirring and curious incidents.

    The most extraordinary of these relates to a gambling debt he incurred and was unable to pay. Having given notes-of-hand, he was in despair when the date of payment approached without his having been able to procure the money needed, and he prayed earnestly to God to get me out of this disagreeable scrape. The very next morning he received a letter enclosing his notes-of-hand, which were returned to him as a free gift by a young Chechen named Sado, who had become his kunák (devoted friend) and had won them back at cards from the officer who won them from Tolstoy.

    It was in company with that same Sado that Tolstoy, when passing from one fort to another, was chased by the enemy and nearly captured.

    His life was in imminent danger on another occasion, when a shell, fired by the enemy, smashed the carriage of a cannon he was pointing; but once again he escaped unhurt.

    It was during his first year in the Caucasus that Tolstoy began writing for publication. The Raid, describing a kind of warfare he was witnessing there, was the second of his stories to appear in print. A little later he wrote two other tales dealing with the same subject: The Wood-Felling, and Meeting a Moscow Acquaintance in the Detachment.

    Feeling that he had not exhausted the material at his disposal, he then planned The Cossacks: a Caucasian Story of 1852, which he kept on hand unfinished for nearly ten years, and might not have published even then had he not happened to lose some money at Chinese billiards to a stranger he met at the club in Moscow. To pay this debt, he sold The Cossacks for Rs. 1,000 (about £150 in those days) to Katkóv, the well-known publicist and publisher, with whom he subsequently quarrelled. The circumstances under which he had parted with The Cossacks were so unpleasant to Tolstoy that he never completed the story.

    Ten years later, when he had set his heart on producing an attractive reading-book for children, he wrote the charming little story A Prisoner in the Caucasus (one of the gems in Twenty-three Tales), founded on the above-mentioned incident of his own narrow escape from capture; and finally, after another thirty years had passed, he drew upon his Caucasian recollections for the last time when he composed Hadji Murád.

    Tolstoy had met Hadji Murád in Tiflis in December 1851,¹ and in a letter addressed to his brother Sergius on the 23rd of that month he wrote,—

    If you wish to show off with news from the Caucasus, you may recount that a certain Hadji Murád (second in importance to Shamil himself) surrendered a few days ago to the Russian Government. He was the leading daredevil and ‘brave’ of all Chechnya, but has been led into committing a mean action.

    The details of Hadji Murád’s life as givn by Tolstoy in his story are not always historically exact; but the main events are true, and the tale is told in a way that gives a vivid and faithful picture of those stirring times.

    Of the struggle for independence carried on in the Caucasus with such desperate bravery for so many years, very little was known to English readers until the publication of Mr. Baddeley’s The Russian Conquest of the Caucasus, which gives an excellent account of that involved, confusing and long drawn-out, but important, contest.

    The Caucasus is peopled by so many tribes, differing so much among themselves, and all so strange to Western Europeans, that it is not easy to summarise the history of the conflict in a way at once correct and clear. There are, however, certain main facts which should be borne in mind when reading Hadji Murád.

    As her only possible way of escape from the oppression of Persia on one side and of Turkey on another, Christian Georgia—lying to the south of the Caucasian Mountains—sub-mitted to Russia as long ago as the commencement of the nineteenth century.

    Even before that Russia had spasmodically attempted to conquer the northern part of the Caucasus; but from then onwards she had a special incentive to press forward and annex the territories dividing her from Georgia which was already hers.

    The Internecine feuds of the native tribes generally prevented them from offering a united resistance to Russian aggression ; but the dense forests of Chechnya, and the exceedingly mountainous character of Daghestan, rendered the subjugation of those regions a matter of great difficulty.

    In addition to the geographical obstacles there was another, due to a strong religious revival which sprang up among the Mohammedan population and, despite the feuds among the tribes, to a considerable extent and for a considerable time united them in a holy war against the infidel Russians.

    Like all great religious movements this revival had roots in a distant past. It also had currents, religious and political, which swept now in one direction and now in another.

    To begin with, there was a Murid movement which appears to have been almost identical with Sufi’ism, and to have existed from the third century of the Mohammedan era. That movement, going beyond the Shariát (the written law), inculcated the Tarikát (the Path) leading to the higher life. It also proclaimed the equality of all Mussulmans, rich and poor alike, and enjoined temperance, abstinence, self-denial, and the renunciation of the good things of both worlds, that man may make himself free to receive worthily the love towards God. In Muridism a teacher was called a Murshíd (one who shows the way), while a Murid was a disciple or follower (one who desires to find the way).

    Such was Muridism for several centuries: a peaceful, religious movement of a highly spiritual character; but within the last few generations the struggle against Russia had given a new quality to the movement, and from being spiritual it had become strongly political.

