We are traveling along another river, the Aragvi. It’s just as large and beautiful as the Terek and accompanies us all the way. The mountains are the same as on the other side, three to four thousand meters high, some bare and green from the very floor of the valley up to the clouds, others shaggy, overgrown to the top with dense, very dense, leafy scrub. Among the measly flora along the road, we see cranesbill, mustard, and yellow hollyhocks completely coated with lime dust. The human dwellings are also the same as on the other side, and here and there we pass herdsmen, flocks of cattle, and road workers. It is very dusty and the sun is scorching; Kornei’s back is covered with flies.
We come to a two-story stone house with corbiestep gables, German style, familiarly Teutonic. A black-and-white painted bar extends across the road; here the Russian authorities collect toll. When Kornei presents his receipt, showing that the toll was paid in Vladikavkaz, the bar goes up and we drive through.
After a long downward ride in the mountains we come to the Pasanauri station, which we leave at once. Here there are several private-looking stone villas, snow-white with limewash; a Russian chapel in the most variegated colors, brown, blue, and red, rises above everything. We have again descended about four hundred meters, the vegetation is becoming richer, and the valley is very hot. The population consists of Georgians and lives in the same kinds of shelf-like houses we have seen before, one above the other up the mountainside.
At an immense gap in the mountain range, we see on our left, far, far off by itself, another valley where there are villages and huts like here and small yellow fields up the rocky slopes. There, too, people live, we think to ourselves, and they may be just as happy as we are; they too have their joys and griefs, their work and their rest. And in youth they have their loves and in old age their patch of field and their sheep.
There is nothing, nothing in the world like being away from everything! I go on thinking. That I can remember from my childhood, when I was tending the cattle back home. In good weather I would lie on my back in the heather and write with my index finger across the sky and have a glorious time of it. I let the cattle wander at their sweet will for hours on end, and when I had to find them again I simply got up on a knoll or climbed a tall tree and listened, my mouth open. Up there I could hear very well where the sound of the bells came from, and as soon as I heard it I found the cattle. The billygoats would now and then get a quid of tobacco that I’d stolen for them, and the cows got salt. And I taught the rams how to play at butting with me.
It was a wonderful life. And whatever one might think, it was no worse in rainy weather. Then I would sit beneath a bush or a crag and be well protected. I would sit there and sing, or I would write something or other on white birch bark, or carve something with my sheath knife. I knew every spot in the pasture, and when I had to catch up with the cattle I simply moved on to another crag I knew of and continued to have a good time. No one who hasn’t been brought up that way from youth upward can have any idea of the delicate, mysterious pleasure one can feel being out in the wild in rainy weather and sitting in a hideout. I have since attempted to write about it, but without success. I wanted to try shaping it up a bit in order to be understood, but then I lost it.
I wore pattens, or clogs, when tending cattle, and in rainy weather I naturally got my feet wet in the soggy pasture. But though I was soaked, the pleasure I felt having that good, warm wood under my soles tops any ten pleasures I’ve had in later years. It was probably because I didn’t know any better at the time. And yet I discriminated every bit as well as I do now between what felt good and what was painful. During the mushroom season in late summer the cattle ran like crazy after mushrooms. The cows especially went wild, but since the cows wore the bells, they pulled the entire herd along with them in their frenzy. Then the herder had to be on his feet almost all day and got little rest. My puny body was sore and aching from the ceaseless running around day after day, and the only amusement I had was to look for mushrooms and give them to the cows I was most fond of. Mushrooms made the cows give lots of milk. Anyway, it wasn’t much fun to be a herder at that time of year. Oh no.
I think about all this as I roll forward in a carriage on a wide road in the Caucasus. I feel so strange, as though I could put down roots here and be blissfully shut off from the world. It would be a different matter if I had sufficient culture to take advantage of my present life, but I don’t…. I take a last look into the valley on my left, where the small yellow tilled patches, the flocks of sheep, and the little huts are, and it strikes me as being wonderfully attractive and peaceful. Up in the mountains, large eagles are sailing above the flocks. The village has a festive air. Today, no doubt, the herdsmen have polished their shiny belts and are now showing off in front of their favorite girls.
I doze and think and drop off. After a couple of hours we begin to come across chestnut trees; we’re still going down, and the horses are trotting.
A caravan of empty carts is coming toward us, drawn by buffalo; the drivers lie sprawling on the bottom of their carts, asleep. We swerve aside and slip past. But one ox has got the yoke between its horns, wrenching its neck crooked, and it has to walk sideways. My traveling companion requests permission to get off and straighten the yoke, but when we explain to Kornei what it is about, he doesn’t stop but continues to drive, not understanding a word. Anyway, we are now well past the caravan, it’s too late to do anything, and Kornei puts the horses to the trot again. And the buffalo will go on like that for miles and miles, mute, staring, with a twisted neck. The mood in the carriage immediately worsens, which is not surprising. But time, the hours, smooths out everything: after a while I hit upon the solace that there are people who suffer, too. The sooner such an ox is worked to death under the yoke, the better. That is its hope. It’s like when people are in agony and remind themselves that they still have the alternative of making life as short as they please. Nietzsche is right: this alternative has comforted many a human being at night….
