The Death of Vazir-Mukhtar

by Yury Tynyanov

  So he’s dragged himself to Paris too, has he? thought Griboedov.

  “He was no more Murat, my dear doctor, than you are Hamlet. He was a Cossack and a Doctor of Law at Oxford University.”

  Again the Englishman agreed.

  Griboedov looked at him.

  Was Macdonald eager to rid himself of his doctor, and for that reason he had sent him on such a piffling mission from Tabriz to Petersburg? Or had the doctor himself, God forbid, taken it into his head to offer his services to the Russians? It was highly unlikely that he had arrived in Petersburg solely on account of these ridiculous decorations. But anything could be expected of the English.

  The doctor was in the grip of the sullen English melancholia. He appeared perfectly frank and said something inconsequential:

  “I am not an Oxford graduate. I went to a medical school. It was curiosity that compelled me to travel to the East.”

  He chuckled.

  Griboedov waited patiently.

  “But I often ask myself: what’s in the East for you? Do you find my bluntness surprising? I am a physician. The East attracts old men with its wines,” continued the doctor, “it attracts states with its cotton and sulfur, and poets are lured by pride. They are gratified by their exile, though usually no one even thinks of banishing them. Our unfortunate Lord Byron perished for this very reason.”

  “Byron perished through the fault of his and your compatriots. You insult the East too much to my face today,” said Griboedov.

  The Englishman bit his lips.

  “You are right,” he nodded blankly, “I am exaggerating somewhat. I’ve been feeling homesick today.”

  He looked around the hotel room critically.

  “No one asked me to say what I am going to tell you now. Bear that in mind. Nor is it part of my responsibilities. It’s just that when two Europeans meet among savages, they must do each other favors.”

  Griboedov nodded patiently.

  “I’m treating Alaiar-Khan’s wives.”

  The Englishman lit up a cigar.

  “Do you mind my smoking? A bad habit that is hard to get rid of. And yet it is so much better than your vodka, which gives one a headache and stomach cramps. Count de Ségur (or was it someone else?) claimed that Napoleon lost the Russian campaign because of your vodka. His soldiers died of it, damn it!”

  Only at this point did Griboedov notice that the Englishman was a little tipsy. He was talking too much and too flatly, as if reading his own sober thoughts. He must have been fighting nausea this whole time.

  “So, I treat the shah’s wives, and these ladies are hypochondriacs. They don’t care for clysters, they prefer sugar albi pills and extract of roses. But the pills in general have very little effect. I am warning you: these ladies are neurotics, their husbands are unhappy, and they try to find reasons for their unhappiness; that’s the way I see it.”

  “And who is to blame, in your opinion?” asked Griboedov.

  “We are in no better position than you are,” McNeill answered slowly. “We must facilitate the Persians’ repartitions to you according to the peace treaty. I know you, and I know the Persians. We are taking a great risk, and we’ll gain nothing by it.”

  “Do you want me to tell you what you’ll gain?” said Griboedov politely.

  The Englishman lent an ear. Griboedov went on, speaking astutely:

  “You’ll gain red copper, Khorasan turquoise, sulfur, olive oil …”

  “Let’s drop this conversation, my dear Griboedov,” said McNeill. He sounded serious. “I am sick of Persia. I will ask for a transfer. And you, it seems, liked Persia this time round, didn’t you?”

  He checked his watch and finally rose.

  Griboedov waited.

  “One more informal question. I’ve been away from Russia for a long time. Your Nesselrode is a charming enough chap, with the mind of a statesman, but I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about. He is too subtle for me.”

  Griboedov burst out laughing.

  “Bravo, doctor!”

  “I like clarity. We have the East India Company. Until now, the consensus has been that there is not and cannot be any other East India.” The Englishman blew a cloud of tobacco smoke at Griboedov. “But you have your superb native cavalry—the Kyrgyz, and you would be inclined to go slightly … deeper inland … On the other hand, why shouldn’t you establish your own colonies? To use Malta in order to withstand us in the Mediterranean—that was not a bad idea of your Emperor Paul. Aye, there’s the rub. And Nesselrode is so subtle, and everybody is so reticent over here …”

  He began to whistle a march and waved his hand:

  “We’ll see each other before Tabriz. You will go to Tabriz, won’t you?”

