Or consider the phrase, dear Colonel: “Mountains are the key to taking the plains.” Here, if you please, is the entire Caucasian strategy in a nutshell, in a single word: the key.
Or: “Camouflage is crucial to avoid detection.” No one gives it a thought or cares about it. And in my youth, under the late Emperor Alexander, whom, by the way, the Russians have forgotten too, this was everything. Le moral est bon7—and we won.
I have no faith in Paskevich. He is cautious, and this speaks volumes. Did Suvorov look over his shoulder? No, he didn’t. Was Miloradovich cautious? Miloradovich was not cautious at all.
The light of day and the starry night
See the hero on his horse!
And our count’s eyes are shifty; he has no self-confidence, no faith. Le moral est mauvais.8 You know what Ermolov called him? My friends from Petersburg have written to me that instead of the Count of Erivan, he called him the Count of Jericho.
We’ll wait and see, but I can tell you now: truth will out, our truth, soldiers’ truth. I’ve sent Paskevich a package with foreign newspapers.
The Journal des débats writes, for example: “General Paskevich is not blessed with any specific talents, but he is fortunate, simply lucky, and he is greatly helped by les gens du malheur,9 the so-called ‘senators,’ those who acted in the Senate Square in December, 1825.”
I have circled those parts in pencil, and some others too, of course. He can enjoy reading this.
I don’t understand it. As a person, as a military man, and as a son of the fatherland, I can’t fathom these people.
Colonel Burtsov serves Paskevich, an excellent gunner, and he does pretty much everything. He too is one from that inglorious flock. I have filled whole notebooks about him. And countless former officers and engineers, demoted to soldiers, act on his behalf. Do they really care about the glory of the motherland? Come on, my dear Colonel, forget it. They are prepared to destroy Russia outright, at a stroke. What do they care about Russia? No, they are doing it for promotion; they are turning their coats, biding their time. And when their hour comes, they’ll show their true colors!
They are no fools, dear Colonel, no fools.
Do you think the people in Tiflis are content? I don’t think so. I too pretend to be happy at the balls. And between you and me, dear Colonel, in complete confidence: our dearest governor, my young confidant, Mr. Zavileisky—what is he? Tell me, dear Colonel, what is Mr. Zavileisky? I will tell you what Mr. Zavileisky is. He is a Pole, from that very Poland that is ruled by the people’s parliament, the Sejm!
Everything has got itself tied up into such a knot that, believe it or not, one can’t but expect an imminent unraveling.
To undo that knot, one would require a very clever tactic.
Today, for example, I have had a collegiate assessor arrested. He’s written in a letter to a friend: “I am in love with a maid of the mountains. I am waiting for the hour.” But read it carefully, dear Colonel: who the hell is the “maid of the mountains”? What is it? What kind of hour is he waiting for, dear Colonel? And why? Ah, that’s exactly my point. There might be an entire secret society hiding behind the skirts of that “maid of the mountains.”
Let me speak to you as an old friend, with whom, glory be to God, I stood shoulder to shoulder in the field: I know every step they make. I do. Paskevich doesn’t. That’s the real reason I have been appointed here.
He demands that I should report to him. And if tomorrow, let’s say, I am required to write a report about him, will I have to forward it to him? Fat chance. Those who are guilty will have to answer for their actions.
I understand what he is driving at: that in my regiment, the garrison soldiers have been turned into serfs, have been building houses for their commanders and acting as the guards for their houses. Would you call it serfdom? These are simply urban improvements. And his own Christ-loving warriors, how do they provide for themselves? Does manna fall from heaven for them? No sir, they requisition sheep and hens; his troops provide for themselves by pillage and plunder. My dispatches are not like his. There is no “Glory be to Field Marshal Suvorov!” in them. I’m looking further into it.
Even a familiar person like Muravyov has to be under surveillance. As a matter of fact, many Muravyovs were involved in the uprising. A namesake can be dangerous too. Strange, but possibly true.
And I have to confess: I am tired.
