Having leaped off my horse, I was about to enter the first saklia, but the owner appeared in the doorway and pushed me away with curses. I responded to his greeting with my whip. The Turk started shouting; people gathered. My guide apparently intervened for me. They showed me to the caravansarai; I went into a big saklia that resembled a cattle shed; there was no room in it to spread my burka. I requested a horse. The Turkish headman came. To all his incomprehensible talk I made one reply:
I rode through a wide valley surrounded by mountains. Soon I saw Kars, showing white against one of them. My Turk pointed it out to me, repeating “Kars! Kars!” and sent his horse into a gallop; I followed him, suffering from anxiety: my fate would be decided in Kars. There I would find out where our camp was and whether it would still be possible to catch up with the army. Meanwhile the sky clouded over and it rained again; but I no longer cared about that.
We rode into Kars. Riding up to the gate in the wall, I heard a Russian drum: they were beating retreat. A sentry took my pass and went to the commandant. I stood in the rain for about half an hour. Finally they let me in. I told my guide to take me straight to the baths. We rode along the steep and winding streets. The horses slid on the bad Turkish pavement. We stopped in front of a house of rather poor appearance. This was the baths. The Turk dismounted and started knocking on the door. No one answered. Rain poured down on me. Finally a young Armenian came out of a neighboring house and, having talked with my Turk, invited me in, speaking rather good Russian. He led me up a narrow stairway to the second part of the house. In a room furnished with low couches and threadbare carpets sat an old woman, his mother. She came up to me and kissed my hand. Her son told her to start a fire and prepare dinner for me. I took off my burka and sat down by the fire. My host’s younger brother, a boy of about seventeen, came in. Both brothers had been in Tiflis and lived there for several months at a time. They told me that our troops had left the day before and that our camp was seventeen miles from Kars. That set me completely at ease. Soon the old woman had prepared me some lamb with onion, which I thought the height of culinary art. We all lay down to sleep in the same room; I sprawled in front of the dying fire and fell asleep in the pleasant hope of seeing Count Paskevich’s camp the next day.
In the morning I went to look at the town. The younger of my hosts volunteered to be my cicerone. Examining the fortifications and the citadel, built on an inaccessible cliff, I could not understand how we could have taken Kars. My Armenian explained to me as well as he could the military actions that he himself had witnessed. Noticing an inclination for war in him, I proposed that he go to the army with me. He accepted at once. I sent him for horses. He came back together with an officer, who demanded a written order from me. Judging by the Asiatic features of his face, I did not deem it necessary to rummage among my papers and took from my pocket the first scrap I chanced upon. The officer, having gravely studied it, at once gave instructions that horses be brought to his honor in accordance with the order and gave me back my paper: it was a poem to a Kalmyk girl that I had scribbled in one of the Cossack way stations.48 Half an hour later I rode out of Kars, and Artemy (the name of my Armenian) was already riding beside me on a Turkish stallion, a supple Kurdish javelin in his hand, a dagger behind his belt, and raving about Turks and battles.
I rode over land sown everywhere with grain; I could see villages around, but they were empty: the inhabitants had fled. The road was excellent and paved in marshy places—stone bridges had been built across the streams. The land was rising noticeably—the advance hills of the Sagan-loo ridge, the ancient Tauris, were beginning to appear. Some two hours went by; I rode up a gentle slope and suddenly saw our camp, pitched on the bank of the Kars-chai; a few minutes later I was already in Raevsky’s tent.
CHAPTER THREE
I arrived just in time. That same day (June 13) the army received the order to move forward. Having dinner at Raevsky’s, I listened to the young generals discussing the maneuver prescribed for them. General Burtsov49 was dispatched to the left down the Arzrum high road, straight toward the Turkish camp, while the rest of the army was to move to the right side around the enemy.
