Princess Dzhavakha, Lidiya Charskaya: Read FREE Full Text Online (English Translation)

First published in 1903, “Zadushevnoe Slovo”,

Magazin, Russian Empire

This book is in the public domain

Reprint by Publishing House №10

Publication date July 16, 2025

Translation from Russian

307 Pages, Font 12 pt, Bookman Old Style

Electronic edition, File size 1.2 MB

Cover design, Translate by Yulia Basharova

Copyright© Yulia Basharova 2025. All rights reserved

 

Table of Contents

PART ONE. IN THE CAUCASUS

Chapter 1. First Memories. Hadji-Magomet. The Black Rose. 11

Chapter 2. Grandmother. Father. The Last Offspring of a Glorious Line. 26

Chapter 3. Two Heroes. Abrek. My Fantasy. 45

Chapter 4. Bella. Unexpected Joy. 58

Chapter 5. On the Road. The Aul Bestudi. Bella’s Wedding. 67

Chapter 6. At the Princess’s. The Braggart. Page and Queen. Night Fears. 84

Chapter 7. Mysterious Lights. The Tower of Death. 99

Chapter 8. The Expositor 111

Chapter 9. The Feast. The Demon. The Overheard Secret 118

Chapter 10. The Death of Yuliko. My Vow. 139

Chapter 11. Sara the Sorceress. The Escape. 152

Chapter 12. Night in the Mountains. Landslide. 174

Chapter 13. Home Again. Two Vows. 187

Chapter 14. Off on the Road. 192

PART TWO. AT THE INSTITUTE

Chapter 1. In a Stone Cage. Unexpected Enemies. 200

Chapter 2. Lessons. Bullying. The Last Farewell 217

Chapter 3. The Last Farewell. Search. 228

Chapter 4. Fairy Irène in the Infirmary. 238

Chapter 5. Crime and Punishment. The Rule of Comradeship. 257

Chapter 6. Lie and Truth. Lyuda Vlasovskaya. 271

Chapter 7. The Princess of Gori Shows Miracles of Bravery. 283

Chapter 8. Friends for Life Because of a Crow. 295

 

PART ONE

IN THE CAUCASUS

 

Chapter 1. First Memories. Hadji-Magomet. The Black Rose

 

I am a Georgian. My name is Nina — Princess Nina Dzhavakha-ogly-Dzhamata. The princely house of Dzhamata is a glorious one; it is known throughout the Caucasus, from the Rioni and Kura rivers to the Caspian Sea and the Dagestan mountains.

I was born in Gori, the wonderful, smiling Gori, one of the most picturesque and charming corners of the Caucasus, on the banks of the emerald Kura River.

Gori lies in the very heart of Georgia, in a lovely valley, elegant and captivating with its sprawling plane trees, ancient linden trees, shaggy chestnuts, and rose bushes filling the air with the spicy, intoxicating scent of red and white blossoms. And all around Gori are the ruins of towers and fortresses, Armenian and Georgian cemeteries, completing a picture imbued with a wondrous and mysterious legend of old…

In the distance, the outlines of mountains are blue, and the mighty, inaccessible peaks of the Caucasus — Elbrus and Kazbek — gleam with a pearly mist, over which soar the proud sons of the East — gigantic gray eagles…

My ancestors were heroes who fought and fell for the honor and freedom of their homeland.

Not long ago, the Caucasus trembled from cannon shots, and the groans of the wounded echoed everywhere. There was an incessant war with the semi-savage highlanders, who made constant raids on peaceful inhabitants from the depths of their inaccessible mountains.

The quiet, green valleys of Georgia wept bloody tears…

At the head of the highlanders stood the brave leader Shamil, who with a mere glance could dispatch hundreds and thousands of his djigits (warriors) to Christian villages… How much sorrow, tears, and devastation these raids caused! How many weeping wives, sisters, and mothers there were in Georgia…

But then the Russians arrived and, together with our warriors, conquered the Caucasus. The raids ceased, the enemies vanished, and the war-weary country breathed freely…

Among the Russian leaders who bravely stepped forward into the fearsome battle with Shamil were my grandfather, the old Prince Mikhail Dzhavakha, and his sons — brave and courageous like mountain eagles…

When my father recounted the details of this terrible war, which took so many brave lives, my heart pounded and fluttered, as if wanting to burst from my chest…

In such moments, I regretted being born too late, that I couldn’t gallop with a white banner fluttering in my hands among a handful of brave men along the narrow paths of Dagestan, suspended over terrifying precipices…

The southern, hot blood of my mother stirred within me.

My mother was a simple djigitka from the aul (mountain village) of Bestudi… A rebellion broke out in that aul, and my father, then a very young officer, was sent with a hundred Cossacks to quell it.

The rebellion was quelled, but my father did not leave the aul quickly…

There, in the saklya (highlander’s hut) of old Hadji-Magomet, he met his daughter — the beautiful Mariam…

The black eyes and mountain songs of the pretty Tatar girl captivated my father, and he took Mariam to Georgia, where his regiment was stationed.

There, she embraced the Christian faith, against the wishes of the enraged old Magomet, and married the Russian officer.

The old Tatar could not forgive his daughter’s action for a long time…

I began remembering Mama very, very early. When I lay down in my bed, she would sit on its edge and sing songs with sorrowful words and a sad melody. She sang well, my poor beautiful “deda” (Deda – mother in Georgian)!

And her voice was tender and velvety, as if specifically created for such melancholic songs… Indeed, she herself was so tender and quiet, with large, sad black eyes and long braids reaching to her heels. When she smiled — it seemed as if the sky itself smiled…

I adored her smiles, just as I adored her songs… One of them I remember perfectly. It spoke of a black rose that grew on the edge of a precipice in one of Dagestan’s gorges… A gust of wind swept the lush wild rose into a green valley… And the rose grew sad and withered far from its sweet homeland… Fading and dying, it softly begged the mountain breeze to carry its greeting back to the mountains…

It was a simple song with simple words and an even simpler melody, but I adored this song because my beautiful mother sang it.

Often, interrupting a song mid-word, “deda” would snatch me up in her arms and, pressing me tightly, tightly to her thin chest, would babble through laughter and tears:

“Nina, dzhanym” (Dzhanym – in Tatar, soul, darling – the most common endearment in the East), “do you love me?”

Oh, how I loved her, how I loved her, my precious deda!

As I grew more sensible, I was increasingly struck by the sadness in her beautiful eyes and her melancholic tunes.

One day, lying in my bed with my eyes closed from approaching drowsiness, I involuntarily overheard Mama talking to Father.

She gazed into the distance, at the black, serpent-like ribbon of a path winding into the mountains, and whispered wistfully:

“No, my heart, don’t comfort me, he won’t come!”

“Calm down, my dear, he’s late today, but he will be here, he will certainly be here,” Father reassured her.

“No, no, Georgy, don’t comfort me… The mullah (Mullah – Muslim priest) won’t let him…”

I understood that my parents were talking about Grandfather Hadji-Magomet, who still refused to forgive his Christian daughter.

Sometimes grandfather would visit us. He always appeared suddenly from the mountains, thin and resilient, on his strong, as if cast from bronze, horse, having spent several days in the saddle and not at all tired by the long journey.

As soon as the tall figure of the rider appeared in the distance, my mother, alerted by the servants, would run down from the rooftop, where we spent most of our time (a habit she brought from her parents’ home), and hasten to meet him beyond the garden fence, to hold his stirrup, according to Eastern custom, while he dismounted.

Our orderly, old Georgian Mikhako, would take grandfather’s horse, and old Magomet, barely nodding to my mother, would take me in his arms and carry me into the house.

Grandfather Magomet loved me exceptionally. I loved him too, and despite his stern and strict appearance, I was not at all afraid of him…

As soon as he had greeted my father and settled himself, legs crossed in the Eastern fashion, on the colorful divan, I would jump onto his lap and, laughing, rummage through the pockets of his beshmet (Beshmet – a type of caftan trimmed with braid), where there were always various delicious treats for me, brought from the aul (Aul – mountain village). There was everything: candied almonds, kishmish (Kishmish – raisins), and several cloyingly sweet honey cakes, skillfully prepared by the pretty Bella — my mother’s younger sister.

“Eat, dzhanym, eat, my mountain swallow,” he would say, stroking my black curls with his rough, thin hand.

And I did not need much urging, eating my fill of these light and tasty treats that seemed to melt in my mouth.

Then, having finished them and still sitting on Grandfather’s knees, I listened with attentive and eager ears to what he was saying to my father.

And he spoke much and for a long time… He always spoke of the same thing: how the old mullah reproached and shamed him at every meeting for giving his daughter to a “urus” (Highlanders call Russians and Georgians, Christians in general, “urus”), for allowing her to renounce the faith of Allah and calmly accepting her action.

Father, listening to Grandfather, merely twirled his long black mustache and furrowed his thin eyebrows.

“Listen, kunak (Kunak – friend, comrade) Magomet,” he blurted out during one such conversation, “you have nothing to worry about for your daughter: she is happy, she is well here, our faith has become dear and close to her. And what’s done cannot be undone… So don’t trouble my princess in vain. God sees, she has not ceased to be an obedient daughter to you. Tell this to your mullah, and let him worry less about us, and pray to Allah more diligently.”

My God, how Grandfather’s face flared up at these words! He jumped up from the divan… His eyes flashed lightning… He raised his burning gaze to Father — a gaze that revealed the entire semi-savage nature of the Caucasian highlander — and began to speak quickly and menacingly, mixing Russian, Tatar, and Georgian words:

“Kunak Georgy… you are a urus, you are a Christian and you will understand neither our faith nor our Allah and His prophet… You took a wife from our aul, without asking her father’s wish… Allah punishes children for disobedience to parents… Mariam knew this and yet she disregarded the faith of her fathers and became your wife… The mullah is right not to give her his blessing… Allah speaks through his mouth, and people must heed the will of Allah…”

He spoke for a long, long time, not suspecting that every word he uttered was firmly imprinted in the young mind of the little girl huddled in the corner of the divan.

And my poor deda listened to the stern old man, trembling all over and casting pleading glances at my father. He couldn’t bear this silent reproach, embraced her tightly, and, shrugging his shoulders, left the house. A few minutes later, I saw him galloping along the path into the mountains. I watched my father’s retreating figure, the graceful silhouette of horse and rider, and suddenly something seemed to push me towards Hadji-Magomet.

“Deda!” my childish, clear voice suddenly rang out in the ensuing silence, “you are mean, deda, I won’t love you if you don’t forgive Mama and stop hurting Papa! Take back your kishmish and your cakes; I don’t want them from you if you won’t be as kind as Papa!”

And without a moment’s hesitation, I quickly turned my pockets inside out, emptying all the treats Grandfather had brought onto the bewildered old man’s lap.

My mother, huddled in the corner of the room, made desperate signs to me, but I paid no attention to them.

“Take it, take it! Take your kishmish, and take your cakes, and Armenian gingerbread… nothing, nothing do I want from you, mean, unkind deda!” I repeated, trembling all over as if with a fever, continuing to throw out the treats he had brought from my pockets.

“Who teaches a child disrespect for old age?” Hadji-Magomet’s voice boomed throughout the house.

“No one teaches me, deda!” I cried bravely. “My mama, even though she doesn’t pray to the east like you and Bella, she loves you, and she loves your aul, and the mountains, and she misses you, and she prays to God when you don’t come for a long time, and she waits for you on the rooftop… Oh, deda, deda, you don’t even know how much she loves you!”

Something inexplicable flashed across the old man’s face at these words. His eagle-like gaze fell upon Mama. Perhaps he read much anguish and love in the depths of her black, gentle eyes — only his own eyes shone brightly and seemed to be veiled with moisture.

“Is it true, dzhanym?” Hadji-Magomet whispered rather than asked.

“Oh, batono!” (Batono – master/sir in Georgian; this word is added for respect) a groan escaped my mother’s chest, and, leaning forward with her flexible and slender body, she fell at Grandfather’s feet, sobbing softly and uttering only one word that expressed all her boundless love for him:

“Oh, batono, batono!”

He seized her, lifted her, and pressed her to his chest.

I don’t remember what happened next… I dashed like a wild mountain pony through the shaded alleys of our garden, unable to contain the surge of ecstatic happiness that swept over my childish heart like a mighty wave…

I ran breathless, crying and laughing at the same time… I was happier than ever, with a sharp, captivating, almost unbearable surge of happiness…

When, somewhat calmed, I returned to the room, I saw my mother sitting at Grandfather’s feet… His hand rested on her dark-haired head, and joy shone in both their eyes.

Father, who had returned during my wild romp in the garden, scooped me up and covered my face with a dozen of the warmest and tenderest kisses… He was so happy for Mama, my proud and wonderful father!

This was the best day of my life. It was the first true, conscious happiness, and I savored it with all my young heart…

In the evening, they all gathered by my bedside — Father, Mother, Grandfather, and I, smiling through the haze of drowsiness, joining their large hands in my tiny fists and falling asleep to the quiet whisper of their gentle voices…

A new, wonderful, peaceful life reigned under our roof. Grandfather Magomet came more often from the aul, alone or with Bella, my young aunt — a participant in my childhood games and mischief.

But our happiness did not last long. Only a few months after that blissful day, my poor, dear mother became gravely ill and passed away. They say she withered away from longing for her native aul, which she could not even visit, fearing insults from fanatical Tatars and her irreconcilable enemy — the old mullah.

All of Gori mourned Mama… Father’s regiment, who knew her and loved her dearly, wept as one man, accompanying her slender body, showered with roses and magnolias, to the Georgian cemetery near Gori.

Until the last minute, I couldn’t believe she was dying…

Before her death, she stayed on the rooftop of the house, from where she admired the mountains blue in the distance and the silver-green ribbon of the Kura…

“There is Dagestan… there is the aul… there are my mountains… There are Father and Bella…” she whispered between fits of coughing, and pointed into the distance, towards the northeast, with a tiny, almost childish hand due to her striking thinness.

And she, wrapped in a white burka (cloak), seemed a tender, translucent angel of the eastern sky.

I remember with agonizing clarity the evening she died…

The divan on which she lay was moved to the rooftop so she could admire the mountains and the sky…

Gori was falling asleep, enveloped by the wing of the fragrant eastern night… The roses slept on the garden bushes, the nightingales slept in the plane tree groves, the ruins of the mysterious fortress slept, the Kura slept in its emerald banks, and only sorrow did not sleep, only death was awake, awaiting its victim.

Mama lay with open eyes, strangely gleaming in the gathering darkness… As if some light emanated from those eyes and illuminated her entire face, turned towards the sky. Moonlight rays, like golden needles, glided over the thick waves of her black hair and crowned her matte-white forehead with a shining halo.

Father and I were silent at her feet, afraid to disturb the peace of the dying, but she herself beckoned us with a trembling hand, and when we leaned close to her face, she spoke quickly, but very, very softly, barely audible:

“I am dying… yes, it is so… I am dying… but I am not bitter, not afraid… I am happy… I am happy that I am dying a Christian… Oh, how good it is — your faith, Georgy,” she added, turning towards my father, who was kneeling by her head, “and I was worthy of it… I am a Christian… I am going to my God… The One and Great… Don’t cry, Georgy, take care of Nina… I will watch over you… I will admire you… and then… not soon, yes, but still we will be reunited… Don’t cry… farewell… goodbye… What a pity that Father isn’t here… Bella… Tell them that I love them… and I say goodbye to them… Farewell to you too, Georgy, my joy, thank you for the happiness you gave me… Farewell, light of my eyes… Farewell, my dzhanym… my Nina… My little one… Farewell to you both… don’t forget… the black rose…”

Delirium began… Then she fell asleep… never to wake again. She died quietly, so quietly that no one noticed her passing…

I drifted off, resting my cheek against her thin arm, and woke up in the morning from a sensation of cold on my face. Mama’s hand had turned blue and cold as marble… And at her feet, my poor, orphaned father was writhing and sobbing.

Gori was waking up… The rays of dawn illuminated the sad scene. I could not cry, although I clearly understood what had happened. It was as if icy chains bound my heart…

And below, along the bank of the Kura, a rider was galloping. He was clearly in a hurry to Gori and mercilessly spurred his horse.

Now he’s close… close… I recognized Grandfather Magomet…

A little more — and the rider disappeared behind the mountain. Below, a gate clanged shut… Someone ran up the stairs with youthful speed, and at the same moment, Hadji-Magomet entered the rooftop.

It is difficult to convey the cry of despair and helpless, almost inhuman grief that burst from the unfortunate father’s chest at the sight of his daughter’s body.

Grandfather Magomet’s cry was terrible… it seemed to shake not only the roof of our house but all of Gori, and echoed wildly in the mountains, across the Kura. Following the first cry, a second and third rang out… Then Grandfather suddenly fell silent and, collapsing to the floor, lay motionless, his strong arms flung wide.

Only then did I understand how infinitely dear my mother was to this semi-savage son of the mountain auls…

She probably never suspected the strength of this silent paternal affection, she probably never understood her stern, fanatical father!

If she could have felt it on her deathbed, what happiness would have lit up her beautiful face!

But — alas! — she could no longer understand or feel. Before us lay a corpse, just beginning to cool, the corpse of one who had so recently sung her wonderful songs, full of eastern sadness, and laughed with a quiet, sorrowful laugh. Only a corpse…

She died — my beautiful deda! The black rose found its homeland… Her soul returned to the mountains…

Chapter 2. Grandmother. Father. The Last Offspring of a Glorious Line

 

Deda was gone… Another grave was added to the Gori cemetery… Beneath a cypress cross, at the roots of a giant plane tree, my deda slept! Silence fell upon the house, ominous and eerie. Father locked himself in his room and did not come out. Grandfather rode off into the mountains… I wandered through the shady alleys of our garden, breathing in the scent of crimson velvety roses, and thought of my mother, who had flown to heaven… Mikhako tried to amuse me… He brought a young eagle with a broken wing from somewhere and constantly drew my attention to it:

“Princess, mother, look, it’s chirping!”

The eaglet, indeed, chirped, languishing in captivity, and its cries further inflamed my heart. “He, too, has no mother,” I thought, “and he is like me!”

And I became unbearably sad.

“Mikhako, darling, take the eaglet to the mountains, maybe he’ll find his deda,” I pleaded with the old Cossack, while my heart ached with longing and pity.

Finally, Father came out of his room. He was pale and thin, so thin that his long military beshmet hung on him like on a hanger.

Seeing me wandering with a sad face along the plane tree alley, he called me to him, pressed me to his chest, and whispered softly, softly:

“Nina, chemi patara sakvarelo” (My beloved little one)!

His voice was full of tears, like that of my deceased deda when she sang her sad mountain songs.

“Sakvarelo,” Father whispered once more and covered my face with kisses. In difficult moments, he always spoke Georgian, although he had spent his entire life among Russians.

“Papa, dearest, priceless Papa!” I replied and, for the first time since Mama’s passing, I cried bitterly and heavily.

Father lifted me into his arms and, pressing me to his heart, spoke such tender, such gentle words as only the wonderful, nature-spoiled East can bestow!

And all around us, the plane trees rustled, and a nightingale began its song in the chestnut grove beyond the Gori cemetery.

I nestled against Father, and my heart no longer ached with longing for my deceased mother — it was filled with a quiet sadness… I cried, but no longer with sharp and painful tears, but with a kind of wistful and sweet ones, easing my aching childish soul…

Then Father called Mikhako and ordered him to saddle his Shaly. I was afraid to believe my happiness: my cherished dream of going to the mountains with Father was coming true.

It was a wonderful night!

We rode together, pressed closely to each other, in a single saddle on the back of the fastest and most spirited horse in Gori, who understood her master by a single slight movement of the reins…

In the distance, the shaggy mountains appeared as tall blue silhouettes, and below, the sleepy Kura river flowed… From distant gorges, a gray mist rose, as if all of nature was burning a gentle incense to the creeping night.

“Father! How beautiful all this is!” I exclaimed, looking into his eyes.

“Beautiful,” he replied in a quiet, almost unfamiliar voice.

And peering closer into his black, brightly glowing pupils, I noticed two large tears in them. He must have remembered deda.

“Papa,” I whispered softly, as if afraid to break the enchanting spell of the night, “will we often ride like this together?”

“Often, my dove, often, my little one,” he hastened to reply and turned away from me to wipe away the unwelcome tears.

For the first time since Mama’s death, I felt happy again. We rode along a path, between rows of low mountains, in the quiet Kura valley… And along the banks of the river, in the deepening twilight, ruins of castles and towers, bearing the imprint of ancient and formidable times, occasionally appeared.

But there was nothing frightening now about those half-ruined battlements, from which long, long ago, the bronze bodies of fire-breathing cannons had protruded. Looking at them, I listened to Father’s story about the sad times when Georgia groaned under the yoke of Turks and Persians… Something stirred and churned in my chest… I craved exploits — such exploits that would astound the bravest djigits (Djigits – knight-highlanders) of Transcaucasia…

We only returned home at dawn… The rising sun bathed the distant heights in pale crimson, and they bathed in this pink sea of the tenderest hues. From a nearby minaret’s roof, the mullah cried out his morning prayer… Half-asleep, Mikhako lifted me from the saddle and carried me to Barbala — an old Georgian woman who had lived in Father’s house for many years.

I will never forget that night… After it, I grew even more attached to my father, whom I had somewhat kept my distance from until then…

Now, every day, I watched for his return from the stanitsa (Cossack village), where his regiment was stationed. He would dismount Shaly and put me in the saddle… At first at a walk, then faster and faster, the horse moved beneath me, occasionally shaking its mane and turning its head back, as if asking Father, who walked behind us, how it should behave with the tiny rider clinging to its mane.

But what was my joy when one day I received Shaly as my permanent possession! I could hardly believe my happiness… I kissed the horse’s intelligent muzzle, looked into its expressive brown eyes, called it by the most affectionate names, of which my poetic homeland is so generous…

And Shaly seemed to understand me… He bared his teeth, as if smiling, and neighed softly, affectionately.

With this invaluable gift from my father, a new life began for me, full of a peculiar charm.

Every morning I took short rides in the vicinity of Gori, sometimes on mountain paths, sometimes along the low banks of the Kura… Often I rode through the city bazaar, proudly sitting on my horse, in my scarlet satin beshmet, with a white papaha (fur hat) jauntily tilted back, looking more like a little djigit than a princess of a glorious aristocratic family.

And the Armenian merchants, and the pretty Georgian girls, and the little Tatar children — all stared at me open-mouthed, marveling at my fearlessness.

Many of them knew my father.

“Hello, Princess Nina Dzhavakha,” they would nod to me and praise, to my immense pleasure, both horse and rider.

But the mountain paths and green valleys lured me far more than the dusty city streets.

There, I was my own mistress. Letting go of the reins and clinging to the black mane of my black horse, I would occasionally shout: “Ayda, Shaly, ayda!” (Ayda – forward in the language of highlanders)  —  and he would gallop like a whirlwind, heedless of obstacles in his path. He rode at that furious gallop that takes your breath away and makes your heart pound in your chest like a wounded bird.

In such moments, I imagined myself a powerful representative of the Amazons, and it seemed to me that whole hordes of enemies were chasing me.

“Ayda! Ayda!” I urged my spirited horse, and he quickened his pace, scaring the piglets and lambs peacefully wandering the suburban streets.

“Deli-akyz!” (Crazy girl in Tatar) cried the little Tatar children, scattering like a flock of goats at my approach to their aul.

“Shaitan!” (Shaitan – devil in Tatar) the old women muttered, angrily shaking their withered fingers at me and looking at me unfriendly from under their gray eyebrows.

And it pleased me to tease the old women, scare the children, and rush forward and forward along the endless valley between fields strewn with ripe corn, towards the warm mountain breeze and the blue sky, beckoning with its inexpressible charm.

One day, returning from one such outing with a heavy grape vine in my hands, cut by me on the fly during the gallop with a small child’s dagger gifted by my father, I was struck by an unusual sight.

In our yard stood a carriage drawn by a pair of wonderful white horses, and behind it, a covered arba (Local Georgian carriage or cart) with chests, bundles, and suitcases. By the arba walked an old gray-haired highlander with enormous mustaches, helping a woman, also old and wrinkled, to remove bundles and drag them onto the porch of our house.

“Mikhako,” I cried out clearly, “who are these people?”

The gray-haired highlander and the wrinkled old woman looked at me with a barely noticeable, mocking surprise.

Then the woman approached me and, lightly shielding herself from the sun with a chadra (Veil, women’s headwear in the East), said in Georgian:

“Be welcome in your house, little princess.”

“Thank you. Be a guest,” I replied according to Georgian custom and shifted my surprised gaze to the gray-haired highlander, the horses, and the carriage.

Noticing my astonishment, the unfamiliar woman said:

“These horses and this property — all belong to your grandmother, Princess Elena Borisovna Dzhavakha-ogly-Dzhamata, and we are her servants.”

“And where is she, Grandmother?” I blurted out, more surprised than joyful.

“The Princess is there,” and the woman pointed towards the house.

To jump off Shaly, throw the reins to the approaching Mikhako, and storm into the room where my father sat in the company of a tall and majestic old woman with a silver-haired head and an eagle-like gaze, took but a minute.

At my appearance, the tall woman rose from the divan and measured me with a long and penetrating gaze. Then she turned to my father with a question:

“Is this my granddaughter, Princess Nina Dzhavakha?”

“Yes, Mama, this is my Nina,” Father hastened to reply, bestowing upon me that look of admiration and affection that I so cherished.

But, evidently, the old princess did not share his feelings.

In my scarlet, elegant, but not entirely clean beshmet, in blue, also not particularly fresh shalvars (shalvars – baggy trousers), with a white papaha tilted jauntily to the side, with a glowing, tanned face and daringly bold eyes, with black curls disheveled down my back, I indeed little resembled the well-bred young lady Grandmother must have imagined me to be.

“Why, she’s a wild little djigitka you have there, Georgy!” she said, smiling slightly towards my father.

But I saw from his face that he disagreed with Grandmother… A barely noticeable, kind smile touched his lips beneath his black mustache — a smile I adored on him — and he asked quite seriously:

“And is that so bad?”

“Yes, yes, we must attend to her upbringing,” Grandmother said somewhat sadly and reproachfully, “otherwise, she’s just some mountain boy!”

I shivered with delight. The old princess could not have given me a better compliment. I considered highlanders something special. Their bravery, their endurance, and their fearlessness filled me with wild rapture; I strove to imitate them, and secretly resented it when I failed.

Between me and the Princess-Grandmother, it was as if a wall, erected by her not-so-gracious welcome, had crumbled; for this comparison alone, I was ready to love her, and, without realizing my action, I let out my favorite cry “ayda!” and, before she could recover, I was hanging around her neck. I probably did something very unseemly towards my father’s mother, because following my wild “ayda” came Grandmother’s shrill and squeaky voice:

“Vai-vai!” (Purely Georgian exclamation of grief, fright) “What kind of child is this, calm her down, Georgy!”

Father, a little embarrassed but barely suppressing a smile, pulled me away from the old woman’s neck and began to reprimand me for my unrestrained joy.

His eyes, however, laughed, and I saw that my dear, handsome father, instead of scolding me, wanted to shout:

“Nina dzhanym, well done — a highlander. A djigit!” With this exclamation, he always encouraged all my daring escapades.

Meanwhile, Grandmother hastily tidied her gray curls and spoke in an angry voice:

“No, no, this won’t do, Georgy, you’re raising a little imp… What will become of her, God knows! Such an upbringing is unthinkable. She is a princess of an ancient noble lineage, after all!… Our ancestors trace their origins back to Bogdan IV himself! We are of royal blood, Georgy, and you must not forget that. Your father was favored by the Emperor, I had the honor of being presented to the Empress, you received your education among the best Russian and Georgian youths, and only because of your stubbornness have you buried yourself here, in the wilderness, and do not go to the northern capital. Maria Dzhavakha has passed away — may the Lord remember her soul — her origin as a simple djigitka could have harmed you and prevented you from being prominent, but now that she sleeps peacefully under the cross, it is strange and wild not to take advantage of the gifts God has given you. I have come, my son, to remind you of this.”

I looked at the speaker. She had an angry and important face. Then I met my father’s gaze. It had become dark and stern, as I had seen it many times during his anger. The mention of my deceased deda by her enemy (Grandmother refused to see my mother and never visited us during her lifetime) did not touch him, but rather angered him.

“Mama,” he said, and his eyes blazed with anger, “if you have come to speak hostilely of my poor Maria — it would have been better for us not to meet!”

And he tugged hard at the ends of his black mustache, which he only did in moments of great agitation.

“Calm down, Georgy,” the old woman said, agitated, “I will not insult the memory of the late Maria, but I cannot help but say that she could not have been a proper educator for your Nina… A daughter of the aul, a child of the mountains, would she have been able to make Nina a well-bred young lady?”

Father was silent. Grandmother also fell silent, pleased with the impression her last words had made.

At that moment, my gaze accidentally fell through the open door into the next room. There, on the divan, lay a boy of my age, but much smaller than me in stature, and besides, paler and more delicate.

He stretched out thin, slightly crooked legs, from which the old Georgian woman I had seen in the yard was removing elegant high boots… His fragile, unattractive face was lost in a mass of blond hair that fell over a snow-white lace collar, worn over a brown velvet jacket. The old Georgian woman, instead of the removed travel boots, put on his weak legs, clad in black silk stockings, patent leather shoes with buckles, such as I had never seen in Gori.

He entered the hall where we were and stopped by the door, as if he had stepped out of an old painting, like those I had seen in Father’s large album, a small page from a medieval legend.

I managed to observe that despite his lush blond curls, which framed the fragile, oblong oval of his face, he had an unattractive, long, hooked nose and small, narrow, black eyes, like those of a field mouse.

“Who is that?” I asked unceremoniously, pointing a finger at the tiny stranger.

“That is your cousin, Prince Yuliko Dzhavakha-ogly-Dzhamata, the last offspring of a glorious line,” Grandmother said with some pride. “Get acquainted, children, and be friends. You are both orphans, although you, Nina, are luckier than the young prince… He has neither father nor mother… while your father is so kind to you and spoils you so much.”

Grandmother’s last words carried a hint of malice.

“Hello!” I simply walked up to greet my cousin.

He measured me with a curiously stately gaze and hesitantly extended his pale, translucent hand, with its thin blue veins, entirely lost in the lace of his magnificent cuffs. I didn’t know what to do with it. Evidently, my torn beshmet and shalvars stained with horse sweat and dust made an unpleasant impression on him.

Finally, I thought to shake his thin, dry fingers.

Then he asked:

“Are you a girl?” and glanced at my shalvars and papaha, jauntily pushed back, with a bewildered look.

I laughed out loud…

“Grandmother told me,” the little guest continued unperturbed, “that I would find a cousin-princess here, but she didn’t mention a little brother.”

I burst into even louder laughter; his naivete delighted me, and besides, I rejoiced in his unconscious compliment; after all, he had taken me for a boy!

Grandmother and Father also laughed.

“Let’s go to the garden!” I suggested to the little prince, having calmed down, and without waiting for his consent, I took him by the hand.

He obeyed without question and, without withdrawing his aristocratic fingers from my sun-darkened, unusually strong hand, followed me.

I led him for a long time through the shady alleys, showing him the roses I had cultivated, took him to the conservatory behind the house, and treated him to peaches… He looked at everything with indifferent calm eyes, but refused the fruit, saying that he had an upset stomach.

I, who had never been sick and had eaten peaches and melons to my heart’s content, looked at him with pitiful disdain.

A boy with an upset stomach! What could be sadder?

But my contempt increased even more when Yuliko trembled all over at the sight of the eaglet hobbling towards us along the alley.

“My God! Where did this monster come from?” he cried out almost with tears and hid behind my back.

“He doesn’t bite,” I hastened to reassure him, “this is Kazbek, a tame eaglet that fell out of its nest and was brought to me by Papa’s orderly. Don’t be afraid. You can pet him. He won’t peck.”

But Yuliko was clearly afraid and trembled as if with a fever.

Then I picked Kazbek up and held his small head, armed with a huge beak, to my cheek.

“Well, you see, he didn’t touch me, and you can pet him,” I reasoned with my cousin.

“Oh, leave that nasty bird alone!” he suddenly cried shrilly and wrinkled his face, ready to burst into tears.

“Nasty?” I flared up, “Nasty? How dare you insult my Kazbek like that!… You yourself… if you want to know… are a nasty chick…”

I was flushed with indignation and couldn’t find words to sting the foolish coward more painfully.

But he seemed to pay little attention to the unflattering name given to him by his wild cousin. He merely shivered a little and, all ruffled like a real chick, walked beside me on his thin, crooked, long legs.

We ascended the mountain towering behind our garden, on which the picturesque half-ruined remnants of the ancient Gori fortress were scattered.

On the other side, a ledge lower, lay the cemetery, at the very edge of which stood a hundred-year-old cypress, guarding Mama’s grave with its sprawling branches. The grave mound, overgrown with a rose bush, was visible from afar…

“My deda lies there!” I said softly and stretched out my hand in the direction of the cemetery.

“Your mama was a simple mountain girl; she was taken directly from the aul…” my cousin’s arrogant little voice was heard.

“Well, what of it?” I cried defiantly.

“Nothing. But my mama belonged to a wealthy count’s family, which was always close to the throne of the White Tsar,” Yuliko explained with solemn importance.

“Well, what of that?” I repeated even more defiantly.

“That it’s a great happiness to have such a mother who could teach me good manners,” Yuliko continued, “otherwise I would be running around the mountains like a dirty little Chechen (Highlander) and have the same black, Ossetian hands as my cousin.”

His tiny eyes narrowed completely with a mocking smile, while his hands, with meticulously polished pink nails, carelessly pointed to my soiled clothes.

This was too much! The cup overflowed. I flushed and, coming right up to Yuliko, screamed into his ear, trembling all over with anger and indignation:

“Although your mother was a Countess, and my deda was a simple djigitka from the aul of Bestudi, you haven’t become smarter than me because of it, you wretched, lifeless doll!”

And then, barely controlling myself, I grabbed his hand and, shaking that fragile, weak hand with force, continued to shout so loudly that I think all of Gori could hear me:

“And if you ever dare to speak of my deda like that again, I’ll throw you into the Kura from this ledge… or… or let my Kazbek peck you! Do you hear me?!”

I must have been terrifying in that moment, because Yuliko roared like a wild mountain tur of Dagestan.

On this day, marked by the arrival of my grandmother, whom I hadn’t known until then, I was, at her insistence, deprived of sweets for the first time in my life. That same evening, I cried no less than my cousin, who had gossiped about me to Grandmother — I cried not from grief, annoyance, or resentment, but from a secret premonition of losing the freedom I had so wonderfully enjoyed until now.

“Barbalé, oh Barbalé, why did they come?” I sobbed, burying my head in the dirty apron of the always sympathetic old servant.

“Calm down, little princess-goat, calm down, dzhanym-light, no rose blossoms without the Lord’s will,” the kind Georgian woman comforted me, stroking my black braids and wiping my tears with her rough, calloused hands.

“It would have been better if they hadn’t come — neither Grandmother nor this coward!” I continued to complain.

“Quiet, quiet,” she looked around fearfully, “the batono-prince will hear, it will be bad: they will drive away old Barbalé. Quiet, my dearest dzhanym! Let’s go listen to the nightingales instead!”

But I didn’t want to listen to nightingales, and not wanting to get Barbalé — my comforter — into trouble with my tears, I went to the stable, where my loyal Shaly met me with a quiet, affectionate neigh.

“Dear Shaly… my light… star of my eyes,” I switched to my native language, rich with laments, “why did they come? Our red days will end now… They won’t let us gallop, Shaly, and scare the Tatar children and Armenian women. Our red sun has set!”

And I leaned my head against my black horse’s neck and, clinging to his mane, kissed him and cried convulsively, as only an eleven-year-old semi-wild girl can cry.

And Shaly, it seemed, understood his mistress’s grief. He wagged his tail, shook his mane, and looked at me with kind, beautiful eyes…

Chapter 3. Two Heroes. Abrek. My Fantasy

 

Grandmother and Yuliko had arrived for a long stay, seemingly forever. Grandmother settled upstairs, in Mama’s rooms. These rooms, so dear to me, which I had entered since Deda’s death only with a feeling of sweet melancholy, now suddenly became hateful to me. Every morning, Yuliko and I went there to wish Grandmother good morning. She kissed us on the forehead — her favorite grandson, however, much more tenderly and lingeringly than me — and then dismissed us to play.

