On his return home to Tiflis, he had quarreled with Ermolov. Now, during Paskevich’s campaigns, he was quickly making up for lost time: he was in charge of the Erivan and Nakhchivan areas. While he was at war, his wife, Princess Salome, faded and yawned, like many elderly Georgian women who can no longer love their husbands but fail to find anything else to do; his mother, the old princess, was faddish, sharp-tongued with servants, and as stern as a splinter off Mount Elbrus.
The house was a mixture of the Georgian grandfathers’ luxury, which had been dwindling and fading, and the newer European items, which were already going out of fashion. But Russians were impressed by the carvings that still remained, by the rugs that used to cover the walls, many of which still survived. And there was a large library with bookcases filled with Sa’di and Hafiz, Chakhrukhadze, Goethe, and the new English journals.
In the years when Princess Salome had still been beautiful, the prince had sired three children: Nino, Davidchik, and Katenka. They soon became playmates with the neighbors’ children, and one day, on his way to war and observing his wife’s yawning mouth, the general suddenly made arrangements to entrust Praskovya Nikolaevna with the upbringing of Nino, Katenka, and Davidchik. The transition from Georgia to Russian high society was not hard at all—they only had to cross the street.
So Praskovya Nikolaevna, Sonechka, Yegorushka, Dashenka, Nino, Katenka, and Davidchik started to live together.
Yegorushka’s and Sonechka’s capital plummeted like the cornice, and so did Dashenka’s.
Sonechka grew up, started to look like her mother, Princess Justiniani, and married Colonel Muravyov. The colonel, not young, was stout and grumbly, but the solidity of his character had melted away in some dark corner with Sonechka, and so he began to address Praskovya Nikolaevna as “dear mother.” From time to time, he would come to his senses and grumble.
Every so often, the colonel would go off to the wars; Sonechka bore a daughter, Natasha, with Georgian black eyelashes and a slightly bulbous Muravyov nose. Sonechka and Natasha remained at Praskovya Nikolaevna’s.
They all lived happily together. The wooden house had easily and imperceptibly eaten away the capital of the late general, Fyodor Isayevich Akhverdov. Yegorushka went away to Petersburg, to the Pages Corps, and was sent huge sums of money.
Then Praskovya Nikolaevna plucked up courage; she had always been quick in decision-making and resolved to organize a lottery, with the house and the garden as the prize. The fate of the wooden house now depended on the turning of the lottery wheel. She had collected forty-four thousand rubles from the lottery tickets, and the money went into the children’s trusts. Prince Alexander Gersevanovich Chavchavadze, the general, handed his children over to Praskovya Nikolaevna. The general considered that the lottery was not profitable, and that if the house were repaired, it could be sold for sixty thousand, if not for seventy. He persuaded Praskovya Nikolaevna to take the forty-four thousand from the trust. It soon turned out that although the prince’s bondsmen paid him on time, he was still twenty-five thousand rubles in debt, and Praskovya Nikolaevna lent him that sum. The money was quickly gone without a trace. The general was a daredevil, a dashing fellow, a poet, a translator into Georgian of Byron and Pushkin and knew his Goethe by heart. He drank money like wine.
Egorushka returned from boarding school, either because he hadn’t liked the Corps very much or because he had run out of money within the first six months.
But the house was still going strong; it had survived the lottery.
The garden sprawled.
In the evenings, it brimmed with female laughter.
Sonechka’s husband, Colonel Muravyov, returned from the army, made some arrangements in order to postpone the date of the infamous lottery, bought back some of the tickets (though not all of them). But then he gave up and went back to his regiment. The rest of the lottery tickets were later bought back, one by one. Or, to be precise, they were somehow forgotten about. Egorushka’s and Sonechka’s inheritance had been misspent on some fishing concerns and glass factory stocks.
Dashenka, Yegorushka, Nino, Katenka, and Davidchik were growing. Praskovya Nikolaevna always had lots of visitors, in great numbers.
