Хаджи - Мурат

HADJI MURAD

Translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude

Leo ToLsToy

УДК 
372.8
ББК 
81.2 Англ-93
 
Т53

ISBN 978-5-9925-1227-4

 
Толстой, Лев Николаевич.
Т53  
Хаджи-Мурат : книга для чтения на английском 
языке / пер. с рус. Луизы и Эйлмера Мод. — СанктПетербург : КАРО, 2017. — 224 с. — (Русская классическая литература на иностранных языках).

ISBN 978-5-9925-1227-4.

Предлагаем вниманию читателей повесть Л. Н. Толстого 
«Хаджи-Мурат», написанную на рубеже веков. Главный герой — реальный исторический персонаж, наиб имама Шамиля, 
в 1851 году перешедший на сторону русских, а на следующий 
год погибший при попытке к бегству в горы.

УДК 372.8 
ББК 81.2 Англ-93

© КАРО, 2017

Chapter I

I was returning home by the fields. It was 
midsummer, the hay harvest was over and they 
were just beginning to reap the rye. At that season 
of the year there is a delightful variety of flowers — 
red, white, and pink scented tufty clover; milkwhite ox-eye daisies with their bright yellow 
centers and pleasant spicy smell; yellow honeyscented rape blossoms; tall campanulas with white 
and lilac bells, tulip-shaped; creeping vetch; yellow, 
red, and pink scabious; faintly scented, neatly 
arranged purple plaintains with blossoms slightly 
tinged with pink; cornflowers, the newly opened 
blossoms bright blue in the sunshine but growing 
paler and redder towards evening or when growing 
old; and delicate almond-scented dodder flowers 
that withered quickly. I gathered myself a large 
nosegay and was going home when I noticed in a 
ditch, in full bloom, a beautiful thistle plant of the 
crimson variety, which in our neighborhood they 
call “Tartar” and carefully avoid when mowing — 

or, if they do happen to cut it down, throw out 
from among the grass for fear of pricking their 
hands. Thinking to pick this thistle and put it in 
the center of my nosegay, I climbed down into the 
ditch, and after driving away a velvety bumble-bee 
that had penetrated deep into one of the flowers 
and had there fallen sweetly asleep, I set to work 
to pluck the flower. But this proved a very difficult 
task. Not only did the stalk prick on every side — 
even through the handkerchief I wrapped round my 
hand — but it was so tough that I had to struggle 
with it for nearly five minutes, breaking the fibers 
one by one; and when I had at last plucked it, the 
stalk was all frayed and the flower itself no longer 
seemed so fresh and beautiful. Moreover, owing 
to a coarseness and stiffness, it did not seem in 
place among the delicate blossoms of my nosegay. 
I threw it away feeling sorry to have vainly destroyed 
a flower that looked beautiful in its proper place.
“But what energy and tenacity! With what 
determination it defended itself, and how dearly it 
sold its life!” thought I, remembering the effort it 
had cost me to pluck the flower. The way home led 
across black-earth fields that had just been ploughed 
up. I ascended the dusty path. The ploughed field 
belonged to a landed proprietor and was so large 
that on both sides and before me to the top of the 

hill nothing was visible but evenly furrowed and 
moist earth. The land was well tilled and nowhere 
was there a blade of grass or any kind of plant to 
be seen, it was all black. “Ah, what a destructive 
creature is man… . How many different plantlives he destroys to support his own existence!” 
thought I, involuntarily looking around for some 
living thing in this lifeless black field. In front of 
me to the right of the road I saw some kind of little 
clump, and drawing nearer I found it was the same 
kind of thistle as that which I had vainly plucked 
and thrown away. This “Tartar” plant had three 
branches. One was broken and stuck out like the 
stump of a mutilated arm. Each of the other two 
bore a flower, once red but now blackened. One 
stalk was broken, and half of it hung down with 
a soiled flower at its tip. The other, though also 
soiled with black mud, still stood erect. Evidently 
a cartwheel had passed over the plant but it had 
risen again, and that was why, though erect, it 
stood twisted to one side, as if a piece of its body 
had been torn from it, its bowels drawn out, an 
arm torn off, and one of its eyes plucked out. Yet it 
stood firm and did not surrender to man who had 
destroyed all its brothers around it… .
“What vitality!” I thought. “Man has conquered 
everything and destroyed millions of plants, yet 

this one won’t submit.” And I remembered a 
Caucasian episode of years ago, which I had partly 
seen myself, partly heard of from eye-witnesses, 
and in part imagined.
The episode, as it has taken shape in my memory 
and imagination, was as follows.

*

It happened towards the end of 1851.
On a cold November evening Hadji Murad rode 
into Makhmet, a hostile Chechen aoul1 that lay 
some fifteen miles from Russian territory and was 
filled with the scented smoke of burning Kizyak2. 
The strained chant of the muezzin had just ceased, 
and though the clear mountain air, impregnated 
with kizyak smoke, above the lowing of the cattle 
and the bleating of the sheep that were dispersing 
among the saklyas3 (which were crowded together 
like the cells of honeycomb), could be clearly heard 
the guttural voices of disputing men, and sounds of 
women’s and children’s voices rising from near the 
fountain below.