  “I will not go to Tabriz, dear doctor, and right now I am off to the exams.”

  McNeill was satisfied.

  “And I am off to a parade. Over here, it’s all the war, the exams, the parades. Great fun.”

  They left the hotel together onto Nevsky Prospect. Cabs dashed by; walking sticks flashed here and there.

  “This is like Bond Street!” said McNeill. “I envy you staying here. So much fun! No time to think!”

  8

  “Semiramis7 was a great harlot, gentlemen!”

  There was a commotion in the vestibule.

  Semiramis might well have been a woman of easy virtue, but the tall man who was berating her looked bizarre. His fur coat trailed on the floor like a cloak. An ancient man standing next to him, bent at a right angle, with a decoration in a shape of a star on his chest, was trying to reason with the tall one. But the tall man kept tight hold of the chain that was attached to a large placid dog, and wouldn’t give in. He was making a fuss because of the dog, which the old man was reluctant to let into the exam. Griboedov was unclear as to how Semiramis had come up in the conversation.

  Any conversation overheard at its conclusion can sound odd.

  The old man was the school’s headmaster, Academician Adelung. The tall young man was the eminent professor and journalist Senkovsky. He always took his dog with him to lectures, an expression of defiance and of his disdainful free thinking, more like an old man’s eccentricity. The privy councillor was a German, young in spirit; the young professor was a Pole, as old as Poland itself.

  Just before Griboedov arrived, the youthful ninety-year-old German had been trying to convince the antiquated, beardless Pole that his dog would be a distraction during the exam.

  Senkovsky responded frostily:

  “He is well trained and would be no such thing.”

  With old-fashioned, scholarly courtesy, the academician cited the instance of dogs tearing Actaeon into pieces after he had spied on Diana.

  Holding the dog by the chain, the professor retorted sternly:

  “But Pyrrhus of Epirus8 was suckled by a bitch. In any case, we are unlikely, alas, to witness Diana bathing naked during this particular exam.”

  The academician stuck to his guns and somehow forced a connection between the Temple of Diana of Ephesus and the school of Oriental learning.

  But the professor objected, saying that of all the seven wonders of the world, the school was more reminiscent of the gardens of Semiramis, on account of its rather shaky position.

  The academician took it into his head to take offense and growled out something in an official tone about the Semiramis of the North,9 who had encouraged the pursuit of learning during her reign. And the position of the school that he was in charge of, far from being shaky, was quite safe, particularly with Russia’s political interests in mind.

  At this point, the professor, instead of assuming an official tone, ending the argument, and handing the dog to the attendant, began to mouth something offensive about Semiramis and made a reference to her horses.

  Having spotted Griboedov, the stooping academician abandoned the professor and rushed toward the diplomat.

  He shook his hand and kept saying that he was flattered, and at the same time apprehensi
ve that a diplomat of such learning, as one so rarely encountered, would be judging his young charges, who were endeavoring to follow in his footsteps, and he hoped that his judgment would not be too harsh.

  Griboedov bowed very politely, while marveling at the academician’s longevity.

  The academician held on to Griboedov’s hand with his own bony hands, as if forgetting to finish the handshake, while adding that his son, a young man who had studied Oriental languages and medicine abroad, was eager to make Griboedov’s acquaintance.

  The young man himself surfaced at once, as if from nowhere. He was short, bald, bespectacled, and at least forty years old. He had a playful look. He offered his hand to Griboedov, and his face crinkled with unexpected geniality.

  Griboedov wanted to tickle him, to rumple him, just to see him laugh.

  They left Professor Senkovsky to his own devices.

  This had an unexpectedly immediate effect. Without saying a word, he thrust his dog’s leash into the attendant’s hand and began taking off his coat, without which he looked absolutely extraordinary. The frock coat of a light bronze color with the mouse-eaten coattails, the waistcoat with shawl-like collar and stripy little necktie—all revealed a foreign traveler. The shortish woolen trousers, gray with fine black stripes, looked miserable, and the straw-colored boots sounded as sharp as journal polemics.