A Russian teacher came from Gori to give us lessons — to me and Yuliko. My cousin proved to be much smarter than me. But I didn’t envy him; now it was all indifferent to me. My freedom, my wonderful days were over, and I was indifferent to everything else.

Five servants arrived with Grandmother. The gray-haired highlander, I learned, was a nuker (Nuker – servant) of my late grandfather and had been with him on many campaigns. This nuker, originally from Kabardia, who served as something between a butler and a clerk in Grandmother’s house, immediately earned my favor. Between him and Papa’s Mikhako, a kind of perpetual feud arose concerning religious beliefs, bravery, and the endurance of Georgians versus highlanders — in short, they argued about everything one could argue about, fortunately, there was no shortage of subjects for debate.

Mikhako knew that the old nuker was originally from the murids (Fanatical highlanders who surrounded Shamil) — warriors of the formidable Shamil, but, captivated by my grandfather’s lion-like bravery and the exemplary discipline of Russian soldiers, he had left his own people and, before Shamil’s very eyes, surrendered to the Russians.

True, he did not fight against his own, but he accompanied my grandfather in all his campaigns and was more than once commended by the commander-in-chief himself, Prince Baryatinsky.

I loved the stories of old Brahim to distraction, and for that purpose, I often prompted Mikhako to egg on the nuker. He didn’t need much persuasion to amuse “Princess-Dzhanym,” his favorite.

“Well, batono,” Mikhako would begin, winking slyly at me, “it’s said, wasn’t your Shamil a great braggart?”

“No, aga (Aga – master in highlander language) (they addressed each other no other way during their most heated arguments), don’t say that: Shamil was a great leader, and there was no other leader like him among the murids.”

“But what about him? He himself incited his people, stirred them up with Islam, and when he was caught, he came willingly to our leader. He didn’t throw himself into a chasm when he was captured, did he? No, he brought his wives and sons and grandsons and handed them over to Russian mercy.”

“Don’t speak, aga, of what you don’t know,” Brahim sternly interrupted. “Our people fought long… besieged long… It was an impregnable nest… The leader of the murids entrenched himself on the very peak of the mountains… In that struggle, my eagle-prince was killed… But we kept going, kept climbing… At that time, two angels fought in the heavens before Allah, white and black… The white one won… and cast the black one into the abyss… The mountains trembled, and with them, the nest of the great Shamil. And the proud old man understood Allah’s will and opened the gates of the fortress and led out his wives and children… I was nearby, behind the white leader’s rock. I saw the white leader accept Shamil’s saber from his hands… a curved, long one, which had cut down many uruses in its time.”

“That’s just it, it’s bad that he gave up his saber, batono, he’d have been better off with that saber himself,” and Mikhako coolly demonstrated with his hand an imaginary saber movement around his neck.

Brahim shook his shaven head disapprovingly. He secretly disapproved of Shamil’s action but did not want to betray his former leader to the judgment of a urus-Georgian.

“Tell me, batono,” Mikhako would begin again, giving the old nuker a chance to cool off from his martial fervor, “who do you think will go to paradise sooner: ours or yours?”

“Allah does not divide people into tribes… He only has bright and dark spirits.”

“And do warriors, murid or urus, inherit the land of Magomet?”

“All brave ones, without distinction of tribes or classes: both uzdeni (noblemen) and beks (Princes), and leaders, and simple djigits, all are equally dear to Magomet,” the old man replied imperturbably, his youthful, quick eyes gleaming from under his gray brows.

I passionately loved such conversations, especially when Brahim grew animated and revealed to me wondrous and terrible scenes of battle there, in the distant mountain ravines, amidst precipices and cliffs, under the wild roar of mountain streams, mixed with deafening cannon fire and the groans of the wounded.

I saw, as if in a fog, terrible steep slopes, strewn, like flies, with our soldiers climbing to the assault… They are met with a hail of bullets, saber blades, cries of “Allah!”, “Allah!”. And now the nest is destroyed. The formidable leader becomes a humble prisoner and tearfully begs for freedom. And the white and dark leaders look into each other’s eyes for a long time… This gaze is terrible and impenetrable… Thousands of Russians and as many highlanders await a decision. And something stirred in the heart of the Russian hero at the sight of the captured Caucasian eagle. Mercy is promised to him by the prince’s lips — the mercy of the White Tsar is promised.

This is good! Wondrously good! And never will one who has seen it forget this picture. And he saw it — lucky Brahim! Oh, how I envied him!

Besides Brahim, an old maid, who had greeted me in the garden on the first day of their arrival, also came with Grandmother. Her name was Anna. With her was her grandson Andro, Yuliko’s small, simple-minded valet, then a girl named Rodam, taken to assist Anna, and also a young coachman and rider, the quick-eyed highlander Abrek.

I saw little of Father during this time. He had intensified shooting exercises at his regiment, and he spent whole days there.

Before, I used to wait for him beyond the garden at the descent and by the banks of the Kura, but Grandmother deemed my solitary walks unseemly for a distinguished princess, and they gradually ceased. With Shaly, to my great joy, I did not have to part. True, Abrek or the perpetually thoughtful, blissful Andro now constantly rode with me, but they didn’t bother me. After all, even before, I wasn’t allowed on longer rides without Mikhako. But Mikhako couldn’t stand such trips because he was sufficiently tired from his household duties and had no particular inclination for jostling in the saddle.

Abrek, however, knew how to ride and loved it. He showed me places in the vicinity of Gori whose existence I had not the slightest idea of.

“How do you know all this, Abrek?” I wondered: “You haven’t been to Alazani or Kakheti, have you?”

“Iok” (No – in highlander language), he laughed in response, flashing his white, sugar-like, strong teeth, “iok! I haven’t.”

“Then how do you know?” I persisted.

“Abrek knows everything. From sea to sea, he knows everything.” And he clicked his tongue and smiled even wider, which gave his face a predatory and cunning expression.

There was something deceptive about him. But I loved him for his desperate bravery, for the way he would rush everywhere like a bird on his swift-footed horse, sometimes outdoing my Shaly in agility and speed.

This Abrek was incredibly fearless and bold.

He playfully taught me djigitovka (skillful horsemanship), secretly from Grandmother, and when I, at full gallop, picked up a Dagestani dagger stuck in the ground, he would nod approvingly and, clicking his tongue, shout to me:

“Good! Well done! You’ll be a djigit!”

I cherished these praises and was proud of them.

Abrek, in my perception, was a true type of fine young djigit.

With him, I learned all the secrets of riding and djigitovka, and soon I was no less agile than my teacher.

“Abrek!” I would cry in delight at some new clever trick, “where did you learn all this?”

He just laughed in response.

“A highlander must be agile and brave, otherwise he’ll be an Ossetian woman (Ossetians – a tribe despised among highlanders), or…” and then he would wink meaningfully in the direction of our house, “…or Prince Yuliko.”

If Grandmother had heard his words, she probably wouldn’t have kept him under her roof for another day.

With Yuliko, I had developed the most hostile relationship. I could not stand his arrogant demeanor, his femininely ornate costumes, or his “girlishly” styled curly head.

“Oh, he’ll never be a djigit!” I secretly gloated, encountering him on a walk in the garden, where he primly walked along the well-trodden paths, afraid to soil his dandy shoes, and added aloud, laughing straight into his face:

“Prince Yuliko! And where are your nannies?” He would get angry and run to complain to Grandmother. I would be punished by being deprived of pastries, but this didn’t upset me in the least, and the next day I would invent new ways to provoke my cousin.

“What’s wrong with you, Nina?” Father asked me seriously and sternly one day, finding Yuliko and me in the midst of a heated argument, “What’s wrong with you, I don’t recognize you! You are forgetting the customs of your homeland and insulting a guest in your house! It’s not good, Nina! What would your Mama say if she saw you like this?”

“Oh, Papa!” I could only utter, choking on the dry sobs that tore at my chest, and I ran away at full speed so as not to let Yuliko triumph.

Oh, how I hated him! All my childish soul, it seemed, gathered from all its hidden corners every malicious feeling of anger, offense, and contempt to pour them upon the head of the unfortunate young prince.

“Barbalé, I can’t, I can’t anymore,” I gasped, telling my confidante, “I’ll run away from here, Barbalé.”

“What are you saying? Christ and Saint Nina, your patroness, be over you!” the old woman whispered, crossing me with her calloused hand.

“But do you understand that they have brought grief, discord, and malice here! They made me like this! Am I even like the old Princess Nina?”

“Ah, Princess-Dzhanym, everyone has their own sorrow!” Barbalé sighed heavily.

I understood her silent longing.

The fact was that since Grandmother arrived with her staff, all the household duties and chores that had fallen to Barbalé now passed to Anna, the Princess’s maid. Now it was not Barbalé, but Anna or the pretty Rodam who bustled through the rooms, keys jingling, preparing the table for lunches and breakfasts or pouring sweet, light Georgian wine into pitchers. I saw how even Barbalé had grown haggard and no longer left the stove, as if afraid of losing her last household duties.

“Poor Barbalé! Poor old woman!” I would say tenderly, stroking her tanned cheeks with love.

“Poor Princess, poor Dzhanym! Poor orphan!” she echoed me, and we embraced tightly and warmly, like family.

One day, Grandmother, all-seeing and omnipresent, overheard our complaints and sent Rodam for me.

“Please, Princess, the Princess requests,” she announced to me with a sly smile.

I didn’t like Rodam for her excessive attachment to my enemy Yuliko, whom she, competing with Andro, coddled like a crowned prince. I shrugged my shoulders (a habit I had picked up from Father) and slowly began to ascend to Grandmother’s rooms.

She met me, red as a peony, having forgotten in her agitation all the grandeur befitting a princess descended from Bogdan IV himself, and, measuring me with a hostile gaze, shrieked piercingly:

“So that’s it, granddaughter! You run to complain about me to scullery maids and cooks… about me — your grandmother, who wishes you only good and benefit! How have I displeased you, allow me to ask, how? Is it because I put all my efforts into making a somewhat decent young lady out of a nasty, unrestrained boy?… Yuliko told me that you continue to tease him, you hateful girl! I warn you, if this continues, I will take your horse away and have it harnessed to a phaeton for Yuliko, and you will stay at home until autumn, when I take you to the institute!”

Grandmother’s words struck me like thunder… It seemed as if the ground was giving way beneath my feet!

The institute… the possibility of losing Shaly and, finally, the complaints, the endless complaints of that obnoxious Yuliko…

“No… no… I will never part with Shaly and I will not go to the institute… They won’t really take me there tied up, will they! And I hate Yuliko and will never stop tormenting him…”

So I reasoned, and in my head, plans ripened, each more intricate than the last, on how to annoy the hateful boy.

I left the room, staggering.

My malice towards Yuliko grew stronger and stronger…

Pictures, each more absurd than the last, but full of fire and colors, which only the fervent imagination of a young southern girl is capable of, began to vividly appear before me. It seemed to me that I was a powerful queen, waging an irreconcilable war with my relative, also a king, Yuliko. We fight long, we fight to the death… My warriors perform miracles of bravery… The enemies are defeated… Their king is my prisoner… He stands before me, splattered with blood, his hands tied behind his back, scared to death of what awaits him. And death awaits him. My warriors demand it…

“Prince Yuliko… that is, King (I correct myself mentally), do you know what will happen to you?”

He pales, his legs tremble and buckle… He is on his knees before me, humbly begging for mercy.

“You must die, your Majesty,” I say (at such a moment I cannot call him otherwise, and besides, in my imagination, he was brave and fought like a lion).

He raises a pale and beautiful face to me… (Certainly beautiful… Yuliko, the king of my fantasy, cannot possess the long nose and mouse-like eyes of the real Yuliko.) I read mortal terror in his face.

Then I summon my warriors with the sound of a silver horn, precisely the kind that only heroes and leaders possess, and tell them:

“I, your queen, ask you for mercy for this royal captive… I give you all my treasures for his life! You must, contrary to the custom of our ancestors, spare him!”

And the leaders and warriors, struck by my magnanimity, lift me high on a shield, as was done among ancient peoples, and the young captive king bows at my feet, kissing my garments.

“That’s how I avenged myself on you, Yuliko!” I shout to him and, forgetting reality, run like mad along the plane tree alley.

My cheeks burn… My disheveled braids lash against my back… I bump into Abrek, who is saddling Shaly…

“Faster, faster, let’s go, Abrek!” I cry in ecstasy.

But suddenly my gaze catches the hateful little figure, sheltered in the shadow of a chestnut tree, and I hurl a new insult at Yuliko — not the king of an imaginary tale, but the real Yuliko with the long nose and mouse-like eyes:

“Listen, Prince-girl, if you ever dare to gossip about me to Grandmother again, I’ll trample you under the hooves of my Shaly! Do you hear me?”

And I am carried away like a whirlwind into the mountains…

Chapter 4. Bella. Unexpected Joy

 

“Nina! Princess-Dzhanym! My heart!”

“Bella-my-joy!”

“Golden Nina!”

“Bella! Bellushka! My precious one!”

This whole flood of tender names poured out at once with passionate kisses and warm embraces at the gate of our garden, where two purebred mountain horses stood with two djigits in festive attire. In one, I recognized Grandfather Magomet; the other, young and quick-eyed, turned out to be my pretty aunt, the sister of my late deda, Bella, daughter of Hadji-Magomet-Brek. Although my aunt was about 6 or 7 years older than me, we were bosom friends. Bella rarely visited Gori, and so her enormous black eyes shone with eager curiosity.

“My golden Dzhanym, my pretty, emerald, ruby…” she cooed in her melodious voice, laughing and kissing me, and her bracelets jingled under her blue, gold-embroidered beshmet.

“And we rode… long… rode… all through the mountains… mountains… only stopped at dukans (Dukan – tavern, inn)… and spent the nights in auls…” she recounted, constantly peppering her speech with cheerful, childlike carefree laughter.

“How are you without a chadra (Custom of Tatar women to hide their face with a chadra), Bella?” I wondered, knowing that Grandfather Magomet strictly adhered to the customs of the highlanders.

“Shhh!” she slyly wagged a finger and glanced at Father, who was amicably embracing Papa, who had just arrived. “The chadra is under my beshmet… Here are uruses (Russians), and your women don’t hide under chadras… I am visiting uruses.”

“Well done, Bella! What a wild little goat,” my father laughed and led the dear guests to the house.

“And we have news,” I whispered to my friend. “A strange grandmother has arrived… so important and angry… And with her, a cousin… so curly… you’ll see, and as vicious as a hungry wolf cub.”

“Hungry wolf cub!” Bella picked up and burst into loud, rolling laughter.

On the porch, Grandmother, with her constant Yuliko, met the unexpected guests.

“Greetings, Hadji-Magomet, welcome,” she greeted my grandfather, her old enemy, as amiably as she could.

“Greetings, Princess,” the old man replied sternly, without a smile, not liking her for her extreme haughtiness.

“Greetings, madam!” Bella’s clear voice rang out, and her laughing face, full of peculiar charm, appeared before the old woman.

“Is this pretty girl your daughter, Aga-Magomet?” Grandmother addressed the guest.

He nodded silently.

“You must be happy, Aga, to have such a beautiful daughter!…” Grandmother continued, wishing to complete her courtesy.

“May Allah bless you, madam, for your kindness,” the old man said sternly and fixed a tender and sad gaze on his daughter.

“He must have remembered deda,” I thought, and I wasn’t mistaken.

“I had another daughter, just as beautiful and kind, but by the will of Allah, she is in paradise…” he said softly.

Everyone became sad… Everyone remembered my sweet, unforgettable, beautiful mother.

“And this is my grandson, Prince Yuliko,” Grandmother said with a hint of hidden pride, pushing her favorite forward.

And suddenly, my young aunt’s cheerful face wrinkled with eagerness, and the ringing golden coins and necklaces on her chest trembled and bounced.

She unceremoniously touched my cousin’s velvet suit, his turned-down collar, his long, girlish curls, and roared with laughter.

“Girl’s braids… boy’s shalvars… what a djigit!” she cried, unashamed, between wild fits of laughter.

Father and I couldn’t help but smile, looking at this cheerful and lively wild girl.

“Stop, Bella!” Grandfather strictly reprimanded, seeing that the old princess was beginning to blush with annoyance and the cause of this laughter himself didn’t know where to hide from embarrassment.

The laughter ceased, but Bella could not calm down for a long time. Much later, with increasing laughter, she told me:

“I thought he was a doll… but he’s alive, real… He’ll be a djigit.”

And both of us, aunt and niece, full of fun and zest for life, were dying of laughter.

“Do you know why I came? Dzhanushka, my light!” she told me, pulling me to our favorite spot — under the branches of a thick-leaved plane tree, and quickly continued, without waiting for my answer: “For Bella is not just Bella, Bella is lucky… born under a good star… Bella is marrying an uzden… a rich one… there will be much of everything… there will be a herd of horses… and a flock… and gold… everything!”

“Bellushka!” I exclaimed in horror, “You’re getting married! But you’re so small!”

“Small!…” she laughed an irrepressible laugh. “So what? I am many years old… Another spring… and another spring… and another… three springs and another… and Bella will be an old woman… and no one will marry Bella… not even the oldest shepherd…”

“But how, Bellushka, about me?” I almost cried out.

“Ooh, foolish Dzhanushka! You will be my friend, my closest one… You will be a sister… You will dance lezginka at my wedding. Ooh, my beauty, gazelle-eyed one! My darling!”

And she kissed me again, tightly, and admired me with the liveliness and fervor of her Asian nature.

It seemed terribly strange to me that little Bella, a seventeen-year-old girl, the companion of my childhood games, a tomboy and a cheerful mischief-maker, was getting married. I was afraid of losing my lively, black-eyed friend, but the desire to attend her wedding, to dance the dashing lezginka, which I performed perfectly, and most importantly — the opportunity to go to the mountains for a few days, where I had not been once since Deda’s death and where I had last been seen as a small six-year-old child — that was what delighted me! And, without realizing whether Bella would be happy or not, seized by the thought of the pleasures awaiting me, I jumped and twirled, clapping my hands, around my pretty friend.

“Ay, Bella, you’ll be a princess… a real princess! Your Excellency…”

And we embraced and laughed again, driving Grandmother to indignation with our wild displays of delight.

“And when do we leave?” I pressed Father at dinner, exchanging sly glances with Bella sitting opposite me.

“Tomorrow I will let you and Yuliko go… Grandfather Magomet,” Father turned to his father-in-law, “will you take the little prince with you?”

“In old Magomet’s house, guests are welcome!” my grandfather replied kindly. “And will the princess disdain my hospitality?”

But Grandmother graciously declined the offer.

“I am too old for such trips now,” she said, “but Yuliko can go,” she added benevolently. “Only I will not let him go without old Anna. And you, Georgy, won’t you go to the mountains?..” she turned to Father.

But Father had constant duties. The troops were moving to camp, and he could not be away from his regiment for long.

“I will send you my gift, Bella,” Father said kindly to his sister-in-law, who had clouded over for a moment.

They were great friends, and the young highlander woman very much wanted to see him at her wedding.

The reminder of the gift, however, quickly chased away the sadness from her sweet face, and she was already laughing loudly and, clapping her hands, recounting how noble and rich an uzden’s wife she would be.

“Barbalé, we’re leaving at dawn… Farewell!” I cried, throwing open the door to Barbalé’s small room with a bang, “Everyone is leaving, Deda, Bella, Anna, me, and Yuliko.”

“Anna? Is she leaving too?” my old woman perked up.

“Anna too! Anna too! You can serve your prince alone, bake lobio (Favorite Georgian dish) and pickle peaches. Anna is leaving, rejoice, my Barbalé!”

And having announced such joyful news to my beloved servant, I was already rushing further, following Bella’s footsteps, shouting at the top of my lungs: “Tomorrow at dawn we’re leaving!”

“Mikhako, darling, please keep a good eye on Shaly,” I pleaded with our orderly. “Please, Mikhako.”

“Rest assured, Princess,” he reassured me, stroking the glossy back of my black horse.

“I’m leaving tomorrow with deda,” I told Rodam, who was carefully smoothing Yuliko’s lace collars. “Farewell, Rodam, I’m leaving for a long time.”

It can’t be said that the girl received this news with particular sadness.

That same evening, as I was going to bed, I turned into Father’s study. He was lying on the divan with his usual pipe in his teeth.

“Papa!” I said softly, “Tomorrow we are leaving. Forgive me, Papa, for my clashes with Yuliko, but I hate him so much!”

“Why, Nina?” Father asked.

“Oh, I don’t know, really…” I replied. “It seems, for everything, for his importance, for his arrogance, for his cowardice… well, in short, for everything, for everything.”

“And you think that pleases me, child?” And in my father’s voice, I heard notes of sadness, unfamiliar to my ear.

“Papa,” I burst out passionately, “I know, I’m a bad, wicked girl, but why did they come! Without them, it was so good!”

“Quiet! What are you saying, silly girl!” and Father put his hand over my mouth, which I covered with hot, fervent kisses.

“Well, what am I to do with you, my wild, unconquerable little head?” Father smiled somewhat sadly and added softly: “When you’re visiting, at least behave yourself. I’ll ask Grandfather when you return.”

“Oh, yes!” I blurted out convincedly, “I promise you, Father!” And kissing him once more, I flew out of the room like a bird.

That evening, Bella and I listened to the nightingale for a long time. Then, embracing, we went to the room where we slept together that night on a wide divan.

The young Tatar girl slipped off her red morocco leather slippers and prayed for a long time, facing east. Her face was serious and solemn, bearing little resemblance to the face of the Bella who had chased me through the garden alleys with shouts and squeals.

“Glory to Allah and Muhammad — His Prophet!” a prayerful whisper occasionally escaped her chest.

Looking at my friend, I also stood up to pray.

“Lord,” I repeated with longing, “help me, Lord, to offend Yuliko less and to please Papa more!”

Chapter 5. On the Road. The Aul Bestudi. Bella’s Wedding

 

We set off at dawn… Long before sunrise, a post-chaise stood at the gate, where Rodam, Abrek, and Andro were loading all sorts of bundles and packages with belongings and provisions. Grandmother was giving Yuliko instructions on the porch:

“Remember, my dear, a true prince must carry himself with dignity,” she said. “Behave in this foreign aul as befits your noble origin.”

And she crossed him several times and kissed him with maternal tenderness.

“Goodbye, Grandmother,” I approached her.

“Goodbye,” she nodded dryly at me and extended her hand for a kiss. “Don’t offend Yuliko… Behave properly…”

“I’ve already promised that to my father!” I declared with no little pride, and, clinging to Papa’s neck once more, I whispered to him, while he kissed my “little stars,” as he called my eyes in moments of special tenderness: “Do you hear? I promised it to you and I will try to keep my promise.”

Bella put her foot in the stirrup and looked at Grandfather Magomet, ready to obey his slightest glance. She and Deda absolutely refused to get into the carriage and decided to accompany us the whole way on horseback. Anna and Yuliko sat with me in the carriage. Abrek sat on the box with the Tatar coachman. Yuliko, as always elegant and pampered, half-reclined on the colorful cushions taken from home. He wanted to sleep and kept squinting at the crimson disk of the sun appearing from behind the mountains.

“Well, God keep you!” Father blessed the carriage with a wide sign of the cross, seeing me off with a long, loving gaze…

The horses started…

Mountains and rocks, pastures and fields planted with corn, flashed past us. We drove along the Kura valley and admired its smooth current. Occasionally, we came across ruins of fortresses and castles.

Towards evening, we stopped to change horses and rest at a dukan before entering the mountains. The dukan stood at the foot of the mountain, almost entirely hidden under the overhang of a giant rock… The owner of the dukan, an old Armenian, received us as important travelers and hospitably opened the doors of the dukan to us. We were given the best room with a huge bukhar (Fireplace), where an aromatic piece of lamb was roasting on coals. Delicious shashlik (Eastern lamb dish), salty kveli (Local cheese), light Georgian wine, eaten with lavash (Flatbreads, replacing bread) — everything was instantly devoured by our hungry stomachs.

“We will spend the night in the mountains,” Grandfather Magomet declared, which filled me with indescribable delight.

“Are there no bandits there?” the young prince, who had been dozing by the fireplace, asked anxiously.

“Dushmany (Mountain bandits) are everywhere… The mountains are teeming with dushmany,” Bella exclaimed with a laugh, but, noticing Yuliko’s bewildered expression, she immediately cut herself short.

As for me, remembering the promise I had given Father, I tried not to tease the timid boy in any way.

On fresh mountain horses, we briskly rode into the mountains. I was only surprised by the endurance of Deda’s and Bella’s horses, which tirelessly trotted along with their quick pace. I wanted to sleep, but the scene of the mountain night was so alluringly beautiful that I gazed at it without interruption, forgetting about sleep. The pale disk of the moon bathed the mountains in a shimmering, pale golden light. Below, streams rushed, roaring and agitated, as if hurrying to a grand celebration… Along the edges of the road, chasms yawned, terrifying and impenetrable… Often, in the night’s silence, a stone would break off a ledge and fall with a deafening groan into the greedy embrace of the abyss… Yuliko would flinch with fear and nervously open his glued-shut eyes… He was startled by the noise of the mountain streams and constantly cried out when small landslides occurred, grabbing either me or Anna by the arm.

Meanwhile, we ascended higher and higher into the mountains, now along the course of the swift Aragvi. Having passed it, we began to delve into the land of the highlanders.

I fell asleep, lulled by the peaceful jingle of our bells, feeling for the first time free from Grandmother’s moralizing and constant reprimands…

I woke up during a stop at a new dukan. Bella was sleeping next to me. Not at all tired from the night spent in the saddle, she sat in the carriage at Deda’s insistence. Prince Yuliko had nestled his blond head against old Anna’s shoulder and was also sleeping.

And the sun had already risen high and gilded the mountain slopes, covered with greenery and forest…

We were now driving along a narrow path on the very edge of the Gorge. I looked down, leaning over the edge of the carriage, and immediately shut my eyes, frightened by the gaping maw of the black abyss.

“Deda!” I called out softly to the old man, who was riding behind us and leading Bella’s horse on a leash, “Is Bestudi soon?”

He chuckled softly in response:

“You want it soon, there’s no hurry — we’ll make it!”

“Take me on the saddle, Deda!” I asked, and the old man, who loved me perhaps no less than his Bella, extended his strong arms and, swinging me over the carriage body, lowered me onto Bella’s horse’s saddle.

“Be careful, Dzhanym, surrender to the will of the horse and sit still,” he said, casting a meaningful glance at the abyss.

“I’m not afraid!” I exclaimed, not without hidden pride.

And indeed, I no longer felt fear.

I rode all day along the edge of the mountain precipice, as if grown into my horse’s saddle… Sometimes I spurred him with a slight movement of my heel and was terribly glad when Grandfather Magomet looked back and embraced my small figure with an encouraging and at the same time admiring gaze.

Suddenly, I noticed a mountain goat, which ran to the very edge of the abyss.

“Oh,” I just managed to shout, “look!”

But the goat rolled its round eyes and, seeing the approaching group of people, disappeared behind a ledge.

We encountered entire herds of chamois, lovely and graceful, with intelligent eyes and flexible limbs. They scattered at our approach, timid and wild, with branched antlers.

After spending another night under the roof of a mountain dukan, we finally approached the aul Bedzhit by evening.

I was the first to notice its white sakli (Highlander dwellings) and joyfully cried out a greeting, caught by the mountain echo and awakening the still sleepy Yuliko.

A little further — and having passed Bedzhit with its large and rich sakli and high mosque (Muslim temple), we drove into a wooded valley and began to climb again to the aul Bestudi, clinging with its sakli to the mountain slopes.

Here are the half-ruined battlements of the fortress, here is the crooked street leading to Grandfather’s house… Along it, twelve years ago, a Russian warrior and prince, under the cover of night, carried away an invaluable prize — a beautiful highlander woman.

I recognized this aul at first glance, despite being a very small girl when I was last here.

We were met by the old naib (Village elder), all adorned with silver, with expensive weapons at his belt. The naib greeted Grandfather on his safe return.

“My granddaughter — Princess Dzhavakha-ogly-Jamata,” he introduced me to the naib.

“I greet the daughter of the Russian bek (Prince) in my aul,” the old man said majestically and solemnly.

“This is my groom’s father,” Bella managed to whisper to me. “He is also a bek, the naib of our aul. He is an important aga… And I will be his son’s wife,” she said not without pride.

“And you’ll be important too then!” I laughed.

“Silly Dzhanushka!” Bella burst into laughter. “And here’s our saklya (Highlander dwelling). Remember?”

The carriage stopped at Grandfather’s large saklya, nestled on the very edge of the aul, under a natural rock overhang, as if nature itself had taken care to protect its flat roof from mountain rains.

“This is my kingdom!” and with these words, Bella led us under her roof.

In the first room, carpeted and with weapons hanging on the walls, there were low divans and cushions on the carpets. This room was called the “kunatskaya” (guest room). Here, Deda received guests; here, the Lezgins from his own and other auls feasted.

Bella’s small, cozy room, with access to the roof, was also entirely carpeted. Yuliko examined the entire interior of the saklya with curious eyes. He even perked up for a moment from his drowsiness and, stepping onto the roof, which hung over the abyss and was protected by a mountain rock, said:

“It’s just like a fairy tale here! I envy you, Bella!”

She, of course, didn’t understand what he was envying, but she laughed as usual with her infectious laugh.

Meanwhile, little highlanders, boys and girls, ran from all over the aul to Hadji-Magomet’s saklya. They looked at us with the undisguised curiosity of mountain animals, touched our clothes, and, unceremoniously pointing at us, kept repeating in their dialect:

“Not good… Funny…”

Our modest clothes, in their opinion, without silver ornaments and galloons, seemed strange to them. Even Yuliko’s velvet jacket made no impression on them compared to their colorful satin beshmets.

“Stupid little savages!” Yuliko said, offended, when Bella translated the naive babbling of the young Tatar population for us. And they, with their black gazelle eyes wide open, babbled something lively and quickly, wondering why this funny, pale boy was angry.

In the evening, I fell asleep outdoors, on the flat roof, where pretty Bella was drying grapes and melons…

The mountains were already plunged into the darkness of night, the mullah had already cried out his evening prayer from the roof of the minaret (Tower on a mosque), when someone jumped onto my low bed, almost level with the floor, with the agility of a mountain gazelle.

“Sleeping, joy?” I heard my mischievous aunt whisper.

“Not yet! What is it?”

“Do you want me to show you my groom, the young prince? He’s with father in the kunatskaya… Follow me.”

And, without waiting for my answer, Bella, agile and swift as a cat, began to descend the steep stairs. A minute later, we were already pressed against the kunatskaya window… There were many people there, mostly gray-haired, important Lezgins. The old bek — the naib of the aul — who had met us on arrival, was also there. Among all these old, wise, gray-haired men, a slender and delicate, very young, almost childlike, djigit stood out brightly.

“This is my Izrail!” Bella whispered to me.

“He’s a handsome boy!” I noted with conviction. “Why are they gathered, Bella?”

“Shhh! Quieter, silly… If they hear us — there’ll be trouble. Today, one with his father are bringing my father the kalym (Ransom. By highlander custom, the groom gives money for the bride)… Today is the kalym, in three days, the wedding… They sold Bella… ‘Farewell, freedom!’ Bella will say…” she concluded sadly.

“But don’t you want to marry Izrail?” I asked, interested.

“It’s scary, Dzhanym: Izrail has a mother, he has a sister… and another sister… many sisters… You have to please all of them… It’s scary… Ah, but what does it matter,” she unexpectedly added and suddenly burst into rolling laughter, “there will be a wedding, a new beshmet, they will roast a ram, there will be shooting, djigitovka… Splendid! And all for Bella!… Well, let’s go, let’s run, or they’ll notice!” — and we, with whoops and laughter, pulled away from the window and rushed back to our room, waking the grumbling Anna and Yuliko on the way.

Three days later was the wedding…

She sat in the saklya on her side from the morning, where an old Lezgin woman, her distant relative, was arranging and braiding her hair into hundreds of thin braids. Many Lezgin girls had gathered there — to gaze at the bride. There was the slender and timid, like a chamois, Yeme, and Zara with an unkind Oriental face, envious of Bella’s fate, and rosy Salemo with cat-like movements, and many others.

But Bella, who had inexplicably stopped laughing, clung to me, disregarding the company of her friends.

“Nina, my light, my ruby…” she whispered at times, and quickly, quickly and often kissed my eyes, forehead, and cheeks.

She was agitated… In a white, silver-embroidered beshmet, with a pearl cap, a long, masterfully woven chadra, and a mass of necklaces and bracelets that constantly jingled on her firm, slender, dark neck, Bella looked like a beauty.

I couldn’t help but tell her so.

“Ooh, silly girl,” I heard her silvery laugh again, “what’s there to say, you’re a darling yourself! Ooh, gazelle eyes, rosebud lips, pearl teeth!” she praised me with truly oriental compliments.

Then she suddenly stopped laughing and whispered softly: “It’s time.”

Yeme handed her a tambourine… She stood up, her eyes bright and mournful at the same time, and then, suddenly springing from her place and striking the tambourine, she rushed across the carpet in a wild and intoxicating native dance.

The tambourine jingled and moaned under the blows of her dark, pretty hand. Her slender foot glided across the carpet… She cried out quickly and monosyllabically at times, her black eyes flashing, deep as a mountain precipice. Then she spun like a top, in the accelerated tempo of the lezginka, surrounded, as if by a cloud, by her swirling white chadra.

Saleme, Yeme, Zara, and other girls clapped their hands in time and tapped their heels.

Then they danced. Finally, it was my turn. I felt ashamed to perform before these wild, uninhibited daughters of the aul, but not to dance at a wedding meant offending the bride, and, reluctantly, I decided. I saw, as if in a dream, Zara’s unkind, smiling face and Bella’s encouragingly smiling eyes, heard loud shouts of approval, the jingle of the tambourine, cheerful shouts, songs… I spun faster and faster, flying like a bird over the carpeted floor of the saklya, jingling the tambourine Bella had given me, and my black curls, whipping my face, cheeks, neck, fell over my shoulders…

“Yakshi! (Good) Nina, well done! Good girl! What a urus! What a daughter of a Russian bek!” I heard my grandfather’s voice, who had appeared at the threshold of the saklya during my dance, along with the most important guests.

“Yakshi, granddaughter!” he smiled once more and extended his hands.

I threw myself to him with a laugh and buried my face in his chest… And the old, strict connoisseurs of the lezginka, Circassians who themselves danced it masterfully, praised me.

Meanwhile, Bella, who, by tribal custom, could not show herself to guests on her wedding day, threw a chadra over her face and disappeared behind the curtain.

From the kunatskaya came the mournful sounds of the zurna (Musical instrument like a bagpipe) and chiunguri. Grandfather Magomet and Bek-Naib called everyone into the kunatskaya, where a young sazandar (Wandering singer), with timid, dreamy eyes, was tuning his zurna.

Yuliko and I followed the adults there.

“How well you danced, Nina; much better than all these girls,” my cousin whispered enthusiastically to me. “I would like to learn to dance like that.”

“What hope do you have, with your crooked legs!” I wanted to shout, but remembering the promise I had given Father, I restrained myself.

The Lezgins sat on the divans and cushions. Servants placed between them steaming pieces of lamb, emitting a delicious aroma, dishes with spicy sweets, pitchers with fragrant sherbet (Eastern delicacy) and with some shimmering amber liquid, which they drank, remembering Allah.

Girls one after another came out into the middle and, with flushed faces and shining eyes, danced the lezginka. Young Lezgin men joined them, trying to surpass each other in the art of dancing. Only the young bek Izrail, Bella’s groom, sat thoughtfully between Grandfather Magomet and his father, the naib. For some reason, I felt sorry for the young bek, and for Bella, bound forever to each other by the wishes of their elders, and I sincerely wished them happiness…

The lezginka ended, and the sazandar stepped forward with his chiunguri (A kind of guitar).

He gently ran his hand over the strings of his instrument, and the strings sang, echoed by the young and rich voice of the sazandar.

He sang of the recent past, of a mighty black eagle defeated by white falcons, of bloody wars and formidable feats of brave djigits… It seemed to me that I heard both the roar of cannons and gunshots in the strong sounds of the chiunguri… Then these sounds spoke of something else… The strings sang of a white captive and the love of a djigit girl for him. Here was a whole poem with nightingale trills and rose fragrance…

And the gray-haired, important Lezgins, the elderly naibs of neighboring auls, and the proud beks listened, holding their breath, to the dark-skinned sazandar…

He finished, and gold coins rained into his old papakha, which had weathered many storms under the open sky.