1 aoul — a Tatar village
2 kizyak — a fuel made of straw and manure
3 saklya — a Caucasian house, clay-plastered and often 
built of earth

This Hadji Murad was Shamil’s naib1, famous for 
his exploits, who used never to ride out without his 
banner and some dozens of murids2, who caracoled 
and showed off before him. Now wrapped in a 
hood and burka3, from under which protruded 
a rifle, he rode, a fugitive with one murid only, 
trying to attract as little attention as possible and 
peering with his quick black eyes into the faces of 
those he met on his way.
When he entered the aoul, instead of riding up 
the road leading to the open square, he turned to 
the left into a narrow side street, and on reaching 
the second saklya, which was cut into the hill side, 
he stopped and looked round. There was no one 
under the penthouse in front, but on the roof of 
the saklya itself, behind the freshly plastered clay 
chimney, lay a man covered with a sheepskin. Hadji 
Murad touched him with the handle of his leatherplaited whip and clicked his tongue, and an old man, 
wearing a greasy old beshmet4 and a nightcap, rose 
from under the sheepskin. His moist red eyelids 

1 naib — a Tatar lieutenant or governor
2 murid — a disciple or follower: “One who desires” to 
find the way in Muridism. Muridism Almost identical with 
Sufism.
3 burka — a long round felt cape
4 beshmet — a Tatar undergarment with sleeves

had no lashes, and he blinked to get them unstuck. 
Hadji Murad, repeating the customary “Selaam 
aleikum!” uncovered his face. “aleikum, selaam!” 
said the old man, recognizing him, and smiling with 
his toothless mouth. And raising himself on his thin 
legs he began thrusting his feet into the woodenheeled slippers that stood by the chimney. Then 
he leisurely slipped his arms into the sleeves of his 
crumpled sheepskin, and going to the ladder that 
leant against the roof he descended backwards, while 
he dressed and as he climbed down he kept shaking 
his head on its thin, shrivelled sunburnt neck and 
mumbling something with his toothless mouth. 
As soon as he reached the ground he hospitably 
seized Hadji Murad’s bridle and right stirrup; but 
the strong active murid had quickly dismounted 
and motioning the old man aside, took his place. 
Hadji Murad also dismounted, and walking with a 
slight limp, entered under the penthouse. A boy of 
fifteen, coming quickly out of the door, met him 
and wonderingly fixed his sparkling eyes, black as 
ripe sloes, on the new arrivals.
“Run to the mosque and call your father,” 
ordered the old man as he hurried forward to open 
the thin, creaking door into the saklya.
As Hadji Murad entered the outer door, a slight, 
spare, middle-aged woman in a yellow smock, red 

beshmet, and wide blue trousers came through an 
inner door carrying cushions.
“May thy coming bring happiness!” said she, and 
bending nearly double began arranging the cushions 
along the front wall for the guest to sit on.
“May thy sons live!” answered Hadji Murad, 
taking off his burka, his rifle, and his sword, and 
handing them to the old man who carefully hung 
the rifle and sword on a nail beside the weapons 
of the master of the house, which were suspended 
between two large basins that glittered against the 
clean clay-plastered and carefully whitewashed 
wall.
Hadji Murad adjusted the pistol at his back, came 
up to the cushions, and wrapping his Circassian coat 
closer round him, sat down. The old man squatted 
on his bare heels beside him, closed his eyes, and 
lifted his hands palms upwards. Hadji Murad did 
the same; then after repeating a prayer they both 
stroked their faces, passing their hands downwards 
till the palms joined at the end of their beards.
“Ne habar?” (“Is there anything new?”) asked 
Hadji Murad, addressing the old man.
“Habar yok1” (“Nothing new”), replied the old 
man, looking with his lifeless red eyes not at Hadji 

1 yok — no, not

Murad’s face but at his breast. “I live at the apiary 
and have only today come to see my son… . He 
knows.”
Hadji Murad, understanding that the old man 
did not wish to say what he knew and what Hadji 
Murad wanted to know, slightly nodded his head 
and asked no more questions.
“There is no good news,” said the old man. “The 
only news is that the hares keep discussing how 
to drive away the eagles, and the eagles tear first 
one and then another of them. The other day the 
Russian dogs burnt the hay in the Mitchit aoul… . 
May their faces be torn!” he added hoarsely and 
angrily.
Hadji Murad’s murid entered the room, his 
strong legs striding softly over the earthen floor. 
Retaining only his dagger and pistol, he took off 
his burka, rifle, and sword as Hadji Murad had 
done, and hung them up on the same nails as his 
leader’s weapons.
“Who is he?” asked the old man, pointing to 
the newcomer.
“My murid. Eldar is his name,” said Hadji 
Murad.
“That is well,” said the old man, and motioned 
Eldar to a place on a piece of felt beside Hadji 
Murad. Eldar sat down, crossing his legs and fixing