  This was how he was dressed for the official examination.

  He inclined his head sadly to one side and approached Griboedov.

  Here he was, with his flighty mind. Here he was, the new luminary, the professor, writer, traveler, the newfangled wit who was coming to replace the old comics of the twenties, now summarily consigned to the archives in favor of this profound scholar with a propensity for causing scenes with his dog.

  Griboedov shook his hand apprehensively.

  The hand was cold; it was the hand of a new, unfamiliar generation.

  And the examination began.

  Rodofinikin, who was still off sick, had sent a short swarthy Italian, Negri, to say something on behalf of the Ministry.

  The Italian rattled off a few quick words, making it abundantly clear that he was well trained and well aware that it would be discourteous to delay the exam with superfluous speechifying.

  The professors sitting at the long table were a haphazard mixture of Europe and Asia. The doctor prone to laughter; the gray-haired and red-faced Frenchman, Charmoy; a Persian, Mirza Jafar; and one called Chorbahoglu, who was either a Tatar or a Turk.

  The forty pupils under examination all wore the same distrustful, tired, and troubled expression. A great gulf stretched between them and the table of celebrities. Negri’s speech, followed by that of the academician replying to him and that of Charmoy, who jabbered out of turn, were, as far as they were concerned, nothing but torture before the execution.

  The guests—dear honorary and eminent guests, as Charmoy had called them—were invited to begin the examination.

  Griboedov gave them a wave to get on with it.

  But Senkovsky got down to business at once and quickly developed a taste for it. He screeched out his questions to the pupils, who were each drawn to the table, as if by a magnet, by the inaudible summons of the headmaster’s voice.

  “What would account for the excellence of the Bedouin poetry, in the opinion of the Bedouin poets themselves?”

  A pupil suggested quietly, and almost as if offended by the question, that in the opinion of the Bedouin poets, their poetry was good because their verses were brief and easy to remember.

  Senkovsky scoffed.

  “That’s not it. The Bedouins offer as the main reason the fact that a Bedouin never has a running nose.”

  The pupil looked nonplussed.

  “What is synonymous with ‘happiness’ in Arabic poetry?”

  The pupil couldn’t remember.

  “Everything that is low-lying and humid,” shrieked Senkovsky, “is in their opinion happiness and fulfilment. Everything that is cold is admirable.”

  Charmoy’s face fell—that was his pupil. Everyone, except Griboedov and the doctor, was displeased. To be so carping in the finals showed a lack of sensitivity. Griboedov was curious to see what would happen next. The doctor looked with interest at the distressed pupil.

  “Whose verses are better—those of the settled and peaceful Arabs or of the bellicose nomads?” Senkovsky’s question was a loud screech, filling the air.

  The pupil responded with decorum:

  “Settled and peaceful.”

  “Nomads! Robbers, down-and-outs, warriors. The Arabian poets despise the settled ones; they call them fat bellies, which in the language of a lean and wiry Bedouin means: coward, sluggard, piece of scum. And now let’s deal with the texts,” he squawked, having finished his rant.

  Charmoy, the Tatar, and the Persian relaxed.

  And all that Arabic gasping and the stifling aspirations of Persian vowels filled the Ministry’s dismal hall.

  The poets of subtle speech, Al-Muhalhel, the runners al-Shanfari and Antarah from the tribe Al Azd and Amr ibn-Kulthum, came next.

  “When the messengers of death pronounced the name, I cried out: ‘Does the earth not tremble yet? Do the mountains still stand firm on their foundations? Oh, my brother, who would inspire and lead horsemen into the greatest danger as you were wont! Under your command, the point of each horseman’s lance was stained with the blood of the enemy, as the fingers of young girls are painted with the pink juice of henna!’”

  Senkovsky interrupted the muttering of the pupils and shrieked out, choking, the ancient lyrics.