    As early as 1785 Mansúr, a leader of unknown origin, appeared in the Caucasus preaching the Ghazavát, or Holy War, against the infidels; and from 1830 onwards, when Kazi-Mullá, the first Imám (uniting in himself supreme spiritual and temporal power) took the field, Muridism became identified with the fierce struggle for independence carried on by the native tribes against the Russian invaders.

    Mansúr and Kazi-Mullá are both mentioned in Tolstoy’s story, in which also Hadji Murád tells of the part he took in the execution or assassination of Kazi-Mullá’s successor, Hamzád. Shamil, too, who succeeded Hamzád and was the greatest of the Imáms, figures as one of the principal characters in the story.

    How little the nature and importance of that war in the Caucasus was understood by Western Europe is shown by the fact that when the Crimean War broke out—the year after Hadji Murád’s death—no serious attempt was made to support or encourage Shamil in the struggle which, even after the conclusion of the Crimean War, he desperately maintained against Russia till his last fortress fell in 1859, and he himself was sent prisoner to Kalúga.

    We may be said to owe the existence of this story to the severe illnesses from which Tolstoy suffered in 1901 and 1902, for his sickness kept him in a state in which he found it difficult to work at What is Religion? or the other didactic essays he was engaged upon, and by way of relaxation he turned to fiction and produced Hadji Murád. It is worth noticing that in the fifth chapter of this—one of the last stories he ever wrote—Tolstoy describes a skirmish and a soldier’s death in a way that closely reminds one of an incident he had handled in The Wood Felling, nearly half a century before. He thus, at the outset and at the close of his literary career, told almost the same tale in almost the same way and with almost the same feeling.

    On comparing the Caucasian stories he wrote between the ages of twenty-three and thirty-four with the one he wrote when he was seventy-four, one finds in them all the same wonderfully acute power of observation which seized the characteristic indications both of the inner and the outer life of man; the same retentive memory; the same keen interest in life, and the same discrimination between things sympathised with and things disapproved of, but there is this very noticeable difference: each of the earlier stories contains a character who more or less closely represents Tolstoy himself, through whose eyes everything is seen. Hadji Murád, on the contrary, is written quite objectively. Before he wrote it Tolstoy had become more sure of himself, and felt that he had only to tell the story, and that his judgment of men and of actions would justify itself without his own point of view even needing to be explicitly stated.

    In Hadji Murád, as in all his later writings, Tolstoy makes us feel how repugnant to him were the customary ways of the life we call civilised, with its selfishness and self-indulgence, its officialism, banquets, balls, and masquerades, and above all, with its complete lack of spiritual fervour. The manners and customs of the semi-savage tribesmen arouse no such abhorrence in him. The natural instinctive spontaneity of their conduct appeals to him; and throughout the tale he makes us feel that Hadji Murád could not possibly have acted otherwise than as he did, either when he deserted the Russians or when he returned to them, or when he slew his guards and tried once more to escape to the mountains. Hadji Murád held life cheap—his own as well as that of other people; but though he spilt much blood, he never arouses the antipathy we are made to feel for the pedantic, stupid cruelty of Nicholas I.

    Especially attractive to Tolstoy is the religious fervour of self-abnegation, and the readiness for self-sacrifice in a great cause, which were so frequently shown by the mountaineers.

    We are more closely akin to the men of other lands than we often realise; and lest some one reading this book should say to himself, Yes, the Russians are so-and-so, but we are not as they . . . it may be well to mention that the elder Vorontsóv’s mother was an English-woman, a Herbert of the Pembroke family. For that fact, and for much else, I am indebted to Mr. J. F. Baddeley, and especially for his version of the song of the blood-feud sung by Khanéfii, which I have borrowed.

    The footnotes are not part of the original work, but belong to this translation.

    AYLMER MAUDE

    Chapter I

    I was returning home by the fields. It was midsummer; the hay harvest was over, and they were just beginning to reap the rye. At that season of the year there is a delightful variety of flowers—red white and pink scented tufty clover; milk-white ox-eye daisies with their bright yellow centres and pleasant spicy smell; yellow honey-scented rape blossoms; tall campanulas with white and lilac bells, tulip-shaped; creeping vetch; yellow red and pink scabious; plantains with faintly-scented neatly-arranged purple, slightly pink-tinged blossoms; cornflowers, bright blue in the sunshine and while still young, but growing paler and redder towards evening or when growing old; and delicate quickly-withering almond-scented dodder flowers. I gathered a large nosegay of these different flowers, and was going home, when I noticed in a ditch, in full bloom, a beautiful thistle plant of the crimson kind, which in our neighborhood they call Tartar, and carefully avoid when mowing—or, if they do happen to cut it down, throw out from among the grass for fear of pricking their hands. Thinking to pick this thistle and put it in the centre

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