I am a man of Emperor Alexander’s age. I am a tactician. And I am tired. Believe it or not, I sometimes want to forget it all, or even to die, gloriously. You won’t believe it, Colonel, but I arrange all those balls with political aims, as I think I told you the other day. But the truth of the matter is that I am tired. Everything is so uncertain and ever changing. Perhaps, I no longer understand people.
I seek oblivion in poetry—I am so fond of it—and what do I find there? Decline of taste. My only joy is Zhukovsky’s ballads. I also have a handwritten copy of the comedy of Griboedov, our future bridegroom.
I’ve read it, dear Colonel, and I’ve put it away in the desk drawer.
I enjoy a good laugh—and there are plenty of wonderful situations one can laugh at. Take Boccaccio, for example. How the monk puts the devil in the maiden’s hell. Absolutely marvelous, dear Colonel! Can’t believe you haven’t read it! You can borrow my copy. But I’ve read Alexander Sergeyevich’s comedy and was shocked. There are, of course, some funny situations, truthful portraits, and some people get what they deserve. But he laughs at everything, absolutely everything, indiscriminately. He doesn’t like the Guards, you see—he finds the Guardsmen very amusing indeed!
Is it really so amusing? It’s trite.
Now he’s gone to see Paskevich. Announced his engagement and took his leave, all of a sudden. I gave him twelve Cossacks, and there you go! What do I care? This project of his regarding Transcaucasia. I have been informed about it. In fact, I read it in its entirety (in a dispatch, obviously), but believe it or not, it put me to sleep.
What tedious fantasies! As if a man dreamed it, and then woke up and wrote it all down.
And yet, you know, Colonel, I do respect him more than anyone else. When all is said and done, I respect him. In spite of everything.
He’s got this free way of speaking, the old Moscow way. I have to admit it, I love him, Colonel.
I am neither a tactician nor a strategist; I want love, my dear friend; I want young people to feel free; I want them to kiss and be fruitful, God damn it; I want them to have a laugh.
Ahoy!—the voice of bliss!
Let him marry that little girl of his, if that’s what he wants. Let’s drink his health.
To the health of the newlyweds, hurrah!
And I love you too, Colonel. When I am no more, remember me with a kind word. They can say what they want about me then.
Squadron, forward march!
Do you remember the lines, dear Colonel?
Sipiagin—the heart of the regiments!
Oh how fearsome he is!
And now, help me to get out of this chair, will you?
I don’t seem to be able to do it myself. I have imbibed.
9
Griboedov spurred his horse. The horse panted, climbing the steep mountain.
The war smelled of bread, not of blood. He drew in its dense scent with his nostrils.
“Why does it smell of bread over here?” asked the doctor all of a sudden.
He was being shaken up and down like a sack of flour.
Maltsov jogged after him, trying to stick to the saddle, and threw him a glance filled with irony.
“It’s the smell of blood,” he said meaningfully.
“It’s bread all right, Your Highness,” said the frontier Cossack. “If you care to take a look over here, in the ditches.”
Indeed, the slopes along the road were marked with deep potholes.
“Have these been made by cannonballs?” asked Maltsov pompously.
“Oh, no, not cannonballs. They haven’t reached here yet. This was a
campsite. These were the stoves. The trench diggers dig out holes: this is the cavity; this is the oven tray. They make molds, pour the dough in, and bake bread. And they also make kvas.”
The warm bread scent, preserved by the heated-up earth, was Griboedov’s first experience of war.
He felt that he had to look after the doctor, who couldn’t ride a horse, and Maltsov, who believed that it was his first “engagement” and almost imagined that he was in combat.
The project would meet with Paskevich’s approval, and Griboedov would come back and marry Nino. Or the project would not meet with the count’s approval, and he would come back and live with Nino in Tsinandali like an ascetic, the hermit of Tsinandali.10 That was Nino’s estate, where the air was pale blue and thin; there were grasses and vines, and from the balcony you could watch the cool Alazan streaming by. Here in the mountains, it was really hot.
He wouldn’t go to Persia and had no wish to think about it: his luggage had been sent to Astrakhan—that idiot Date had sent it off; the credentials hadn’t arrived yet—the emperor was somewhere on the Danube.