A St. Petersburg or Moscow fledgling could stay in their house unnoticed and subsequently grow into a stepson, a nephew, a thrice-removed cousin, or someone related so remotely that they could no longer understand the exact connection.
4
He remembered the first days and months of his stay here. It had taken a long time for him to free himself from his slumber; he moved like a shadow, as if bewitched by Moscow and Petersburg; his heart was not here. The city, women, skies, bazaar were as incomprehensible to him as the chatter in the streets. And the chatter was breathless and suffocating, stuttering, incessant. And then, one day, going up the hill to the Akhverdovs, he suddenly realized that he had a genuine fondness for the people of Tiflis, who knew each other and lived together in the Eastern way, and that he had been cured. And the chatter turned into a language; he began to listen to it, to go for evening strolls. And then Moscow high society, which he had left, began to grow threadbare; he was able to see through it, it became alien. He ceased to fear it, and his Moscow aunts now seemed utterly ludicrous from a distance. He remembered the grimaces of his female cousins and their grievances, the bragging, and the patronage of the Moscow elders, and the senseless fussing in the vestibules by the cloakrooms filled with fur coats. He decided that now, no more would he ride that way, and then, as if from a distant vantage, he saw himself in Moscow and was appalled: just three months earlier, he might have committed such a folly, might have married a cousin and settled in Moscow. Thank you, Lord, for giving her enough sense to marry somebody else. He cast a glance back at his city, and this was how his Woe was seen from Tiflis’s high point, from St. David Hill. There was a lot of open space here.
He settled in Tiflis, and it became his second homeland, and he no longer saw it aslant, just as people never notice how they breathe. And now a short absence had once again knocked him out of his customary routine. He looked at the city again from on high, as he used to do eight years earlier, and saw the inner courtyards and the cell-like galleries of the balconies, the simple human honeycomb. He pushed open the little gate.
There was no one in the garden; thick grapevines covered the trellises, and the paths formed deep, damp, musty vistas. On the sidelines, in the large winemaking yard, the marani, he could hear the voices of the workers repairing the huge, hollow earthenware vessels—the kvevri; he could also hear water running nearby. These were the only cool sounds; it was a long time until night. He entered the house.
When the children were young, they had secrets. They used to be afraid of the old man who sold coal. They ran to Praskovya Nikolaevna and huddled at her knees. Griboedov used to tease them. He composed a ditty:
The children ran to mommy,
Too scared to go to bed,
A tramp is at the window
Look, mama, there’s his head!
He used to sing the number at the pianoforte and called the coalman a “bedlamite.” So they called the highwaymen on the Georgian roads. He would widen his eyes and whisper: “Bedlamites.”
Bedlamites roamed around the house. Inside the house, the crickets chirped like mad.
All of a sudden the children were now grown-ups. The girls were of marriageable age, and the bedlamites were busy robbing people on the highways. Praskovya Ivanovna hardly knew how to deal with the unexpected puberty of her daughters and stepdaughters. The guests who had just left were:
The Marquis de Sevigny (a Greek or a Frenchman), who gazed at Dashenka open-mouthed, like a craftsman who was exhausted after completing an elaborate artifact but still kept mulling it over.
The governor, a young Pole, Zavileisky. In his eyes, Praskovya Nikolaevna’s balcony was for Tiflis what Nesselrode’s salon was for Petersburg.
Mr. Ivanov, the active state councillor whom, for brevity’s sake, Ermolov re
ferred to simply as “a scoundrel”—he had a fisheries business in Salyany and happened to accumulate most of the lottery tickets for the garden.
Sofya Fyodorovna Burtsova, the colonel’s wife, whose husband was at war. And—Madame or Signora Castellas (French or Spanish), the wife of the silk plantation and factory owner, a magnificent phenomenon.
The last to leave was a guest of importance, Captain Iskritsky, Faddei Bulgarin’s nephew.
His rank was low, but his position was rather special; he was an exile, implicated in the Decembrist uprising.
