Hadji Murád by Leo Tolstoy (best mobile ebook reader .txt) 📕
Description
In this short novel, Tolstoy fictionalizes the final days of Hadji Murád, a legendary Avar separatist who fought against, and later with, Russia, as the Russian Empire was struggling to annex Chechnya and the surrounding land in the late 1840s.
The novel opens with the narrator finding a thistle crushed in a blooming field, which reminds him of Hadji Murád and his tragic tale. As the narrator recounts the story, the reader is quickly thrust into the rich, colorful history of the Caucuses, and its people’s fight against Russian imperialism.
Hadji Murád is portrayed as a legendary and imposing, yet friendly and approachable figure. Despite his reputation, it seems that his best days are behind him; as the novel opens, Murád is fleeing Shamil, a powerful imam who has captured Murád’s family. Murád finds himself thrust between the invading Russians on one side, and Shamil’s vengeance on the other.
As Murád and his tiny but loyal group of warriors try to forge alliances in their attempt to rescue Murád’s family, they quickly find themselves politically outclassed. The Russians are Murád’s enemies, yet only they can help him in his struggle against Shamil; and after years of losses incurred by Murád’s guerrilla tactics, the Russians would like his help but cannot trust him. Shamil, on the other hand, is a deep link to the region’s complex web of tribal blood feuds, vengeances, reprisals, and quarrels over honor. He’s one of the few powers left standing between the Russians and their control of the Caucuses, but Murád, having crossed him, can’t rescue his family from Shamil’s clutches without the help of the Russians.
Murád’s impossible position, the contradiction between his legendary past and his limping, dignified, and ultimately powerless present, and the struggle against a mighty empire by a people torn by internecine conflict, form the major thematic threads of the novel.
The novel was one of the last that Tolstoy finished before his death, and was only published posthumously in 1912. Tolstoy himself served in the Crimean War, and the war scenes portrayed in the novel echo his personal experiences. As the story progresses, Tolstoy characterizes various real-life historical personalities besides Hadji Murád and Shamil, including Emperor Nicholas I, Mikhail Loris-Melikov, and Count Vorontsov-Dashkov, making this a fascinating piece of historical fiction. Despite this being such a late entry in Tolstoy’s corpus, it has been highly praised by critics both contemporary and modern, with the famous critic Harold Bloom going so far as to say that Hadji Murád is “my personal touchstone for the sublime of prose fiction, to me the best story in the world, or at least the best I have ever read.”
Read free book «Hadji Murád by Leo Tolstoy (best mobile ebook reader .txt) 📕» - read online or download for free at americanlibrarybooks.com
- Author: Leo Tolstoy
Read book online «Hadji Murád by Leo Tolstoy (best mobile ebook reader .txt) 📕». Author - Leo Tolstoy
When his comrades approached him he was lying prone, holding his wounded stomach with both hands, and rocking himself with a rhythmic motion, moaned softly. He belonged to Poltorátsky’s company, and Poltorátsky, seeing a group of soldiers collected, rode up to them.
“What is it, lad? Been hit?” said Poltorátsky. “Where?”
Avdéev did not answer.
“I was just going to load, your honor, when I heard a click,” said a soldier who had been with Avdéev; “and I look, and see he’s dropped his gun.”
“Tut, tut, tut!” Poltorátsky clicked his tongue. “Does it hurt much, Avdéev?”
“It doesn’t hurt, but it stops me walking. A drop of vodka now, your honor!”
Some vodka (or rather the spirit drunk by the soldiers in the Caucasus) was found, and Panóv, severely frowning, brought Avdéev a can-lid full. Avdéev tried to drink it, but immediately handed back the lid.
“My soul turns against it,” he said. “Drink it yourself.”
Panóv drank up the spirit.
Avdéev raised himself, but sank back at once. They spread out a cloak and laid him on it.
“Your honor, the colonel is coming,” said the Sergeant-Major to Poltorátsky.
“All right. Then will you see to him?” said Poltorátsky; and flourishing his whip, he rode at a fast trot to meet Vorontsóv.
Vorontsóv was riding his thoroughbred English chestnut gelding, and was accompanied by the adjutant, a Cossack, and a Chechen interpreter.
“What’s happening here?” asked Vorontsóv.