  He yelled out the words of al-Shanfari:

  “ ‘Untie your camels, flee, do not wait for me! I will join the company of wild beasts that dwell in caves and on cliffs! Everything awaits your departure. The moonlight floods the desert. The camels are saddled. The girths are tightened. You can set off at once. You have nothing to wait for. I remain here, I stay on here alone!’”

  He thumped his chest.

  The professor’s face became more and more puffed up; his slimy eyes froze.

  How strange! The palace, the parade seemed an infantile game, deliberately played out for no apparent reason, and here too, the multitribal gang of teachers and pupils who had also gathered for no apparent reason was filling the air with murder and the Orient. Camels roamed the ministerial hall.

  Another pupil, a perkier specimen, read out Antarah’s work:

  “ ‘My spear makes way to any …, rather, … to each brave heart. I am tossing aside the defeated enemy, like slaughtered lambs to be devoured by wild beasts …’”

  “That’s enough. Read Lebid,” bellowed Senkovsky hoarsely. He was behaving like a true Oriental despot. Paying no attention to either Adelung or Charmoy, he called out each pupil, in that loud voice of his.

  The pupil translated:

  “ ‘The rain poured down from each morning and every nighttime cloud, brought by the south wind, and each cloud thundered, answering the other.’”

  Senkovsky shrieked in despair:

  “Wrong! You can’t translate Arab poets like that! The Arabs don’t like objects, and they leave it to the reader to guess what they are through their attributes.”

  Old Adelung was dozing, while the young doctor was having great fun observing the unprecedented massacre.

  Suddenly, Griboedov stretched out his hand and said with a smile:

  “Could you please read from The Gulistan, story twenty-seven, the very end section.”

  Senkovsky stopped, his mouth gaped. The pupil read: “ ‘Either honesty itself does not exist in this world or nobody cares to be honest in our time. Those who learned archery from me made a target of me in the end.’”

  “Not bad at all,” said Griboedov, smiling.

  Senkovsky shrank and squinted at Griboedov. He cried out abruptly:

  “Could you read the poem from story seventeen in The Gulistan?”

  “ ‘Do not approach the door of an emir, vizier, or s
ultan without an introduction. When a dog smells a stranger or a doorkeeper spots him, one seizes him by the trouser leg, the other by the scruff of the neck.’”

  Senkovsky wheezed, overwrought:

  “Could you convey it in better Russian?”

  The pupil was silent. Senkovsky spoke pompously:

  “In Russian, it has been rendered in these beautifully poetic lines, proverbial by now:

      My father taught me this:

  Above all else, with no exception, be polite to everyone:

  The boss for whom you have to work,

  The landlord of your humble home,

  The valet, footman, doorman, and to be right

  The doorman’s dog—to lessen its bite.”

  And the professor shrank into a miserable little ball.

  Griboedov frowned and gave him an icy look.

  And Senkovsky, who had shrunk into this defiant, wretched little ball, with his necktie bristling, his dismal tie pin—an enameled Cupid—angry, anxious, and isolated, suddenly seemed extremely amusing. Griboedov produced an open, almost beatific smile:

  “Joseph Ivanovich, you are far too strict.”

  The hodgepodge of professors smiled kindly. Senkovsky’s screams and despotic gestures were no longer appropriate. The academician came to his senses and also smiled.

  “I confess I am at fault,” said Senkovsky mildly. “Apologies, Alexander Sergeyevich.”

  He continued to attitudinize for a little bit longer.

  And everything ended peacefully.

  “Could you translate for me, please,” he said nasally, but extremely courteously, “from al-A’asha?”

  He drawled out the name “A’asha” in a perfectly civil, almost feminine fashion.

  “ ‘How blinding is the whiteness of her body,’” a pupil read in a high-pitched voice, “how long and thick is her hair, how sparkling her teeth. Slow and calm is her stride, like that of a horse, wounded in the leg. When she walks, she sways magnificently, like a cloud, which floats calmly in the sky. The tinkling of her jewelry is like the rattling of the ishrik seeds when they are shaken by the wind.’”

  Senkovsky interrupted him wistfully:

  “ ‘Her physique is so dainty that even a visit to her neighbor produces struggle and strain.’”