Meanwhile, evening was approaching. The west glowed with a gentle twilight. The sun hid behind the mountains…

Bek Izrail was the first to rise and leave the feast; five minutes later, we heard the neighing of horses, and he, with a dozen young djigits, galloped out of the aul to his estate, which lay nearby in the mountains. Grandfather Magomet, agitated but trying not to show his emotion before the guests, went to Bella’s half of the saklya. Yuliko, the girls — the bride’s friends — and I followed him.

There he tearfully said goodbye to his daughter. For the first time, I saw tears in pretty Bella’s eyes.

“May Allah’s blessing be upon my dove,” the old man said in a quiet, emotional voice and placed his hand on the young girl’s dark head, which rested on his chest.

Then we accompanied Bella, seated her in a covered arba (cart), completely wrapped from curious eyes by an impenetrable chadra. In an instant, she was surrounded by fifty horsemen, the best djigits of the aul Bestudi.

“Farewell, Nina, farewell, dear Dzhanym, farewell, turquoise one!” she managed to whisper to me and quickly pressed her tear-wet cheek to my face.

The horses started. The arba creaked, the horsemen galloped with wild whoops, performing djigitovka all the way from the aul to the naib’s estate.

There it goes, further and further, that heavy, creaking arba, surrounded by prancing highlanders. There it flashed once more with its white canvas top and disappeared behind the mountain cliff…

We returned to the saklya. It seemed empty and uncomfortable to me after Bella’s departure.

“Yes… yes…” catching my yearning gaze, said Grandfather, who had grown sad and somehow suddenly gaunt, “not twelve years passed since one daughter flew away, and now again, another… Both important, both princesses, both in gold and contentment… But what’s the use? What is left for me?”

“I am left for you, Grandfather Magomet. I, your Nina, am left for you!” I burst out passionately, and I wrapped my weak, childish arms around the old man’s strong neck.

He looked into my eyes with an attentive and keen gaze. There must have been much love and selfless affection reflected in them, if suddenly a warm ray glided across his face and he, placing his rough hand on my forehead, whispered tenderly:

“Thank you, little one. May Allah protect you for this, white bird from the gardens of paradise!”

Chapter 6. At the Princess’s. The Braggart. Page and Queen. Night Fears

 

The nest was empty… The little bird had flown. The cheerful songs in Hadji-Magomet’s saklya had fallen silent; Bella’s merry laughter was no longer heard there…

Yuliko, Anna, and I visited the young princess at her estate the next day. The corner where Bella had settled seemed like a true earthly paradise to us. Izrail’s and his father’s estate lay in a wonderful wooded valley, between two high mountain slopes forming a gorge. The entire garden around the house was full of fragrant and delicate azaleas; pastures stretched all around, where flocks of sheep grazed unsupervised. A herd of the best mountain horses also roamed there.

Bella’s new relatives lived separately, in a large house, a verst away from Izrail’s saklya.

We found Bella examining the gifts my father had sent her the day before. She was wearing a silver-embroidered beshmet, with many new jewels and necklaces on her neck, and she was turning gold threads adorned with stones in her hands, laughing softly and joyfully. Her young husband sat beside her, squatting, also laughing merrily and carefree.

“They’re completely like children, look!” I whispered to Yuliko with the seriousness of an adult, which amused the young couple immensely.

“Hello, Dzhanym, hello, young prince!” she cried out, kissing us and not stopping her laughter.

From her face, I could tell she was happy.

Five minutes later, she sprang from the Persian divan and, with a squeal, chased me through the valley that began beyond the garden. Izrail, forgetting his princely dignity, followed us, quickly glancing around to see if any of the nukers were observing his bek’s wild gallop. Both Bella and Izrail looked much more like children than eleven-year-old Yuliko, who was entirely engrossed in contemptuously observing our fun. I could truly rejoice that I wasn’t losing Bella, that mischievous Bella, that bounding mountain goat, an irreplaceable companion for my childhood antics.

Before my departure, she suddenly became serious.

“Tell your father,” she said, and her eyes at that moment were solemn and proud, “that I and my master” — here she glanced towards Izrail, who resembled a master about as much as Yuliko resembled a mountain deer — “that my master expects him.”

“And what else should I say, Bella?”

“Tell him what you saw and… well,” she continued, “that Bella is happy… say whatever you want, little Dzhanym!”

“Farewell, Princess!” Yuliko unexpectedly bowed to her with the grace and importance of a small marquis.

She didn’t understand at first, then she burst out laughing and, grabbing his curly head, spun around the saklya like a vine.

“However, Princess Bella wouldn’t mind learning some good manners!” my cousin told me on the way back.

“Sit still, or you’ll tumble into the abyss,” I cut him off contemptuously, offended for my friend, moving away from Yuliko into the very corner of the carriage.

“Well, how’s Bella?”

“How’s the princess?”

“Many flocks?”

“A large herd of horses?”

“Are there new necklaces?”

These questions were showered upon us by Yeme, Zara, Saleme, Fatima, and Bella’s other friends, who were waiting for us at the entrance to the aul. They escorted us to Deda’s saklya and curiously listened to my stories about the young princess’s life.

“Thanks be to Allah if my daughter is happy…” said Grandfather Magomet, heading towards his friend, the mullah, to whom he reported all his joys and misfortunes.

After he left, questions from the young djigit girls again rained down on my head.

“How big is the bek’s saklya?”

“Much weaponry?”

“Are there many nukers?”

I barely managed to answer the questions of the young Tatar women.

“Oh, how I wish, by the will of Allah, to be in Bella’s place!” exclaimed the pretty, rosy Saleme sincerely, clapping her hands.

“What is she saying?” asked Yuliko, who did not understand the Lezgin language.

I translated the girl’s words for him.

“There’s nothing to envy!” he said contemptuously. “My grandmother in Tiflis truly has untold riches. We have a three-story house there, completely filled with various precious things! We ate on golden dishes, and for just the handle of my grandfather’s dagger, you could get a whole million tumans (Tuman – 10 rubles). And how many servants my grandmother had… In the garden, fountains of sweet wine flowed, and around them lay heaps of candies…”

“Wine is forbidden by the Quran (The holy covenant of Muslims),” Zara interjected, interrupting my cousin’s lies.

“It is not forbidden to Georgians. Only foolish Mohammedans can believe such prohibitions.”

“Don’t you dare insult the faith of our fathers!” Zara cried, and her eyes lit up with angry sparks.

“Who dares speak this to me, Prince Yuliko Dzhavakha?” he replied and arrogantly surveyed the assembly of girls with his small, mouse-like eyes.

“Stop, Yuliko,” I whispered to him, “stop, this could end badly for you!”

“How dare she treat me, a born Georgian prince, like this!”

“What kind of prince are you!” Zara laughed unkindly. “Are there really such princes? Now the naib — he’s a prince… handsome, tall, mustache a finger long, eyes like an eagle… And you are small, amusing, like a hornless mountain goat with broken legs.”

And all three girls, pleased with their friend’s sharpness, burst into loud, unceremonious laughter.

Something pricked my heart. Was it pity, or simply noble pride that would not allow a member of the Dzhavakha family to be insulted in my presence, but, without realizing it, I came close to Zara and shouted at her, drowning out her offensive laughter:

“Shame on you, Zara! Or have the Lezgin aul forgotten the customs of Dagestani hospitality?”

Zara flushed all over and measured me with a glare. For a moment, silence reigned. Then she retorted with a malicious laugh:

“And why are you defending this plucked kid?… Does he give you some of his wealth? Or are you serving as an unaitka (Serf maid, slave girl) in his grandmother’s saklya?”

This was too much… My hand involuntarily went to the hilt of the dagger hanging at my belt. However, I restrained myself, and feeling myself turn pale with offended pride and anger, I firmly said:

“Know that Princess Nina Dzhavakha can never be bribed by anything!”

“Princess Nina Dzhavakha,” someone’s voice echoed after me.

Turning quickly, I saw a small, hunched, sallow old man in a white chalma (Muslim headwear) and a long mantle, standing nearby.

There was something eerie in the expression of his sharp eyes, which glided over our faces.

“It’s the mullah…” Yeme whispered to me, and all the girls suddenly stirred and lowered their heads as a sign of respect for his sacred person.

The mullah approached. I watched the sworn enemy of my father, the man who had thundered against my mother for converting to Christianity despite his prohibition, not without a secret tremor.

“Come closer, Christian girl…” the mullah said in a voice barely audible with age.

I approached him not without a secret tremor and boldly looked into his eyes.

“A good, open gaze…” he said, placing his heavy hand on my forehead. “May it, by the will of Allah, remain just as honest and truthful all your life… Thanks be to Allah and the Prophet that their mercy did not turn away from the daughter of her who transgressed their sacred laws… And you, Leila-Zara,” he turned to the girl, “you must have forgotten that a guest must be received in our aul like an envoy of great Allah!”

And having said this, he nodded at me almost imperceptibly and walked away, leaning on his stick.

When I asked Grandfather Magomet that evening what this kindness from the old mullah meant, he said in a quiet, sad voice:

“I spoke, my child, with the mullah. He heard your conversation and was pleased with your wise words in the dispute with our girls. He found in you a great resemblance to your mother, whom he loved very much for her pious meekness in her early childhood. For the sake of your honest, open eyes and your wise heart, he forgave my dear Mariam… Many sins are forgiven to the mother who managed to make her child like you, my granddaughter-Dzhanym, my mountain goat, my clear star from the eastern sky!”

And a whole stream of endearing words poured from Grandfather’s lips, and it seemed as if his little granddaughter Nina had never been so dear to him!

That same evening, we departed. The entire population of Bestudi came out to see us off. Bek-Naib gave us two nukers as escorts, but Abrek boldly declared that the road was safe and that it was his sole responsibility to deliver the little princess and prince to his superior.

“Farewell, Deda, farewell, dear!” I embraced the old man once more on the threshold of the saklya and jumped into the carriage between Anna and Yuliko.

“Farewell, dear little bird from the gardens of Muhammad!” Grandfather replied kindly, and the carriage jolted along the crooked streets of the aul.

From Bek Izrail’s estate, two riders galloped towards us, their silver-handled waist weapons gleaming in the rays of the setting sun. When they approached, we recognized them as Bella and Izrail.

“Farewell, Dzhanushka, I couldn’t help but see you off.”

And leaning from her saddle, embroidered with silk and gold, Bella loudly kissed me on both cheeks.

“Bella! Darling, thank you!”

“Thank you for what! Not for your joy… for my joy,” she quickly rattled on as usual. “I told Izrail today — let’s go: Nina is leaving, we’ll see her off on horseback… He’s afraid… afraid to take horses from the herd without his father’s permission… ‘Well, I’ll take them,’ I said… And I did… What’s there to be afraid of… father won’t bite…”

And both laughed loudly, not knowing why — whether it was because their father couldn’t bite, or because they were both young, happy, and all of life smiled upon them like an interesting fairy tale with a wonderful beginning.

They accompanied us for a long time… The sun had already set when Bella embraced me once more and turned her horses back.

I stood up in the carriage, despite Anna’s grumbling, and watched the receding silhouettes of the two young and slender riders.

Meanwhile, night was falling, and Anna, with the help of the silent Andro, made our beds in the carriage. I burrowed into the cushions and was about to fall asleep when I suddenly felt the touch of someone’s thin fingers on my hand.

“Nina,” I heard a soft whisper, “oh, Nina, please don’t fall asleep, I have so much to talk to you about!”

“Well, what now?” I emerged from under the warm burka that covered me, still angry at my cousin.

“For God’s sake, don’t fall asleep, Nina!” the pleading voice continued. “Are you angry with me?” Yuliko added hastily.

“I don’t like liars!” I said proudly.

“I won’t do it again… Ninochka, I swear to you…” the boy stammered passionately, “I don’t even know what came over me… I just wanted to fool those silly girls… but they turned out to be smarter than I thought! Don’t be angry with me… If only you knew how unhappy I am!”

And suddenly, in the most unexpected way, my cousin, this arrogant little proud boy with the manners of a marquis, burst into childish sobs, wiping his tears with the velvet sleeves of his elegant jacket.

In an instant, the burka that enveloped me flew into the corner of the carriage onto the lap of the sweetly snoring Anna, and I, sitting beside the weeping boy, stroked his tangled curls and said in a choked whisper:

“What is it? What’s wrong? Quiet, you’ll wake Anna… Stop, Yuliko, what’s wrong with you? Well, I’m not angry with you, really, I’m not!” Oh, you…

“You’re not angry, truly?” he asked, sniffing.

“I always tell only the truth!” I replied proudly. “But what’s wrong with you? Why were you crying?”

“Oh, Nina!” he burst out impulsively, “if only you knew how hard it is for me when you’re angry with me… At first, I didn’t like you… I hated you… but now, when I see how brave you are, how smart, how much better you are than me, I wish so much that you would love me! I wish so much! You are so wonderful, brave, you are better than all the girls I have ever seen. You stood up for me today, you didn’t let those nasty Tatar girls offend me, and I will never forget it. No one has ever loved me!” he added sadly.

“What? What about Grandmother?” I wondered.

“Grandmother…” and Yuliko looked at me with a bitter smile. “Grandmother doesn’t love me at all. When my older brother Dato was alive, she didn’t even pay attention to me. Oh, Nina! If only you knew what a handsome boy he was! What proud, beautiful eyes he had! And he himself was so strong and slender! I loved him very much and was very afraid of him… He commanded me as nobles command their servants… And I obeyed him because everyone obeyed him — both Mother and Grandmother and the servants… He had the tone and voice of a true prince. When he was alive, I was forgotten… but when he died of some severe chest illness, all the care of our relatives turned to me… Dato was gone… only Yuliko remained, the last representative of our lineage. That’s why Grandmother loved me so much… Do you understand me, Nina?”

Yes, I understood him, this poor little prince, and I felt infinitely sorry for him!

“Yuliko!” I addressed him very gently, “and your mother, didn’t she love you?”

“My mother loved Dato… loved him very much, and when Dato died, Mother grieved and didn’t eat for a long, long time… Then she died too. But while she was alive, she rarely caressed me… But I wasn’t offended by that. I gladly gave all her affection to my wonderful brother. I loved him so much!”

“Poor Yuliko! Poor Yuliko!” I whispered and suddenly embraced his thin neck and kissed his white, unchildishly serious forehead.

He seemed to gasp with joy.

“Nina!” he spoke, almost crying, “you’re not angry with me anymore? Oh, I will love you for your kindness as much as I loved Dato!… Oh, Nina! Now I am so happy to have a friend! So happy!… Do you want me to do something serious and big for you? Do you want me to serve you, as Dato served? I will be your page… and you will be my queen?”

I looked at his inspired face, faintly lit by the pale moonlight, and said solemnly and importantly:

“Good, be my page, I will be your queen!”

We chatted for a long time until sleep closed the tired eyelids of my page, and he fell asleep, leaning against his queen’s shoulder.

I couldn’t sleep. Remorse for my past unkindness towards Yuliko gnawed at me… The poor boy, who had never known sympathy and friendly affection until now, suddenly became pitiful and dear to me. I mentally promised to atone for my malicious outbursts by caring for the poor, weak child.

Night had already enveloped the surroundings when I fell asleep. But my sleep was somehow restless. It was more like a heavy drowsiness.

I woke up very soon and looked out of the carriage. Night had completely taken over the surroundings, and a cloud obscuring the golden sphere of the moon made it impossible to see two steps away. The carriage was still. I was about to crawl back under the burka when my ears were suddenly caught by quiet Tatar speech. There were several voices; in one of them, I recognized Abrek.

He was saying something in the Kabardian dialect, which I barely understood.

The conversation was about a horse: the Tatars were asking Abrek to deliver the prince’s horse to them. Abrek was asking for many tumans for it, and they, forgetting about those sleeping in the carriage, urged him not to be stingy. Then, as far as I understood, Abrek lowered the price. And they agreed.

“So in three days… wait?” a hoarse and rough voice asked.

“Wait in three days,” Abrek promised and added: “You’ll be satisfied with Abrek… pity the princess — she loves the horse; add two more tumans, Bekir.”

I turned cold… They were talking about my horse, about my Shaly!… Abrek had promised to steal Shaly and sell him to the dushmany!…

I wanted to shout at them with all my might — to these traitors — that I knew their plan and would complain to Father, that Shaly belonged to me and that I would never part with my treasure for anything in the world. But I thought better of it: he hadn’t named Shaly. Perhaps they were talking about another horse that Grandmother wanted to sell and had entrusted to Abrek?… But then why would Abrek pity the princess?… I got muddled in my thoughts, not admitting, however, that my favorite Abrek could be a traitor. Abrek, who had willingly taught me djigitovka and dashing riding, Abrek, who cared for my horse, couldn’t be a thief!… And, reassured by this thought, I fell asleep.

At dawn the next day, we entered Gori.

Father, Grandmother, old Barbalé, Mikhako, and pretty Rodam met us, pleased with our return. Yuliko and I vied with each other to tell them about our trip.

The new relationship between Yuliko and me did not escape the eyes of the adults. His silent, enthusiastic obedience and my protective friendliness could not but surprise the household.

“Thank you, child,” Father said, catching my hand, and kissed me especially long and tenderly.

I understood that he was thanking me for Yuliko, and I blushed with pleasure.

I kept silent about Abrek’s conversation with the Tatars that night and only, just in case, decided to double my vigilance over my horse and the suspicious stableman.

Chapter 7. Mysterious Lights. The Tower of Death

 

“Nina, Nina, come here!”

I was standing by a rose bush when I heard the call of my page — Yuliko.

It was evening — a wonderful, fragrant one, of which Georgia’s blessed climate is so generous. It was eleven o’clock; we were about to go to bed and had stepped out for a moment to breathe the cool night air.

“Come here, Nina!” my cousin called to me.

He stood at the very edge of the cliff and stared intently in the direction of the ruins of the old fortress.

“Faster! Faster!”

In one jump, I was beside Yuliko and looked where he pointed. I indeed saw something strange, out of the ordinary. In one of the long-forgotten turrets, overgrown with moss and wild grass, a light flickered. It would go out, then glow again with an uneven yellow flame, like a firefly hidden in the grass.

At first, I was frightened. “Let’s run away!” I wanted to shout to my cousin. But remembering that I was a queen, and queens must be brave, at least in the presence of their pages, I restrained myself. Besides, my fear was beginning to subside and gradually be replaced by burning curiosity.

“Yuliko,” I asked my page, “what do you think this could be?”

“I think it’s evil spirits,” the boy answered without hesitation.

I saw that he was trembling all over, as if with a fever.

“What a coward you are!” I remarked frankly and added confidently: “The light is coming from the Tower of Death.”

“The Tower of Death? Why is that tower called the Tower of Death?” he asked with fear in his voice.

Then, sitting on the edge of the cliff and keeping my eyes on the mysterious light, I recounted the following story that Barbalé had told me.

“Long, long ago, when the Muslims rushed into Gori and carried out a terrible massacre in its streets, several Christian Georgian girls locked themselves in the fortress in one of the towers. The brave and resourceful Georgian woman Tamara Berbudji was the last to enter the tower and stood by the closed door with a sharp dagger in her hands. The door was very narrow and could only let one Turk through at a time. After a while, the girls heard that they were being besieged. The door trembled under the blows of Turkish yataghans.

“‘Surrender!’ their enemies shouted to them.

But Tamara explained to the girls, who were half-dead with fear, that death was better than captivity, and when the door yielded to the pressure of the Turkish weapons, she plunged her dagger into the first warrior who burst in. The enemies cut down all the girls with their curved sabers; Tamara they buried alive in the tower.

Until her death, her voice was heard from captivity; with her songs, she bid farewell to her homeland and life…”

“So, that light is her soul, unable to find rest in the grave!” Yuliko concluded with superstitious horror and, crying out wildly in fear, dashed towards the house.

At that very instant, the light in the tower went out…

In the evening, as I was going to bed, I questioned Barbalé at length about the young Georgian woman who had died in the tower. My childish curiosity, my love for the mysterious, had been touched by the unusual phenomenon. However, I said nothing to Barbalé about the mysterious lights in the tower and decided to keep a close watch on them.

That night, I slept poorly… I dreamt of terrifying faces in fez hats and with curved yataghans in their hands. I also heard wild shouts and moans, and a voice, tender as a magical flute, the voice of a girl imprisoned unto death…

For several evenings in a row, I went to the cliff accompanied by my page, whom I strictly forbade to speak of the light appearing in the Tower of Death. We would sit on the edge of the cliff and, dangling our legs over the Kura, which flowed far below, darkened in the evening twilight, we would give ourselves over to contemplation. Sometimes the light would go out or move from place to place, and Yuliko and I would exchange horrified glances, but we still wouldn’t leave our post.

My curiosity was ignited. Having read many medieval tales, which filled my father’s cupboards, I constantly craved something fantastic, miraculous. Now, thanks to the mysterious light, my childishly inquisitive mind had found sustenance.

“Yuliko,” I whispered to him, “what do you think: is the dead girl wandering there?”

And meeting his eyes, wide with terror, I added, gripped by a burning, yet almost pleasant, sensation of fear:

“Yes, yes, she’s wandering and asking for a grave.”

“Don’t say that, I’m scared,” Yuliko begged me, almost crying.

“What if she comes out of there,” I continued to frighten him, feeling myself the shudder of terror that permeated me, “what if she crosses the cliff and drags us with her?”

This was too much. The brave page, forgetting to protect his queen, ran roaring towards the house along the chestnut alley, and behind him, as if on wings, followed the queen herself, experiencing more a feeling of sweet and acute excitement than fear…

“Yuliko!” I said to him once, sitting on the same unchanging cliff and not taking my eyes off the mysteriously flickering light, “do you love me very much?”

He looked at me with eyes that held so much devotion that I couldn’t help but believe him.

“More than Dato?” I just added.

“More, Nina!”

“And will you do everything I command?”

“Everything, Nina, command me! You are my queen.”

“Good, Yuliko, you are a kind comrade,” and I somewhat patronizingly stroked his blond curls. “So, tomorrow at this time, we will go to the Tower of Death.”

He looked up at me, his eyes reflecting horror, and trembled like an aspen leaf.

“No, never, it’s impossible!” he blurted out.

“But I’ll be with you!”

“No, never!” he repeated.

I gave him a contemptuous look.

“Prince Yuliko!” I proudly articulated. “From now on, you will not be my page.”

He cried, and I, without looking back, went towards the house.

I don’t know how it occurred to me to go and find out what was happening in the Tower of Death, but once this thought had pierced my mind, I couldn’t get rid of it. But I was afraid to go there alone, so I offered to share my exploit with Yuliko. He backed down, like a faint-hearted coward. Then I decided to go alone and even rejoiced at this, considering that all the glory of this “feat” would then belong to me alone. In my thoughts, I already heard Georgian girls asking their friends: “Which one is Nina Dzhavakha?” — and how they would answer: “That fearless one who went to the Tower of Death.” Or: “Who is that girl?” — “What, you don’t know? Why, that’s the fearless Princess Dzhavakha, who went alone at night into the mysterious tower!”

And mentally pronouncing these phrases, I was thrilled with the delight of satisfied pride and vanity. I no longer felt the same regret and sympathy for Yuliko. He appeared as a pathetic coward in my eyes. I even stopped playing war and knights with him, as I had done soon after arriving from grandfather’s aul.

But I couldn’t dwell on the thought of Yuliko for long. A resolve had matured in my soul to visit the Tower of Death no matter what, and I gave myself entirely to my dreams.

And so the terrible moment came. One evening, having said goodbye to Father and Grandmother to go to bed, instead of going to my room, I turned into the chestnut alley and rushed in one breath to the cliff. It took only a few minutes to descend through the thorny bushes to the very bank of the Kura, run across the bridge, and climb the slippery, moss-covered steps to the ruins of the fortress. At first from afar, then closer and closer, like a guiding star, the light in the most distant corner of the fortress twinkled at me welcomingly.

That was the Tower of Death…

I climbed to it by its rocky ledges, and strange thing! — I hardly felt any fear. When the high, in places half-ruined walls blackened before me in the twilight of the approaching night, I looked back. Our house lay sleeping on the other bank of the Kura, like a prisoner held captive by shaggy guardian plane trees. No light was visible anywhere. Only in Father’s study was a lamp burning. “If I scream — they won’t hear me there,” flashed through my mind, and for a moment I felt so creepy that I wanted to turn back.

However, curiosity and love for the mysterious overcame the feeling of fear, and a minute later I was bravely making my way through the narrow alleys of the fortress to its most distant point, from where the light blinked invitingly.

Here it is — the tall, round tower. It somehow suddenly rose before me. I quietly pushed the door open and began to climb the shaky steps. I walked silently, barely touching the ground with my heels and listening fearfully to the slightest rustle.

And now I was at my goal. Right in front of me was a door, through a crack in which a narrow strip of light penetrated.

Carefully pressing myself against the damp wall, slippery with moss and mold, I put my eye to the crack in the door and almost screamed aloud.

Instead of a dead girl, instead of the ghost of the Gori beauty, I saw three highlanders sitting on the floor, examining pieces of some fabrics by the light of a hand lantern. They spoke in quiet whispers. I recognized two of them. They had bearded faces and torn Ossetian clothes. The third sat with his back to me and was running his hands through large beads of a magnificent pearl necklace. Nearby lay rich, gold-embroidered saddles, precious bridles, and elegant, stone-studded Dagestani daggers.

“So, you won’t give any more for a piece?” one of the sitting men asked the one who had his back to me.

“Not a single tuman.”

“What about the horse?”

“The horse will be here tomorrow.”

“Well, nothing to be done, take ten tumans, and let’s go!”

And, saying this, the dark-mustached highlander handed his companion several gold coins, which gleamed brightly in the lantern light. The voice of the speaker seemed familiar to me.

At that moment, the third highlander jumped to his feet and turned to face the door. In an instant, I recognized him. It was Abrek.

I had not expected this!…

Before me, an unheard-of audacious swindle was taking place.

Apparently, these were dushmany, mountain bandits, who did not disdain simple thefts. Abrek, no doubt, played no small role among them. He supplied them with stolen goods and sold them in this small room of the Tower of Death, wonderfully hidden from curious eyes.

All these considerations whirled through my inflamed head.

“Listen, young man,” the other Tatar with a gray head said at that moment, “tomorrow is the last day; if you don’t deliver the horse — beware… Gogi is not in Muhammad’s paradise, and my dagger will reach you.”

“Listen, old man: the word of a true believer is as unshakable as the law of Allah. Beware of insulting me. After all, my tyufenk (rifle) shoots without missing.”

And having exchanged these courtesies, they headed for the exit.

The door creaked. The lantern went out. I pressed myself against the wall, afraid of being seen. When they passed me, I began to grope my way down the stairs in the dark. At the lower door, I hesitated. Three figures silently glided across the fortress square, which showed more signs of desolation than other places in this dead kingdom.

Two of the highlanders disappeared behind the wall on the side where the fortress adjoined the mountains; the third, who was easy to recognize as Abrek, headed towards the bridge.

I only caught up with him at the cliff, where he had clambered up with the agility of a cat, and, without realizing what I was doing, grabbed his sleeve.

“Abrek, I know everything!” I said.

He flinched in surprise and reached for the hilt of his dagger. Then, recognizing me as his master’s daughter, he lowered his hand and asked in a slightly trembling voice:

“What does the princess wish?”

“I know everything,” I repeated dully, “do you hear that? I was in the Tower of Death and saw the stolen goods and heard the agreement to take one of my father’s horses. Tomorrow, the whole house will know everything. That’s as true as I bear the name of Princess Nina Dzhavakha…”

Abrek looked at me, his eyes showing a whole hell of malice, impotent malice and anger, but he controlled himself and spoke as calmly as possible:

“There has never been a case where a man and a highlander feared the threats of a Georgian girl!”

“However, these threats will come true, Abrek: tomorrow I will speak with Father.”

“About what?” he asked me brazenly, nervously pinching his sleeve.

“About everything I heard and saw today and that night in the mountains when you made arrangements with these same dushmany.”

“They won’t believe you,” the highlander laughed brazenly, “Mistress Princess knows Abrek, knows that Abrek is a loyal nuker, and will not hand him over to the police based on a child’s foolish invention.”

“Well, we’ll see!” I said threateningly.

Perhaps from my tone, the highlander understood that I was not joking, because he abruptly changed his tone of speech.

“Princess,” he began ingratiatingly, “why are you quarreling with Abrek? Have you forgotten how Abrek took care of your Shaly? How he taught you djigitovka?… And now I’ve found such places in the mountains, such places!…” — and he even clicked his tongue and flashed his Eastern eyes. “A hind, a gazelle won’t get through, but we’ll slip through! The grass is emerald, streams of silver… wild goats roam… And eagles from above… Do you want to ride tomorrow? Do you want to?” — and he looked into my eyes and put an unusual tenderness into the notes of his rough voice.

“No, no!” I insisted, covering my ears so as not to be involuntarily tempted by his words, “I won’t go anywhere with you anymore. You are a dushman, a bandit, and tomorrow I will tell Father everything…”

“Ah!” he shrieked wildly, in an Asian manner, “beware, Princess! Jokes with Abrek are bad. Abrek will take such revenge that the mountains will shake and the rivers will freeze. Beware!” — and with another whoop, he disappeared into the bushes.

I stood stunned, agitated, not knowing what to do, what to decide…

Chapter 8. The Expositor

 

In the morning, I was woken by desperate shouts and commotion in the house. I had slept poorly that night. Terrible nightmares had pursued me, and only at dawn did I fall into oblivion… Woken by the shouts and noise, still entirely under the influence of yesterday’s horrors, I couldn’t for a long time understand whether I was dreaming or not. But the shouts grew louder and clearer. Among them, the voice of the old princess stood out, shrill and sharp, as I was accustomed to hearing it in moments of anger. “Vai-me,” grandmother cried, “my antique precious necklace has been stolen! Vai-me! It was stolen from under lock and key, and the rings, and the earrings — everything was stolen. Yesterday they were still in the casket. Rodam and I were sorting them. And today they are gone! Stolen! Vai-me, stolen!” I quickly dressed… Stepping out of my room, I bumped into Father. “A theft in the house. How disgusting!” he said and, as usual, shrugged his shoulders. Then he went into his study, and I heard him order Mikhako to immediately ride to Gori and inform the police of everything that had happened. Rodam ran in and, weeping, fell at Father’s feet. “Batono-Prince!” she cried, writhing in convulsive sobs, “I guarded the princess’s diamonds, I and my aunt, old Anna. We are accused of theft and will be imprisoned. Batono-Prince! I did not steal, I am not guilty, I swear by Saint Nino — the enlightener of Georgia!” Yes, she hadn’t stolen them. It was clear from her beautiful eyes, honest and clear as a child’s. She couldn’t, pretty Rodam, have stolen my grandmother’s diamonds. Neither she, nor Anna… But who was the thief then? And suddenly a thought, sharp as a dagger, cut through my mind: “The thief is Abrek!” Yes, yes, the thief is Abrek! There was no doubt about it. He stole grandmother’s diamonds. I had seen precious strands of pearls and stones in the Tower of Death. I had been present at his disgraceful bargain. And quickly embracing the weeping Rodam, I exclaimed: “Dry your tears! I know and will name the thief… Papa, papa, order the people to gather in the hall, quickly, quickly, for God’s sake!” “What’s wrong with you, Nina?” Father wondered at my excitement. But I was burning with impatience. Incoherent stories about the Tower of Death, about the jewels, about two dushmany and Abrek the traitor, escaped my lips, all so quickly and incomprehensibly, as if in a fever. “Go, Rodam, order all the people to gather in the hall,” Father commanded. When she left, he locked the door behind her. “Well, Nina-joy, chemi-patara,” he said affectionately, “tell me everything clearly, in order, what happened?” And he sat me on his lap, as he had done in my childhood, and tried to calm me as much as he could. In about five minutes, I told him everything, gasping and hurrying from excitement. “And are you sure it wasn’t a dream?” Father asked. “A dream?” I blurted out passionately, “a dream? But if you don’t believe me, ask Yuliko, he also saw the lights in the tower and watched them.” “Yuliko is ill. He got sick from fright. But even if he were well, I wouldn’t turn to him. I believe my girl more than anyone else.” “Thank you, Papa!” I replied and, hand in hand with him, entered the hall. Everyone was gathered there, except Mikhako, who had galloped to Gori. I looked at Abrek. He was paler than his white beshmet. “Abrek!” I boldly approached him. “You stole Grandmother’s things! Hear me, I’m not afraid of your threats and your revenge, and I repeat to you that you are a thief!” “The princess is joking,” the highlander grinned crookedly and imperceptibly moved towards the door. But Father caught his movement and, grabbing him by the shoulder, placed him directly in front of him. Father’s face was flushed. His eyes sparked. I didn’t recognize my calm, always restrained father. One of those terrible fits of anger that made him unrecognizable had awakened in him. “Silence!” he thundered so that the arches of our house seemed to tremble, and all present exchanged fearful glances. “Silence, I tell you! Any denial will only increase your guilt. Where did you put the princess’s family jewels?” “I didn’t take them, Batono-Prince. Allah knows I didn’t take them.” “You are lying, Abrek!” I stepped forward again. “I saw many precious things with you in the tower, but you handed them all over to those two dushmany, and they took everything to the mountains.” “Tell me your accomplices’ names right now, point out where they are hiding!” Father spoke again. “I don’t know, Batono-Prince, any dushmany. Surely the princess had a bad dream about Abrek. Don’t believe a child, Batono.” But the highlander’s words obviously exhausted Father’s last patience. He tore a whip from the wall and swung it. A piercing scream rang out. Immediately after, before anyone could recover, something gleamed in Abrek’s hands. He lunged at Father with a raised dagger, but at the same instant, Bragim’s strong hands grabbed him from behind. “Slow down, eaglet, your wings haven’t grown yet!” Bragim shouted with an unkind laugh, twisting Abrek’s arms behind his back. He trembled from head to foot; his eyes burned with rage; a crimson scar — the mark of the whip — furrowed his cheek. At that very moment, the door burst open, and the police, preceded by Mikhako, entered the hall. At the sight of the armed men, Abrek made an incredible effort and, breaking free from Bragim’s strong hands, rushed to the window. With lightning speed, he jumped onto the windowsill and, shouting “ayda,” leaped down from a height of several sazhens directly into the quietly lapping waves of the Kura… It was a desperately bold jump, one that any Caucasian djigit might envy… For a long time, I couldn’t forget the slender figure of the bandit-highlander standing on the windowsill, his wild gaze, and the short, malicious phrase full of hatred: “We’ll meet again — then you’ll remember Abrek the dushman!” To whom this threat was directed — to me, for exposing him, or to my father, who had insulted the free son of the mountains with a whip — I don’t know. But his gaze swept over both of us, and my eyes involuntarily dropped, meeting his pupils shining with furious fire, and my heart painfully contracted with foreboding and fear. “The scoundrel is gone,” Father said, walking to the window and staring into the distance. “A desperate jump,” said the old military bailiff, a friend of Father, “that villain must have died on impact.” “No, I am sure the rascal survived, he’s as nimble as a cat,” Father replied and, in a few motions, broke his Cossack whip and flung it far away. “Well done, young lady,” the bailiff addressed me. “I didn’t expect such quickness from you.” “Yes, she is brave!” Father’s gaze swept over me kindly, and then, with a serious face, he took my hand and kissed it, as he would an adult’s. I was ecstatic. It seemed to me that the kiss of such a hero, such a fearless djigit as I considered Father to be, must turn my delicate childish hand into one as strong and firm as a warrior’s. Exulting and in a frenzy, I rushed like a whirlwind to Yuliko — to tell him what had happened. He lay pale as a corpse in his elegant bed, and seeing me, he stretched out his hands to me. Andro had managed to warn him about everything, and now his eyes expressed genuine admiration for my heroism. “Oh, Nina!” was all he could utter, “if there are warrior angels at the throne of God, you will be among them!” I cannot say that I ignored my cousin’s enthusiastic babbling. On the contrary, I was now ready to forgive him for his cowardice yesterday. “Go away, Andro!” I ordered the boy. As soon as the small servant left, I told Yuliko everything that had happened to me. “You are a true heroine!” my cousin whispered. “What a pity you weren’t born a boy!” “That means nothing,” I calmly retorted, and then, quite mercilessly, added: “After all, among boys, you’d find more than one such wimp as you.” But when I saw how restlessly he tossed in his bed among the pillows, adorned with the finest lace and princely crests, I seemed to catch myself and said: “Calm down, Yuliko, I understand that your timidity comes from your delicate health, and I’m sure it will pass with age.” “Yes, yes, it will pass, it surely will, just don’t despise me, Nina. Oh, I will grow up and be brave. I will go to the mountains, find Abrek, if he didn’t perish in the river, and kill him with uncle’s rifle. You will see that I will accomplish this… Only it won’t be soon!” Then he quietly added: “How I wish you would restore my title of page. I will try to be as brave as I can!” I looked into his eyes. There were tears in them. Then, pitying him, I said solemnly: “Prince Yuliko! I restore to you the title of page to your queen.” And letting him kiss my hand, I left the room with appropriate gravity.