Praskovya Nikolaevna was a free-thinker. She proudly informed everybody who cared to listen that an order had been issued from Petersburg to place Sonechka’s husband, Nikolai Nikolaevich Muravyov, under surveillance. She talked about it in loud whispers and shuddered. Such an order had indeed been issued: to follow Nikolai Nikolaevich, because many people with the same surname had been involved in the revolt.
Iskritsky was Faddei’s nephew, a captain, a topographer, an exile, though for the life of him, Griboedov could not understand what was so heroic about his simple face and blond head. And when he saw how upset the captain was that Faddei had completely forgotten him and had not sent his regards, Griboedov felt sorry for him. He soon left.
And then the real jolly highwaymen showed up: Davidchik and his friends. They met Zavileisky halfway to his house and brought him back. All of them chattered loudly, laughed a lot, and then quieted down all at once and ran out to the garden. He had known them all since they were kids. And now all of them were grown-ups, lively and talkative. He was surprised by their friendship with Zavileisky, an outsider. They feasted their eyes on Griboedov and told him every piece of the Tiflis news.
Griboedov looked at Nino, who seemed somnolent and heavy-lidded despite her young age. Then he shifted his glance to Princess Salome, quite withered and impassive; the risible Dashenka also caught his eye, as she was an absolute delight; Sonechka, who had just finished nursing her baby, looked at him closely. He had been in love with her, like all the young people who had frequented the Akhverdovs. He made Nino sit at the pianoforte, remarked absentmindedly on the excellent condition of the leather-padded hammers in their piano and on her having lost her touch.
The older ones left so as not to interfere with the impromptu lesson.
The sonatina that they played together was a mechanical repetition of what she had already learned
But at that moment, a guitar tinkled beneath the windows, as if it had been waiting for Nino’s pianoforte to stop. Somewhere not far away, across the road, down the lane, a sweet flutelike voice sang:
In love with you, my pretty maid …
And Nino burst out laughing, opening her mouth a little as she had not done before.
… pu-ritty may-ed …
Griboedov suddenly livened up. He was listening.
The maid of the mountains, my beautiful maid …
In the open window of the house across the road behind the trees, one could see the tip of a young nose turned upward and a necktie quivering and fluttering from underneath the unbuttoned collar.
Nino and Dashenka looked at each other and laughed. Griboedov came alive. How charming Dashenka was!
I met a Circassian girl in the mountains …
The performer took on a note much too high for him, and his voice cracked.
5
Moonlight was falling on the black leaves of the trees, and the street was lit by a different warm yellow light, issuing from the window of the young man in love wearing that necktie. He had to be some minor clerk. It was the very same old silly moonlight that had been extolled by hosts of poets, whom Griboedov had ridiculed so much. The clerk was in love and sang the tritest of love songs.
But now, entering that strip of light, Griboedov sighed and hung his head. The clerk’s light was warm, yellow; it flickered and swayed: the wind was trying to blow the candle out. What force, what hostile space had again separated him from the clerk’s light—so silly, so laughable, and yet joyful to the point of tears?
Would his life be forever weighed down by those awkward words uttered by him in the fury of his heart—“woe from wit”?
Where did the coldness come from, this empty breeze between him and other people?
He stepped out of the strip of light.
Two people went ahead of him, speaking quietly.
He did not overtake them. He walked behind them, blessing human backs that in the semidarkness appeared to be of a soft, blurred color. Chance people in the street, accidental backs of passers-by—many blessings on you!
He overheard a quiet conversation.
“Wedding or not, my dear, you have to pay ten thousand right on the nail. I cannot ruin myself over you. Are you actually getting married?”
The wider and shorter back spoke with the voice of the tax farmer Ivanov. The other back, thin and flexible, responded in an impossibly false and piping voice.
“That’s for sure. I’ve been promised. Please, two more months, Monsieur Ivanoff. Lately, I’ve been very very …
(And what force of persuasion was in the word “very.”)
“… lucky at cards.”
“From what I hear you have recently been beaten up for cheating, my dear man …”
The flexible back belonged to the Greek Sevigny.
Griboedov stopped. A dead green branch was level with his head. Through it, he could see a patch of sky and some stars, as strange as moral law.