The hours go by, time passes. The wonderland is beautiful once more.
At a watering hole good old Kornei Grigorevich again allows a strange carriage to pass us. It’s a Russian family. They are driving faster than we are. We saw these people at Kobi, but since we started such a long time ahead of them this morning, they shouldn’t have been able to overtake us. Now we’ll be riding in the dust they raise and we won’t be able to breathe.
I punch Kornei’s shoulder, giving him to understand what he has done. He looks at me horror-struck for a moment and stops the horses. But he doesn’t seem to understand anything and wants to drive on. Then I jump off and hold the horses; all in all, I act quite high-and-mighty toward Kornei, whose surprise at the strange sickness I must have caught becomes greater and greater. He sees the dust hovering above the roadway where the carriage has gone, it burns his eyes as well as ours, being lime dust, and it covers the carriage with a white coating; but Kornei doesn’t grasp that we cannot drive in it. I have to hold the horses for five minutes before we can go on. It begins to dawn on me why commands, a tsar’s word, are necessary in this great nation. In certain matters these people are so stupid. They can waddle out on the steppe and tend sheep and stand out in the field doing a few tricks with a spade, but when it comes to abstract things their brains are stupid. I promise myself to have it out with Kornei in Tiflis.
The moon is already quite bright; it’s five o’clock, the sun and the moon light up the landscape at the same time, and it’s very warm. This world is like no other world I know, and again I come to think I could wish to remain here for life. We have now descended far enough for vineyards to start again, there are nuts in the woods, and the sun and moon try to outshine each other. One is helpless before this splendor, and if one lived here one could watch it every day and beat one’s breast with wonder. The people that lives here has endured struggles that threatened to destroy it, but it overcame everything; strong and sound and flourishing, it is today a people of ten millions. The Caucasian native doesn’t know the difference between a bull and bear market on the New York stock exchange; his life is not a race—he has time to live and can shake his food from the trees or butcher his sheep to live on. But the Europeans and the Yankees are greater people, aren’t they? God knows. God and no one else knows, it’s that doubtful. Some are great because the surroundings are small, because the century is small, despite everything. I’m thinking of great names in my own field only, and there are a large number in a long row, members of the proletariat of geniuses. I would exchange a score of them for the horse from Marengo. The value of values is mutable: the nimbus of the theater there corresponds to a shiny belt here, and time takes them both, exchanging them for other values. Oh Caucasia, Caucasia! It’s not for nothing that the greatest literary giants the world knows, the great Russians, have visited you and drawn from your springs….
It’s six o’clock. We are now two thousand meters lower than we were at the highest point of the Daryal pass. The sun has set, only the moon is shining, and it’s warm and quite still. Suddenly the road starts rising again and we ride at a walking pace. The mountains are becoming smaller, turning into long ridges with the sky sailing above them. It’s quickly getting dark. We are at the Ananuri station.
•
On this warm evening there are many people out in the yard and on the veranda. We get off and go in. A man who seems to be the innkeeper says something to us and bars our way. He doesn’t speak Russian, but presumably one of the Caucasian languages. We put our things down without bothering about the innkeeper. Suddenly a burnous-clad man addresses us in the most fast-spoken French, explaining that there isn’t a single vacancy at the station.
So what was to be done?
He calls down to a little man in an enormous burnous on the road. His name is Grigor. As soon as Grigor hears what it is about, he nods, indicating that we can have lodgings, and points further on.
We fetch our things, climb into the carriage and drive on. Grigor runs alongside. He must be around fifty, but he runs like a boy, although he’s wearing that enormous caftan and is carrying many weapons.
Grigor takes us to a strange two-story stone house that rests on stone pillars. I’d never seen the like before. The house also had the quaintest holes, shelters, and hiding places. We were shown into a room upstairs. Could we have this room for ourselves? Yes. Our luggage is brought in. Could we have steak, potatoes, bread, and beer? Grigor nods and flutters down the stairs in his burnous.
We go out and look around: quite low dark mountains, moonlight; directly south, the towers and domes of a monastery whose copper roof is luminous in the moonlight. Viewed against the dark background, these shining domes possess a singular beauty. Down in the road are people and horses; a mail coach driver rushes past, blowing his trumpet.
When we get back, Grigor comes to tell us that he has been to the station but without being able to find any beefsteaks. On the other hand, if we would like something else—? And Grigor pulls a live chicken from the breast of his burnous. We nod that chicken is excellent, too. And Grigor flutters down again.