Days and weeks passed — Grandmother’s family diamonds were never found, although the entire Gori police were mobilized. Abrek was also not found, although they searched diligently for him. He disappeared like a stone thrown into water.

The mysterious lights that flickered in the Tower of Death in the evenings and captivated me with their mystery also vanished. The former darkness reigned there once again…

Chapter 9. The Feast. The Demon. The Overheard Secret

 

July arrived, lush and sultry, with the scent of ripe fruits and frequent night thunderstorms, clearing the air saturated with electricity.

In our vineyard, emerald vines ripened and swelled. The berries, filled with juice, glowing amber in the sun under a thin film of skin, beckoned with their mere appearance.

Father’s birthday was approaching, always a particularly celebrated occasion in our home.

Grandfather Magomet arrived from the aul, Bella and her husband galloped in on their mountain steeds, and the house was filled with the cheerful sounds of their voices and laughter. Only two people did not participate in the general merriment. Grandmother, who could not reconcile herself to the thought of the lost jewels, and little Prince Yuliko, afflicted by an illness from which he wasted away by the hour, causing Grandmother new distress.

Our house was divided into two halves: the mournful one — in the princess’s apartments, where she constantly went into Yuliko’s room, bothering him with questions and medicines, and the carefree one — where Bella’s cheerful laughter, her piercing squeals (which I echoed with particular pleasure), and Izrail’s childishly good-natured laughter were heard. There was sorrow and thought, here — carefree joy and laughter. Father often joined us, and then our merriment knew no end.

“Quiet!” he would sometimes stop Bella, “there’s a sick person there.”

“He’ll recover,” she replied carelessly, “and he’ll even perform djigitovka, you’ll see!”

On Father’s birthday, Bella and I jumped up at dawn and decorated our house with garlands of chestnut branches and linden trees interspersed with white and crimson roses.

“How beautiful!” we jumped and clapped our hands, admiring our work.

Father, touched by the surprise, kissed both of us.

Guests were expected for dinner. Grandmother ordered me to wear a white muslin dress and personally smoothed my black braids, haphazardly scattered down my back.

“Isn’t it better this way, child?” she asked and led me to the mirror.

I noticed that for some time, Grandmother had been much more affectionate and kind to me. I looked into the mirror and gasped.

In the white dress, an airy cloud enveloping my thin shoulders, arms, and figure, with tightly braided blue-black braids, I terribly resembled my deceased mother.

“Beauty, Dzhanym, pretty!” Bella threw herself around my neck when I came out to my friends. Then she plucked a rose from a bush and stuck it into my braids, saying: “This will be even prettier.”

Father looked at me with a sad smile and said:

“You’ve grown up so much! So much!”

“And foolish! Right, Papa, foolish?” I pestered him, tugging at him and laughing like crazy.

“Well, foolish!” he smiled, and then his face immediately became serious again. “You’ll have to start serious studies this winter, Nina. You’re eleven years old.”

I declared to him that I read excellent Russian and French, knew history and geography; in short, my teacher was pleased with me, and my time had not yet come.

“After all, Bella isn’t educated, and look how happy she is,” I added seriously, in an adult tone.

“Bella is a wild girl, she grew up in the mountains and will live her whole life that way,” Father said and began to explain in detail the difference between me and Bella.

But on that day, I was no less wild than she — I laughed and shrieked like crazy, running with her away from Izrail who was chasing us. I fully justified the name “deli akyz” (crazy girl), given to me by the Gori Tatar children.

Father, smoking a cigarette, sat on the terrace awaiting guests. Suddenly, he unexpectedly flinched. The sound of wheels was heard, and a small sharabanchik drove up to our house, in which sat two ladies: one elderly, the other a young one in a white dress — a delicate blonde creature with dreamy eyes and a waist as thin as a stem. She lightly jumped out of the sharabanchik and, gracefully gathering the train of her elegant silk dress, walked to meet Father. He offered her his hand and beckoned me.

“Here, Baroness, is my daughter Nina. Please welcome her.”

Then he helped the elderly woman with a majestic posture out of the carriage and also introduced me to her:

“My daughter Nina.”

I didn’t know what to do and looked at both of them with the curiosity of a small animal.

“What a charming girl,” the young lady in white said and, bending down to me, kissed me on the cheek.

Her lips were soft, rosy, and her entire figure, ethereal and fragile, smelled of very delicate and very pleasant perfume.

“Let’s be friends!” she said to me and smiled kindly once more.

“Oh-oh! What a beauty!” Bella whispered when the young lady in white disappeared into the house with her old companion and Father, “better than you and I, right, Izrail?”

But Izrail disagreed with her. In his opinion, no one in the world was better than Bella. She wagged her finger at him, and again we started running and squealing, forgetting about the arriving guests.

Although my father had served the Russian Tsar for many years and everything in our house was in the Russian manner, on solemn family holidays, we involuntarily reverted to old Georgian customs. The unchanging dinner with the selection of a tulungushi (feast master), barrels of wine placed under plane trees, noisy toasts, sometimes sazandars hired for the duration of the feast, daring djigitovka, rifle shooting, and finally, the sweet native Lezginka to the groan of the zurna and the mournful strings of the chiunguri — all this accompanied every family celebration. On this day, the holiday promised to be especially interesting.

Father’s comrades from the regiment, with their wives, and other guests were expected. I felt somewhat awkward: by my inherent wildness, I did not like society, and that’s why Bella had to work hard to persuade me to come out to the table, prepared in the open air in the shade of ancient linden trees and dense-leaved plane trees.

When we went out to the guests, everyone was already assembled. Grandmother sat solemnly at the place of honor at the end of the table; opposite her, at the other end of the table, sat the chosen tulungushi — in the person of Grandfather Magomet. To Grandmother’s right sat the Baroness, and next to her the young lady in white, near whom my father was seated. The appearance of Bella and Izrail in rich native attire, dazzling with colors and silver, caused a slight stir among the guests. They were met with whispers of approval. Grandfather Magomet could not but rejoice at the reception given to his children.

“What a wonderful couple!” was heard all around in Tatar, Russian, and Georgian.

And Bella accepted all these praises as a due tribute.

She quickly got used to her new role, this little princess!

Anna, Barbalé, and Rodam served pieces of roasted lamb and game, while Mikhako, Andro, and Bragim poured wine into pitchers and offered them to the guests, with Mikhako not missing an opportunity to tease the old Muslim, for whom wine was forbidden by the Quran.

I sat between Bella and a young Cossack khorunzhy (ensign), Father’s subordinate, who amused us throughout dinner with the most incredible stories.

We rolled with laughter listening to him. Grandmother was horrified by my loud laughter and made desperate signs for me to calm down.

Meanwhile, Grandfather Magomet raised a toast in honor of my father and began to praise him according to the old Caucasian custom. He compared his strength to that of the mountain eagle of Dagestan, his courage — to the courage of an angel-swordsman, his beauty and lineage — to the beauty of the mountain deer, the king of the mountains.

And my father listened, and everyone listened in deep silence to the venerable elder, who had seen many brave men in his lifetime.

Then, when he finished, everyone raised their glasses in honor of my father. I felt wonderfully good at that moment. I was ready to jump and laugh and kiss Grandfather Magomet for praising my clever, kind, beautiful Papa so much!

After each dish, customarily eaten with lavash and chadi (thick porridge in pieces instead of bread) or salty, delicious kveli, Deda would rise from his seat and, with a full cup in hand, praise one guest or another. Being a devout Muslim, he did not drink wine and each time passed his cup to one of the most honored guests.

The praise of those present went in turn. After a dish of delicious shashlik, masterfully prepared by Barbalé, Grandfather raised his cup in honor of Bella, calling her Princess Izrail. He addressed her somewhat pompously and formally, as if she were a complete stranger. Bella looked down at her plate. I, covering my face with the edge of the tablecloth, barely managed to keep myself from snickering for the whole table to hear. My eyes must have been laughing eloquently, because Grandmother no less eloquently wagged her finger at me across the table.

My turn finally came.

Grandfather rose once more with a full cup of delicious, slightly sweet liquid and, fixing a loving, gentle gaze upon me, spoke solemnly and tenderly:

“Many are the rising evening stars in Allah’s heaven, but they cannot compare to the golden sun. Many are the black-eyed daughters in the Dagestani auls, but their beauty will dim at the appearance of a Georgian girl. Few years remain for them to flaunt their beauty! She will come and — the eastern sky will smile. Black stars are her eyes. Lush roses are her cheeks. Dark night is her curls. Praise to the daughter of the brave prince! Praise to the little Princess Nina Dzhavakha-ogly-Jamat, my granddaughter!”

Grandfather finished. And I sat as if enchanted. This praise was directed at me, as if I were a real adult girl. My joy knew no bounds. If it weren’t for the guests, I would have jumped, shrieked throughout the house, and done something for which strict Grandmother would surely have sent me away from the table. But I restrained myself, stood up gracefully, and no less gracefully thanked the dear tulungushi:

“Thank you for your kind words, Grandfather Magomet!”

And everyone — guests, relatives, and my dear father — couldn’t help but smile kindly at the little girl playing at being grown up.

After dinner, the same young khorunzhy began to tell how he had arrived on a wild mountain stallion that let no one else approach it.

This horse was his pride. He called it Demon for its desperate, fierce invincibility.

“An amazing horse!” said the khorunzhy. “A highlander brought it to me as a gift. He caught it with a lasso at the moment it was racing with its wild herd through the Valley. It took me a lot of effort to break and tame it. And it became submissive to me, as to its conqueror, but only to me alone and no one else. It doesn’t let others near it. Two of our officers almost paid with their lives when they decided to try and bridle my Demon…”

“Nonsense!” exclaimed my father. “Listen, Vrelsky, will you let me try to break the horse?”

“That’s madness, Prince, to risk yourself like that,” the khorunzhy tried to dissuade him.

“Order the horse to be brought!”

“Prince Dzhavakha, why risk for nothing?” the young Cossack tried to protest.

“Mr. Khorunzhy, obey your commander!” Father ordered with feigned strictness.

“Yes, sir, Mr. Commander!” — and, executing a military left-about turn, the khorunzhy went to carry out Father’s order.

All the guests crowded around the latter. In the regiment, they knew Demon — Vrelsky’s horse — and indeed no one had yet dared to ride him. Everyone therefore feared that my father’s venture might end sadly. The young Baroness looked at Father with pleading eyes and quietly begged him to change his mind. Only the gazes of Grandfather Magomet and young Izrail and Bella burned brighter and brighter in anticipation of Father’s desperately bold act.

Demon was led to the porch.

Of dark bay color, with trembling, red, as if fire-breathing nostrils, with black eyes spewing sparks, trembling all over, he fully justified his name. Two Mingrelian Cossacks barely held him back.

Father boldly walked towards the horse and took the reins. Demon trembled harder. His brown eye glanced sideways at the man. His entire appearance boded nothing good. Father stood right in front of his eyes, and looked at him for a minute. Then he unexpectedly swung his leg and found himself in the saddle. Demon snorted and kicked with his hind legs. The Mingrelians released the reins and scattered in different directions. In the same second, the horse let out a terrible neigh and, making a desperate leap, galloped headlong down the steep slope into the valley.

Two cries shook the air. One burst from my chest, the other from the chest of the young Baroness.

“He’ll kill him, he’ll kill him!” she whispered, closing her eyes, and writhed convulsively on her mother’s breast.

I didn’t thrash or cry. But all my life turned into sight. I kept my eyes on the rider galloping through the valley on the raging wild horse, and something groaned and ached inside me.

“Saint Nino! Most Pure Enlightener of Georgia! Save him! Preserve him! Return him to me whole and unharmed!” my pale lips whispered.

“Yokshi, splendid, little girl! You know how to be a real djigitka,” I heard Grandfather Magomet’s voice nearby.

But this time, his praise went unnoticed. At that moment, I was the personification of prayer and fear for my dear, beloved Papa.

But then a white cloud of dust appeared. Now it was closer, clearer… Now Father’s blue Cossack caftan with gold embroidery was visible… He was riding at a steady, long gallop… Now one could distinguish the horse and rider… A little more — and he was here, he was near!

His face was pale and cheerful, though traces of fatigue were visible on it. But what had happened to Demon? He was covered in white foam… His breathing was heavy and intermittent. His eyes, the proud eyes of the invincible, wild stallion, were full of forced humility. My brave father had tamed him.

“Bravo, bravo, Prince George! Well done, Batono! Brave, agha!” cried both the Russian officers and our Dagestani friends.

“Papa!” was all I could utter.

He embraced me with one arm, and extended the other to the Baroness, who seemed to come alive at his return.

Oh, how proud I was of him — my hero father!…

Meanwhile, from the house came the sounds of the chiunguri and zurna, inviting guests to the Lezginka, which began every ball in Georgian homes. They were softly echoed by the military orchestra that had arrived from Gori to its commander. Occasionally, rifle shots rang out: Mikhako was saluting Father.

When everyone went into the house, I remained on the balcony. I wanted to tell Papa so much; I was so agitated for him and so admired him that I couldn’t hide all my diverse feelings. But he went into the house, offering his arm to the young Baroness and seemingly forgetting about me.

“Little princess, the first quadrille with me,” I heard the cheerful shout of Khorunzhy Vrelsky.

“No, go away, I don’t want to dance!” I said half-sadly, half-angrily.

“But Father returned safe and sound,” the officer persisted, “why don’t you dance a little?” Or are you afraid of Grandmother?

Oh, this was too much!

I glared at him and said firmly:

“Oh, I am afraid of no one in the world! But I do not wish to dance!”

He looked with bewilderment at the little angry girl and, shrugging, joined the guests…

From the hall came the sounds of the Lezginka. I saw from my dark corner how the scarlet sleeves of the beshmets flashed: it was Bella dancing her national dance with Prince Izrail. But I did not go to where the inviting and cheerful sounds of the chiunguri and the jingling bells of the tambourine came from. I remained on the balcony, peering intently into the bushes of crimson roses, which seemed completely black in the pale moonlight.

Suddenly, there was the creak of a door, the jingle of spurs, the barely perceptible, like a breath, rustle of a dress, and… everything fell silent.

The young Baroness entered the balcony accompanied by my father. I wanted to hide, but some burning curiosity riveted me to the spot. The Baroness leaned on Father’s arm and looked at the sky. She seemed even paler, even more ethereal in the moonlight.

“So, you entrust your fate to me,” Father whispered affectionately. “I believe and realize that it will not be easy for you. It will be especially difficult for you to get along with Nina and become a second mother to my girl. Nina is a wild flower. It will be difficult to graft her onto foreign soil. But with your skill, with your wise head, you will win her love, I am sure of that. And once she loves, she becomes soft as wax. She is a good girl. She has a truly southern, responsive, and devoted heart.”

“Why are you telling me all this, Prince… I already love Nina as my own daughter.”

“Thank you for that, Liza! I am sure my little daughter will love her new mother.”

I saw clearly how, saying this, Father leaned into the Baroness’s hand.

“Does she already know about our wedding?” the Baroness asked after a pause.

I didn’t hear what Father replied to that, because something was buzzing, ringing, and shouting in several tones in my ears. I barely realized if it was the sounds of the Lezginka coming from the hall, or if it was the heated blood beating and gurgling in my brain…

A bright fiery streak permeated my thought: “My father is getting married, I will have a new mother!” This thought seemed terrible, unbearable to me…

“No, no, I won’t survive this…”

I was ready to shout: “I don’t want a new mother, I don’t want a stepmother!”

However, I had enough courage to hide my agitation until they left.

But as soon as the door creaked behind them, I darted into the garden with the agility of a cat, ran around it, found myself in the courtyard, and by the back entrance, made my way into the furthest room. Here, faintly, reached the sounds of military music, which had replaced the native chiunguri. The moonlight barely penetrated through the muslin curtains of the window. In the corner stood a divan. I threw myself onto it, beat my head against its cushions, kicked its satin bolsters, and choked with sobs. It seemed to me that something extraordinary had happened, something that should make the ceiling collapse, the walls split apart…

But none of this happened… Only a groan was heard close beside me.

I started in fright…

The groan was repeated… No, not a groan, but a gentle voice, like the rustle of a breeze:

“Nina!”

Then I realized that Yuliko, lying in the next room, was calling me. And strange to say, my suffering somehow suddenly subsided. I felt that there, beyond the wall, were stronger sufferings, heavier torments, than my own. Yuliko lay patiently, as he always had since he had fallen ill, incapacitated. The sounds of the feast and music and the cheerful chatter of the guests probably reached him. But he had been forgotten. I myself only now remembered that I had promised to bring him fruits and sweets from dinner the day before. I had promised and… forgotten…

All red and ashamed of my oversight, I stepped across the threshold of his room.

The moonlight silvered his blond head. He seemed paler and smaller among his white pillows, in the flickering twilight of the approaching night.

“Are you worse, Yuliko?” I asked, approaching him on tiptoe.

“I’m fine,” he said, “I just wanted to see you.”

“I’ll run down now and bring you some nuts and sherbet. Do you want some?”

“No, cousin… I don’t want anything sweet… but if you bring me a piece of meat, I’ll be very, very grateful!”

“Meat?” I was surprised.

“Yes… or a little chadi! I’m very hungry… I haven’t eaten all day today.”

My heart contracted with pain. My God, he had been forgotten!

Poor Yuliko! Poor little prince, starving on his luxurious bed, covered with the crests of his great lineage!

He had been forgotten!… Tears of pity stung my eyes as I ran downstairs, loudly calling to the frightened Barbalé to take dinner to the little prince. When I returned accompanied by Andro, who carried plates of roast and soup, Yuliko seemed agitated.

“Andro,” he ordered his servant, “put all this down and go… I don’t need anything else.”

As soon as Andro left, he grabbed my hands and stammered anxiously:

“For God’s sake, don’t tell anyone, Nina, for God’s sake! Otherwise Grandmother will get angry at Rodam and Anna for forgetting to feed me today, and she might chase them out of the house!”

Was it he who was saying this? What a change had happened to my cousin? Was this the one who constantly complained about me to Father or Grandmother for my pranks?

I simply didn’t recognize him!

“What’s wrong with you, Yuliko,” I blurted out, “why have you become so kind?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” he replied sadly, “but I want to be kind and forgive everyone and love everyone! When I lay hungry today, my soul was so light. I felt that I was suffering innocently and I felt wonderfully good! At times it seemed to me that I heard Dato’s voice praising me! And I was happy, very happy, Nina!”

“And I am so very unhappy, terribly unhappy, Yuliko!” I blurted out, and suddenly I burst into childish sobs, covering my eyes with my fists, with cries and moans muffled by the pillow. I fell onto the headboard of the sick boy and sobbed so hard that it seemed my chest would burst and all my life would pour out in those tears. Crying, moaning, and sobbing, I told him that Papa intended to marry, but that I didn’t want a new mother, that I could only love my deceased grandfather, and so on, and so forth.

He listened to me, resting his elbow on the pillows and stroking my hair with his thin, dried-up hands.

“Nina, Nina, poor Nina! If only you knew how sorry I am for you!”

“You!”

He addressed me as “you,” as an equal, and this did not offend me in the least.

There was no page and queen here; there were two small souls, each suffering in its own way…

When my sobs subsided, Yuliko stroked my cheek and said gently:

“Well, you’ve calmed down. I’ll address you as ‘you’ because I love you like Dato, and I addressed Dato as ‘you’.”

“Address me as ‘you’,” I allowed and then added plaintively with tear-filled eyes: “and please love me, because no one else loves me anymore.”

“That’s not true, Nina, your father loves you… You know that! But I have no one, and no one has ever loved me in my whole life.”

All this was said so sadly that I forgot about my grief, and with a heart constricted with pity, I hugged and kissed him.

We were sitting, tightly embraced, when a breathless Bella ran in. She exuded life and joy.

“One Lezginka, two Lezginka, three Lezginka and all Bella, just Bella,” she counted with a laugh. “No one else wants to dance… Come to the rescue, beauty-Dzhanym!”

“No, I won’t go.”

“How can you not go? Everyone is looking for you. Grandmother ordered it.”

“Tell Grandmother I won’t go. Tell her I got a big stain on my dress and don’t dare to go out. Tell her, sweet Bella!”

She was satisfied with my explanation and ran downstairs, triumphant and joyful, like a shining day.

We became quiet as mice. We were no longer sad. We chuckled softly, pleased that we hadn’t been separated.

Grief brings people closer. For the first time, I preferred the company of my cousin to the cheerful and laughing Bella.

Chapter 10. The Death of Yuliko. My Vow

 

Yuliko was dying quickly and silently, as flowers and consumptive children die. We spent all our time together. Grandmother, pleased with our friendship, often left us alone for long periods, and we eagerly shared our impressions, conversing like the closest friends. The White Lady, in other words — Baroness Elizaveta Vladimirovna Koring — often visited our house. Catching sight of her elegant sharabanchik from afar, so sharply contrasting with Gori’s crude carriages, I would rush to Yuliko and complain wistfully:

“She’s here again! She’s here again, Yuliko.”

He comforted me as best he could, this sick boy who coughed hoarsely and constantly clutched his chest. He forgot his own suffering, trying to calm the angry heart of the big girl. Meanwhile, the shadows of death were already settling around his eyes, which had grown larger and deeper due to the thinness and paleness of his emaciated face. He distributed his clothes and collars to the servants, and when Grandmother asked why he was doing this, he declared with conviction:

“Last night, Dato came to me; he promised to come for me again. We will go where people walk in white transparent robes that emit bright light. And I will be given the same clothing if I am generous and kind… I need no other clothes…”

Then, left alone with me, he told me various wonderful, completely unfamiliar fairy tales.

“Where do you know them from?” I inquired.

“My heart tells them to me!” he answered seriously.

My God, what did his sick imagination not invent: there were bright angels fighting dark spirits of evil and defeating them. There were also paradise gardens with small birds — the souls of children who died young. They fluttered among the fragrant flowers of Eden and praised the Great Creator with their singing. Then he spoke of fierce mountain spirits hiding in caves…

His stories were terrifying and enticing…

One day I was sitting by the sick boy’s bed, and we were talking quietly as usual, when suddenly the door swung open and the Baroness entered.

“Who is that?” he asked in fright.

“My name is Liza!” she said cheerfully and kindly, “I hope I haven’t disturbed you, Yuliko?”

He was silent… Then he unexpectedly closed his eyes, as if he had fallen asleep.

She stood thoughtfully on the threshold, smiled at me with a slightly bewildered smile, and left.

“She’s gone?” I heard my friend’s whisper at that very moment.

“Gone. Were you awake, Yuliko?” I was surprised.

“No. I just wanted her to leave quickly!”

“But… Yuliko, you wanted to be kind.”

“Oh, Nina! She made you cry, and I can’t forget that.”

My eyes moistened with tenderness: I had not expected such devotion and love from my poor little friend!

That same evening, Father walked in the garden with Baroness Liza. Seeing them, I wanted to hide, but he noticed me and called me over.

“Ninochka, why are you hiding?” he asked. “Elizaveta Vladimirovna wants to be friends with you.”

“I’m with Yuliko all the time, Papa,” I replied.

“And you do well: the poor boy has little time left to live… But when he leaves you, you won’t be alone. You’ll have your new mother with you!”

“New mother” — so, that was the final decision!

“Ninochka, will you love me?” I heard the Baroness’s gentle voice.

But I remained silent, my head bowed, staring at the ground.

Barbalé rescued me; she came to call me to Yuliko.

That night I couldn’t sleep. Something large and heavy pressed against my chest. It seemed to me that some enormous bird with the face of a new mother was flying around the room, trying to brush me with its wings.

I woke up in a cold sweat. Twilight had long since descended. Directly in front of me, through the open window, a large, solitary evening star shone like a gigantic diamond.

I stretched out my hands to it… I asked it not to dim for a long, long time, and until I grew up, to shine every night so that I — a small, lonely girl — wouldn’t feel so eerie alone…

Suddenly, a light breath of wind swept through the room, and in it, I distinctly heard Yuliko’s faint call:

“Nina.”

“Coming,” I replied and in a moment, I was beside him.

He lay on his back with his eyes open. On the carpet, at his feet, Rodam snored.

“Did you call me, Yuliko?” I asked him and was very surprised when he answered negatively.

“But I clearly heard your voice,” I insisted.

He suddenly thrashed and cried.

“Nina, my dear, it was death…”

“Death?” I blurted out, and I felt a shiver of terror throughout my body.

“Yes, death,” he confirmed mournfully: “when Dato died, death came for him and called me… I was also very scared… Now I’m dying… Oh, how terrible, how terrible!” — and he thrashed again in his little bed.

“Yuliko,” I said as calmly as possible, “when Grandmother died, she wasn’t afraid of death. She saw angels coming for her, and the wondrous throne of the Lord… Jubilant seraphim stood by the throne, and Grandmother went to them willingly, she didn’t cry… The dark angel came to her so quietly that no one noticed him…”

“But I’m so suffocated, Nina, I’m suffering so much!”

“Do you want me to carry you to the rooftop, Yuliko — to where Grandmother died?” I said, a thought suddenly flashing in my mind. “Perhaps it will be easier for you there.”

“You can’t do it, Nina…”

“Oh!” I smiled not without pride, “don’t think I’m as weak as you! Wrap yourself up well, and I’ll carry you: you’ll breathe easily there; you’ll see the mountains and the midnight star.”

“Yes, yes, the mountains and the midnight star,” the sick boy echoed, “yes, yes, take me to the rooftop, Nina!”

I was strong, like a fourteen-year-old boy, and Yuliko, weak and emaciated from his illness, seemed light as a feather to me.

Stepping carefully so as not to wake Rodam, I walked with my burden along the long corridor and then with difficulty began to climb the spiral staircase upwards. Stepping onto the rooftop, I laid Yuliko, who was trembling as if with a fever, on the divan, the very same divan on which Grandmother had died six years ago. Then I brought pillows and a burka, with which I wrapped the sick boy over his blanket.

“Oh, now I feel good!” he whispered. “Thank you, good Nina.”

In the distance, the mountains darkened… The solitary midnight star stood directly before us. All around, the quiet rustle of plane trees in the garden was heard, and the roses smelled inexpressibly sweet.

“Aren’t you scared anymore?” I asked.

He turned his face to me, all radiant with a quiet light that made him almost beautiful. Before me lay what seemed like a new Yuliko… Where had his small, mouse-like eyes gone, his unattractive, arrogant face!… He now seemed like a gentle blond angel… With eyes enlarged by unearthly rapture, with wide-open, shining pupils, he looked at the midnight star and whispered softly, barely audibly:

“I think… I see Dato…”

“Where is he?” I asked.

He raised his right hand to the sky and said firmly:

“He is by the Creator’s throne… there, among the other angels. He has golden wings… and your Grandmother does too… they both smile… beckon… I’m suffocating… very suffocated… lift my head… I must be dying…”

“Yuliko!” I cried out. “I’ll wake Grandmother, Papa…”

“No, no,” the dying boy whispered in fright, “don’t leave me. I don’t want anyone but you… Grandmother probably doesn’t love me anymore… I involuntarily deceived her… She thought I would be healthy and strong, but I’m going to heaven, like Dato. I am the last Dzhavakha-ogly… The last of the Princes of Gori… When Uncle George dies, the Dzhavakha line will be no more… They will forget the heroes who fell for the homeland of our fathers and grandfathers… There will be no Dzhavakha line…”

“Yuliko!” I cried, listening to his weakening speech, “I’ll call Grandmother, she still loves you!”

“No,” he smiled bitterly, “she doesn’t love me, no one loves me… I’m a stranger, unwanted… and I love no one, Nina… no one but you, my queen…”

“No, Yuliko,” I cried, almost weeping, “you will no longer be my page, you are my brother. My dear brother! I have so often been unfair to you… Forgive me, I will love you… I will love you more than Barbalé, more than Grandfather, Aunt Bella… You will be first after Papa… Just live, poor, little, lonely Yuliko!”

“Nina!” he burst out with ecstatic joy, as if in a last surge, “you told me that!… Oh, how good I feel now… they will pity me, they will cry for me… And who? You, my sister, my friend, my queen! I’m not scared now! I feel good… How the roses smell… Like incense spreading from heaven… I see Dato… I see the dark angel hand in hand with him. They are coming here, they are close… they are near… Oh, how excruciating… The dark angel raises his hand… He calls… I am coming… to you, Dato!… It’s time, Nina… it’s time… you see, they are waiting for me. Oh, how unbearably bright their white clothes shine… From them, rays go there… to heaven… to the throne of God… It’s time… The dark angel hurries… and Dato too… I’m going to them… Farewell, Nina, farewell, my queen!”

His voice weakened, grew duller, softer. Another effort… dark eyelashes flutter… it’s barely understandable what he’s whispering… A slight moan… a rasp… eyes closed… opened again… Everything grew quiet… Yuliko stretched his whole body and — died.

I was neither sad nor scared. All feelings merged into an immense tenderness before the mystery of death.

I looked around… Quiet… No rustle… no sound… Only the roses spread their spicy scent far around, and high in the dark sky, the magnificent, solitary, and proud midnight star still burned brightly.

Yuliko’s death surprised no one. When, after covering his dead head with a white burka, I ran downstairs and woke Grandmother, Father, and the whole house, everyone calmly reacted to the event. Grandmother began to wail according to Georgian custom, but my father looked at her strictly, and she immediately quieted down. Then she angrily lashed out at me:

“I knew he would die, that his hours were numbered, but why did you carry him to the rooftop: you hastened his death, heartless girl!”

I looked at her with surprise.

“Yuliko died because the Lord sent the dark angel of death for him… The Lord knew when Yuliko was to die. I am not to blame. Mamao (Father, priest) says that people are not free in either life or death. Right, Mamao?”

The gray-haired priest, who had come to give Yuliko his last rites, smiled quietly and placed his blessing hand on my head.

“You are right, my child,” he said, “only the Lord can give life and send death to people.”

Grandmother walked away from us, displeased and angry. She had no idea how much she had offended me!…

Tears of hurt burned my eyes.

“Mamao,” I resolutely approached the priest, who was removing his epitrachelion after praying over Yuliko’s body, “will he go directly to God?”…

“He is already there, my child. His soul is at the Throne of the Most High.”

“And will every dying child go there?”

He thought for a moment and, fixing his kind eyes on me, answered firmly:

“Every one!”

“Oh, how I wish I could die,” I involuntarily thought: “then I wouldn’t see either Grandmother or the Baroness, whom I hated with all my soul.”

The latter came to Yuliko’s funeral in deep mourning. In her black dress, she seemed even thinner and more ethereal.

When the sorrowful procession with the remains of the deceased little prince moved from our house, I felt a bitter loneliness.

The day before, I had crept into the room, all draped in black muslin, where Yuliko’s coffin stood, and, placing a wreath of yellow azaleas and velvet magnolias, woven by my own hands, on the deceased’s curls, I said:

“Farewell, Yuliko, farewell, poor little page of your queen… You are happy already because you will no longer hear evil words and no one will reproach you with anything more… If I am very, very sad, you will render me one last service: you will whisper to the Angel of Death to come for me… Do you hear me, Yuliko?”…

Then I kissed him…

When the arba with the gilded coffin stopped at the open grave, Grandmother cried and wailed, like a simple Georgian woman:

“The last child… the last little prince of the Dzhavakha line… vai-me… woe to us!… Woe to me, a lonely old woman, destined to witness the extinction of a glorious name!”

Her cries grew louder and more frantic. Then Papa, nervously twisting his dark mustache, approached her.

“Stop, Deda, you sound like you’ve buried me too,” he said with a smile, “but I’m still alive, thank God, and, God willing, I’ll live much longer, and you won’t see the end of our glorious line.”

She calmed down and cried no more.

Yuliko’s coffin was lowered into the ground…

That same evening, in the mourning hall where the memorial feast for the deceased little prince was held, in the presence of many guests gathered for the funeral, Father said loudly:

“Our wedding will be postponed for three weeks, due to the death of little Dzhavakha.”

I was stunned…

So, it was a decided matter after all; so, the wedding would happen; so, the slender Baroness would be my stepmother?…

Grandmother, forgetting her recent tears, looked with tender affection at the woman who was to become the young Princess Dzhavakha in three weeks, and the guests smiled at her kindly and amiably…

I don’t remember how I left the table, how I slipped into my room. I only came to before the portrait of my deceased mother, which hung above my bed.

My cheeks burned as if on fire… Tears blurred my eyes…

“Deda,” I said in a frenzy, staring at her sweet image with sad eyes and a beautiful face, “you were and will remain my only one… Your little one, your dzhanym, doesn’t want another Deda! And if fate wishes it, I will run away, Deda! I will run to the mountains… to Grandfather Magomet… to Princess Bella Izrail.”

And I sobbed as I said this, so loudly that Barbalé ran in to see what was wrong with me.

“Barbalé,” I cried out, “be a witness, Barbalé, that I don’t want a new Deda! Do you hear me, my old Barbalé?”

She understood me.

“Poor little Princess!” the kind old woman whispered and, embracing me, suddenly burst into tears.

And I cried with her… These were no longer tears of anger, of hurt… Barbalé’s caress softened my heart… A decision was ripening in my mind.

Chapter 11. Sara the Sorceress. The Escape

 

I decided to run away.

And my decision was firm.

I had already drawn up a plan for the escape. It wasn’t that easy. I, Princess Dzhavakha, was known to every Armenian shopkeeper and every grubby Tatar boy in Gori. They could return me. But I had foreseen everything.

I knew a poor little wandering musician, a Georgian sazandar named Beko. He lived in the poorest quarter of Gori, behind the marketplace. They said his mother, old Sara, was a sorceress. Beko the sazandar had a bagpipe. He would come to the gardens of the rich people of Gori and sing his songs… Beko was my height and adored silver abazas (twenty kopecks). When they threw them to him from windows, he would pounce on them with such greed, as if his life depended on it. I had a gift from Papa, two shiny new tumans (gold coins worth ten rubles), and I decided to give them to Beko so he would sell me his sazandar (bagpipe) and his rags. A small sazandar could easily enter the mountains without arousing suspicion… And I decided to transform myself into a small sazandar.

With this goal in mind, the day before my planned escape, I ordered Shalyi to be saddled and rode to Gori.

I rode slowly, with loose reins, greatly surprising the Tatar children who were accustomed to my wild gallop. For the last time, I gazed with sad eyes at my dear Gori, its ruins, its valleys.

Life in the marketplace had quieted. The time was nearing sunset.

Fat Armenian women sat by their stalls, shelling pumpkin seeds and gossiping incessantly.

A Persian fabric seller nodded to me and praised my horse. He knew Papa well.

“Sarem,” I asked, “do you know how to get to old Sara’s place?”

“You must dismount, illustrious Princess. You won’t get there riding. You need to go down the rows, around the corner to the left,” he explained thoroughly and then, winking cunningly, asked: “Have you come to have your fortune told by old Sara?”

I thanked him, jumped off my horse, and, handing it to the Persian, was about to go the way he indicated, when suddenly Beko appeared before us as if from under the ground. He was walking with his bagpipe, humming something under his breath.

“Beko!” I called out, “wait for me: I was coming to you.”

He approached, surprised and somewhat frightened.

“What does the illustrious lady need?” he asked.

“I need to tell you a secret, Beko,” I whispered so Sarem wouldn’t hear, and immediately added aloud: “Take me to your mother, I want to know my fortune.”

He was amazed that such a small girl wanted her fortune told by his mother, but he still led me to her.

On the way, I explained that I wanted to buy his bagpipe and his torn clothes from him. At my promise to give him two tumans, his eyes sparkled.

“And why does the illustrious lady need the poor sazandar’s clothes?” he asked, slyly squinting.

“You see, Beko,” I lied, “we are having a celebration… you know, my father’s wedding… he is marrying a noble Russian girl. I want to dress as a sazandar and sing a song in honor of the new Deda.”

“But you don’t know how to play the bagpipe, lady,” Beko laughed.