“Why, a skirmishing party attacked our advanced line,” Poltorátsky answered.
“Come, come—you arranged the whole thing yourself!”
“Oh no, Prince, not I,” said Poltorátsky with a smile; “they pushed forward of their own accord.”
“I hear a soldier has been wounded?”
“Yes, it’s a great pity. He’s a good soldier.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously, I believe … in the stomach.”
“And do you know where I am going?” Vorontsóv asked.
“I don’t.”
“Can’t you guess?”
“No.”
“Hadji Murád has surrendered, and we are now going to meet him.”
“You don’t mean to say so?”
“His envoy came to me yesterday,” said Vorontsóv, with difficulty repressing a smile of pleasure. “He will be waiting for me at the Shalín glade in a few minutes. Place sharpshooters as far as the glade, and then come and join me.”
“I understand,” said Poltorátsky, lifting his hand to his cap, and rode back to his company. He led the sharpshooters to the right himself, and ordered the sergeant-major to do the same on the left side.
The wounded Avdéev had meanwhile been taken back to the fort by some of the soldiers.
On his way back to rejoin Vorontsóv, Poltorátsky noticed behind him several horsemen who were overtaking him. In front on a white-maned horse rode a man of imposing appearance. He wore a turban, and carried weapons with gold ornaments. This man was Hadji Murád. He approached Poltorátsky and said something to him in Tartar. Raising his eyebrows, Poltorátsky made a gesture with his arms to show that he did not understand, and smiled. Hadji Murád gave him smile for smile, and that smile struck Poltorátsky by its childlike kindliness. Poltorátsky had never expected to see the terrible mountain chief look like that. He had expected to see a morose, hard-featured man; and here was a vivacious person, whose smile was so kindly that Poltorátsky felt as if he were an old acquaintance. He had only one peculiarity: his eyes, set wide apart, which gazed from under their black brows calmly, attentively, and penetratingly into the eyes of others.
Hadji Murád’s suite consisted of five men. Among them was Khan Mahomá, who had been to see Prince Vorontsóv that night. He was a rosy, round-faced fellow, with black lashless eyes and a beaming expression, full of the joy of life. Then there was the Avar Khanéfi, a thick-set, hairy man, whose eyebrows met. He was in charge of all Hadji Murád’s property, and led a stud-bred horse which carried tightly-packed saddlebags. Two men of the suite were particularly striking. The first was a Lesghian: a youth, broad-shouldered, but with a waist as slim as a woman’s, a brown beard just appearing on his face, and beautiful ram-like eyes. This was Eldár. The other, Gamzálo, was a Chechen, blind in one eye, without eyebrows or eyelashes, with a short red beard, and a scar across his nose and face. Poltorátsky pointed out to Hadji Murád, Vorontsóv, who had just appeared on the road. Hadji Murád rode to meet him, and, putting his right hand on his heart, said something in Tartar, and stopped. The Chechen interpreter translated.
“He says, ‘I surrender myself to the will of the Russian Tsar. I wish to serve him,’ he says. ‘I wished to so do long ago but Shamil would not let me.’ ”
Having heard what the interpreter said, Vorontsóv stretched out his hand in its wash-leather glove to Hadji Murád. Hadji Murád looked at it hesitatingly for a moment and then pressed it firmly, again saying something, and looking first at the interpreter and then at Vorontsóv.
“He says he did not wish to surrender to anyone but you, as you are the son of the Sirdar, and he respects you much.”
Vorontsóv nodded to express his thanks. Hadji Murád again said something, pointing to his suite.
“He says that these men, his henchmen, will serve the Russians as well as he.”
Vorontsóv turned towards them and nodded to them too. The merry, black-eyed, lashless Chechen, Khan Mahomá, also nodded, and said something which was probably amusing, for the hairy Avar drew his lips into a smile, showing his ivory-white teeth. But the red-haired Gamzálo’s one red eye just glanced at Vorontsóv and then was again fixed on the ears of his horse.
When Vorontsóv and Hadji Murád with their retinues rode back to the fort, the soldiers, released from the lines, gathered in groups and made their own comments.
“What a number of souls the damned fellow has destroyed! And now see what a fuss they will make of him!”
“Naturally. He was Shamil’s right hand, and now—no fear!”
“Still there’s no
Comments (0)