After a while Grigor has beheaded the chicken. From our window we see a light in the courtyard: it’s Grigor lighting a fire and about to play cook. The fireplace is in the open, with sunflower stalks, which here are like small trees and burn superbly, being used for fuel. Grigor puts a pot of water on the fire; when the water is warm enough he dips the chicken into it and begins to pluck it. In the light from the fire, he looks small and dark and fairy-like. Grigor does his job properly, singeing the last remnant of down off the chicken before he starts roasting it.
We get our food, which tastes first-rate, but already during the meal we’re so severely bitten by bedbugs that we have to stop eating before we’ve finished. The beasts crawl up on us from the settle beds we sit on for lack of chairs. We’ll have a lively night of it! comes the thought, and we decide to go to bed as late as possible. We go out again.
Grigor has a store downstairs; he’s a businessman, and when he’s not waiting on us he stands in his shop selling an assortment of pricey German merchandise, of which he has plenty. It’s not without pride that he shows us this merchandise, which has come from so far away, from pocket mirrors to wallets and penknives. But there is a tall pile of Caucasian rugs in the shop, and we are more interested in looking at these. If only we weren’t so far, far from home! And if only the rugs weren’t so heavy! But they’re not expensive. They are woven with great art. The women who created them had plenty of time, an infinite amount of time.
Outside it’s quiet, no traffic on the road anymore, but people have by no means gone to sleep. Here and there men sit talking together at the roadside, behaving the way neighbors would at home: they rest their arms on their knees, iddle with a straw, and smoke their pipes. The station’s horses are nibbling here and there on the grounds, and some distance away, by the wall of a house, somebody is playing a string instrument and singing to the music. We listen and draw closer. A young boy sits there and sings; his song is monotonous but captivating in the calm of evening. The melody makes us think of the ballads that Thor Lange has published; now we can understand his texts with the heart, and we realize what a fine poet this Dane in exile is.
It’s getting late, but the boy goes on playing by the wall, and young and old sit talking beside the road. The people take their time; an hour or two doesn’t make any difference to them. There is a heavy dew and the ground is wet, but the people here bear with the humidity, being brought up to do so from their youth. When they stand up and walk, however, it’s as though steel springs are walking. The men are like that throughout Caucasia; even the herdsmen and the ox drivers walk light and straight, with elastic movements and their chests thrust forward. But one doesn’t see much of the women; they keep mostly to themselves. Mohammedanism is still maintaining its grip.
When we get back to the inn, our settle beds have been made, with a pair of Caucasian rugs on the bottom of each bedstead. To please us, Grigor has given us new rugs from his shop. It will no doubt be a bit hard to sleep here, but the beds are amusing and the rugs gorgeous.
Then, seeing that we haven’t brought sheets with us, which is customary, Grigor has the inspiration that my traveling companion ought to have one. Grigor is a cultivated man, his life as a businessman has given him a strong sense of cleanliness; he’s plagued by an inability to endure the sight of a bed without sheets. To show him how generals deport themselves in the field, I wrap myself in the rugs and go to bed in my clothes, without undressing. And Grigor lets it happen as a matter of course; he doesn’t interfere with the general’s filthy habits—however, he flutters down into his store and tears off a couple of ells of canvas, which he presents to my traveling companion for a sheet. When he has done so, he bows and leaves. For a while we wonder whether to take the rugs outside and shake them thoroughly before using them, but abandon the thought in order not to hurt Grigor. And so we go to bed banking on our luck. Then someone taps on the window.
Going out, I find Kornei outside. He wants to arrange the time for our departure in the morning. I grab Kornei by his collar and walk him down the stairs. Once we can see by the light from the store, I point at my watch to let him know we would start at five o’clock.
Kornei sticks to six o’clock.
Then a voice addresses Kornei in his mother tongue; turning about, I stand face to face with the officer. So that damn police officer was pursuing us after all, as he had said. He greets me lightly, before again turning to Kornei with unparalleled authority and saying a few brief words. Then he takes out his watch, points to the number five and says, “Five o’clock, as the prince has decided!” Next, he points down the road and says, “Go!” Whereupon Kornei tips his coachman’s hat and instantly waddles off.
I was left alone with the officer.
“I hope you’ve found satisfactory lodgings,” he said. “I’m staying at the station. I reproach myself for having reserved a room there, which you and your companion could otherwise have had. I didn’t know the place was that full.”
“We’ve obtained good lodgings,” I replied, staring at him.
“Fine. Good night!” he said and went off.
He kept his promise and followed us. Once again my confidence began wavering. He could very well be a police officer, of course, even if he wanted me to come to terms with him. From what I’d read about Russian government officials, taking bribes was not an unheard-of thing among them; his hint of a way out was perhaps the very best indication that he was a police officer. It was no fun to know you were followed and persecuted this way, and tomorrow I would have to ask the man, in God’s name, how much he demanded to let us go; otherwise he was capable of apprehending us the moment we entered Tiflis. I would go to him at the station early in the morning and purchase our freedom, so that our day would be without worries.
With this frailty in my heart I went to bed.