“And I don’t need to… I’ll say the bagpipe is broken, and it will stay on my shoulders, I’ll just sing…”

“In that case, let’s go. I’ll take you to mother. She should agree.”

“Do you think so?” I inquired timidly.

“Certainly, my clothes are old, almost rags, and the bagpipe is worth nothing. And if the lady promises two tumans…”

“I’ll give them to you, Beko,” I hastened to reassure him.

“Mother will agree,” he confirmed confidently and immediately added: “We’re here, lady.”

I knew that there were poor people living in basements, but what I saw surpassed all my expectations.

A wandering sazandar was the poorest person in Georgia. And Beko was only beginning his career. He lived with his mother in a miserable shack, nestled against the market forge and as sooty as coal due to this proximity.

I pushed the small door and found myself in darkness.

“Deda,” Beko said, “I have brought the illustrious lady. Do you hear, Deda?”

“I am here, son,” a muffled and hoarse voice answered from the far corner.

“My pretty young lady,” she babbled rapidly, “beautiful mistress… let old Sara reveal your future. And for that you will give her another shiny little abaz… Only one abaz… illustrious mistress… for Sara’s pipe…”

“But I have nothing left,” I stammered, embarrassed, “I gave you everything I had.”

“Ay, ay, ay!” the crazy woman laughed horribly, “Why should such a pretty lady lie?… A pretty lady with diamond eyes will give a little white abaz to poor Sara… Sara will tell the lady everything… everything…”

“But…”

“Listen, girl,” the old woman suddenly changed her tone completely, and in the flickering light of the candle end, her face became solemn and motionless, like a corpse, “listen, girl… dark thoughts are sent by Shaitan… by a great dark force… a dark force drives the light out of your soul… Your soul struggles… The dark force triumphs. I see mountains… a black night guards them… A sazandar walks along a mountain path… walks not of his own will. A white dove replaces the black eagle in the eagle’s nest… The sazandar goes further… and further… Death looks into his eyes… The wing of the dark angel is close, but it did not touch him… He is alive… A mountain falcon is his protection… But the mountain falcon will not fly in the mountains for long… I see blood… much blood… And there, a white dove weeps that it did not reach the eagle’s nest… The eagle loves its offspring… And another road… A cold country… and girls… many of them… many… The eaglet is caught and locked in a cage. He suffocates and cries… he longs for the mountains and again the dark angel is close… His wing trembles… He…”

The old woman didn’t finish… She fell in convulsions at the threshold and moaned loudly…

“But it’s dark in here, like in a grave. I can’t see anything!” I said timidly.

At that moment, a match struck. Its yellowish flame flickered in the corner.

People considered Beko’s mother a sorceress. She never left her dwelling, as if she feared the sunlight. But the dark, naive inhabitants of the poor quarter willingly came to her. She told their fortunes with cards, corn kernels, and coffee grounds.

She seemed insane or pretended to be.

I involuntarily shuddered at the sight of the thin, hunched, not-yet-old woman, in bright motley rags, with gray locks peeking out from under her cap. Her eyes burned with restless glints. She constantly began to laugh without reason and hum to herself.

“Be well, illustrious Princess Nina Dzhavakha,” she said.

“How do you know my name, Sara?” I was surprised, suppressing an involuntary fear at the sight of the old woman.

“There is nothing in the world that Sara doesn’t know,” she laughed strangely, “Sara also knows what is happening 10,000 versts from here.”

“Mother,” Beko said timidly, “the princess wishes…” — and he quietly and quickly began to tell her the reason for my visit.

She listened attentively, her eyes wandering over my figure, and suddenly she cried out:

“Two tumans! Great dark and light powers, two tumans! For old rags, two tumans! Did I hear correctly, Beko?”

“Correct,” the boy said, “and for the bagpipe too.”

“Praise be to the dark and light powers! Now old Sara can eat more than just corn kernels!… And for the holiday, buy mocha (coffee), real Turkish mocha… do you hear that, Beko, black mocha and a share of tobacco!”

And suddenly she unexpectedly shrieked and whirled wildly around the room.

“A share of tobacco and mocha, real Turkish mocha!” the old woman shrieked, spinning as if in a frenzy of madness.

I trembled with fear… My teeth chattered.

“Beko,” I said, “take your two tumans and give me the dress… It’s time for me to go.”

“Yes, yes, son, give her the dress, it’s time for her to go,” the old woman picked up, “just get the two tumans from her… get the two tumans from her!” she shrieked even louder in a hoarse, unpleasant voice.

I trembled even more.

“Here are the two tumans, Beko…” I said, barely in control of myself, and held out my hand.

At that very moment, I felt the touch of sharp, hooked nails on it, and in an instant, the gold coins vanished from my palm.

Old Sara continued to jump and dance on the earthen floor of her little room. Beko went to the dark corner to take off his clothes, perhaps the only ones he had. My head was spinning both from the pungent, unpleasant smell in that dreadful dwelling and from the insane woman’s cries. As soon as I received the bundle from Beko, I nodded to both of them and hastily headed for the exit.

In three jumps, the old woman was in front of me and blocked the door.

With a swift movement, I yanked the door open and found myself in the open air.

I saw the sky and Gori again… The stench-filled dwelling of the fortuneteller was left behind…

“What did the old woman lie to you about?” Sarem asked with interest, offering me the stirrup, “you look pale, Princess!”

“Oh, Sarem,” I blurted out, “how awful it all is, she needs help, she’s dying.”

“She’ll survive. Witches are tough,” he laughed unkindly, “she’ll fool people and beg for money for a long time yet!… Good journey, Princess, bow to the general,” and, nodding to me once more, he went to his shed, and I galloped home.

Never before had I been so merciless to my horse, never before had I lashed Shalyi’s steep sides with the tiny nagaika so fiercely. The loyal horse understood me and carried me swiftly, swiftly. Fragments of the sorceress’s ravings flashed through my mind. Although I considered them nonsense, I couldn’t drive them out of my thoughts. I longed to be home…

My escape was set for tomorrow. Not a soul suspected it. I had been preparing for it for three whole weeks. In a small bundle, I had packed lavash and lobia, which I daily saved from dinner and secretly carried to my room. My small dagger, sharpened by me on the kitchen whetstone during Barbalé’s absence, also lay under my pillow… I had already gone to the cemetery to bid farewell to Mama’s and Yuliko’s graves and to swear my unbreakable vow once more over the ashes of Deda.

I released Kazbek, whose wings had grown considerably over the summer, and the young eagle flew into the mountains. I had been especially kind to Grandmother lately: I didn’t want to leave a bad impression. Even with the hateful Baroness, I was very amiable, which pleased Papa. Barbalé, Rodam, silly Andro, who had been terribly sad since the death of his young prince, Bragim, Mikhako, and Anna — they all couldn’t praise me enough. I was gentle, kind, considerate. Only with Father I didn’t fawn… I was afraid that if I looked into his small, beautiful eyes, I wouldn’t have the strength to leave him and wouldn’t be able to carry out my plan, wouldn’t dare to leave him…

All these three weeks, I daily rode with Shalyi to the outskirts of Gori, saying goodbye to the dear, native places…

And now the day of the escape arrived.

The day before, sitting for the last time on Shalyi’s back, I made him impossibly hot, to fully indulge in the madly fast gallop.

“Tomorrow, tomorrow,” I repeated, as if in a dream. “Tomorrow I will no longer see you, my rosy, my fragrant Gori… I will be far away… Tomorrow, when the happy bride enters my father’s house, little, angry Princess Nina will already be several tens of versts away from home! Farewell, Gori! Farewell, my homeland!… Yes, tomorrow I won’t be here. ‘A white dove will replace the black eagle in the eagle’s nest,’ I remembered Sara’s prediction. ‘A small eaglet cannot get along in the same nest with a white dove…’ How well, how poetically Sara expressed her prophecy!…”

“Prophecy?” I caught myself thinking with horror, “prophecy — that means Sara was telling the truth… She’s a clairvoyant!… And the mountain kite, and the blood… and the girls and the cramped cage? What is it? Help me, God! I don’t understand anything!”

Almost insensible, Father, who was waiting at the porch for my return, lifted me from the horse and, pressing me to his chest, carried me into the house.

“Nina, what took you so long? How you frightened us, my child! Where were you?” he gently scolded me on the way. “What’s wrong with you? How pale you are!”

“Nothing, Papa, Shalyi just carried me away a bit,” I lied.

“These walks must stop,” Grandmother said strictly, not even deigning to look at me. “You will no longer ride Shalyi; it’s time to take up serious studies.”

“Yes, they will stop, tomorrow,” I said, not without malice, gazing defiantly at this dry, callous, pedantic old woman.

“What’s that you have, child?” Father asked, pointing to the small bundle I was clutching to my chest like a treasure.

“This?” — and I flushed like a dawn — “This… a little surprise for you tomorrow… for the wedding…” I lied again involuntarily that evening.

Poor, dear Papa! If he only knew what kind of wedding gift his favorite dzhanym was preparing for him! Fortunately, it is not given to people by fate to read each other’s thoughts.

He smiled at me gently and happily…

The tea I drank that last evening in my father’s house seemed bitter and tasteless. I touched neither the dinner nor the wine. Then, feigning a headache, I asked permission to leave the table.

Grandmother cast an angry glance at me, and Father stood up, alarmed.

“What’s wrong, chemi potara sakvarelo, what’s wrong?” he asked, blessing me for the coming sleep and looking into my eyes.

“Nothing, Papa, just a little headache, tired and that’s all!” I replied as calmly as possible, and, afraid of bursting into tears before him, I hastened to leave.

He caught up with me on the road, lifted me into his arms, and carried me, playfully lulling me to sleep, as he often did when I was a child.

“Papa-joy!” I could only utter, and pressed myself tightly to his chest. “Do you love me?”

“Do I love you?” he cried out, “You — my little one, my girl, my daughter-dzhanym!… Do I love you? And you can ask that, you wicked little one?”

“My Papa,” I whispered, blissfully closing my eyes, “if I died… like Mama and Yuliko… would you cry a lot? bitterly?”

“Oh-oh!” a groan escaped his chest and he squeezed me tightly, painfully, in his arms.

I saw by the pale moonlight how his face turned deathly pale, and my heart ached.

“What’s wrong, Papa, my gold… after all, I’m alive, I’m near you… here, Papa… and I’ll be with you, good, clever girl… and for that, you sit on my bed and tell me a fairy tale about the moonbeam… remember how you told it when I was little!” I asked, caressing him.

“Yes, yes,” he rejoiced, “I’ll tell you a fairy tale, and you lie quietly, quietly… like a mouse.”

“Dear Papa,” I called him, having undressed in a minute and slipped into bed, “I’m ready. Begin your tale.”

He sat on the edge of the bed and, playing with my black, long braids, inherited from Mama, began his fairy tale…

It was a wonderful tale! In it, a moonbeam told of its travels — how it peered at the earth and human dwellings and what it saw there: it was in the royal palace, and in the hunter’s dugout, and in prison, and in the hospital… a wonderful tale, but this time I wasn’t listening to it at all. I only caught the sounds of his dear voice, and my heart sank with the realization that tomorrow I would no longer hear it, would no longer see that wonderful, kind face with proud, beautiful eyes and a gentle gaze.

I closed my eyes, vividly imagining his image, to see if I would succeed when I was far from him.

“Are you sleeping, my little one?” he asked softly.

If I had answered, I would surely have burst into tears: so tender, so femininely affectionate was his question. I remained silent…

Then he leaned over me and gently and lightly touched my forehead with his lips.

“Sleep, my daughter, sleep, chemi potara sakvarelo,” he uttered his favorite affectionate phrase.

To throw myself onto his chest, wrap my arms around his neck, press an answering kiss to his dear lips — that’s what I wanted to do. But… I didn’t…

“Wedding tomorrow… A white dove will settle in the eagle’s nest, where there is no place for a little eaglet… Oh, Deda! I will keep my vow!” a whirlwind of thoughts swept through my mind.

He left, stepping carefully so as not to wake me, and I buried my head in the pillows and sobbed muffledly, uncontrollably…

The rays of dawn had not yet gilded Gori when I, in the costume of Beko the sazandar, left the house with a bagpipe on my shoulder and a bundle in my hands.

Before leaving, I had spent a long time wrestling with my hair: it just wouldn’t fit under the dirty lambskin papakh. I didn’t want to cut it. Hair was the pride and wealth of an Eastern girl. Besides, in the aul of Bestudi, a shorn girl would be laughed at. So I painstakingly stuffed it under the hat, glad I didn’t have to cut it.

Leaving the house, I descended the cliff to the Kura River, crossed the bridge, and, climbing the mountain on the opposite bank, looked back. All of Gori was spread out like a map. Here was our house, here was the garden, here was the old dense-leaved chestnut tree under Father’s window… the old chestnut tree, planted during Grandfather’s time… There, behind its branches, he slept, my Papa, kind, beloved… He slept and had no idea what his wicked potara sakvarela was planning…

Poor, dear Papa, will you forgive your dzhanym, your dove? Forgive me, kind one, forgive me, dear one! Forgive me, my Papa! I couldn’t do otherwise… Forgive me and believe that I love you very, very much… Farewell to you too, my homeland… my quiet, smiling Georgia… I am leaving you to seek a new life in the harsh mountains of Dagestan… Farewell, native, quiet, fragrant, rosy Gori!…

I looked back once more… and again and again… then I squeezed my eyes shut and ran towards the mountains.

The sun was rising… Golden rays timidly touched the rocky mountain ridges, thickly overgrown with tenacious vineyards… The Kura Valley — the poorest in fertility, but I loved it, because this was my homeland… I admired it and would not wish for anything better in return… Meanwhile, I went further and further, vaguely remembering the road we had taken to Dagestan two and a half months ago. But soon I had to change direction: it was unsafe for me to walk along the main road. Far around Gori, they knew the rich, famous Prince Dzhavakha and his black-eyed daughter. Therefore, I turned into the mountains and went deeper into them, still trying to keep to the direction of the postal road. Occasionally, I heard the sound of a bell and the thud of horses’ hooves. Then everything quieted down… I must have lost my way… I wanted to eat; my legs, unaccustomed to walking, ached painfully.

“I’ll have to wait until dark and then ask to spend the night in an aul,” I decided, taking lavash from my bag and beginning to eat.

I was very hungry and quickly devoured my provisions.

Finally, my hunger was satisfied, but thirst began. “There must be water nearby,” flashed through my head.

I heard the sound of a river or stream and, springing to my feet, began to make my way into the thicket.

Climbing a mountain, I quietly gasped. A spring gushed from a green cliff. A tall, slender girl in a blue beshmet, without a hat but with a single veil, draped in the Mingrelian style over her black braids, was filling her clay jug with water.

Seeing me, she cried out:

“What a handsome sazandar! Where are you from?”

“From Tsylkan,” I lied bravely.

“And where are you going?”

“I’m going wherever my eyes lead me, wherever my songs take me. Can I drink, beautiful one?… I don’t know your name…”

“You can,” she laughed, “the water is not mine, but God’s… But why are you alone?… you’re such a young sazandar… You must be barely twelve?”

“Fourteen,” I lied again, no longer blushing.

“Still so young. Your Deda must not love you much if she lets you go alone.”

“My Deda is in the ground,” I replied sadly. “I have no Deda… I am an orphan… alone in the world.”

“Poor little sazandar! I also have no mother, but I have a father. He runs a dukhan (inn, eatery) near the aul. He is Armenian. Do you know the dukhan of the Armenian Arshak? No, you don’t? He is my father… Come with me, dear sazandar… We’ll feed you in our dukhan, and you’ll sing us your songs for it. I love songs, and the guests in the dukhan will listen to them too and give you shiny abazas… Come, dear sazandar.”

The night in the mountains boded nothing good; and the girl’s voice was so gentle, and the young Armenian woman herself looked so kind, that I agreed to her offer.

“What’s your name?” she asked me on the way.

“Beko!” I replied, without batting an eyelid.

“Do you know many songs, Beko?”

“I know many. Unfortunately, my bagpipe is broken and I cannot play it, but my voice is clear and resonant, and I know many good songs.”

“Well, here we are!” exclaimed my new patroness.

We were indeed standing at the doors of the dukhan, from which the noise and laughter of guests could be heard.

“Father,” Kato (that was the girl’s name) cried out, leading me into the large room filled with clouds of tobacco smoke, where the smell of wineskins mingled with the smell of fat and lamb, “I’ve brought you a guest.”

A fat Armenian, with a hooked nose and darting black eyes, scanned me with an unfriendly gaze and rudely cried out:

“Why did you bring a beggar musician? So many of them wander around! A dukhan is not a lodging house.”

“But he’s a sazandar, Father,” Kato interceded for me, “he knows songs.”

“What do I care about your sazandar and his songs!” the Armenian rudely shouted, but then the guests, whose figures gradually began to emerge from the clouds of smoke, spoke up for me.

“Why not let the little sazandar sing a bit… Besides, he’s quiet as a chicken and looks like a girl.”

There were several guests, drinking and smoking; three of them were playing cards in the corner.

“Well, all right, stay,” the host allowed, “and entertain the gentlemen.”

At that moment, Kato placed a plate of steaming shashlik before me. I hadn’t eaten anything hot since yesterday, and therefore the shashlik, seasoned with rancid fat, seemed very tasty to me.

“Well, now sing, sazandar,” the dukhan owner ordered when the plate given to me was empty.

I bravely walked to the middle of the room and, looking at the smiling Kato, began to sing:

“In a mountain gorge, a dukhan found shelter… In it, old Arshak trades briskly… Arshak has a beautiful daughter, Kato… Kato has black eyes and a kind heart. She pities the poor sazandar encountered on the road. She brings him to the dukhan and gives him food. The sazandar thanks Kato and wishes her a good groom. And the guests in the dukhan look at Kato and say: ‘This is a good girl. To take her into one’s home means to receive a blessing, because a wife’s kind heart is the greatest wealth in a Georgian home’…”

I don’t know how it happened that the song composed itself so smoothly and clearly on my lips. The guests nodded their heads approvingly, old Arshak winked at them, looking at the blushing Kato, and Kato whispered through her laughter:

“Look what he came up with, the handsome sazandar!”

Encouraged by my success, I began to sing them the song I had heard from Deda about the Black Rose carried to a foreign land:

 

A black rose in a cleft of the rocks

Grew tenderly in spring,

The April wind caressed the flower,

The night watered it with dew…

The rose bloomed, filling the air

Of its native land with its fragrance…

Suddenly…

 

My voice broke off mid-phrase… Under the dukhan window, the sound of horseshoes jingled… Someone nearby cracked a nagaika…

“Why did you stop, boy?” “They’re new guests,” my listeners reassured me.

These were indeed new visitors.

The host went out onto the porch. For about five minutes he talked to them, then re-entered the room and said loudly:

“They didn’t find her!”

“Whom?” I blurted out against my will.

“You see,” Kato began: “a Gori general and prince sent his subordinate Cossacks to search. His daughter disappeared, a very young girl. They fear she might have fallen into the Kura. There’s no trace anywhere. Haven’t you seen her, handsome sazandar?”

“No, I haven’t,” I said with a tremor in my voice and thought: “Poor, poor Papa! How much involuntary grief I’ve caused you!…”

It was dangerous to stay longer in the dukhan, where our Cossacks could arrive at any moment. Therefore, I took advantage of the time when the hosts went out to see off the guests, jumped out the window, and disappeared into the darkness of the approaching night…

Chapter 12. Night in the Mountains. Landslide

 

I walked at random, because black clouds covered the sky and not a thing could be seen around. The air, saturated with electricity, was stifling with that unbearable oppressiveness that scrapes the throat, makes the head spin, and torments with thirst. I walked, listening in horror to the distant rumbles of thunder, sonorously repeated by the mountain echo.

A thunderstorm was approaching… Any moment, it seemed, the thunderous hammer would strike, the sky would open, and the golden zigzags of lightning would illuminate the grimly lurking mountain giants.

I could no longer walk for fear of falling into an abyss. The path grew narrower and narrower and led higher and higher up the steep slope. I felt so terrified now in this mountain torrent, alone with the gloomy nature preparing for the storm.

And then it broke… Golden snakes scurried across the black clouds, the thunder roared so much that the mountains seemed to shake, and a whole torrent of rain poured onto the ground, making it soft and slippery…

I huddled under the overhang of a huge cliff and peered in horror into the darkness of the night… Somewhere, wild torrents roared, and the mountains groaned with a prolonged, rolling moan.

And suddenly I saw something I will never forget. A winding golden arrow of lightning, breaking from the sky, struck a neighboring cliff, and a huge chunk of rock broke off and flew into the abyss, directly into the embrace of the roaring mountain stream. At the same moment, a desperate cry echoed from the other side of the cliff… An answering cry escaped my chest, and I lost consciousness.

I cannot account for how much time passed since I, frightened by the mountain landslide, fell unconscious on the slippery path: perhaps a short time, perhaps a long time…

When I opened my eyes, the thunderstorm was gone. I lay by a fire on a spread-out burka… Around me, fantastically lit by the bright flames, sat and stood mountaineers armed with daggers and rifles. There were many of them, about 20 people. Their faces were somber and stern. Their speech was abrupt and rough.

“These are mountain dushmans (bandits),” a whirlwind of thoughts rushed through my head, and a cold sweat broke out on my forehead.

I was afraid to move… Let them better think I’m dead — perhaps they’ll leave… and leave me alone.

“Ege, the boy’s come to,” I heard a rough voice above me, and opening my eyes, met the gaze of a tall, grim-looking mountaineer.

He was dressed in a simple brown beshmet and a black burka; elegant daggers with silver handles and heavy pistols, also decorated with silver and niello, dangled from his belt. A curved saber hung at his side…

“No doubt your soul went to your heels, confess,” the mountaineer continued, as if amused by my confusion, and then asked menacingly: “Who are you?”

“I am Beko, sazandar Beko… I was coming from Tsvili and got lost in the mountains…” I stammered.

“Do you have money?”

“No, sir, only two abazas, given to me by kind gentlemen in the dukhan.”

“Your skill isn’t great, boy, if you only have two abazas in your soul!… Are you Georgian?”

“I am Alazan.”

“Just so… Lazy creatures, these Georgians, and the Alazans and Gurians especially. The sun and sky are for them… And grapes and corn… Am I right?” he unexpectedly turned to the others.

“Right, aga (sir),” they replied respectfully.

“Well, good! By the will of Allah, we found you, boy, on the path, there’s nothing to take from you… We won’t choke you for your rags. Give us your two abazas and get lost to Shaitan.”

I jumped to my feet and, placing the coin in his outstretched palm, was ready to disappear, when suddenly a rider galloped right up to the fire. He was riding a small white mountain horse, and holding another on a lead. It was a tall black horse, trembling in all its limbs… The arriving mountaineer, entirely wrapped in a burka, tied his horse to a tree and led the black horse right up to the fire… I froze in surprise and fear… It was he, my Shalyi, my loyal horse, I recognized him! And lunging forward, I cried out with a voice that wasn’t my own:

“Shalyi!”

Yes, it was he — my Shalyi! My faithful Shalyi, my irreplaceable friend and servant!

In response to my desperate cry, he let out a prolonged whinny. In a minute, forgetting everything: both the mountain dushmans, and the danger of being discovered, and my recent fainting spell caused by the mountain landslide, and the hellish thunderstorm, and everything that had happened to me, I hung on his slender, beautiful neck, I kissed his muzzle, his intelligent brown eyes, whispering in some rapture:

“My Shalyi! My dear one! My sweet one!”

Suddenly, someone’s frantic laughter, full of triumph and malice, interrupted my effusions.

“So this is where you met!” I heard amidst bursts of wild laughter.

Looking up at the newcomer, I was stunned… It was Abrek!

The burka fell from his head. The bright flames of the fire illuminated his triumphant face with an ominous light.

For a minute he was silent, as if enjoying my horror. Then he laughed with a new, already quiet and triumphant laugh, which resonated even more agonizingly than before in my terrified heart.

“What’s wrong, Abrek?” the tall mountaineer called out in surprise, “has Shaitan entered you?”

“Stop, aga!” he suddenly cut short his laughter, and after a short pause asked the tall mountaineer more calmly: “Do you know, aga, who this sazandar is?”

“No, I don’t… Can Aga Bekir, your leader and chief, be interested in a beggar sazandar?” the other replied arrogantly.

“Listen then,” Abrek said again, not taking his burning eyes off me, “this is not a sazandar, but the daughter of my enemy — the Russian General Prince Dzhavakha-ogly-Jamata.”

And, having said this, he suddenly fell silent, triumphantly surveying the entire gathering.

An ominous silence fell, such a silence that one could hear a bat rustling its wings, and raindrops falling heavily on the softened ground.

“So it’s true?” asked the one they called Aga Bekir, and his grim face furrowed even more.

“You don’t believe it!” Abrek laughed and, suddenly approaching me, tore the papakh from my head.

My lush braids, pressed tightly by the snugly fitting cap, fell from the crown and descended like two black snakes along my body.

At that very moment, loud and joyful laughter broke the silence.

“Ah, what a boy! What a sazandar!” the dushmans roared with laughter, looking at me with mocking and sharp eyes.

Meanwhile, Abrek approached me. His face shone with a satanic joy:

“Do you hear that, Princess Nina Dzhavakha! I recognized you… tell this aga, my chief, that Abrek speaks the truth…”

“Abrek speaks the truth,” I stammered as if in a dream, “Abrek speaks the truth. I am Princess Dzhavakha.”

“So much the better,” Aga Bekir interrupted, “if you are the daughter of the Russian general, we will extract a large ransom from him.”

“Ransom?” Abrek interrupted him, and his face twisted with rage. “No!… They haven’t minted the tumans with which my captive can be bought back!… I have old scores to settle with this girl.”

And, turning to me, he spoke solemnly:

“Do you remember, Princess, how for the sake of the old princess’s jewels you betrayed a faithful servant? Do you remember how you named Abrek before everyone and subjected him to shame? Then he swore to take revenge! Do you remember this red scar on my cheek? Do you remember, Princess Nina?”

I was silent. He was terrifying. His face, distorted by rage, showed not the slightest trace of regret.

“I’m scared!” I whispered and covered my face with my hands. “Don’t look at me like that, Abrek, I’m scared!”

“Scared,” he screamed in a frenzy, “now scared? And you weren’t scared to betray Abrek?… I said I would remember, and the hour has come!”

“Enough, Abrek, scaring the child,” interrupted a young, well-built mountaineer, strangely resembling Aga Bekir. “Surely you don’t intend to fight with children?”

“Be silent, Magoma,” Abrek said, “don’t meddle where you’re not asked! Abrek is a great servant of Aga Bekir. Abrek brings his chief gold, and fabrics, and jewels. Now Abrek has brought Aga Bekir a horse, such a horse as the aga has long desired… Abrek almost went to prison because of a pathetic girl, Abrek was struck with a nagaika… and by whom — a despised urus (Russian), a Georgian! Today Abrek took the horse from his enemy… No one noticed, everyone was looking for the missing girl… The wedding was not celebrated… no wine was drunk… they rushed into the mountains to catch the child… Abrek crept into the stable and took the horse. No one saw, except Andro… But he’s crazy… possessed by Shaitan… if he did see, he won’t tell, and if he tells — Abrek is already far away… what’s the use? Take the horse, Aga Bekir, and reward your faithful servant as promised.”

“How shall I reward you, Abrek?” asked the chief of the dushmans. “Take money, things, whatever you want.”

“Nothing is needed, aga! I want only one thing: give me the girl…”

I shuddered, the ominous face of the mountaineer filled me with mortal terror… He could torture and kill me with impunity… The mountains sacredly kept the secrets of their dushmans…

My heart no longer faltered. It was gripped by that icy horror that is difficult to describe.

My life depended on Bekir’s answer. He stood facing the fire and seemed to be struggling. The rich ransom obviously tempted him, but at the same time, he didn’t want to go back on his word given to Abrek in the presence of his subordinates: he had to keep that word. That’s why his face bore traces of struggle and indecision.

“Brother,” the young and slender Magoma again intervened in the conversation, “brother, surely you won’t intercede for a poor child?”

The young man’s unexpected intervention ruined me.

“Magoma!” Bekir began importantly, “the laws of the Quran forbid juniors to teach seniors. You are not yet a warrior, but a child. Remember… in Kabarda, a given word is not broken… And both you and I, Magoma, are from Kabarda!”

Then, turning towards my enemy, he said:

“Abrek, the captive is yours.”

“Harrabajá!” (A warlike, enthusiastic cry among mountaineers.) Abrek cried out frantically, and his warlike cry echoed far and wide with an ominous echo through the mountain gorges. “Harrabajá! Great is Allah and Mohammed, his prophet… Be blessed for your wise decision, Aga Bekir!… Now I will fully satiate my vengeance!… The Prince of Gori will remember how he insulted a free son of the mountains. The Prince of Gori — tomorrow will find the corpse of his daughter in the garden! Harrabajá!”

I went numb… horror paralyzed my limbs… I don’t remember what happened next… The flames of the fire grew larger and larger and took on monstrous proportions… It seemed as if the mountains had moved over me, and I was falling into an abyss…

When I came to my senses, the same dark night stood over the surroundings. The rain had stopped, but the clouds still did not reveal the sky. The fire was dying down, and the smoldering embers, flaring up from time to time, illuminated the sleeping figures of the dushmans…

All my limbs ached… I wanted to stretch them and couldn’t lift my arms. To my horror, I realized I was bound…

Fear of imminent death chilled my veins. Belated remorse for my absurd escape painfully gnawed at my heart…

“‘Tomorrow the Prince of Gori will find the corpse of his daughter in his garden!!'” echoed in a thousand ways in my ears. “Tomorrow I will be gone! The Angel of Death passed so close that his wing barely touched me… Tomorrow it will cover me… Tomorrow I will be a corpse… My poor father will be left alone… And another new mound will rise in the Gori cemetery… Alive I left my homeland, dead fate returns me to it. The Dark Angel is near!…”

And never had life seemed so beautiful to me as now!… Now, on the edge of the grave, I sincerely repented of what I had done…

Poor father! Poor Papa! You will no longer say “chemi potara, sakvarelo” to your little Nina! You will never hear your daughter’s laughter again!

The embers in the fire flared up once more and died out… At the same moment, a strange rustle sounded near me…

“It’s Abrek!” I thought in mortal anguish. “Abrek is coming to finish me off…”

And strangely: imminent death no longer frightened me. I had seen Mama die, Yuliko die. There was nothing terrible in it… Only the waiting was terrible, and then… eternal peace. Grandfather Magomet often repeated this; I remembered his words now…

And I prepared myself and waited… Someone approached me… A small silvery ribbon, probably the blade of a dagger, flashed in the air and… and at that very moment, when I expected my last hour had come, my arms and legs were suddenly freed from the cutting ropes, and someone strong lifted me into the air and carried me.

Again, desperate fear — not of death, no, but of not knowing what they intended to do with me — paralyzed my little soul. I couldn’t scream… I was suffocating. A slight moan escaped my chest… but at the same moment, someone’s strong hand covered my lips and squeezed my mouth so I couldn’t cry out… Somewhere very close, a horse’s whinny was heard. Suddenly, the same hands lowered me onto something hard… Then I clearly felt myself being tied to the horse’s saddle, how the reins were wrapped tightly around my wrists… At that very moment, the moon peeked out from behind a cloud and illuminated the person standing before me…

It was Magoma… And I myself was sitting on the back of my Shalyi… The faithful horse whinnied softly and its whole body twitched with impatient tremors…

Mad joy seized me… I would not die under the blow of Abrek’s saber! Magoma had delivered me from death! Magoma had saved me!

What made him go against his brother? Was it a revulsion to blood or youthful kindness — but he delivered me from death, from ruin…

“Well, now, let’s go,” he whispered softly, “salvation depends on the speed of the horse!… (If they catch up — they’ll kill you!…)

Having said this, Magoma struck Shalyi with all his might with the nagaika. The noble horse, unaccustomed until now to such treatment, lunged, reared up, and… bolted forward like a madman… I didn’t have time to look back, or even to nod in gratitude to my savior. Shalyi, as if aware of the mortal danger, galloped like a whirlwind.

The storm was subsiding… Distant rumbles of thunder occasionally broke the solemn silence of the mountains…

In my soul, too, the storm of horrors that had shaken it so suddenly was gradually subsiding. Directly above me, the canopy of the night sky darkened… I raised my gaze to it and the hottest, most fervent prayer burst from my childish heart and soared to the throne of the Most High…

Chapter 13. Home Again. Two Vows

 

The moon hid and reappeared, then hid again behind the cloud, while Shalyi kept rushing forward… All around, the giant mountains loomed darkly, like ghosts of colossal spirits. I rode without thought, without feeling… My head wasn’t working… I felt neither fear nor dread now… The terrible agitation had given way to complete indifference… My heart was silent… my brain too… A strange drowsiness overcame me… I had already begun to lean towards the horse’s neck, fighting with my last strength against the unwanted slumber, when suddenly, quite close to me, I heard the sound of a horse’s hooves.

“Chase!” a thought rushed through my mind like a whirlwind, and I convulsively squeezed Shalyi’s sides with my legs. But the pursuit was catching up… Closer… closer… now the snorting of the leading horse was clearly audible. I squeezed my eyes shut. “Death now… — a swift thought fluttered in my head — Was it worth it for Magoma to save me, only for fate to push me back into the cold embrace of death!”

“Come on, Shalyi, come on, my dear, faster, faster!..” I urged my beloved, and he galloped as only a magical horse in some fairy tale could gallop…

And yet, it was not in his power to save his little mistress!… The terrifying rider was catching up to me!… His horse was now abreast of mine. He, I saw clearly, looked at me from the side and suddenly, drawing level with me, cried out unexpectedly:

“Mother! Princess! Stop, it’s us… It’s me — Mikhako… Barely recognized you… Stop!..”

In an instant, everything before my eyes was covered in a pink mist. As if the night had passed, as if sunlight had overcome the darkness… I laughed and sobbed like a madwoman… The distant echo of the mountains seconded me: as if the mountain spirits were showing me their sympathy.

Mikhako grabbed the reins and stopped Shalyi… A moment… and I was already on his saddle… We were surrounded by Papa’s Cossacks, sent out to search for me… I saw their tanned, joyful faces in the moonlight. Mikhako wept with happiness along with me… Then, unable to overcome the approaching drowsiness, I hugged Mikhako’s rough soldier’s neck and… fell asleep.

My sleep lasted a long time… I heard, however, through it, how we rode faster and faster. My head burned as if on fire, my body ached… I heard us ride out onto the bank, heard the water roaring…

“It’s the Kura…” sleep prompted me, “that means it’s close now, that means I’ll see Papa very, very soon!..”

Now we’re going uphill, now downhill… a little more… a little more… and the gates creaked… people scurried about, something red flashed in my eyes through my half-closed eyelids. It’s lights… Voices are heard, footsteps… Someone’s cry — whether desperate or joyful… It’s Barbalé, I recognize her voice… Then someone hurries along the alley, and I hear a agonizingly questioning voice, full of suffering:

“Where is she? Is she alive?”

I make an incredible effort and open my eyes. The light almost blinds them. But still, I see him perfectly. He extends his arms… His face is full of inexpressible happiness.

“Papa!” I cry out desperately, and, sobbing, struggle against his chest.

“My child! My dear child!” he whispers between kisses and tears and, preceded by people, carries me into the house.

He undresses me himself, keeping Barbalé away, puts me to bed, and suddenly a groan or a desperate plea breaks from his chest:

“Tell me! Swear to me that you will never, ever do this again!”

I only bow my head in response, because tears choke my throat and prevent me from uttering a word.

“No, no,” I say at last, “never, I swear to you by Deda, Father, never!”

He sees my eyes, eloquently fixed on the portrait of the one we both loved so much — on the portrait of my dear mother — and suddenly, stretching his hands towards her, he says in a deep, soul-stirring voice:

“And I swear to you, Nina, that you will never have another Deda! Do you understand me, my little one?..”

Oh, yes, I understood him, I understood my kind, generous father! I understood that he had guessed the reason for my escape and decided to atone for it.

“And now tell me everything,” he asked me, “tell me!”

And I immediately fulfilled my dear one’s wish. I told him everything without concealment. His eyes burned darkly when it came to Abrek’s actions.

“He will have no mercy,” he said through gritted teeth and impulsively embraced me tenderly, as if wanting to compensate with this affection for all the fears I had experienced.

“And Magoma, Papa! If the police catch the dushmans — will they spare Magoma?”