“We used to arrange bathhouses in potholes, Your Highness,” the chief Cossack kept saying to the doctor. “We would make a hearth out of stones and burn wild grasses or dry dung. A tent on top and some turf on the floor. A couple of pails of water poured on the tent would prevent the steam from escaping, and you would have a good bathhouse, not too hot.”
They climbed the very steep Bezobdal, and there they encountered nightfall, a storm with black clouds and purple lightning, thunder, and downpour. They were soaked to the skin. The doctor stripped naked, folded his clothes, and lay on them, protecting them from the storm. The Cossacks did not laugh, but Maltsov blushed to the roots for his behavior.
They reached Gyumri by seven o’clock.
The atmosphere there was troubled.
Communications with the main forces had been interrupted. From time to time, grimy, sooty, and dust-covered messengers would appear bringing reports that the count had retreated from the Kars pashalyk; that the Turkish guerrillas had beset him from the rear; that the Black Sea Regiment had engaged in a skirmish in the mountains, beyond the River Arpa; and that the outcome was still unknown.
Maltsov asked Griboedov, blushing again:
“Does it mean—defeat?”
“I don’t think so,” responded Griboedov calmly. “It’s always like this.”
Here in Gyumri, the war no longer smelled of bread. Gyumri, a large settlement, had been devastated in the previous Persian War. Stoves and chimneys stuck out shamelessly in the wasteland, like the entrails of nonexistent dwellings. Scraggy, starved cats ran about the burned ground. The company’s pigs, saved by the Quran, which forbade the Persians butchering them, were running wild and raised their black snouts among the ruins.
A small hovel was the Russian Headquarters. The other small dwelling was the quarantine unit.
In Gyumri, he received a note from Paskevich:
“Advancing on Akhalkalaki. The Gyumri commandant will issue you with a reliable escort and cannon. Will await you there.”
War and haste contributed remarkably to the beauty of his style, rendering it brief and crisp.
They spent the night in Gyumri, watched the quarantine wardens scurrying about, dressed in loose overalls, with censers that looked like church incense burners. They left in the morning.
Not far from Gyumri, they ran into a detachment: two companies of the Kozlov Regiment, two companies of the Carabineers, and a hundred men recovering after illness were advancing toward the main corps, with no idea where it was.
Griboedov told them: “Stand at attention!” and took them under his command.
He rode with twelve Cossacks and twelve more cavalrymen from Gyumri, followed by the cannon, which in turn was followed by his troops.
He now had his own troops.
The provisions were jolting behind them—a bullock cart with food supplies and a civilian sitting astride them. The civilian was Sashka.
Every step of the way, they were liable to be attacked and destroyed.
And every hoofbeat of the horse was light and distinct.
On June 25, they reached the Headquarters in Akhalkalaki, and Count Paskevich.
10
Two campaigns—the Persian and the Turkish—depended on this man, who decided the fate of Russia in Asia and, even more than that, the fate of the new Imperial Russia, that of Emperor Nicholas I.
The life and death of all the Russian armies depended on Paskevich, as did the life and slow death of the army officers demoted for taking part in the Decembrist uprising. He sent reports concerning them to the emperor. The life of the entire Caucasus and its governance depended on him. As did Griboedov’s project.
Ermolov had never even dreamed of such powers.
Let’s take a closer look at the man.
He was one of those men who are born before their ancestors. He was an upstart; his nobility was new. His forebear, Gray Pasko, had left Poland with his entire household and cattle from time immemorial. This genealogical ancestor came to life after young Paskevich had been made a page; before then, he hadn’t even existed. Previously, Ivan Fyodorovich’s father had been a Poltava tradesman. And it was he, not Gray Pasko, who had possessed the capital and courage, which he passed on to his son, the future military leader.
