Russian Classics Ultimate Collection: Novels, Short Stories, Plays, Folk Tales & Legends. Максим Горький

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ he was right. We might just as easily have failed to arrive at all; but arrive we did, for all that. And if people would only reason a little more they would be convinced that life is not worth taking such a deal of trouble about.

Perhaps, however, you would like to know the conclusion of the story of Bela? In the first place, this is not a novel, but a collection of travelling-notes, and, consequently, I cannot make the staff-captain tell the story sooner than he actually proceeded to tell it. Therefore, you must wait a bit, or, if you like, turn over a few pages. Though I do not advise you to do the latter, because the crossing of Mount Krestov (or, as the erudite Gamba calls it, le mont St. Christophe 15) is worthy of your curiosity.

      Well, then, we descended Mount Gut into the Chertov Valley... There’s a romantic designation for you! Already you have a vision of the evil spirit’s nest amid the inaccessible cliffs—but you are out of your reckoning there. The name “Chertov” is derived from the word cherta (boundary-line) and not from chort (devil), because, at one time, the valley marked the boundary of Georgia. We found it choked with snow-drifts, which reminded us rather vividly of Saratov, Tambov, and other charming localities of our fatherland.

“Look, there is Krestov!” said the staff-captain, when we had descended into the Chertov Valley, as he pointed out a hill covered with a shroud of snow. Upon the summit stood out the black outline of a stone cross, and past it led an all but imperceptible road which travellers use only when the side-road is obstructed with snow. Our drivers, declaring that no avalanches had yet fallen, spared the horses by conducting us round the mountain. At a turning we met four or five Ossetes, who offered us their services; and, catching hold of the wheels, proceeded, with a shout, to drag and hold up our cart. And, indeed, it is a dangerous road; on the right were masses of snow hanging above us, and ready, it seemed, at the first squall of wind to break off and drop into the ravine; the narrow road was partly covered with snow, which, in many places, gave way under our feet and, in others, was converted into ice by the action of the sun by day and the frosts by night, so that the horses kept falling, and it was with difficulty that we ourselves made our way. On the left yawned a deep chasm, through which rolled a torrent, now hiding beneath a crust of ice, now leaping and foaming over the black rocks. In two hours we were barely able to double Mount Krestov—two versts in two hours! Meanwhile the clouds had descended, hail and snow fell; the wind, bursting into the ravines, howled and whistled like Nightingale the Robber. 16 Soon the stone cross was hidden in the mist, the billows of which, in ever denser and more compact masses, rushed in from the east...

      Concerning that stone cross, by the way, there exists the strange, but widespread, tradition that it had been set up by the Emperor Peter the First when travelling through the Caucasus. In the first place, however, the Emperor went no farther than Daghestan; and, in the second place, there is an inscription in large letters on the cross itself, to the effect that it had been erected by order of General Ermolov, and that too in the year 1824. Nevertheless, the tradition has taken such firm root, in spite of the inscription, that really you do not know what to believe; the more so, as it is not the custom to believe inscriptions.

      To reach the station Kobi, we still had to descend about five versts, across ice-covered rocks and plashy snow. The horses were exhausted; we were freezing; the snowstorm droned with ever-increasing violence, exactly like the storms of our own northern land, only its wild melodies were sadder and more melancholy.

      “O Exile,” I thought, “thou art weeping for thy wide, free steppes! There mayest thou unfold thy cold wings, but here thou art stifled and confined, like an eagle beating his wings, with a shriek, against the grating of his iron cage!”

      “A bad look out,” said the staff-captain. “Look! There’s nothing to be seen all round but mist and snow. At any moment we may tumble into an abyss or stick fast in a cleft; and a little lower down, I dare say, the Baidara has risen so high that there is no getting across it. Oh, this Asia, I know it! Like people, like rivers! There’s no trusting them at all!”

      The drivers, shouting and cursing, belaboured the horses, which snorted, resisted obstinately, and refused to budge on any account, notwithstanding the eloquence of the whips.

      “Your honour,” one of the drivers said to me at length, “you see, we will never reach Kobi to-day. Won’t you give orders to turn to the left while we can? There is something black yonder on the slope—probably huts. Travellers always stop there in bad weather, sir. They say,” he added, pointing to the Ossetes, “that they will lead us there if you will give them a tip.”

      “I know that, my friend, I know that without your telling me,” said the staff-captain. “Oh, these beasts! They are delighted to seize any pretext for extorting a tip!”

      “You must confess, however,” I said, “that we should be worse off without them.”

      “Just so, just so,” he growled to himself. “I know them well—these guides! They scent out by instinct a chance of taking advantage of people. As if it was impossible to find the way without them!”

      Accordingly we turned aside to the left, and, somehow or other, after a good deal of trouble, made our way to the wretched shelter, which consisted of two huts built of stone slabs and rubble, surrounded by a wall of the same material. Our ragged hosts received us with alacrity. I learned afterwards that the Government supplies them with money and food upon condition that they put up travellers who are overtaken by storm.

CHAPTER VIII

       Table of Contents

      “ALL is for the best,” I said, sitting down close by the fire. “Now you will finish telling me your story about Bela. I am certain that what you have already told me was not the end of it.”

      “Why are you so certain?” answered the staff-captain, winking and smiling slyly.

      “Because things don’t happen like that. A story with such an unusual beginning must also have an unusual ending.”

      “You have guessed, of course”...

      “I am very glad to hear it.”

“It is all very well for you to be glad, but, indeed, it makes me sad when I think of it. Bela was a splendid girl. In the end I grew accustomed to her just as if she had been my own daughter, and she loved me. I must tell you that I have no family. I have had no news of my father and mother for twelve years or so, and, in my earlier days, I never thought of providing myself with a wife—and now, you know, it wouldn’t do. So I was glad to have found someone to spoil. She used to sing to us or dance the Lezginka. 17.. And what a dancer she was! I have seen our own ladies in provincial society; and on one occasion, sir, about twenty years ago, I was even in the Nobles’ Club at Moscow—but was there a woman to be compared with her? Not one! Grigori Aleksandrovich dressed her up like a doll, petted and pampered her, and it was simply astonishing to see how pretty she grew while she lived with us. The sunburn disappeared from her face and hands, and a rosy colour came into her cheeks... What a merry girl she was! Always making fun of me, the little rogue!... Heaven forgive her!”

      “And when you told her of her father’s death?”

      “We kept it a secret from her for a long time, until she had grown accustomed to her position; and then, when she was told, she cried for a day or two and forgot all about it.

      “For СКАЧАТЬ