“Well, of course, my child!… I myself will intercede for your savior… And now sleep… close your eyes…”

And not a single reproach, not one, for all the torment… that I had caused him. So much affection, so much love, so much tenderness!… Oh, my father, my dear father, my beloved!… How can I ever atone for my guilt before you, my thoughtless act?… And I reproached myself and kissed his hands, those tender hands that caressed my cheeks, wet with childish, sweet tears…

I fell asleep that night reconciled, joyful, happy…

Chapter 14. Off on the Road

 

Days didn’t pass, they flew by… I noticed that ever since my escape from home, everyone’s attitude towards me had changed somewhat. Grandmother didn’t scold me as she used to, though she still looked at me unfriendly. Papa’s canceled wedding bothered her immensely. She blamed me alone for it. The servants now looked at me as if I were an adult. Barbalé would gaze at me for long stretches, either with pity or sadness. I couldn’t understand what it meant… Father talked to me seriously, not as a child, an eleven-year-old girl, but as if with a grown young woman.

“You are my friend, Nina, the most devoted and loyal,” he would say.

“I am your friend, Papa, and I love you more than anything in the world,” I would exclaim fervently.

Life smiled upon me again, like in a fairy tale… The slightest cloud disappeared from my horizon, and happiness, full and joyful, reigned in the house.

But happiness is not lasting. Life is not a fairy tale where pink fairies with golden wands conjure palaces and castles for their golden-haired princesses in an instant…

That only happens in a fairy tale. In life — it’s different…

One day, Papa returned from the regiment upset and troubled.

“Is the Princess home?” his anxious voice sounded.

“I’m here, Papa-joy!” I cried and hung on his neck.

“Nina-dzhanichka, I need to talk to you seriously,” he said.

We went into his study, and I, like a perfectly well-behaved girl, sat on the sofa, folded my hands in my lap, and prepared to listen.

“My child,” he began, “you are 11 years old. In 5-6 years, you will be a grown young lady. It’s time to seriously dedicate yourself to learning. You must be well-mannered and educated. You are destined to move in society, to mix in the best circles… And what will you learn here? Only riding and trick riding, which you already know perfectly well. You yourself understand that for Princess Dzhavakha, this is not enough… And what then, Nina? Grandmother doesn’t want to take on your upbringing, and she’ll be leaving Gori soon; as for me, my service will require me to be away from home more often now. Today, I received an order about this in the regiment. I would not wish to leave you in the care of governesses and servants… I would not have a single peaceful minute then… And so, I’ve thought of something, dzhanichka… just don’t be scared, there’s nothing frightening here… I’ve decided to send you to an institute in Petersburg. By sending you there, I will be at peace, knowing that you are under the care of experienced people… There you will have many friends, many girls your age… Besides, the headmistress of the institute, Princess B., is my comrade’s sister and an old friend of mine… She will love you as her own… You will spend winters there, summers at home… Are you agreeable to this, my child?”

Was I agreeable? Agreeable now, when his slightest wish had become law to me! And besides, I firmly understood the inevitability of such a decision. I myself wanted to study… I knew too little for my age, and my inquisitive, interested mind — thirsted for knowledge.

“Yes, Papa,” I said firmly, “you’ve thought of something good… only… write to me more often and take me to Gori every summer…”

He embraced me and promised to fulfill all my wishes.

From that very day, a bustle and commotion arose in the house. We were to leave in a month… Barbalé cried, Mikhako looked into my eyes, even Grandmother’s servants shook their heads sympathetically, looking at me. I was inseparable from Father… We rode into the mountains, reveling in our solitude, and talked to our heart’s content during these wonderful rides.

And the days didn’t pass, they flew… One day, Papa brought me fresh news. The band of dushmans had been surrounded in the mountains and all were caught. They were in prison and would soon be tried.

“And Magoma?” I blurted out.

“Magoma will be free: I myself will prove his innocence,” Father reassured me.

Papa’s words proved true. They were tried and given their lawful punishment.

Magoma was set free.

He came to our house the next day and asked to see my father.

This was on the eve of our departure for the distant northern capital. At the sight of us, he respectfully, according to Tatar custom, brought his hand to his forehead and chest, and whispered, pale and agitated:

“Aga, be kind to me and take me in… Magoma will be a faithful servant to you.”

“What, Magoma, won’t you return to Kabarda?” Father wondered.

“No, aga… I left there as a youth and by my brother’s wish became his assistant… Allah sees how hard it was for me… Magoma’s hands are unstained by blood… Now I cannot return to Kabarda… I am free, others are in prison… perhaps they have already been executed… With what face shall I return alone to my homeland?… They will say — I didn’t protect my brother…”

“Your brother was the leader of the dushmans, Magoma.”

“I know, aga! But do they look at this matter in Kabarda the same way as in Kakheti and Imereti? There, banditry is daring, a jigit’s honor… He won’t be condemned in his homeland. They are proud of him… but I…”

“What do you want then, Magoma? I gave you what I could, for saving my daughter… But you returned the money to me. What do you want? I will do everything I can for you,” Father said kindly.

“I want, aga, to serve you… and the Russian Tsar,” he said simply, and his eyes rested on Father with an appeal.

Father, touched by the young Kabardian’s fervent impulse, embraced him and promised to fulfill his wish. Magoma stayed with us to help Mikhako until his assignment to the regiment…

The day of departure arrived.

The carriage stood by the porch. Barbalé was loudly wailing in the kitchen. Father frowned and remained silent.

I ran all around the house and garden, descended to the Kura, climbed the mountain, bowed to the dear graves, and for the tenth time ran to the stable.

“Farewell, Shalyi, farewell, my faithful friend!” I whispered, kissing the glistening neck of my loyal horse.

“Feed him well,” I told Mikhako, “so that next summer, when I return, he’ll have sides like this! Do you hear?”

“Rest assured, Princess-mother, you will be pleased!” he replied, while tears stood in his own eyes and his lips twitched.

I went to bid Grandmother farewell quietly and properly, but without any emotion. The only person in my homeland I did not regret leaving was Grandmother. But with Barbalé, who blessed me with an icon of Saint Nina, with Rodam, Anna, Mikhako, and Bragim, I kissed so sincerely and firmly that my lips swelled.

I didn’t cry… My chest was tight with tears, but they didn’t pour out.

“Farewell, Magoma, farewell, my savior,” I smiled through the mist that clouded my vision…

“May Allah protect you, good lady!”

We had already gotten into the carriage when a cloud of dust rose ahead of us and a slender baroness suddenly appeared on horseback before us, in a black riding habit with a long veil that enveloped her graceful figure like a white cloud.

“I wanted to see you off, Nina, and wish you all the very best,” she said, out of breath from the fast ride, and then, riding up to the carriage from my side, quickly leaned in, embraced me tightly, and whispered, embarrassed: “and to ask you not to be angry with me and to firmly believe that I remained your friend!”

Having said this, she disappeared again as quickly as she had appeared. From afar, her faint cry echoed:

“Good journey, Nina, goodbye!”

The carriage moved… Those seeing us off waved their handkerchiefs… Someone cried… someone shouted a farewell with the name of Allah… The August morning laughed trustingly and clearly… The scent of ripe fruits filled the air. Smiling Gori bathed in the blue expanse…

The old life was over, a new one was beginning — better or worse — I don’t know.

 

 

 

 

 

PART TWO

AT THE INSTITUTE

 

Chapter 1. In a Stone Cage. Unexpected Enemies

 

I will never forget what I promised… I will try to be kind and diligent…

“Is that true, Nina?”

“Have I ever lied to you, Father?”

“Forgive me, little dove… It’s time…”

“It’s time…”

We stood in the brightly lit small reception room of the institute, where Father had brought me for the first time today.

We weren’t alone. A tall, gray-haired woman, who seemed to me a true queen, was present during our conversation. She constrained us. I saw that Papa wanted to say much more to me, but he remained silent, because the tall woman was there, and Father could not be the wonderful, kind, and tender person he was in Gori when she was present.

“So, Princess,” he addressed the headmistress, “I entrust my treasure to you. Be lenient with her… She is a somewhat strange, but an exceptionally sensitive child… She requires special care… We, southerners, are quite different people from you!”

“Don’t worry, Prince, I will personally take care of your lovely daughter,” the tall woman said and gently stroked my cheek.

“Well, it’s time!”

Father rose decisively, buckled on his saber, and hugged me tightly. I hung on his chest.

“Until tomorrow, Papa?”

“Until tomorrow, little one… if the Princess allows.”

“Oh!” the headmistress hastened to reassure him, “our doors are open to Prince Dzhavakha at all times!”

Father bowed silently, kissed me once more, and, saying, “Until tomorrow,” quickly left the room.

I watched him leave — and my heart ached… I knew he would come tomorrow, and the day after, and would visit me every day until I got used to it, but this was the first time I was parting with him amidst unfamiliar and new surroundings.

My journey by train from Tiflis to Petersburg held little interest for me. My whole soul yearned back, to captivating Gori, to my native, abandoned nest.

Near Petersburg, I seemed to awaken… I was struck by the gray, as if frowning sky, on which the northern sun shone sparsely, and the air without the scent of roses and azaleas, and the stunted trees, and the bare fields with yellowish grass…

When I got out of the train, my heart pounded hard, hard… The gray sky was weeping… Drizzle fell on the roofs of large houses. The people, in rubber raincoats, under umbrellas, seemed boring, ugly to me — to me, accustomed to the bright and picturesque attire of our country…

We were taken to the best hotel, where, despite all the luxury and convenience, I could not sleep because of the constant clatter of wheels outside the windows.

When Father took me to the institute the next evening and entrusted me to the majestically-kind headmistress, I even felt a little glad that I wouldn’t see the damp Petersburg day, wouldn’t hear the clatter of carriages outside our room window… And I involuntarily spoke my thoughts aloud…

“Well, excellent!” Father, in turn, rejoiced. “You are a smart girl and won’t be too bored… After all, learning is necessary, child… and besides — seven years of institute life will fly by so quickly that you won’t even notice.”

Seven years!… My God, seven years!… In seven years, my black braids will reach the ground, and Shalyi will weaken with old age, and poor Barbalé will probably be completely gray already!… Seven years!

“Come, my child, I will introduce you to your friends,” the headmistress interrupted my thoughts. “You will see how well and happily you will grow and learn with the other girls.”

Long corridors stretched before me. Everywhere, gas lamps burned, brightly illuminating the white marble-effect walls, the cleanly polished parquet floor, and the small figures of institute girls in their green uniform dresses and white aprons, encountered from time to time. They curtsied timidly and respectfully before the headmistress, with downcast eyes, and hurried on.

Finally, we ascended a wide, carpeted staircase and entered the so-called upper corridor, where the classrooms were located. My companion entered with me into a room, above whose door a black board displayed in large white letters: 7th Grade.

At that very instant, a buzzing, like a swarm of bees, deafened me. But it only lasted a second. The girls, who had been studying their lessons aloud, chatting and laughing with friends, fell silent instantly at the headmistress’s entrance. They all jumped up from their seats and, curtsying, approached us. Among them was a small, plump lady in a blue dress.

“Children!” the Princess solemnly pronounced and slightly pushed me forward, “here is your new friend, Princess Nina Dzhavakha-ogly-Jamata. Love her. She has come from the distant Caucasus and misses her homeland. Try to entertain and comfort her.”

Then, turning to me, the headmistress added with an encouraging smile:

“Well, you see, little one, how many cheerful little girls! Believe me, you won’t be bored with them.”

The class lady in the blue uniform dress approached me and extended her hand.

“Guten Abend, mein Kind!” (Good evening, my child! (Ger.)) she said.

I spoke German and had been studying the language for the past year with my teacher, but still, I was somehow confused and looked shyly at the plump, good-naturedly smiling face of the class lady.

Maman — that’s what the institute girls called the headmistress — looked at me once more and nodded encouragingly. Then, probably not wishing to interfere with the beginning of my acquaintance with my classmates, she kissed me firmly, crossed herself, and left the class. The class lady followed her.

Again, noise, shrieks, frenzy erupted. A crowd of girls surrounded me from all sides, laughing and showering me with questions: “Who are you? Where are you from? Who are your parents?”

One of them, the most mischievous, bent down onto a bench and from there squeaked in a piercing voice:

“New girl, new girl, new girl!”

Another liked my braids, and she unceremoniously pulled them towards herself. I involuntarily swayed and sat down.

“What’s your name?” a lively girl with a quick face and dishevelled hair sticking out in all directions jumped up to me.

“Nina,” I answered simply.

“Nina, do you hear! What an answer! Don’t you have a surname, or what? Do you hear, mesdames (little ladies), her name is Nina, and the teachers will call her ‘Ms. Nina’… ha, ha, ha!..” the girl burst out laughing.

“Ha, ha, ha!” the others echoed her.

I didn’t understand what was funny about my name being Nina.

“Well then, Ms. Nina,” the mischievous girl persisted, “and who is your father?”

“My father,” I replied not without pride, “is a general famous throughout the Caucasus. His name is Prince Aga Dzhavakha-ogly-Jamata.”

“What? What? Repeat it.”

“Aga Dzhavakha-ogly-Jamata,” I repeated, not noticing the mockery that flashed in the girl’s lively eyes.

“Jamata-tatatata! What a name!” the mischievous girl burst into desperate laughter.

The others echoed her.

All the blood rushed to my face… How? They dared to mock a name that had thundered from Alazani to the very aoul of Gunib! A name covered in military glory! A heroic name, honored by the Russian Tsar himself!… Oh, this was too much!… It was as if wings grew on my back and gave me strength. I straightened up proudly.

“Listen, you silly girls,” I said hotly, barely controlling myself, “don’t dare to laugh at what you will never understand… And if any of you dares to deliberately distort even one letter in my surname again, I will immediately go to the headmistress and complain about the prankster.”

“Oh, you…” the girl with dishevelled hair flared up at me. “Fisculka! (Snitch!)”

“What?..” I stepped forward angrily, not understanding the unfamiliar word, but vaguely sensing some insult in it.

“Fisculka,” squeaked a second, third, fourth behind her, and the whole gang of agitated girls jumped and pranced around me.

“Fisculka!… fisculka!… meanie!… meanie! fisculka!”

I covered my ears so as not to hear anything… My heart ached painfully.

“What have I done to them?” a tormenting thought drilled into my mind, “why are they tormenting and harrowing me? Is there really not a single kind soul among them who would stand up for me?..”

Alas! — not one… Around me were only unfriendly faces, and angry shouts and cries resounded in the group.

Suddenly the door opened, and the class lady entered…

A piercing bell announced the hour of evening tea. An unimaginable noise and commotion arose. The girls hastily formed pairs. I, however, remained motionless in my previous spot.

“Komm, mein Kind, her,” (Come here, my child (Ger.)) I heard the class lady call out and went at her summons.

“Here’s your partner, go with her.”

And she led me to a tall girl who was looking at me unfriendly from under her light eyebrows.

The pairs moved… I noticed that the pupils walked arm in arm, and, hesitatingly moving towards my neighbor, extended my hand to her. But she recoiled from me as if stung and sharply said:

“Please, don’t cling… I hate snitches.”

I understood that the class had declared war on me. And I felt inexpressibly sad.

“New girl!… new girl!…” was heard everywhere among the senior and junior classes, all uniformly dressed in green camlet dresses, white aprons, and sleevelets like tubes, attached above the elbow.

The dining room — a large, long room, which we descended into via the staircase — was furnished with two rows of tables, forming a wide aisle in the middle.

We were given mugs of brown liquid, very little resembling tea, and individual buns of tasteless, unleavened dough. I touched neither.

“Are you a Tatar?” a voice suddenly rang out from the far end of the table, and the same lively girl who had tormented me in class, without waiting for my answer, snidely snorted into her napkin.

“Mesdames,” she continued through laughter, addressing her friends, “she’s probably a Tatar, and the Tatar religion forbids eating pork… You can rejoice, Ivanova,” she added to a small, plump blonde, “every time pork cutlets are served, Dzhavakha will give you her portion.”

All the girls giggled… The one they called Ivanova raised her head and said to the first mischievous girl:

“And you’ll watch and drool.”

“Is nothing else forbidden by your religion?” interjected a pretty, miniature girl, strikingly similar to the blonde angels depicted in pictures, “because I love pastries very much…”

And again laughter, offensive, agonizing. I decided to remain silent and tomorrow beg Papa to take me from here somewhere else, to another institute.

After a long evening prayer, we went up to the fourth floor and entered the dormitory.

The long room, like the dining room, with beds arranged in rows, headboards touching each other, was lit by gas lamps. There was a small space between the beds, where nightstands and stools were placed.

Fräulein Göring, or Kiss-Kiss, as the institute girls called the class lady, kindly showed me my place.

Fate had clearly turned against me: at my head was the bed of the evil girl with the angelic face, and next to me was the bed of the quick-witted Belskaya — my main persecutor and enemy.

There was nothing to be done, and I firmly decided to endure everything without complaint…

Meanwhile, life swarmed around me. Having removed their clumsy green dresses, the pupils found themselves in short petticoats and white blouses, and on their heads were funny caps, resembling gnome hats, strangely aging and disfiguring their young faces.

I went with the others to the washroom. It was even noisier there. The girls, naked to the waist, washed so diligently with rough loofah gloves that their backs resembled ripe tomatoes in color.

“Darling, don’t splash!” was heard at one end of the washroom.

“Kira Dergunova, lend me your sponge,” came from the other end.

Kira extended the sponge, squeezing it on the way as if by accident onto her neighbor’s back… A scream… a shriek… running around. In the corner near the dresser with a bed for the servant pulled out from it, the tall, slender, uncharacteristically serious Varyusha Chikunina, nicknamed Solovushka (nightingale) for her singing, stood, combing her long, silky braids and singing softly:

Oh, my Rus’,

My free Rus’…

A girl with such a tender voice and dreamy eyes could not be evil, in my opinion, and so I boldly approached her and asked:

“Do you know why they hate me here?”

She suddenly broke off her song and looked up at me with surprised eyes.

I repeated the question.

But at the same moment, a reddish-haired pupil with an amazingly white face jumped up to us and defiantly shouted into my face:

“Because you wanted to complain about us, and we hate snitches.”

“But if you insult me!… Princess Dzhavakha does not forgive insults,” I answered haughtily.

“Ha-ha-ha!” Krasnushka, as her friends called the reddish-haired girl, laughed, “look how important!… Princess Dzhavakha! Do you even know, mesdames, that in the Caucasus, everyone is a prince there. Whoever has two sheep — he’s a prince.”

“Quiet, Zapolskaya. Aren’t you ashamed to offend the new girl?” Fräulein Göring, who had approached unnoticed, intervened and immediately added, clapping her hands:

“Schlafen, Kinder, schlafen!” (Sleep, children, sleep! (Ger.))

The whole gang of girls headed to the bedroom. In the washroom remained I and the singer Chikunina. She shyly looked around and, seeing that we were alone, quickly spoke:

“Don’t pay attention to them; it’s customary here to ‘bait the new girls’… Silly girls, they’ll stop later, when you get used to it…”

“I’ll never get used to it here,” I replied, struggling to hold back tears, “tomorrow I’ll ask Papa to take me from here and put me in another institute…”

“And it’s useless!” Chikunina interrupted me, quickly finishing her heavy braid, “useless!… The same thing will happen in another institute… you can’t go to a third one… and it’s the same there… Here, at least, maman is sweet, but in the others, God knows what kind they are. My sister writes to me from N-institute, what they feed them there… it’s a horror!…”

“Your Highness,” Belskaya unexpectedly said, as if she had crawled out from under the ground, “Fräulein sent me to call Your Highness to bed. I have the honor to bring this to Your Highness’s attention,” and she curtsied mockingly and respectfully to me.

I flushed to the roots of my hair.

“It’s nothing,” my new acquaintance reassured me, “just endure it somehow… and then they’ll see their foolishness, they’ll come to you themselves with a confession. And then, you see, Princess, you… you won’t be angry at my frankness?”

“No, no,” I hastened to reply.

“You see, you have such an appearance, as if you are much better and higher than all of us… You are a titled, rich girl, a general’s daughter… and we are all simpler… Everyone sees and knows this anyway. You don’t need to emphasize it, you know… Oh, I can’t talk! You probably won’t understand me, you’ll be offended…” she unexpectedly broke off and sighed.

“No, no, on the contrary, please speak,” I hastened to reassure her.

“Well, you see… they get angry… but you should be simpler with them…”

“Schlafen, Kinder, schlafen!” Fräulein called out to us once more.

As soon as we entered the dormitory, the servant girl dimmed the gas lamps, and the dormitory plunged into semi-darkness. Silence fell. Only an occasional muffled whisper was heard somewhere, and a stool caught underfoot moved with a slight noise. Momentarily, on one bed or another, small children’s figures would rise, wrapped up to their waists in blue nankeen blankets and, with hands clasped on their chests, devoutly prayed, bowing. The class lady, treading softly, walked through the narrow spaces between the rows of beds, the “alleys” as they were called in the institute, and finally, wishing us good night, disappeared behind the door of her room, located next to the dormitory.

As soon as her careful footsteps faded, Belskaya raised herself on her elbow from her pillow and said in a clear whisper for the entire dormitory:

“Quiet, mesdames, or you’ll disturb Her Highness, the shining Princess, from sleeping.”

The girls snorted faintly.

“Her Highness the Princess is resting,” she said again in the same whisper.

“Leave the Tatar Princess alone, Belka,” the reddish-haired Zapolskaya retorted from her place, “don’t disturb her from performing her evening namaz. When I was in Mtskheta…”

“She was in Mtskheta! In Mtskheta — the ancient capital of my native Georgia, in Mtskheta, so close to beloved Gori, in the very heart of my homeland… She was in Mtskheta…” a whirlwind rushed through my head.

Unaware of what I was doing, in an instant I jumped out of bed, ran to Krasnushka’s cot, climbed onto it, just as I was, barefoot, in only my chemise, and, sitting at the girl’s feet, asked in a voice trembling with joyful excitement:

“You were in Mtskheta? Were you really in Mtskheta?”

It seemed to me now that I had known and loved this reddish-haired pupil for a long time, who had so heartlessly mocked me only a few minutes ago. After all, she had been in Mtskheta, she had seen my homeland, my turquoise sky, my emerald valleys and high mountains, tinged with a pinkish mist, distant mountains with gray peaks!…

Krasnushka did not seem to share my enthusiasm. She even seemed frightened of me and, to hide her confusion, burst out laughing loudly for the entire dormitory, though not quite with natural laughter.

“Mesdames, the most luminous Tatar has gone mad. Kar-raul! (Help!)”

The door of the neighboring room swung open. Fräulein Göring appeared on the threshold.

“Wer schreit so? Bist du, Zapolskaya? Schande!” (Who is screaming like that? Is that you, Zapolskaya? Shame! (Ger.)) Tomorrow you will be punished.

The door slammed shut again… The red-haired girl, who had timidly darted under the blanket at the class lady’s appearance, now poked her foxy head out from under it again and angrily said to me:

“It’s all because of you… Get out, please!”

I silently jumped off her bed and went to my own. I was ashamed and hurt that I hadn’t been able to hide my impulse before all these malicious, merciless girls. I silently lay down in my bed, buried my face in the pillow with eyes full of tears, and… at once, dear pictures arose in my memory…

Gori flashed before me… our house, surrounded by a shady, fragrant garden… the gently murmuring Kura… Barbalé, who always smelled of fresh dough and walnut oil… pretty Bella… Grandmother… Bragim… Magoma… Papa… And above all this, above all my wonderful Caucasian nature, fragrant and tender, hovered the captivating image with sad eyes and sad songs — the image of my beautiful Deda…

Chapter 2. Lessons. Bullying. The Last Farewell

 

A rattling bell woke me up.

I instantly jumped up, forgetting why and for what purpose I was here, why these angrily sleepy girls in funny caps and night shirts were running and laughing.

“Time to get up, Dzhavakha,” my interlocutor from yesterday, Chikunina, whispered as she ran past my bed.

I hurried to pull on my stockings, throw on my skirt, and ran to wash up.

At 8 o’clock, a tall, thin as a rail, French lady, M-lle Arnaud, came up to us. I approached her at the advice of the same Chikunina and curtsied.

“Bonjour, mademoiselle!” she said dryly, “I hope you will soon get used to our ways and become an exemplary student.”

Then, keenly surveying the class, she asked:

“Who is on duty?”

A very thin, unusually serious girl stepped forward.

“That’s our best student, Dodo Muravyova,” Varvara Chikunina, who had partnered with me at my request, explained.

I looked at the thin girl with involuntary respect and secretly envied her composure.

Meanwhile, the pairs moved to the dining room. Today, the older and younger classes didn’t look at me as much: the event of the new girl’s arrival, half a day old, seemed to have lost all its interest.

The first lesson was the priest’s. I learned this at the table, while I struggled to make myself drink the thin, dishwater-tasting tea and eat the dry, government-issue bun. I also learned that everyone diligently studied the Law of God and that they all “adored” the priest, who treated the entire class equally paternalistically and fairly. Today, they seemed to leave me alone; only the reddish-haired Zapolskaya angrily and mockingly threw in my direction:

“You don’t have to rush, Dzhavakha, since, as a Tatar, you won’t be allowed into the Law of God lesson. And your mullah hasn’t been brought from the Caucasus yet.”

The girls snickered in unison, but I, remembering Chikunina’s instruction, put on an indifferent face and continued to drink the cloudy tea from the earthenware mug.

The priest turned out to be exactly as I had mentally imagined him: short, gray-haired, with an inexpressibly meek face and kind eyes — he made a pleasant impression.

He quietly entered the classroom at the bell, quietly told the girl on duty to read a prayer, quietly sat down at the table prepared for him in front of the desks with an inkwell and a journal, and put on his glasses. Then he cast a kind gaze over the entire class and stopped it on me, sitting alone on the nearest bench.

“Ah, I see you have a new student?”

I stood up.

“What is your surname, little one?” he addressed me in the same gentle voice, whose sound seemed to lighten my heart.

I wanted, as usual, to state my full title, but remembering Chikunina’s advice, I simply replied:

“Nina Dzhavakha.”

“Princess!” a mocking little voice squeaked behind me.

“Indeed, I’ve heard,” the priest nodded, “the Dzhavakha princes are known throughout the Caucasus… Yes, yes, they distinguished themselves in the war with the mountaineers… Prince Mikhail Dzhavakha rendered precious service to the commander-in-chief and fell in battle… Is he not related to you, little one?”

“Prince Mikhail is my own grandfather,” a surge of involuntary pride burst from my chest.

My eyes and cheeks probably glowed with an influx of unusual happiness. I triumphed.

“Do you hear!” I wanted to shout to all these subdued pupils, “Do you hear! My ancestors are glorious heroes, my grandfather fell in battle for the freedom of his homeland, and you, evil, insignificant, little girls, have no right to insult and offend me, a born Georgian princess!..”

And my head rose proudly, and an arrogant smile already hovered on my lips.

But suddenly my eyes met the clear and open gaze of Father Filimon.

“Are you right to be proud of your ancestors’ glory?” his meek gaze seemed to say to me, “and what is your merit in being born into a noble princely family, and not in a poor man’s hut?”

A blush of shame flooded my cheeks. And the priest seemed to understand me. His kindly gaze lit up with a new, doubled tenderness.

“Come here, little foreigner,” he smiled, “and tell me what you know about the creation of the world…”

I walked to the center of the class.

I knew the story of the creation of the world perfectly. I often told it to Barbalé, who knew neither the Old nor the New Testament. My speech, always somewhat figurative, like all speeches in the dear East, pleased the priest. My clear exposition must have also pleased my classmates, but they, it seemed, did not want to show it and continued to look at me askance and unfriendlily.

“Good, little foreigner, well done!” the priest praised me, dismissing me back to my place.

Dodo Muravyova came out after me and clearly and loudly read the canon to the Theotokos.

“Good, Dunyasha,” the priest praised her too.

An unkind feeling of envy stirred in my heart towards the thin Dodo, who had received the same praise as me.

Meanwhile, the priest stood up, straightened his cassock, and, approaching the first desk, placed his large, white hand on the head of the blonde Teensy.

“Why is he caressing this little girl with an angelic face and an evil heart?” a thought flashed through my mind. “If only he knew how she laughs along with everyone at the poor little foreigner!”

And from the priest’s chest flowed a smooth, coherent narrative about how envious brothers sold the meek and beautiful youth Joseph into slavery. And all these girls, pale and rosy, thin and plump, wicked and kind — all with lively, captivating attention fixed their burning with curiosity eyes on the narrating priest.

Father Filimon walked between the desks, alternately placing his large hand on the head of one or another pupil and alternately stroking one or another child’s head.

When it was my turn and my black braids were covered by the wide sleeve of his lilac cassock, I barely managed to keep from bursting into tears.

This was the first caress within the cold institute walls…

The second lesson was geography.

The small, gray-haired teacher Alexey Ivanovich was very strict with his “team,” as he jokingly called the pupils. He constantly joked with them, made them laugh with cheerful quips, referring to the students as “granddaughters.” And at the same time, he was demanding and exacting in their answers.

“Well now, pretty one, let’s take a ride along the Amur.”

The called student already understood what Alexey Ivanovich wanted from her, and, deftly moving a black ruler across the worn old map, she chanted the tributaries of this Siberian river.

Alexey Ivanovich did not tolerate laziness.

“Go to your place, lazybones, despondent Russian, uneducated vandal,” he genuinely cursed, not embarrassed by either the class ladies or the headmistress herself.

Seeing me, he immediately said:

“Ah-ah! My team has grown… Well, amuse me with what you know!” he nodded in my direction.

Of course, I couldn’t know the rivers of Siberia assigned for that day, but how cleverly I rattled off my native Caucasian rivers, mountains with their peaks, and the cities of Kakheti, Imereti, Guria, and Alazani! I hurried and choked, afraid of not having time to pour out all my knowledge before the end of the lesson. He didn’t interrupt me and only looked approvingly over his blue round glasses.

“Look at that! All she’s said,” he said with a satisfied laugh when I finished. “Well, granddaughter! You’ve lent a hand! Thank you, mother!… Well, and you, sitting here and understanding nothing, have you heard?” he turned to the quieted class. “This quick little Georgian girl will beat you, as God is holy, she will beat you.”

“She’s a Tatar, Alexey Ivanovich,” Belskaya’s squeaky voice rang out.

“And you — you’re a lazybones!” the teacher cut her off. “It’s not shameful to be a Tatar, God created it that way… but a lazybones… that’s a great disgrace to our entire class. Well then, to confirm my words, amuse me, pretty one!”

But the pretty one didn’t amuse him! She didn’t know the lesson, as usual, and a fat deuce appeared in the journal cell next to her surname.

“And even with a dot!” the unforgiving Alexey Ivanovich joked in such cases and with special diligence put a dot next to the deuce.

Belskaya, going to her place, shot me a glance with burning eyes…

The rattling sound of the bell announced the end of the lesson.

After a ten-minute break, the strict and demanding Alexey Ivanovich was replaced by the quick as mercury and nimble old French man Rotier. As soon as he sat down at the lectern, the class lady approached me and whispered that I should go to the cloakroom to change into the uniform dress.

“Muravyova,” she said just as quietly to the thin, serious Dodo, “you will take the new girl to the cloakroom.”

“Let’s go,” she approached me, and, having given a low curtsy to the teacher, we left the classroom.

Descending to the first floor, we found ourselves in a semi-dark corridor, to which the dining room, cloakroom, and linen room adjoined, as well as the rooms of the music and needlework ladies.

“This way,” Dodo briefly threw out and pushed a door.

We entered a bright room where up to twenty girls worked, uniformly dressed in striped dresses.

“Avdotya Matveevna,” Dodo addressed a stout woman in glasses, “I have brought the new girl, Princess Dzhavakha.”

At Dodo’s last words, the cloakroom lady, or simply “cloakroom-woman,” as the working girls called her, looked up at me over her glasses, and her entire face spread into a gracious smile.

“Please, Your Serene Highness, welcome,” she said.

Both this sugary tone and this sickly-sweet, flattering smile were unpleasant to me. I glanced at Dodo, wanting to see if she was laughing at me. But the girl’s face was still impassive and serious.

The rough linen, the ugly prunella boots, and the heavy, sail-like camlet dress — all of it seemed terribly uncomfortable to me in the first few minutes.

The pelerine constantly slipped to one side, the manzhettes (cuffs), tightly tied with ribbons just above the elbow, cut into my arms, and my legs constantly got tangled in the long hem.

On the way back, passing with the same Dodo by the concierge’s office, on the way to class, I saw my father’s tall, stately figure through the glass door.

“Will Papa recognize his Nina in this new attire or not?” a thought flashed through my head, swift as lightning, and with a rapidly beating heart, I turned my face towards the door.

At the same moment, a wide, joyful smile lit up Father’s face.

He swiftly opened the glass door separating us, and, extending his hands forward, cried out loudly and joyfully:

“Nina!”

I fell into his embrace.

“Well, what? Well, what?” he asked, while his eyes lovingly and tenderly examined me.

“No, you tell me, how did you recognize me? How did you recognize me, my Papa?” I persisted, laughing through tears.

“Naughty girl,” he answered with a tremor in his voice, “did you really doubt for even a minute that your Papa wouldn’t recognize his dzhanichka?”

Oh, no, I didn’t doubt! Not for a minute! I clung to him and told him quickly, quickly, as if afraid of losing time, about how huge our institute was, how many girls there were, how kind our priest was, how affectionate Maman was, and what a wonderful, soul-stirring voice Varvara Chikunina had!

About how I suffered from loneliness, how unkindly my classmates treated me, and how firmly I had decided to transfer to another institute — I remained silent.

I didn’t want to sadden my devotedly loving father…

And to his question: are you happy here, Nina?  —  I answered firmly, without hesitation:

“Yes, I am happy, Papa!..”

Chapter 3. The Last Farewell. Search

 

It was a small, very small book, with white, clean pages, but if you held it up to the light, funny figures of small caricature people appeared on the white, clean pages.

Lidochka Markova, or Teensy, as she was called in class, the owner of the little book, had brought it from abroad and showed this elegant and interesting item to everyone with special pride.

And suddenly, the little book disappeared.

During Monsieur Rotier’s lesson, Teensy had passed it to Valya Ler, who hadn’t had time to examine it during the break. After the lesson, we went out into the corridor while the classrooms were being aired. Suddenly, Teensy, red as a dawn, ran up to the group of seventh-graders, declaring that her little book had vanished.

An unimaginable uproar arose… I couldn’t quite understand what the girls had decided, because at that moment, Pyotr, the institute’s imposing and impressive doorman, appeared before me.

“To your papa, please! His Excellency awaits below,” he announced to me.

Headlong, jumping three steps at a time, I rushed to the reception room.

More than a week had passed since my admission to the institute, and Papa was still living in Petersburg. Today, he came for the last time. That same evening, he was to embark on his journey back.

I threw myself into his arms… We spoke very, very softly, as if afraid of being overheard.

“Papa, my darling, my dear,” I whispered, embracing his neck, “I will study well, I will try hard, so that you can be proud of me!”

“Thank you, little one, thank you, but just don’t overexert yourself… And summer, we’ll be together again, right?… What should I tell Shalyi?” he smiled through the tears that clouded his eyes.

My father — a fighter and a warrior, who boldly led a regiment to subdue a rebellious aoul — now wept bitter, heavy tears at parting with his little girl!

“Here, Nina,” he said, taking a small gold locket from his chest, “wear it as a memory of your Papa and of your deceased grandfather.”

And, without giving me time to react, he placed it on the chain around my neck, where the icon of Saint Nina already hung, this locket with portraits of my late mother and my own, in which I was depicted in the costume of a little jigit.

Father gave me the dearest, most cherished item!…

We embraced tightly…

“Tell Barbalé, Mikhako… Shalyi… yes, even Shalyi, he must understand… that I love them dearly, dearly and will think of them constantly…” I spoke with growing emotion.

The moment of separation was approaching… And suddenly, my insane act of running away flashed into my memory… I wanted to hear from my father’s lips once more that he had fully forgiven the crazy little Nina, and I quietly, in a whisper in his ear, told him about it, asking for his forgiveness once again.

“Oh, my child!” he could only utter in response and embraced me tightly in a last farewell embrace…

He was already in the doorman’s lodge, and I was still standing in the same spot, unable to move or stir, so deeply was I overcome by emotion. And only upon seeing my father’s general’s coat in the doorman’s hands did I seem to awaken from my stupor, I rushed headlong towards him and froze without tears, without a moan, on his chest.