6
It was nighttime. Praskovya Nikolaevna’s balcony had emptied; no young people left, with their chirpy gossip, with breath that couldn’t be contained in one chest and needed to be imparted to another. That was why she loved the young. She was quick-witted and portly. Praskovya Nikolaevna listened to Princess Salome distractedly.
She was thinking: the heartache, things no longer go right … not so good … no letters from Muravyov … not good … her repayments to Ivanov had been postponed, but still not good … Finally she remembered the glance that Griboedov had cast at Princess Salome, which left her speechless. That was definitely not good, not at all. The princess shouldn’t come here. She did not know why. He seemed to be comparing her to Nino. It had happened before that the off-putting sight of a mother who looked too much like her daughter had repelled the daughter’s suitor. That unpleasant thought made her grow pale, and her thoughts leaped to Nino. She couldn’t work out whether the girl was in love or, on the contrary, completely indifferent. Sonechka’s husband, Nikolai Nikolaevich Muravyov, had warned her: Griboedov was a flippant and flighty fellow. His love for Nino was a shallow thing, a matter of calculation. Nino belonged to the Georgian nobility, and Griboedov had certain intentions in Georgia. That didn’t mean there was anything wrong with his motives. And what motives might they be? Might there be an honorable one? And suppose it were not honorable at all? She would be blamed. Ah, men are all the same. And God knows what schemes and stratagems Nikolai Nikolaevich had been up to before he married Sonechka.
But something in all of it did not ring true, and Praskovya Nikolaevna was cross with Princess Salome, who couldn’t care less, and she had no one to ask for advice except probably Sipiagin. He was very clever, but what a butterfly brain, a flibbertigibbet! And she suddenly told the princess about the young Castellas:
“I don’t like Martha and receive her only out of politeness. I don’t care for these foreign women. She is good-looking and well dressed, but somewhat … rigid. Like one of those bare-bosomed statues in a Bologna or a Barcelona fountain, with these Italian children lying in her lap.”
The princess replied abruptly:
“But they say that Mrs. Castellas … This old man … Ce vieillard affreux3 … General Sipiagin …”
Praskovya Nikolaevna responded sternly:
“This is not for us to judge, princess—we are not that old yet. And Sipiagin is not affreux at all.”
And she suddenly criticizes Sofya Fyodorovna Burtsova, the colonel’s wife, of whom she
is very fond.
“I disapprove of Sophie. Her husband is at war, fighting campaigns, sleeping in the field, and she has taken a lover. And who is the chosen one?” she asks the princess.
“Mais on dit …,”4 smiles the princess.
“My point exactly,” says Praskovya Nikolaevna, “what they say is true. The lover is Zavileisky; this is who the chosen one is.” And she shakes her head reproachfully. “While her husband sleeps in the field … I don’t like these types of women, the quiet ones: nice and fluffy, like kittens, don’t you think?” She is lost for the right word and suddenly adds: “And how are the poor princes Baratov doing?”
Princess Salome becomes agitated. She is friendly with the Baratovs. The princes Baratov forged the papers confirming their nobility and their princely title. Since Petersburg was afraid of princes resuming their oligarchic freedoms, they began to acknowledge them sparingly and ordered each of them to prove their right to their title. It turned out that almost none of the princes had the proper papers. Tiflis had turned into a large factory manufacturing fake princes; attached to the documents were the seals of King Heraclius and Teimuraz of Kakheti, and King Bakar of Kartli, all of the same stamp. The trouble was that there turned out to be too many claimants to the same estate. There was a squabble, the mutual denunciations flew to Petersburg, and a number of princes were taken into custody.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you, ma chère, to have a word with Griboedov.”
Praskovya Nikolaevna suddenly feels embarrassed:
“Why? I am sure he’ll agree. I am sure,” she says hesitantly. “He has always been a close friend and ever so kind. He is crazy about Nino.” She speaks rather forlornly to Princess Salome.
“Has it been decided yet?” asks the princess in whispers.
The Death of Vazir-Mukhtar Page 23