There were two things he always carried — a large icon which hung round his neck and a dagger which he wore over his shirt, even in bed. He genuinely believed that he had enemies and convincing himself that he must take revenge on someone and wash away some insult with blood brought him the greatest pleasure. He was quite certain that hatred, vengeance and contempt for the human race were the noblest and most poetic of emotions. But his mistress (a Circassian girl, of course), whom I happened to meet later, maintained that he was the kindest and gentlest of men, and that every evening he would enter his melancholy thoughts in a diary, draw up his accounts on ruled paper, and then go down on his knees to pray. And how that man suffered, just to appear in his own eyes the way he wanted to appear, for his fellow officers and the soldiers could never see him the way he wanted to be seen.

Once, during one of those nocturnal expeditions on the road with his Tartar friends, he happened to wound a hostile Chechen in the leg with a bullet and took him prisoner. For seven weeks after that incident the Chechen lived with the lieutenant, who nursed and looked after him as though he were a bosom friend and then, when he had recovered, loaded him with presents and let him go. Not long afterwards, during an engagement, when the lieutenant was retreating with his men, firing as he went, he heard an enemy soldier call out his name and the Chechen he had wounded rode out and motioned to him to do the same. The lieutenant rode out to his Chechen friend and shook hands. The other Chechens kept their distance and did not shoot, but the moment the lieutenant turned his horse several of them fired at him and one bullet grazed the small of his back. Another time, at night, when a fire broke out in the fortress and two companies of soldiers tried to put it out, I suddenly saw the tall figure of a man on a black horse, lit up by the red glow, appear in the crowd. Forcing his way through, he rode right up to the fire, leapt from his horse and ran into a house, one side of which was burning. Five minutes later he emerged with singed hair and his arm badly burnt around the elbow, carrying in his bosom two pigeons he had rescued from the flames.

His name was Rosenkrantz, but he would often speak of his ancestry, somehow tracing his origins back to the Varangians,5 thus clearly proving that he and his ancestors were pure Russians.

4

The sun had run half its course and cast its fiery rays through the glowing air on to the dry earth. The dark blue sky was perfectly clear; only the foot of the snowy mountains was beginning to be cloaked by pale, lilac clouds. The motionless air seemed filled with a kind of transparent dust and the heat was becoming unbearable. When the troops reached a small stream

- the halfway stage — they halted. The soldiers stacked rifles and rushed to the water. The battalion commander sat down on a drum in the shade. Demonstrating the importance of his rank by the expression on his face, he prepared to have a snack with his fellow officers. The captain lay down on the grass under his company’s wagon. The intrepid Lieutenant Rosenkrantz and some other young officers sat on their outspread cloaks, intending to make merry, judging from all the bottles and flasks around them and from the peculiar animation of the singers who stood before them in a semicircle, whistling and singing a Caucasian dance-song:

Shamil thought he would rebel,
In bygone years ...
Tra-ra, ra-ta-tai ...
In bygone years.

Among these young officers was the young ensign who had overtaken us that morning. He was extremely amusing — his eyes sparkled, his speech was rather muddled and he wanted to kiss and declare his love for everyone ... Poor young man! As yet he had no idea that he might look ridiculous or that the frankness and affection which he lavished on everyone might arouse only ridicule, and not the affection he greatly yearned for. Nor did he realize how exceptionally appealing he looked when, with flushed face, he threw himself at last on to his cloak, rested on one elbow and tossed back his thick black hair.

Filled with curiosity, I listened to the soldiers’ and officers’ conversations and closely studied their expressions. But I could find absolutely no trace in any of them of the nervousness I was feeling: their jokes and laughter, the stories they told — all this was indicative of their high spirits and their indifference to impending danger. It was as though it was unthinkable that some of them were fated never to return by that road.

5

After six o’clock that evening, dusty and tired, we passed through the wide fortified gates of the fortress at N — . The sun was setting and cast slanting rosy rays on the picturesque batteries, on the gardens surrounding the fortress, with their tall poplars, on yellow wheat fields and on the white clouds that hung low over the snow-covered mountains: as if imitating them, they formed a range that was no less fantastic and beautiful. On the horizon the new moon was like a tiny translucent cloud. A Tartar was calling the faithful to prayer from the roof of a hut in the village just by the fortress gates. Our singers burst into song again with renewed vigour and energy.

When I had rested and tidied myself up I went to see an aide-de-camp I knew to ask if he would convey my intentions to the general. On the way from the suburb where I was billeted I saw things in the fortress of N — that I had not at all been expecting to see.