The grief tearing at my heart was too strong to be expressed in tears… I felt as if I had turned to stone…

As if through a dream, I felt his blessing hand on my forehead, his tears-soaked kisses on my cheeks, and something clamped my chest and throat like pincers…

“Goodbye, Ninusha, goodbye, little dzhanym, goodbye, chemi-potara, sakvarella!”

And, kissing me once more, he rushed towards the exit. I saw his stately figure receding, how he looked back, all pale, with convulsively twitching lips, and I could only silently and pleadingly extend my hands towards him. He also looked back and in the same instant was beside me again.

“No, I won’t leave like this!” a groan burst from his chest. “Well, my joy, well, little one, do you want to — come with me?”

Do I want to! He asked if I wanted to?… Oh, Almighty God! I was ready to cry out to him, sobbing: “Yes, yes, take me, take me from here, my dear, my beloved father! Here, in the institute, it’s night and darkness, but there, in Gori, it’s life, light, and sun!”

And I was already ready to beg him to take me back to my Gori, but an inner voice, the voice of the Dzhavakha blood, stopped me in time:

“What! Nina — a descendant of glorious Caucasian heroes — can you not find enough courage within yourself not to sadden your father? Shame on you, little princess, who dares to consider herself a jigit!”

This was enough to give me courage.

“Don’t be sad, Papa,” I firmly blurted out, like an adult, and, kissing him once more, I added, making an effort not to burst into tears:

“Summer is not far off! We’ll see each other soon… And we won’t even notice how time flies!..”

Oh, how difficult it was for me to resemble my ancestors! I understood this when my father was no longer with me… As soon as the heavy front door closed behind him, I pressed myself against a tall column and, covering my mouth with my apron, burst into muffled, convulsive sobs…

When I entered the classroom, after crying my fill, I was struck by a strange sight.

A small golden cross hung on the blackboard, obviously taken from someone’s neck, and the girls, forming a long line, approached and kissed it one by one.

“You see, Dzhavakha,” Valya Ler, a lovely blue-eyed girl as fair as a Dresden doll, addressed me upon my appearance. “Teensy’s little book has gone missing. Teensy didn’t take the book out of the class, meaning someone among the girls took it. What shame and disgrace for the whole class! A thief among us! This has never happened before. Tanya Petrovskaya advised us to kiss the cross to find the thief. The thief won’t dare to approach the cross… Or it will push her away… or something miraculous will happen in general… Get in line, Dzhavakha, behind Milya Korbina, and kiss the cross.”

My thoughts were still there, in the small reception room, near my father. The last words of farewell rang in my ears, and I could barely hear what Valya was telling me. She had to repeat it.

With difficulty, I finally understood what they wanted from me: someone’s little book was missing… they suspected each of us… they demanded an oath…

Outraged and profoundly shaken, I turned to the class:

“I know nothing of any book and will not make light of sacred objects. This is blasphemy!”

“But the whole class…” Ler tried to insist.

“I care nothing for the class’s foolishness,” I continued proudly, “everyone answers for themselves. I will not kiss the cross, because it is sinful to do so over trifles, and especially over a childish invention of silly girls.”

No sooner had I uttered these words than everything around me began to squeak, clamor, and make noise.

“What! She still dares to deny it, dares to go against the class, when the whole class has decided!” an incessant murmur was heard from all sides.

I shrugged contemptuously and withdrew to a corner.

The girls, having shouted and made enough noise, resumed their interrupted activity. They approached the golden cross one by one and kissed it. Valya Ler, as a noble witness, seriously and importantly supervised the fulfillment of the oath. Finally, when everyone had touched the cross, she loudly declared to the whole class:

“This is unheard of audacity: the thief either approached the cross, or…”

“Well, now everyone to their desks,” Belskaya commanded, interrupting her, “and open your drawers. If the thief hasn’t confessed, we must conduct a search.”

And in an instant, all 40 girls quickly rushed to their places and lifted the lids of their desks.

I alone did not move from my spot.

“Dzhavakha,” Zapolskaya boldly shouted at me, “or did you not hear? Open your drawer.”

All the blood rushed to my head…

To open my drawer, to allow myself to be searched, to allow myself to be suspected of… it was even terrible to think, let alone utter the word…

“No! I will not allow my drawer to be searched,” I retorted in a sharp and loud voice, as if it were not my own.

“What?” the pretty Ler smirked unkindly, “you go against the class in this too? But there’s no blasphemy here!” Is there, mesdames?

“No, but still I will not allow myself to be searched,” I said firmly.

“Mesdames, do you hear what she says?” Teensy shrieked, who had been silently watching me with angry, unfriendly eyes until now. “What should we do now?”

“Why talk so much! Just open her desk,” the reddish-haired Zapolskaya fumed.

I flushed and looked around. Not a single sympathetic face, not a single kind glance!… And these were children, little girls, who had gathered here so recently from different parts of Russia, who had bid farewell to their parents only about two months ago as tenderly as I had just bid farewell to my beloved Papa! Had their childish hearts really hardened so much in such a short time?…

There, at the last desk, sat Varvara Chikunina. She was diligently writing something in her notebook. Was she against me too — she, who was so kind and gentle… In another corner, Milya Korbina — an unattractive, sickly, dreamy girl. She looked at me with her meek blue eyes, but in them, I read more reproach than compassion. “What does it cost you to open your drawer and prove they are mistaken?” those meek blue eyes seemed to say. “No,” my eyes eloquently replied, “a thousand times no! — I will not allow my drawer to be searched!”

And the girls around me grew louder and more agitated with each passing minute.

“Belskaya,” I heard Krasnushka’s voice, “go open Dzhavakha’s tiroir (drawer).”

“What?!”

And in an instant, I found myself at my desk and even perched on its edge, so that no daring hand would dare to lift the lid.

Then my enemy stepped out of the crowd — Belskaya.

“Listen, Dzhavakha,” she said calmly, slightly conciliatory, “why won’t you allow yourself to be searched?… After all, Dodo, Korbina, Ler, Petrovskaya — the entire top ten of our best students, our parfaites {Parfaites — from parfait (Fr.) — perfect, impeccable. (Ed. note).} listed on the red board, allowed this to be done… and if they did…”

“Belskaya,” I interrupted her, “in matters of honor, there can be neither first nor last students. You are foolish if you don’t understand this… Princess Dzhavakha will never allow herself to be suspected of anything dishonest…”

“If Princess Dzhavakha doesn’t allow her desk to be opened right now, then that means she stole my book!” I heard a sharp and unpleasant voice, and Teensy’s angelic face, distorted by a wicked grimace, looked up at me from below.

The drawers, desks, lectern, walls, and ceiling — everything danced and jumped before my eyes. The girls seemed to float away somewhere, into a fog, far, far away, and I saw them already somewhere above my head… And at the same moment, a dark veil seemed to cover my vision…

Chapter 4. Fairy Irène in the Infirmary

 

The large, unfamiliar room with beds covered in white bedspreads was immersed in the gloom of the September night.

I lay in bed with a compress on my head, and my whole body ached and throbbed.

“Where am I?” I involuntarily blurted out, and I began to look wildly around, examining the unfamiliar surroundings.

“In the infirmary, young lady, please be calm,” someone’s trembling, elderly voice answered me.

“Who are you?”

“I, Matenka.”

“But who, for God’s sake? I don’t understand anything.”

Then the speaker rose from the stool, and in the pale moonlight peering through the windows, I saw a small, wrinkled old woman in a white cap and a dark dress.

“Who are you?” I asked her again.

“Matenka, the local nurse… Here, drink this, little princess, a little medicine — you’ll feel better,” the unfamiliar old woman said softly and kindly, holding out a shot glass with some liquid.

“Why medicine? Am I sick?” I asked anxiously.

“Well, sick or not sick, you’re a bit under the weather. But it’s nothing! Franz Ivanovich will have you back on your feet in no time. You’ll be discharged tomorrow. Just drink the drops, and everything will be gone like magic.”

I yielded, and, taking the glass from her hands, swallowed the bitter, nasty concoction.

“Well, excellent! And now, with God, bye-bye, and I’ll go lie down too, glad I waited for you to wake up and gave you the medicine.”

“How lovely she is, how kind, and what a wonderful, sweet face she has,” I thought involuntarily. “Barbalé is just as old, but she doesn’t have these wrinkles around her eyes, precisely like rays surrounding her eyelids and giving her whole appearance an expression of hidden, good-natured laughter.”

She leaned over me, crossed me very much like home, as Barbalé used to do, and said:

“Sleep, child… God be with you!”

My heart beat sweetly at this unpretentious tenderness from the infirmary nurse, and unconsciously, wrapping my arms around her neck, I whispered:

“How kind you are, just like family! I already love you!”

“Thank you, little mother, my beauty, for caressing me, an old woman…” Matenka said, touched, and, carefully covering me with a blanket, shuffled off to her place, coughing and sighing almost inaudibly.

I settled more comfortably and began to look out the window. The undrawn curtain allowed me to see the tall trees of the institute garden and the area in front of the infirmary windows, all brightly lit by the moon.

“Here,” I thought, “this same moon shines in Gori, and perhaps someone of mine, looking at it, remembers little distant Nina… How I wish the moon fairy could convey, like in a fairy tale, to them — my dear, sweet ones — that Nina is thinking of them this moonlit autumn night!..”

And the moon fairy, as if overhearing my wish, appeared to me. She had light, truly flaxen hair, falling in long waves over her shoulders… Her eyes seemed to reflect the moonlight, so bright and transparent they were!… Tall, slender, dressed in something white, light, she suddenly appeared before me… And — strange thing — I wasn’t frightened at all and looked at her with a smile, waiting for her to speak. But she remained silent and only gazed intently at me with her mysterious eyes. A moonbeam slid across her head and hid in her curls. And her curls became completely, completely silver from it.

Since she still remained silent, I decided to speak first.

“How wonderful,” I whispered, “that you came to me, moon fairy.”

She laughed, and her laughter seemed to me clear and wonderful, precisely the way only fairies can laugh.

“No, no, I am not a fairy!” she exclaimed and softly, as if reluctantly, added: “I am just Irène!”

“Irène?” I wondered, “but can’t a moon fairy be called Irène?..”

“I must disappoint you, little princess… You were expecting a moon fairy, but before you is Irochka Trachtenberg, a student of the institute’s graduating class. Irina Trachtenberg, or simply Irochka, as the institute girls call me.”

“Irène… Irochka… how good it is that you came to me! True, I was expecting a fairy, but you are just as radiant and pretty and can perfectly replace her.”

And I took her hands and looked into her face, fantastically illuminated by the moonbeams.

“Well, enough, little one, I must go,” she smiled, “you shouldn’t talk too much, or your temperature will rise again and you won’t be discharged from the infirmary soon.”

“Oh, no, no, Fairy Irène, don’t leave me!” I pleaded anxiously, “sit on my bed. You don’t want to sleep yet?”

“Oh, no! Alas! I suffer from insomnia and walk around the rooms for a long time, all night, I walk until I feel like resting, and only fall asleep towards morning. Just now I heard you talking with Matenka, and I came to replace the old woman. Don’t you need to change your compress?”

“Oh, yes, please! Just don’t leave!” I pleaded, seeing her slender figure moving away from me.

“But, funny little one, how else can I wet the cloth?”

“Then no compress is needed. Just sit by me and put your hand on my forehead… You have such a tender, white hand — it must bring me relief… There, just like that… And now… now tell me, how did it happen that you are not a fairy, but just Irène?”

Irène laughed.

She laughed wonderfully well. It was as if silver bells chimed in her throat — and her eyes became large and moist then…

She told me that she was from Stockholm, that her father was an important consul, that she had a younger sister, an astonishing beauty, and that she dearly loved her cold homeland.

Then I couldn’t help but tell her about the wonderful days I spent in the Caucasus, how hard it was for me to part with my father today, and how much I longed to return to my sweet, sun-drenched Gori.

She listened to me very attentively. The whole time I spoke, her slender hand rested on my forehead, and indeed, it seemed to me that the pain in my head subsided, that the pretty Irochka was capable of taking away my illness, like a real little fairy.

“However, that’s enough for today!” she interrupted me when, encouraged by her attention, I began to tell her about how I ran away from home in the disguise of a beggar sazandar — “enough, child, or we’ll start to rave!..”

Obviously, she didn’t believe me! She took for delirium what had happened to me and what I had told her with such fervor!… I didn’t try to disabuse her. Let this strange, poetic girl consider my eventful little life a delirium!…

“Good night, little Nina, it’s time for you to sleep, we’ll talk our fill tomorrow,” I heard her gentle voice once more. Then, firmly kissing my forehead, which was damp with perspiration, she went to the door.

“Goodbye, Fairy Irène!..”

I saw how easily she glided across the room, just like a real moon fairy, and disappeared into the corridor.

“Goodbye, Fairy Irène!” I whispered once more; and for the first time since my arrival in the gloomy institute walls, a sweet hope for something good knocked at my heart again.

I smiled, sighed, and instantly fell into a quick, healthy sleep.

The morning was sunny and bright. Opening my eyes, I saw the unfamiliar infirmary setting and remembered everything…

A plump, fresh-faced medical assistant, with a smiling, cheerful face, brought me a second dose of medicine.

“Well, thank God, it seems we’ve brought our new girl back to life,” she smiled, “or yesterday you scared us terribly; they brought you flat from class — a fainting spell… Tell me, please, a fainting spell! At this age, such fainting spells should be treated with birch porridge…”

She grumbled with feigned anger, but her face smiled so simply and cheerfully that I terribly wanted to kiss her.

Then, suddenly, I remembered that I would no longer see my father, that he was far away and no power could bring him back to his Nina-dzhan now.

And my gaze blurred.

“What’s this, tears?” Vera Vasilievna (that was the plump medical assistant’s name) cried out, peering inquisitively into my eyes. “No, girl, you must stop that, or you’ll cause me such trouble that I won’t be able to cure you in two weeks.”

“Alright,” I said, “I’ll try to hold back my tears, but please send Fairy Irène here to me.”

“Fairy Irène?” she said in bewilderment, “but, good heavens, are you delirious, Princess?”

“Fairy Irène is Irochka Trachtenberg. Where is she?”

“M-lle Trachtenberg is still asleep,” Matenka announced, appearing at the doorway, and then asked Vera Vasilievna if I could get out of bed today.

She allowed it.

I quickly began to dress, and half an hour later, combed and washed, in a white linen infirmary robe, exactly like the one I had seen on Irochka tonight, I entered the next ward. There, in front of the door of a large stove, squatting, all red from the fire, sat Irochka and toasted a government-issue bun over the flame.

“Shh! Don’t make noise, little princess!” she stopped me, putting a finger to her lips.

And I, laughing, sat down next to her on the floor and began to observe her.

She was no longer as pretty as she had seemed to me at night. The morning had mercilessly stripped her of all her nocturnal, fantastic charm. She no longer seemed like a fairy to me, but her large, bright eyes, mysteriously transparent, exactly like a mermaid’s eyes, her magnificent, flaxen hair, and the elegant features of her slightly haughty face with a childishly charming smile — involuntarily made one admire her.

“Why are you staring at me so intently, Princess,” the girl laughed, “or do you no longer recognize the mysterious moon fairy in me today?”

“No, no, Irochka, not at all… I’m looking at you because I like you terribly, and it’s as if I’ve known you for a very long time!..”

“Do you want a toasted bun?” she unexpectedly cut short my fervent speech and, breaking off half of the bun just removed from the hot coals, offered it to me.

I began to eat with great appetite, burning my lips and not taking my eyes off Irochka.

Why I suddenly, unexpectedly fell in love with her — I don’t know, but this feeling completely took hold of my hot heart, responsive to first impressions.

At two o’clock, the doctor arrived. He listened to me especially carefully, asked about the Caucasus, about Papa. Then he began with Irochka. Besides us, there were no other patients in the infirmary. But a whole line of them came from the classrooms for examination.

“Franz Ivanovich, darling,” a tall, plump senior student, who looked perfectly healthy, pleaded.

“What do you command, M-lle Talmina?”

“Franz Ivanovich, darling, find me stomach catarrh, throat catarrh, catarrh…”

“Ugh, so many catarrhs at once! Won’t that be too much? One might be enough, perhaps…” the doctor laughed good-naturedly.

“Darling, I haven’t started physics… And the monster-physicist threatened to call on me and give me a failing grade for the last time… Sweetie, save me!”

“What if I put you to bed?” the doctor joked.

“I’ll lie down, darling… Even better in bed, proof of illness is evident.”

“And if I prescribe castor oil?”

“Brr! Well, whatever, I’ll drink the castor oil… Castor oil is better than physics…”

“But what if Maman doesn’t believe it, orders your temperature to be taken yourself? What then? Eh? Both of us will be in trouble…”

“Nothing, darling… the temperature will rise, I’ll put the thermometer in the tea: it’ll quickly be 40.”

“Ah, you rascals,” the doctor laughed, “well, what can I do with you… Just make sure this physics illness happens to you for the last time, or I’ll give you up to whoever needs to know: I’ll say you’re measuring tea temperature instead of your own!”

“You won’t say!” the girl retorted spiritedly, “you’re kind!”

Indeed, he was kind.

A minute later, his loud voice called out to Matenka:

“Compassionate sister, prepare a sudorific for M-lle Talmina, and put her to bed.”

“A surprising case!” he said seriously to the medical assistant standing nearby, who was looking at him with obsequious attention.

Talmina, groaning and grunting like a real patient, got into bed, while the others choked with laughter.

And almost every day, the kind doctor saved one girl or another in this way.

Irochka and I were prescribed to stay in the infirmary for an indefinite period. But I was not at all saddened by this. It was much cozier here than in the classroom, and besides, I could rest for a while from the attacks of my unjust classmates.

At night, I would sneak into Irochka’s ward, and we would chat until morning.

I couldn’t keep silent about the missing book incident from her. She listened to me carefully and, frowning her thin eyebrows, muttered through clenched teeth:

“Ugh, how disgusting!” and then, after a pause, added: “I thought something extraordinary had happened to you. They brought you to the infirmary like a dead person. M-lle Arnaud almost lost her mind from fright. What nasty, spoiled girls! You know, Nina, if they dare to offend you again, come to me and tell me… I will know how to stand up for you…”

“Stand up? Oh, no, dear Irochka,” I thought, “you won’t have to stand up for me. I’ll be able to stand up for myself.”

I told Irochka my whole eventful life, and she listened attentively and eagerly, as if it were not the story of a little girl, but a wonderful, magical fairy tale.

“Nina!” she often interrupted me mid-sentence, “how lucky you are to have experienced so many interesting things! I would so love to wander with a bagpipe, just like in a fairy tale, and fall into the hands of Dushman…”

“What are you saying, Irochka!” I exclaimed, frightened. “After all, you don’t always meet people like Magoma in life, and what would have happened to me if he hadn’t come to my rescue? It’s terrible to think!..”

I spent glorious days in the infirmary; even my homesickness somehow smoothed out and stopped manifesting in its former sharp outbursts. Sometimes, I was even overcome by an irresistible urge to be mischievous and play pranks. After all, I was only 11 years old, and life was bubbling within me.

There were two medical assistants in the infirmary: one of them, Vera Vasilievna, was the most wonderful and kindest being, and the other, Mirra Andreevna, was a nitpicker and a meanie. To the extent that the girls loved the first, they hated the second.

Vera Vasilievna, or Pyshka (Puffy), apparently patronized my budding friendship with Irène, but Tsaplya (Heron, as the merciless institute girls nicknamed Mirra Andreevna for her long neck) constantly grumbled at me:

“Where is it ever seen for seventh graders to spend days and nights with senior students!”

Tsaplya was especially angry when she caught me during our nightly conversations with Irochka.

“Go to sleep,” she called out in an unpleasant, shrill voice, “march to sleep right now, or I’ll complain to Maman!”

And I, ashamed and indignant, went back to my bed. I couldn’t sleep, however, and, waiting for a convenient moment when Mirra Andreevna, having finished her night rounds, headed to her room, I hastily jumped out of bed and cautiously crept into the last ward, where my new adult friend was sleeping.

Far past midnight, our endless conversation about home and homeland continued, seasoned with exclamations of sympathy, surprise, and laughter.

Mirra Andreevna finally guessed that after her rounds, I would go to the senior ward, and she decided to “catch” me.

“Today Tsaplya will do a second round,” Masha, an infirmary girl who had taken a liking to me from my very first day in the infirmary, managed to whisper to me.

I was genuinely upset. Half a night of wonderful chatter with Irène was being erased from my life!

“Well, just you wait, nasty Tsaplya,” I fumed, “I’ll teach you not to spy on us!”

“What do you want to do, Princess?” Irochka asked anxiously.

“You’ll see.”

I particularly obediently went to bed that evening, which, of course, only increased Tsaplya’s suspicion.

Two new patients were brought into the large ward, and, in addition, one of the senior students came, who had suddenly fallen ill with ignorance of pedagogy. Thus, our infirmary family increased by three new members.

After the gas was dimmed, the new patients immediately fell asleep. I lay with open eyes, looking at the tiny gas flame of the nightlight and thinking about Irène, who was sleeping behind the wall.

“Nasty Mirka!” I fumed, “she deprived me of such enormous pleasure…”

Late, it must have been around 11 o’clock, because everything was quiet and only the sleepy snoring of the infirmary girls, who were sleeping there, could be heard, I unexpectedly heard the slapping of slippers on the parquet floor.

“It’s her,” flashed through my mind, and I prepared for the attack.

Indeed, it was Mirra Andreevna, who had come to spy on me. She moved silently on tiptoes towards my bed, dressed in something long, wide, and checkered, like a smock, with two papillotkas (curlers) on her forehead, sticking out like little horns.

As soon as the checkered figure with white horns approached and bent over me — I unexpectedly jumped up in bed and, with a wild cry of feigned fright, clutched the ill-fated horns with both hands.

“Help, help,” I shrieked, “a ghost! Ai! Ai! Ai!… a ghost!..”

An unimaginable noise and screeching arose. The girls woke up and, of course, not understanding what was happening, echoed me, crying out from sleep for the entire infirmary:

“Ai, ai, a ghost, help!”

Mirra herself cried out, more frightened than us by the commotion she had caused. She made every effort to free herself from my hands, but I held onto the white horns so tightly that all her efforts were in vain.

Finally, she gathered her last strength, pulled herself away once more and… — oh horror! — the skin along with the hair and white horns detached from her head and remained in my hands like a scalp.

I involuntarily revealed someone else’s secret: the respectable Mirra wore a wig. With a completely bald skull, cursing and screaming, Tsaplya rushed towards the exit. And I, bewildered and confused by the unexpected turn of events, stammered, waving the wig remaining in my hands:

“Oh, my God, who knew… Did I ever think…”

The gas was turned up again. The room lit up. The patients stopped screaming and worrying and, surrounding me, now roared with laughter like madwomen.

In a few words, I told them how I had been frightened by the horned ghost, how this ghost turned out to be the respectable Mirra Andreevna, and not even Mirra Andreevna, but rather, her wig. We laughed until we were exhausted.

Finally, it was decided to wrap Mirra’s unfortunate wig in paper and take it to the enraged medical assistant.

The wig was handed to Matenka and she was told to deliver it to its destination as carefully as possible.

The next day, during dressing changes, the institute girls talked of nothing else but how Princess Dzhavakha had scalped Tsaplya. They roared with laughter in the classrooms, roared in the infirmary, roared in the basement quarters of the servant girls. Only Tsaplya did not laugh. She cast furious glances at me and insisted on my speedy discharge from the infirmary.

The following evening, having tenderly said goodbye to Irochka, I was getting ready for class.

“Goodbye, little mischief-maker!” Irène kissed me with a kind smile.

“Goodbye, moon fairy, get well soon; I will eagerly await you in the classes.”

When I went up to the corridor and the familiar buzzing of several dozens of voices deafened me — the classroom atmosphere seemed alien and unpleasant. I was convinced that the same taunts from my unfriendly classmates awaited me there.

But I was mistaken.

Fräulein Henning, when I entered, was sitting at the lectern, surrounded by girls answering her assigned lessons.

At my appearance, she smiled kindly and asked:

“Well, Gott grüsst dich (God greet you (Southern Ger.)). Have you recovered?”

I nodded affirmatively and looked around the class. Around me there was no longer a single hostile face. The girls, seemingly somewhat ashamed, crowded around me, avoiding my gaze.

“Hello!” Varvara Chikunina nodded her head to me, and her voice sounded even more gentle than before. “Completely recovered?”

“Yes! And already made quite a fuss there,” I laughed and, sitting down next to her on the desk, briefly told her about the infirmary incident.

“So that’s what you’re like!” she raised her eyebrows in surprise and then added, unexpectedly lowering her voice: “and the little book was found after all!”

“What little book?” I was genuinely surprised.

“Markova’s… you remember, the one that made you sick. Yes, it was found. Fenya swept it into the corridor with the rubbish and then brought it… You know, Dzhavakha, they are so embarrassed by their ridiculous behavior towards you…”

“Who?”

“Both Belskaya and Markova and Zapolskaya, in short, everyone, everyone… They would gladly come to make peace with you, but they are afraid you will push them away.”

“Nonsense!” I blurted out cheerfully, “nonsense!”

And indeed, everything now seemed like nonsense to me compared to Irène’s friendship. The institute no longer appeared to me as the gloomy and sullen prison it once was. In it lived, with her mysteriously transparent eyes and bell-like laughter, the blonde Fairy Irène.

Chapter 5. Crime and Punishment. The Rule of Comradeship

 

Along the long planks of the corridor,

As the clock strikes nine,

Our tall Czerny rushes,

Rushes on his long legs.

His tall legs don’t bend,

His boots don’t creak,

And silently into open eyelids,

Angry eyes stare.

 

Krasnushka even clicked her tongue with pleasure and surveyed the class with triumphant eyes.

“Bravo, Zapolskaya, bravo!” rang out from all sides, and the girls jumped and skipped around our little class poetess.

The duty lady, suffering from a swollen cheek, had gone to lie down a bit in her room, and we were left to ourselves.

“Darlings, she stole that from Lermontov,” Belskaya, always quick to intervene, suddenly squeaked.

“What are you lying about, Belka!” the accused pounced on her.

“Well, yes… ‘The Aerial Ship’… ‘Over the blue waves of the ocean,’ — that’s how it begins, — ‘as soon as stars gleam in the heavens, the lonely ship rushes, rushes with all sails.’ And yours…”

“Well, yes, I’m not hiding it… I took it as a model… Even great poets did that… And it’s still good, and you’re nitpicking out of envy. It’s good, isn’t it, mesdames?” And she swept the class with beaming eyes.

“It’s good, Marusya, very good,” everyone approved. “Czerny will be furious!”

Czerny was our arithmetic teacher. Tall and dry as a stick, he was constantly angry and shouting. He was nicknamed “the vampire” at the institute. His lessons were considered a punishment from above. The math page in the journal was constantly filled with ones, zeros, and twos. He never gave more than ten points, even for the most satisfactory answer.

“Good,” he would say, smiling and revealing large yellow teeth, “you deserve 10 points.”

“But why not 12, monsieur Czerny?” a girl, emboldened by praise, bravely insisted.

“Because, Madam Muravyova, only the Lord God has access to all knowledge for the first mark, i.e., 12. I, your humble servant, for 11, and you, Madam Muravyova, for 10.”

“Oh, darlings,” Dodo grumbled under her breath, returning to her place, “what a sinner that vampire is! He dragged God Himself into his nasty arithmetic!”

The entire class hated Czerny and fearlessly showed him their hatred. And once, after he unfairly gave Milochka Korbina, a quiet and diligent girl, a deuce for a problem she didn’t understand — they decided to “bait” him.

While in other teachers’ lessons, beautifully wrapped chalk sticks with red, blue, and pink bows adorned the lectern, in Czerny’s lesson, a carelessly tossed fragment, or rather, a gnawed piece of chalk, barely fit in one’s hands. Flies constantly floated in the inkwell, and the pen was intentionally placed so that one could barely sign the class register with it.

Tanya Pokrovskaya, who adored Czerny (everything somehow always went “not very well” for Tanya Pokrovskaya, and she was considered unlucky), was strictly forbidden to “help out the vampire,” and Tanya, after crying through her “darling Czerny’s” lesson, submitted.

“Do what you want with him, mesdames, but I consider it vile to stop my adoration now that you’ve decided to bait him,” she meekly declared.

“Well, go on and adore your vampire, but we’ll still get rid of him completely,” Zapolskaya decided and immediately sat down to write her poem…

The Muse smiled at Marusya, and the beginning of the parody of “The Aerial Ship” turned out quite successfully.

Krasnushka was not averse to continuing in the same vein, but the Muse became stubborn, and the girl limited herself to only one quatrain, which she briskly scribbled under the poem:

 

Ones, twos, threes,

The vampire just sprinkles them on us,

All the while he seethes with malice,

Beware, baptized world!

 

It was decided to place the sheet with the poem on the table near the inkwell, as if unintentionally forgotten. Each of the girls climbed onto the lectern to ensure the sheet’s presence.

This time, as if gilding the pill, they placed a chalk stick with a red wrapper and a bow for Czerny. They even glued a picture of an angel flying into the sky onto the bow.

“This is a dying pleasure,” the mischievous girls laughed, “because dying people are always given something pleasant, and the vampire will surely burst with anger after reading the verses!”

Someone suggested to Tanya Pokrovskaya that she tie a black ribbon around her arm, as a sign of mourning.

Tanya pouted and was angry, but she didn’t dare go against the class. This would have been a violation of the rule of comradeship, which was strictly pursued by the institute’s laws of friendship. “Die, but do not betray,” read this law, invented by childish minds, sometimes magnanimous and reasonable, sometimes eccentric and overly fantasizing.

I approached the lectern last. On this day, I was the class monitor, and it was my duty to check if everything necessary was prepared for the teacher.

Everything was in place, including the ill-fated sheet with the poem.

I had barely managed to open the inkwell and pull out two drowned flies from it when the door swung wide open, and the red-haired, tall, dry Czerny flew into the classroom.

Barely nodding to the girls who had stood up from their seats, he climbed onto the lectern and was about to begin calling on students when suddenly his gaze fell upon the ill-fated sheet. Carefully, with thin, crooked fingers, as if it were a rare treasure, Czerny took it and, bringing it to his very nose, began to read — oh horror! — aloud…

As he read, his face, from earthy-gray, turned crimson-red. His high, considerably enlarged by baldness forehead, his endless, “until tomorrow morning,” as the institute girls called it, nose, and neck, into which the tight white collars of his starched shirt stubbornly pressed, all turned red.

 

He seethes with furious malice.

Beware, baptized world!

 

he uttered the concluding lines with surprising clarity and purity and put the sheet down.

A deathly silence fell in the room. One could almost hear a fly buzzing… Czerny leaned back in his chair and surveyed the class with wickedly triumphant eyes… And each of us felt awkward; in each young head, the thought couldn’t help but flash: “Did our joke go too far?”

A minute passed, which seemed like an eternity to us. The class was silent, Czerny was silent. The ill-fated sheet again adorned his hands.

“Oh, if only he’d burst out sooner,” our hearts painfully hammered, “it doesn’t matter — don’t expect mercy, so just get it over with! Ugh! Nasty vampire.”

But he didn’t burst out, contrary to expectations; instead, he addressed the class in the sweetest voice:

“Isn’t this a witty piece, mesdames? I am burning with impatience to know the name of the talented author. I hope they will not delay in naming themselves.”

But everyone was silent… It was an eerie silence that made one’s mouth bitter and caused a sharp ache below the stomach.

“Well then, if the author themselves does not wish to name themselves and hides behind their friends’ backs,” Czerny continued with the same implacable calmness, “then there is nothing to be done, we shall proceed with the interrogation. By the way, upon entering the class, I noticed something. I hope the culprit has enough courage not to deny it?”

What was this? The vampire’s evil and cold eyes fixed on me with an inimitable expression of hidden mockery… This gaze made me uncomfortable and uneasy.

“What does he want?” the thought painfully drilled into my brain. “What is he looking at?”

Silence again reigned in the classroom… Again, the nasty, sickly-sweet voice sounded with the tenderest notes:

“Would you not be so kind as to name yourself?” — And again, his bulging, angry eyes of an indefinably watery color fixed on me.

I felt all the blood rush to and from my face, how suddenly my trembling fingers grew cold, and I could no longer avert my gaze from the teacher’s evil and piercing eyes.

And suddenly, something happened that none of us expected: Tanya Pokrovskaya jumped up from her desk and, clasping her hands in prayer, cried out to the entire class, choking on vainly suppressed tears:

“Monsieur Czerny, darling, by God, we didn’t do it on purpose…”

The teacher frowned. I saw the tip of his long nose turn white, and his eyes became even more malicious, bulging, and colorless.

“Madam Pokrovskaya, compose yourself,” he said coldly and restrainedly and looked intently at the confused and embarrassed girl, “whether this was done on purpose or by accident, it doesn’t matter to me. I want to know who did it?”

“Lord! I called him darling — nothing helps,” the poor Tanya said dejectedly and added in a loud whisper, so that her neighbors could hear:

“Insensitive asp, I don’t want to adore him anymore… Vampire!”

None of us, however, paid attention to her words. Our nerves were stretched to the limit. Many girls sincerely regretted their action now. Everyone felt uneasy.

And Czerny still looked at me, almost driving me to tears with that unblinking, fixed gaze.

“So, the guilty one stubbornly refuses to confess?” we heard his unpleasant, ringing voice once more.

A new, deathly silence reigned in the classroom.

“I am waiting.”

After another pause, he unexpectedly stretched himself to his full enormous height at the lectern and, approaching my desk, unexpectedly said in an unbearably unpleasant voice:

“Princess Dzhavakha, you did this!”

I flinched and looked at him inquiringly. The accusation was too unexpected and absurd for me to be offended by it.

“You did this!” Czerny said once more impassively, “I saw you place the sheet near the inkwell when I entered the classroom.”

And, nervously trembling with excitement or anger, he returned to the lectern with large strides.

“I demand that you confess to the act yourself,” he continued from there, “and therefore I ask you once more: was it you, Princess Dzhavakha, who placed the poem on the lectern?”

I looked around… Pale, anxious faces with pleading expressions looked at me.

“Don’t betray Zapolskaya, don’t betray Krasnushka,” they seemed to say.

I myself knew that Zapolskaya would not be forgiven for such a transgression: she was the worst in arithmetic; Czerny already hated her anyway, and she was also under observation by the authorities for her mischief.

And I understood them, these agitated, frightened faces of my recent enemies. I understood and… resolved.

Rising from my seat, I firmly and clearly said:

“Monsieur Czerny, forgive me. I did it.”

“Ah!” he somehow let out plaintively, as if regretting that he hadn’t been mistaken in his assumption; but immediately, as if catching himself, he added: “I am very pleased that you confessed. Remorse should serve as your punishment. As for me, I do not wish to teach girls who have no heart. Tomorrow, I will not be here.”

And having said this in a new, saddened and softened voice, he hastily descended from the lectern and disappeared through the door.

The class collectively gasped.

I don’t know why, but the last words of the hated vampire painfully pinched my heart.

“Perhaps,” a thought flashed through my mind, “by leaving his lessons at the institute, he will have to suffer… perhaps he has a sick wife… many children who love and appreciate him and for whom he is not an evil vampire-teacher, but a good, beloved Papa. And for these children, as a result of his departure from the institute, there will be want, perhaps poverty… hunger.”

And what else didn’t my passionate, surprisingly obedient imagination conjure up!… What soul-rending scenes didn’t appear before my mind’s eye!…

Not entirely conscious of what I was doing, I rushed out of the classroom.

Czerny was impassively striding down the corridor with his long legs, and I barely managed to catch up with him at the teachers’ room door.

“Monsieur Czerny,” I whispered, blushing, “Monsieur Czerny, please don’t leave us! For heaven’s sake!”

He muttered mockingly through his teeth:

“Belated remorse, Madam Dzhavakha. However, better late than never.”

“Oh, no! Oh, no, Monsieur Czerny…” I stammered, not knowing what I was saying, “don’t leave… Why quit your job because of a foolish prank by silly girls… Forgive me, Monsieur Czerny… This was the first and last time. Truly… it’s such torment, such torment…” — and, completely lost in my impulse, I covered my face with my hands and groaned loudly.

When I removed my hands and looked at Czerny, I did not recognize his transformed face: until this moment, his evil and mocking eyes shone terribly with an unaccustomed tenderness, from which his entire face ceased to appear dry and harsh.

“Madam Dzhavakha!” he said somewhat solemnly, “I forgive you… Go and announce to the class that I forgive both you and all of them from the bottom of my heart…”

“Oh, Monsieur Czerny,” I burst out impulsively, “how magnanimous, how kind you are!” — and faster than an arrow, I rushed back down the corridor, back to the classroom.

