What the brave general spoke of as the ‘rescue’ was the affair in the unfortunate Dargo campaign in which a whole detachment, including Prince Vorontsóv who commanded it, would certainly have perished had it not been rescued by the arrival of fresh troops. Everyone knew that the whole Dargo campaign under Vorontsóv’s command – in which the Russians lost many killed and wounded and several cannon – had been a shameful affair, and therefore if anyone mentioned it in Vorontsóv’s presence they did so only in the aspect in which Vorontsóv 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 moustaches noticed nothing, and carried away by his narrative quietly replied:
‘At the rescue, your Excellency.’
Having started on his favourite theme, the general recounted circumstantially how Hadji Murád 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 Orbelyáni 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 Vorontsóva. Without seeming to have noticed anything he began to relate how Hadji Murád had carried off the widow of Akhmet Khan of Mekhtulí.
‘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.
‘
‘Oh no!’ said Vorontsóv, 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 honourably.’
These words of Vorontsóv’s set the tone for the further conversation. The courtiers understood that the more importance was attributed to Hadji Murád the better the prince would be pleased.
‘The man’s audacity is amazing. A remarkable man!’
‘Why, in 1849 he dashed into Temir Khan Shurá and plundered the shops in broad daylight.’
An Armenian sitting at the end of the table, who had been in Temir Khan Shurá at the time, related the particulars of that exploit of Hadji Murád’s.
In fact, Hadji Murád 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?
‘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 Vorontsóv, 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 Vorontsóv.
‘If not Napoleon, then Murat.’
‘And his name is Hadji
‘Hadji Murád has surrendered and now there’ll be an end to Shamil too,’ someone remarked.
‘They feel that now’ (this ‘now’ meant under Vorontsóv) ‘they can’t hold out,’ remarked another.
‘
Prince Vorontsóv tried to moderate the waves of flattery which began to flow over him. Still, it was pleasant, and in the best of spirits he led his lady back into the drawing-room.
After dinner, when coffee was being served in the drawing-room, the prince was particularly amiable to everybody, and going up to the general with the red bristly moustaches he tried to appear not to have noticed his blunder.