Under Catherine the Great, Paskevich’s father, the tradesman Fyodor Paskevich, together with a couple of friends, secured the rights to supply salt from the Crimean lakes and, through a powerful man at the court, obtained multimillion deposits from the treasury “in order to compensate them for the deaths of the oxen.” The oxen remained alive, but the salt was never delivered. Fyodor Paskevich and his friends were facing recovery of debt, and hence either destitution or a sentence of hard labor. That was the moment of his elevation. In Petersburg, he had demonstrated such powers of flattery, such quick penetration of court circles, and had witnessed such rapid responses to the power of bribery that he and his friends were forgiven both the unsupplied salt and the millions. All Poltava celebrated Paskevich’s victory because that was a real battle of Poltava: almost all the inhabitants took part in the salt supply business. Soon afterward, the old Ukrainian tradesman discovered a forebear, Gray Pasko, an old Polish nobleman, and Fyodor Paskevich, by the same visible capacity for flattery and penetration of court circles, succeeded in securing places for his sons in the Page Corps. When Ivan Fyodorovich was a boy, he served as a Kammer-page under Catherine the Great. He became a court officer. As a new man, with a simple flair, he realized that the ultimate secret of success at court lay not in subtlety and flattery, but in coarseness. It was referred to as “directness” and “forthrightness,” and such a man became necessary at a court that was always secretly unsure of what was happening outside its walls, and therefore was gullible. Grand Duke Nicholas served under Paskevich’s command, and Paskevich was hard on him but covered up for him in front of Emperor Alexander, who was distrustful and exacting and found it difficult to endure his brother. So he had a chance to distinguish himself and to earn merit early on.
He accompanied Grand Duke Michael on his travels and gave him a good dressing-down. He was a man of great military prowess, with a gruff voice and curt, imperious gestures.
He was not without talent in military matters. He possessed a quick eye and a particular kind of memory that was essential in a military leader. In his youth, in 1812, he was the first to scale the walls of a fortress, and was wounded. When the French were shooting at point-blank range, he thought: wouldn’t it be effective if the Russian artillery were attacking them from the rear and the flanks? And that memory came in handy: he began to favor the artillery first. He was not stupid—in his own way, he knew how people saw him, and he knew the emperor better than the emperor did himself. And he understood money and could manipulate it to his profit.
And so everyone knew that he was an upstart, a talentless fool. Even the people close to him called
him a fool the moment they left him.
In Peter the Great’s time, the clever Prince Kurakin would have said of him: “A great ill-wisher—wishing no good to anybody at all.” In Empress Elizabeth’s time, Bestuzhev-Ryumin would have said of him: “A random man and an unpredictable one!” And Generalissimo Suvorov would have summed him up in his falsetto shriek: “An impolitic man and a treacherous one.” Ermolov called him “Vanka,”11 or “the Count of Jericho.”
No one took him seriously. Only the merchant class kept his portraits; merchants liked him for the way he looked: curly-haired, portly, and youthful.
There are people who achieve high positions or who already have them, and who behind their backs are still called, pejoratively, “Vanka.” So Grand Duke Michael was called “Redheaded Mishka” when he was forty years of age. In spite of his hatred of Ermolov, Paskevich could never refer to him, now so publicly humiliated, as “Alyoshka.” Paskevich was referred to derogatively, in passing, and he well knew it. And no matter how many victories he had won, he knew that they would still say: “An almighty fluke! A lucky bastard!”
Ermolov hadn’t won a single victory, and yet he was regarded a great military leader.
Paskevich knew, moreover: he knew that people were right.
His very looks denied him a place among the great military leaders. Short, pink, a nose like a sausage, with carefully grown dashing mustaches and sideburns and bulging eyes. He was made from middling dough, and he lacked all the other features that heroes were made of.
As a man of the new nobility and a courtier, he invariably spoke French. His Russian speech was abrupt and sounded as if he were cursing.
Sometimes it came as a shock to him to think that it was indeed all a matter of luck, and that his glory as a military leader was as nonexistent as it was for his ancestor, Gray Pasko.
Eliza’s attitude confirmed this perception. His wife was a Moscow lady and understood him completely. She would narrow her eyes and drone through her clenched teeth: “You ought to sleep less after lunch, my friend.”
And when he realized how well Eliza understood him, he began to fear her like wildfire and became what he was now: a great wisher of good to nobody at all.
The Death of Vazir-Mukhtar Page 30