There, everyone was still sitting in their places. Only Krasnushka — the culprit of the sad incident — and two other girls stood by the blackboard. Krasnushka was writing the last line on it in large, white letters.

The inscription read:

“Princess Ninochka Dzhavakha! We have decided to tell you, the whole class — you are a darling. You are better and more honest and more magnanimous than all of us. We are very sorry for all the evil we have caused you. You repaid it with kindness, you showed how much better you are than us. We love you very, very much now and once again ask for your forgiveness. Princess Ninochka Dzhavakha, darling, charmer, will you forgive us?”

After the word “us” stood ten question marks and as many exclamation points.

Could I not forgive them, when friendly childish faces smiled all around, when forty hands reached out to me with a handshake and as many childish mouths — with a heartfelt, friendly kiss. I laughed softly and joyfully, quickly grabbed the chalk, and signed below in the same large scrawl:

“Yes, yes, I forgive, forget, and also love you all terribly!”

And then, suddenly remembering what had just happened, I scrawled below:

“And Czerny forgave: he’s staying.”

At that very moment, a united “hurrah!” burst from the chests of forty girls.

The neighboring door opened, and the gray head of the class lady from the neighboring sixth grade poked through.

“Are you mad, mesdames! There are lessons next door, and you’re screaming like cadets,” she hissed. “I’ll complain to M-lle Arnaud.”

We had indeed gone mad. We kissed and laughed, and kissed again… That entire little crowd lived in that moment with one life, one heart, one mind. And I was its center, its joy and pride!

The barrier crumbled… I had found my new family.

Chapter 6. Lie and Truth. Lyuda Vlasovskaya

 

My life at the institute flowed smoothly and evenly. All the girls grew fond of me, with the exception of Teensy. She sulked at me for my rare successes in academic subjects and for the exceptional attention the class now showed me. Only Manya Ivanova disliked me simply because she was Teensy’s friend. The other girls became deeply attached to me. Only the apathetic Ren — the largest and laziest of all the seventh-graders — remained indifferent.

Now my word carried immense weight in the class. “Princess Nina won’t lie,” the girls would say and trusted me in everything, as they say, with their eyes closed.

Their love was pleasant to me, but their respect even more so.

“Joy-Papa,” I wrote, among other things, to distant Gori, “thank you for teaching me never to lie and to fear nothing…”

And in my letter, I told him everything that had happened to me.

How surprised my papa must have been to receive such a letter from his dzhanuchka — surprised and… delighted.

The class mistresses — not only the kind, indulgent, and good-natured Henning, but also the strict, demanding Arnaud — treated me exceptionally well.

“Here is a student one can fully rely on,” the latter said, and in the very first month of my stay at the institute, she put me on the red board.

I didn’t understand how I had earned such favor. I only did what my heart dictated. “Isn’t it every person’s duty to speak the truth and act rightly and honestly?” I thought.

Lying was repugnant to me in all its forms, and I avoided it even in trifles. Once, we had poorly learned a poem for our German teacher, and that day our journal was adorned with more than a dozen deuces and fives. Even for me, Teensy, and Dodo — the best students in the class — undesirable sevens for answers graced the pages.

“Schande! {Shame! (German).}” the angry German snapped at us, leaving the classroom, instead of a farewell greeting.

Ashamed, we went down to the dining room for lunch and were even more embarrassed to see Maman there in the company of our honorary guardian and the Minister of Public Education. The latter we unanimously idolized with all the strength of our childish affection.

Small, very stout, with gray curls, a large hooked nose, and good-natured eyes — his mere appearance brought a ray of joy into the institute walls. And he loved children exceptionally, especially the little seventh-graders, for whom he had a special tenderness.

“You must forgive me,” he addressed the seniors, with whom he had sat down at the table to share the meager institute breakfast, “but there go my ‘pugs’!” (for some reason, he always called the little pupils “pugs”) — and, hurrying and waddling, he overtook us and, standing in the first pair between Valya Ler and Teensy, walked like that through the entire dining room to our great delight.

“Why don’t you visit our lesson, Ivan Petrovich?” Belskaya boldly popped out.

“No time, little pug,” the minister replied, paternally touching her chin. “What lesson was it?”

“German.”

“Well, and what then? Surely, the journal must be full of zeros?”

“Oh no,” Kira Dergunova, who had just received a one in that lesson, was even offended by such a remark.

“Is that so?” the joking minister winked playfully.

“Yes, truly. I got a ten.”

“Well?” he stretched, raising his eyebrows high. “Good girl, little pug! And you?” he turned to Zapolskaya.

“Twelve, Ivan Petrovich,” she lied without batting an eye.

“And you, Teensy?” he continued to ask, knowing not only all our names but also our nicknames.

“Twelve too,” Markova lied, and even paled a little.

“Well, that’s fine… a good student, but as for Belka-Razboinik and Kiryusha being different — isn’t that a fairy tale, little pugs, from a thousand and one nights? Eh?”

“No, no, it’s true, Ivan Petrovich,” the girls squeaked in unison, “the absolute truth!”

And to whomever our favorite addressed his question — the marks turned out to be exceptionally excellent.

“Herr Hallbeck must be happy today,” he said, whether mockingly or thoughtfully.

“Well, and you, Princess of Gori (the institute girls called me that), you probably also got a twelve?” the minister unexpectedly turned to me.

It was as if something pinched my heart, and it began to beat fast, fast.

“No, Ivan Petrovich,” I said firmly, “I received a seven today.”

“Well, I’ll be!” he exclaimed, throwing up his hands, and made such a comical grimace that the whole table burst into laughter, despite the awkwardness and embarrassment.

“But I knew she wouldn’t lie,” Ivan Petrovich said again, now seriously, addressing everyone together and no one in particular. “She won’t lie,” he repeated thoughtfully, and, lifting my chin with his fingers, added affectionately: “Such eyes cannot lie, they don’t know how… Truthful eyes! Pure in thought! Thank you, Princess, thank you, Princess of Gori, for not deceiving an old friend!”

And before I could react, the old man kissed me on the forehead and went back to his previous seat at the first-graders’ table.

“Ninochka, why didn’t you support us,” Dodo whined capriciously, not wanting to fall from her high position as a class parfaite in the opinion of the beloved authorities.

“Yes, yes, why, Nina?” the girls picked up.

“The Princess of Gori cannot help but poke her long nose where it’s not asked,” the poisonous Teensy hissed.

“Oh, leave me alone,” I said with an involuntary burst of anger, “I always have told and always will tell the truth… I do not intend to lie for your convenience.”

“How commendable to go against the class!” Markova continued to sting me.

“Be quiet, Teensy,” Dergunova snapped at her. “Nina knows what to do, and it’s not for us to teach her.”

The conversation ended there. Truth triumphed.

Leaving the classroom that same day, I ran into Irène, who had been discharged from the infirmary.

“Ah, Princess of Gori, embodiment of truth!” she exclaimed cheerfully.

“Ah, Fairy Irène!” I burst out with an uncontrollable surge of delight, “at last I see you!”

She was not alone. A dark-haired, pimply girl leaned on her arm and looked at me with laughing and cheerful eyes.

“This is my friend Mikhailova. Be friends and don’t squabble, please,” Irochka laughed, taking my hand and placing it in her friend’s hand.

“Friends of our friends are our friends,” I replied solemnly-jokingly, putting my hand to my forehead and heart in the Eastern custom.

Irochka laughed. She no longer seemed to me the transparent moon fairy she had appeared to be that memorable night in the infirmary — no, this was no longer the former, somewhat dreamy, poetic Fairy Irène, but simply a cheerful, laughing, entirely earthly Irochka, whom, however, I loved no less and whom I now decided to “adore” in the institute fashion, so as not to fall behind my funny, silly classmates in this either…

Hours passed by hours, days by days, weeks by weeks. Institute life — pale, uneventful — dragged on monotonously, languidly. But I had already grown accustomed to it. It no longer seemed unbearable and difficult to me, as before. Even its small interests filled me, making me forget for moments the high mountains and green valleys of my wondrous, magical East.

Lessons, preparing them, running after Irochka to the senior half, clashes with Teensy and academic competition with the best students — the “cream” of the class — long stands in church on holidays (which I especially loved due to the solemn mystery of the service), Sunday duties in the reception room for exemplary behavior — all this ran like a wound-up machine, monotonously ticking its regular course.

And then, unexpectedly, this machine overturned. Something happened that I could not foresee: I found what I had not expected to find within the dull institute walls.

It was October. The nasty Petersburg autumn pressed down on the stunted northern nature, drowning it in torrents of its rains, tedious and incessant, producing a kind of oppressive and heavy impression. We had just returned from the garden gallery, where we had been walking throughout the long break. Going into the garden was unthinkable. The rains had turned it into a continuous swamp, and the rotting leaves in the last alley filled the air with a far from pleasant smell. Hungry crows darted with loud caws between the tops of the bare trees, hungry cats with unnaturally enlarged pupils scurried here and there, filling the garden with their piercing meows.

Everything around was gray, cold, empty… We returned from the air gloomy and dissatisfied. It seemed that the sad picture of the rotten Petersburg autumn was reflected in us too.

Indifferently, we tossed off our bonnets and green scarves, indifferently folded them on the drawers. I sat down on the desk, opened a French textbook, and began to review the lesson assigned for today. From the constant bad weather, I coughed and became irritable over trifles. And then, Krasnushka, who had sat down next to me, mercilessly gnawed on black bread rusks, which the girl Fenya had secretly fried for her in the corridor stove.

“Please, don’t gnaw!” I finally got angry, casting an indignant look at Zapolskaya.

“Ugh, how mean you’ve become, Ninochka,” Marusya said in surprise and, wishing to appease me, added: “Let’s talk about Mtskheta, about Georgia.”

Krasnushka, as a very small girl, had been in the Caucasus and had seen Mtskheta with its poetic ruins and ancient fortresses. We often, especially in the evenings, chatted about Georgia. But today I was not in the mood for it. My chest ached, the Petersburg slush instilled an involuntary aversion in my soul, and alongside the pictures of the hateful Petersburg autumn, conjuring up the wonderful landscapes of my distant homeland now seemed almost sacrilegious. In response to Marusya’s suggestion, I only shook my head negatively and once again immersed myself in the book.

Gradually, however, past memories flowed in an endless procession through my thoughts… I remembered a wonderful pink day… a noisy feast… the cries of the tulumbashi (drummers)… a pale, slender girl… my brave, handsome papa, fearlessly rushing on a wild horse… And above all this, a sea of flowers and a sea of rays…

I was so absorbed in my thoughts that I didn’t notice how the bee-like buzzing of the girls learning their lessons suddenly quieted down, and I only came to my senses at the sight of the headmistress, standing three steps away from me with an unfamiliar, modestly dressed lady and a small, funny, black-curled girl, resembling a gypsy child. I was struck by the sight of this girl, with huge, quick, naive, and trusting black eyes.

I didn’t hear what Maman was saying, because I was still in a sweet state of dreamy drowsiness. But then, like a rustle, the girls’ chatter swept through, and the news reached my ears:

“New girl, new girl!”

Maman kissed the girl, just as she had kissed me two months ago upon my admission to the institute, crossed her in the same way, and left the classroom accompanied by the unfamiliar lady.

The new girl remained…

With timid, shy eyes, she surveyed the crowd of girls surrounding her, pestering her with the same idle questions that they had so recently pestered me with.

The new girl answered shyly, embarrassed and flustered by this unfamiliar crowd of cheerful and noisy girls. I was already about to go to her rescue when M-lle Arnaud unexpectedly called out to me, ordering me to take the girl under my care.

I was glad, without knowing why. To do a favor for this small and amusing figure with hair sticking out in all directions, bluish-black and curly like a lamb’s, seemed somehow very pleasant to me.

Her name was Lyuda Vlasovskaya. She looked at me and at the girls around us with a mixture of surprise and longing… From that gaze, clouded with tears, I felt infinitely sorry for her.

“Poor little girl!” I involuntarily thought, “you flew here, like a bird, from distant lands, surely distant, because here, in the north, there are no such bluish-black hairs, no such black cherry-like eyes. You flew here, poor bird, and immediately fell into the cold and slush… And here, curious, merciless girls bombard you with questions that perhaps make you feel even colder and sadder in your soul… Oh! I understand you, I understand perfectly, dear; after all, I too have experienced much of what you are experiencing now. But perhaps you don’t have such a strong will as I do, perhaps you won’t be able to endure all the hardships that I have endured within these walls…”

And, rudely interrupting Belskaya, who had already begun to tease and mock the new girl, I tried to comfort the poor thing as best I could.

She looked at me with grateful, tear-filled eyes, and that look decided everything… It suddenly seemed to me that Yuliko, with his fervent devotion, had come alive, that Barbalé had sent me a greeting from distant Gori, that the loving and tender eyes of my grandfather looked at me from the high blue sky… The little girl with cherry-like eyes had conquered my heart. I vaguely felt that this was a true, loyal friend, that the laughing and dreamy Irochka was only a fairy and would remain a fairy of my thoughts, but this funny, sweet girl I seemed to have loved and known for a long time, and I would love her long, constantly, all my life, as I would love a sister, if I had one.

Happiness smiled upon me. I found what I had vaguely waited for with my soul throughout my short childhood life… I waited and I found it. I now had a friend, faithful and sweet.

Chapter 7. The Princess of Gori Shows Miracles of Bravery

 

The rotten Petersburg autumn still hung over the capital; the sky remained gray without the slightest hint of a sunbeam; lessons ended and others began as usual; Fairy Irène, always calm, even-tempered, and smiling, greeted me when we met. Yet, a new song seemed to ring in the air, a cheerful spring song, and this song began and ended with the same phrase:

“With you, Lyuda! Your friend Lyuda! Your little Lyuda-starling!”

I called her a starling because, in my opinion, she resembled one: so funny, dark-haired, small, with such round, bird-like eyes.

Everyone loved her, because it was impossible not to love her — she was so lovely, so sweet. But I loved her more than anyone else. And she reciprocated. In short, we became lifelong friends.

When she was troubled, I could see it in her expressive eyes, which I read like an open book.

She became attached to me with a touching childlike affection, never leaving my side, thinking my thoughts, seeing everything through my eyes.

“As Nina says… as Nina wishes…” was all we heard from her.

And no one laughed at her, because it never occurred to anyone to disturb the peace of this meek, wonderful child.

Besides, I protected her, and I was respected and a little feared in the class.

Only Teensy occasionally bothered Lyuda.

“Vlasovskaya, where’s your commander?” she would shout, spotting the girl walking alone from somewhere.

I would hear about Markova’s antics from others, but I was powerless to stop them. Our silent animosity only grew greater and greater each day.

Lyuda came from Little Russia. She adored all of Poltava, with its white houses and cherry orchards. They had a farmstead near that city. She had no father. He was a hero of the last Turkish campaign and died like a hero, with an enemy banner in his hands on the ruins of a captured redoubt. She deeply loved her mother, who was still very young.

“Mamusya-kohana, harnaya mama,” she constantly chirped and trembled with joy upon receiving letters from her distant homeland.

She also had a brother, Vasya, and all three of them had lived without leaving their small estate since their father’s death.

Lyuda told me all this after the gas was turned down, on long autumn evenings, lying in the hard institute bed next to mine. Not wishing to be in her debt, I also told her about myself, about home. But I kept silent about the terrible adventures I had encountered in my life. I didn’t want to frighten Lyuda — timid and morbidly impressionable by nature. The stories that the institute girls listened to with such enthusiasm in the late evening, when the class mistress, believing our feigned snores, retired to her room, were enough for her. That’s when the real horrors began. Kira Dergunova excelled at telling “dreadful tales,” and she told them in a “special” way: she would roll her eyes, wave her hands, and narrate in a sepulchral voice that our institute was once a convent, that a skeleton and bones had been dug up on the garden plot, and that in the sellyulki, or music rooms, where the institute girls practiced their music, the shadows of deceased nuns roamed, and someone’s furry green hands plucked at the keys.

“Ay-ay,” one of the more timid listeners would interrupt the carried-away storyteller, “please be quiet, or I’ll scream from fear.”

“Oh, what a nuisance you are, darling!” the indignant Kira would get angry, “you yourself asked me to tell stories…”

“But I asked for ‘no eyes’,” the frightened girl justified herself, “and you make scary eyes, and you bass horribly…”

“Without eyes and without bass, it’s not the same!” Kira would declare authoritatively and finally burst into anger. “You shouldn’t have asked — please leave!”

The story would be interrupted. A quarrel would begin. And the next evening, the same story. The girls would climb onto Kira’s bed with their legs, and she would become even more adept at her fantastic narratives.

At times, I would glance at Lyuda. Her mouth would open, her eyes would widen in horror, but she listened eagerly, afraid to miss a single word.

Once at dinner, serious Dodo said she had met a sleepwalker. The girls, eager for anything mysterious, rejoiced at the new topic of conversation.

“What sleepwalker? Where did you meet him? How did it end?…” they pounced on Dodo, but, to the great disappointment of the curious, the girl could only say that “he” was dressed all in white, that he walked with his arms outstretched, that his eyes were open and looked so terrifying, so terrifying, that she, Dodo, almost fainted.

“And what’s most horrible, darlings,” Dodo added, making Lyuda, who sat next to her, shudder, “Fenya says she also saw a sleepwalker on the church porch.”

“Well, dear, both you and your Fenya are lying!” I got angry, seeing Lyuda’s pupils widen in horror and her feverish eyes fix on the storyteller.

“Well, you think everyone lies! Go to the porch yourself and you’ll see,” Kira declared discontentedly.

“Mesdames, spirits sing on the porch at night,” Krasnushka unexpectedly interjected, “it’s terri-fying!”

“Cowards are afraid of everything!” I smiled mockingly.

“Aren’t you afraid?”

“No.”

“And you’d go…”

“I’ll go.”

“What?!” and the girls even jumped in their seats.

“I will go!” I retorted even more stubbornly, “I will go to prove to you all that you’re making this up.”

At that very moment, Lyuda subtly nudged me with her elbow. I cast an annoyed glance at her.

“What do you want?”

“Ninochka, don’t go!” she whispered to me softly.

“Oh, leave it, please, what are you afraid of? Of course, I’ll go and prove to all of you that there’s no sleepwalker, no spirits on the porch.”

“Well, excellent!” Ivanova shouted across the table, “let Dzhavakha go fight sleepwalkers, the black nun, whoever she wants. Just, most radiant princess, don’t forget to leave us your will.”

“Certainly,” I hastened to reply, “for you and for Teensy: to you I bequeath my lunch tomorrow, and to Teensy — all my old notebooks, so she can sell them and buy herself some talisman against malice with the money.”

The girls snorted. Markova and Ivanova smiled contemptuously, and the conversation shifted to another topic.

Upon returning to the classroom from the dining room, Lyuda shyly approached me and quietly whispered:

“Ninochka, if not for my sake, then for Irochka’s sake, don’t go to the porch.”

“Nonsense,” I replied, “it’s precisely for Irochka’s sake that I will go there. I haven’t done anything yet to prove to her that I fear nothing and to earn her love. Well, let this be my feat in her name. And please, Lyuda, don’t interfere!”

Evening came. We were led to the dormitory and left to ourselves until the gas was turned off. The girls, apparently having forgotten about my decision to go to the porch, were talking among themselves, broken into groups. Only little Lyuda kept directing her questioning eyes at me every minute.

As soon as Fraulein Henning, the duty mistress, disappeared behind the door, I quickly jumped up and began to get dressed.

“Where?” Lyuda whispered, alarmed, having propped herself up on her elbow.

I didn’t answer, pretending not to have heard her words, and silently slipped out of the dormitory.

The long, dimly lit corridor, stretching all the way to the church porch, involuntarily frightened one with its mere silence. Only an undefined, barely perceptible hum of the gas disturbed its grave stillness. I timidly glided along the wall in the direction of the church.

There was already the dark church square, like a shining black abyss, unpleasantly peeking at me through the glass doors.

“Exactly like the eyes of a monster,” my anxious imagination prompted me when, in the light of the dimly burning gas jets, I saw the door panes, which stood out as light strips.

However, I bravely grabbed the handle. The heavy door opened with a slight creak. It was completely dark on the porch. I groped for the bench where the pupils rested during church services and sat down. Directly opposite me were the church doors, to the right — the corridor of the junior section, to the left — the senior. Distant gas jets barely flickered, casting a faint light on the doors, but the entire area and the wide staircase were swallowed in darkness.

“Well, where’s the sleepwalker,” I bravely thought, looking all around, “it’s all just a figment of silly girls’ imaginations…”

I didn’t finish speaking and shuddered… A dull, heavy sound rang out… One… a second… a third. It was the clock striking twelve on the lower landing… And then silence again — eerie… terrifying…

I felt cold… I had already stood up and was about to head back to the corridor door when I suddenly looked back and… terror seized my limbs… A tall white figure was moving directly towards me. Silently, slowly, it stepped across the porch… Now it was closer, closer… Cold sweat broke out on my forehead… my legs buckled, but I made an incredible effort and lunged forward, stretching my arms towards the white figure.

At that very moment, three soul-rending screams echoed through the vaults of the peacefully sleeping institute… The white sleepwalker screamed, someone else screamed, hidden in the corner behind the glass door, and I screamed, infected with horror.

Beside myself, I rushed back down the corridor, flew into the dormitory like a bullet, slamming the door hard, and, throwing myself onto the bed, buried myself in the pillows.

There was weeping, a commotion… The dormitory was lit up, the girls who had been sleeping in the washroom rushed in.

Choking with excitement, I sent them to the porch — to save its victim from the sleepwalker.

Fraulein Henning, understanding nothing of what had happened, rushed to the porch with a candle, accompanied by the maids. A few minutes later, they returned, carrying the unconscious Lyuda in their arms; with them was a third girl in a long white “own” dress. She had arrived that evening from visiting and was making her way to bed at the time I was on duty on the porch. I was devastated… The girl in white turned out to be the scary sleepwalker who had frightened me so much. I felt hurt, ashamed, awkward…

To the questions of good Miss Kiska, I could not but tell the truth. And the truth was so ridiculous and absurd that I barely gathered the courage to tell her.

I was angry… Most of all at Lyuda, who had made my situation so ridiculous and unseemly.

And who asked her to follow me, to hide behind the door, to protect me from non-existent ghosts? Why? Why?

Agitated, ashamed, I quickly undressed and got into bed. Through half-closed eyelids, I saw how the terrified Lyuda was brought to consciousness, saw how she was put to bed, and how, after the Fräulein left, pale and exhausted, she raised herself slightly and quietly whispered:

“Are you asleep, Nina?”

But I remained silent… A small evil imp, lodged within me, gave me no peace. I was angry at everyone, at the class, at the innocent girl, at myself, at Lyuda.

A long sleep did not calm me.

“Aha, she chickened out!” I heard the first words of Manya Ivanova, who woke me with a mocking laugh.

“The Princess of Gori was scared by a dormitory girl!” Teensy echoed her.

I didn’t wish to defend myself and only cast angry eyes in Lyuda’s direction.

“See what you’ve done,” my angry gaze eloquently conveyed, “what a lovely position you’ve put me in! I owe all these troubles to you alone!”

She looked at me with tear-filled eyes, but this time her misty, sad gaze did not soften me, but finally pushed me over the edge.

“Oh, don’t whine, please! Mess things up, and then cry!” I shouted and left the dormitory, slamming the door hard.

She, however, tried to approach me again in the corridor. But even there, I pushed the poor thing away a second time.

Sadly, with her curly head bowed, she shuffled off to the bedroom, while I continued to sulk for a long time, standing by the window in the corridor. Even Irochka, who came up to me (she was on duty for the sick class mistress in the fifth-grade dormitory), did not quell the demon that had taken root in my soul.

“What is it, Nina, with you? You seem upset?” she asked in her usual patronizing tone.

“Leave me alone, everyone leave me alone!” I stubbornly repeated capriciously, biting my lips and avoiding her gaze.

“Indeed, you should be left alone, Nina: you are becoming terribly unbearable,” Irène said sternly, evidently offended by my sharp reply.

“Well, thank God,” I mumbled, quite absurdly, childishly, and, shrugging my shoulders, ran to the bedroom, wishing to hide and be alone with my small sorrow.

What was my astonishment and indignation when I saw my Lyuda, my only first friend, between Manya Ivanova and the triumphant Teensy — my worst enemies!… I immediately understood that they had taken advantage of our quarrel with Lyuda to, out of spite for me, attract her to themselves and make her their friend, their comrade. I understood them, but Lyuda, Lyuda, how could she agree to be friends with them?… Did she not guess how much offense and bitterness this action inflicted on my already tormented heart? And I loved her so much!…

I was indignant to the depths of my soul, indignant at both Ivanova, and Markova, and Vlasovskaya — at everyone, everyone. I don’t remember what I shouted at them, but probably something offensive, because Vlasovskaya blinked fearfully with her cherry-like eyes, and Markova’s angelic face contorted into an evil grimace.

Teensy’s revenge had succeeded splendidly! By taking my friend from me, she deprived me of the last ray of sunshine, the last joy within the cold, inhospitable institute walls.

Chapter 8. Friends for Life Because of a Crow

 

Terrible days dragged on… To spite Lyuda, I became friends with Belskaya. Our pranks surpassed all previous ones. Belskaya was cunning and resourceful as a cat. We ran, rampaging, throughout the institute, shouting until hoarse during recreation hours, unafraid of the authorities, wandering into the older girls’ half. Disheveled, laughing, noisy, we attracted universal attention… The class mistresses were surprised by the sharp change in my character, but they didn’t scold or punish me. I was everyone’s favorite, and besides, much was attributed to my nerves and acute manifestations of homesickness.

“What’s wrong with you, Nina?” Irochka wondered, watching me, red from running, rush to their half, despite the prohibition of the “Sinyavkas” {“Sinyavkas” (Blue Ones) was the nickname given to the class mistresses by the institute pupils, because they wore blue uniform dresses. (Compiler’s note)}. “I don’t recognize you anymore!”

“I’m having fun, Fairy Irène,” I laughed, “is it forbidden for poor little seventh-graders to have fun?”

If only she knew how far I was from the truth! In front of the class, in the presence of the hated Teensy, her squire Manya, and the recently dear, but now alien and distant Lyuda, I was a real daredevil. But when the dormitory was plunged into sleep and everything quieted down under the institute’s arches, I lay awake for a long time with open eyes and replayed in my mind my short but eventful life… And I buried my head in the pillows so that no one would hear the stifled groans of longing and sorrow.

“Papa!” I often whispered in the nocturnal silence. “My dear, good, precious papa, take me from here… Take me away from here! I am alone now, even more alone than before. There was Lyuda — now there is no Lyuda. And again it is dark, gloomy, and cold within the institute walls…”

And Lyuda slept the sleep of the righteous right next to me, but she was undoubtedly a stranger to me and close to Ivanova and Teensy, whom I despised with all my soul…

The next morning, I woke up with a new store of mischief in my head and proudly walked past the hated “trio,” embracing Belskaya in a friendly manner.

The first snow this year fell in early November… I seemed to go mad… Throughout the entire long break, Belskaya and I chased each other frantically down the last alley, where the younger girls were strictly forbidden to go.

One unusually cold, half-autumn, half-winter frosty day, during a walk, we were drawn by the plaintive cawing of a large black crow.

The crow was nasty, vicious, but its wing and paw were broken, and that was enough to move the hearts of the compassionate girls.

“Dzhavakha!” Belskaya cried, “let’s catch the crow, feed it, and heal it.”

No sooner said than done. Unaccustomed to stopping at a decision once made, I bravely plunged into the loose snow and stretched out my hand for the crow. But the foolish bird, it seemed, did not understand my good intentions. Limping, it hobbled away from us along the alley, as if we were its worst enemies.

“Hold it, Belka, run around from the left,” I gave brief commands to my adjutant, as Teensy mockingly called my new friend.

“Beware, Nina, a Sinyavka is coming.”

“Eh, nonsense!” I cried out boldly. To the general amusement of the spectators gathered around us, the crow was caught and wrapped in a government-issue shawl. With the utmost caution, we carried it to the classroom.

“Whom are you burying?” our perpetual enemies, the sixth-graders, mockingly called out to us at the sight of the original procession.

“Close her, close her,” Belskaya whispered, “otherwise they’ll gossip to the inspectress…”

We safely carried our new protégée to the classroom, seated her or, rather, squeezed her into a basket, and, tying it with ropes over wrapping paper, placed it in the corner behind the geographical map.

The next class was with the priest. Already at the beginning of the lesson, a note with a question traveled across the desks: what to name the crow? A whole line of names was already written below, such as: Dushka, Cadeau, Orpheline, Smolyanka, and Amie, when, struck by a sudden thought, I scribbled “Teensy” below the names already written and, triumphant, threw the note to Krasnushka.

Hardly had the latter had time to unfold the paper when a desperate and prolonged cawing was heard from around the corner… We froze in fear… M-lle Arnaud rushed to the corner, but before she could look there, the crow suddenly flew out from behind the map and began to fly wildly around the classroom, cawing desperately. It turned into something unimaginably awful.

Arnaud chased the crow, we chased Arnaud, making an incredible noise and pushing each other, and the priest, having lost the thread of his story about the touching sufferings of the pious Job, watched all this commotion with a sad smile.

An unexpected bell gave the event a new direction. Pugach, grimly shaking her gray curls, rushed to the inspectress — to report the crime. As soon as the priest, no less embarrassed than us, left the classroom, an argument, noise, and shouts broke out…

They decided the following:

1. Not to betray me under any circumstances.
2. To continue feeding and raising the crow, which had been carried away by the class girl Fenya, in the garden.
3. To apologize to the priest for disturbing order in his class.

Hardly had the girls had time to discuss and approve the points proposed by Belskaya when the inspectress entered the classroom. Very tall, very angry, and very sickly, she knew neither how to forgive nor how to pardon. She was like an older sister to our Pugach, but even more stubborn and ill-tempered.

To her stern question of who brought the bird, we replied with a united silence.

A new question — new silence. Pugach stood there and hissed malevolently:

“Very good… excellent… incomparable…”

Having achieved nothing, the inspectress left, throwing us a ominous and significant “eh bien, nous verrons” {“Well, we shall see” (French).} as a farewell. This ominous “nous verrons” did not bode well, and gloomy and dejected, we went to breakfast in the dining room.

“What will happen? What will happen?” the more timid among us whispered in anguish.

“Teensy will tell tales, that’s what will happen!” I shouted angrily and then almost cried out in astonishment. Lyuda entered the dining room… but not the former quiet, timid Lyuda, but one as red as a peony, with blazing eyes and her head held proudly and defiantly. But what seemed most surprising to me — Lyuda was without an apron. She did not go to her place at the table but stood in the middle of the dining room, like someone punished.

“What’s wrong with Vlasovskaya? What did she do wrong?” the institute girls, both ours and from other classes, became agitated.

“You should ask Teensy or Ivanova — they’re friends, after all,” Valya Ler said to me, without any hidden motive.

“Well, go ask, what do I care,” I flared up.

And Lyuda continued to stand at her post, not at all embarrassed, in front of the entire institute.

For a moment, it seemed to me that her black eyes met mine, but only for a moment, and I immediately averted mine…

“What’s wrong with her,” I groaned painfully inside, “what could she be punished for — this small, harmless, meek girl?”

Suddenly there was a slight commotion in the dining room.

“M-lle Arnaud!” someone shouted from the neighboring table to the class lady sitting at our table, “Vlasovskaya is feeling unwell…”

She was indeed feeling unwell. She turned as white as a handkerchief and swayed. Had M-lle Arnaud not rushed over, Lyuda, it seemed, would have collapsed.

Pugach caught her and, holding her with her long, tenacious hands, dragged her to the infirmary.

Around me, girls were shouting, arguing, whispering, but I heard nothing… My head burned with an insistent thought that threw me into alternate states of heat and cold: “What’s wrong with Lyuda, what’s wrong with my poor, little Galochka?”

I completely forgot at that moment that she had long since renounced my friendship, preferring the hated Teensy to me, but my heart ached and clenched with uncertainty and some other heavy premonition.

And not in vain… because this premonition came true…

Hardly had we gone up to the classroom when Pugach entered and, ceremoniously seating herself at the lectern, began a speech about how bad it was to disturb the general peace and bring punishment upon friends.

“Vlasovskaya didn’t want to admit that she brought the crow into the classroom,” the Sinyavka ranted, “but the truth had to come out, her conscience spoke: she went to the inspectress and confessed… she…”

“What?!” I burst out, and in three jumps, I was at the lectern.

“Cher enfant {Dear child (French).},” and Arnaud shook her head disapprovingly. “Soyez prudente {Be prudent (French).}… Your manners are too abrupt…”

Oh! This was beyond my strength!… She could still discuss manners when my heart was tearing apart with grief and pity for my cherished dove Lyuda, who had repaid me with such magnanimity for my behavior towards her.

So that’s what she was like, this sweet, quiet girl! And I even dared to laugh at her… to despise that little golden heart!

“What is wrong with you, cher enfant?” seeing me change color every minute, the Sinyavka asked, “or are you also unwell?”

“Oh, no…” I said with involuntary anger at myself. “I’m well… Only poor Lyuda is sick… I, unfortunately, am well… yes, yes, unfortunately,” I emphasized with involuntary despair in my voice. “I am evil, nasty, vile, because it was I who brought the crow into the classroom, not Vlasovskaya. Yes, yes… I alone… I alone am to blame for everything.”

I vaguely remember what the class mistress and the inspectress said, who had again graced the classroom with their presence at Pugach’s new invitation, but I distinctly remember the insane joy, bordering on ecstasy, when, at her command, Arnaud erased my name from the red board and demanded that I remove my apron.

With the same joy, I stood, punished, during lunch in Lyuda’s place, and my heart leaped and fluttered in my chest.

“This is atonement,” it kept repeating, “this is atonement, Nina, submit to it!”

And how willingly, how joyfully I listened to my small, ecstatic heart!

“Belka, quickly give me your penknife,” I stunned my adjutant as soon as we entered the classroom. “Give it!”

And before she could understand what was happening, I grabbed the blade of the penknife so quickly and forcefully with two fingers that I cut them deeply.

“Ow, blood, blood!” Belskaya shrieked, not fond of such horrors.

“Yes, blood,” I laughed, “blood, silly… I did it on purpose… It will help me go to Lyuda in the infirmary… do you understand?”

But Belka stood before me with her mouth open, blinking her eyes, and understood nothing. And only when the infirmary bell rang, calling the sick for bandaging, and I declared that I was running to bandage my hand, Belskaya suddenly threw herself around my neck, shouting enthusiastically to the whole class:

“Ninka Dzhavakha… you are a heroine!..”

Cautiously creeping, I slipped from the dressing room into the infirmary dining room, and from there — into the general ward, where, according to my calculations, Lyuda was.

I was not mistaken.

She was sleeping, comically curled up on one of the beds. I cautiously tiptoed towards her. There were traces of tears on her sweet face… Clumped eyelashes cast a light shadow on her plump cheeks… Her crimson lips whispered something quickly and incomprehensibly softly…

A sharp, agonizing pity and selfless love filled my heart at the sight of my friend, so undeservedly wronged by me.

I quickly leaned over her.

“Lyuda… Lyudochka… my heart… joy!”

She opened her sleepy eyes… and looked at me, understanding nothing.

“It’s me, Lyudochka…” I said timidly.

“Nina!” burst from her chest. “You came…”

We fell into each other’s arms… Crying and laughing, interrupting each other and again laughing and crying, we chattered incessantly, hurrying to express everything that oppressed us, tormented us, languished within us. Only now did both of us understand that we could not live without each other…

Lyuda had grown in my eyes… becoming worthy of admiration… I couldn’t help but tell her this.

“Oh, come on!” she laughed, “it just seems that way to you… you’re exaggerating because you love me very much.”

Yes, I loved her, terribly loved her… My small, lonely soul yearned in anticipation of a friend, a true, sincere one… And she appeared to me — not as a dreamy, laughing moon fairy, but as a kind sister and a faithful companion for the long institute years… We pressed tightly against each other, happy in our friendship and reconciliation…

The evening twilight deepened, making the infirmary ward somehow cozier and sweeter… The distant voices of the girls who had come for bandaging barely reached us… Lyuda and I sat quietly, silently… Everything had been recounted, re-talked between us… but our silent happiness was so great that a quiet, deep silence expressed it better than any words, empty and unnecessary…