Thus Xenophon foretold the Byzantine eunuchs, who shook the world, thus he also predicted Abelard who was a fashionable professor, an elegant rhetorician, and who turned into a fearsome monk after he had become a eunuch.
Because their ‘vessel is heavily laden, the soul is weary of the flesh.’
And there is one ancient testimony.
In Euripides’s Orestes, there is a eunuch in love with Helen of Troy, and he waves a fan before her and is mocked for it.
Petronius and Apuleius describe eunuchs who become lovers.
So on the wild tree on which a gardener has made a cut but left ungrafted grow tart and sharp apples, with wild green flesh.
6
A female captive was sent as a gift to Khozrow-Khan by his friend, another infamous khan who could vouch for her chastity. She was only nine years of age; her name was Nazlu and she was from Shamkhor. But Khozrow-Khan called her Dil-Firuz—meaning “joy”—and everybody started to call her so.
She was full of merriment, a wit and a chatterbox.
Khozrow-Khan ordered several dresses to be made for her and gave her twenty gold coins to buy a necklace and twenty for headwear, and she lived at his quarters.
She fell in love with his black, kohled eyes, his unmanly jollity, his quick wit and jokes. He told her the funniest stories he knew, and she fell about with laughter. They rolled around on the carpet.
So Khozrow-Khan now paid less attention to his stables. When he was breaking a steed, Dil-Firuz would hide by the window, peering through the red glass, worried about him and proud of him.
Khoja-Yakub saw the captive girl when he came to discuss some business: their trade partnership was suffering losses. Having spotted Dil-Firuz, he forgot all the figures. He fell silent for a while, pulled a ring off his little finger and put it on her finger, said one Armenian word—“love”—and told her to repeat it. He put another ring onto her other finger and told her an Armenian word—“life”—and told her to repeat it. Then he gave her a third ring and made her repeat the word—“kiss.”
So he began to teach her the Armenian language. He became a frequent guest of Khozrow-Khan, and every time he visited, he would bring some presents for Dil-Firuz and tell her to repeat three words at a time.
Khozrow-Khan sneered at the lessons and Khoja-Yakub, and Khoja-Yakub looked miserable.
Once he told Khozrow-Khan:
“Khozrow-Khan, my life is more sorrowful than yours; I don’t care either for sweets or horses, and my scholarly pursuits have parched my soul. If you let me have Dil-Firuz, I’ll give you three Arab stallions, the likes of which are not to be found in all Iran.”
Khozrow-Khan’s eyes lit up. He thought about it.
“No, Mirza-Yakub,” he said. “What use are they to me? I have no space left in my stables.”
“I will relinquish my share in the business,” said Mirza-Yakub, and his voice broke, “and I’ll settle for a life of poverty. Give her to me, will you?”
After some deliberation, Khozrow-Khan said:
“I’ll ask her, and if she wishes, she can go with you.”
He hailed Dil-Firuz who, although she did not understand Armenian, sensed that they were talking about her. She scowled and approached them reluctantly.
When Khozrow-Khan asked her whether she would like to go with Mirza-Yakub, she began to kiss his white khan’s hands and burst into tears.
“Why don’t you want to come with me?” Mirza-Yakub asked her softly. “I’ll give you rings, sweets, and dresses.”
“His eyes are black,” said Dil-Firuz and pointed with her finger at Khozrow-Khan, “and yours are green, and I am afraid of your green eyes.”
Mirza-Yakub smiled and asked Khozrow-Khan for nothing more.
But still he came to see her every day, and every day he would bring gifts and take her hands into his.
And when Khozrow-Khan went to fetch something from the room next door, Mirza-Yakub would put his arms around her.
That’s why when he heard that a Russian ambassador was coming with an assignment to take away female captives, Mirza-Yakub became pensive.
7
Dr. McNeill’s visit was coming to an end. Sweet pills and strong-smelling healing ointments had already been prescribed.
Fat’h-Ali was looking at the small bodies of his sons, who also happened to be his grandsons.
And as usual, Dr. McNeill stayed in the room after the little princes had been led away and their mother had left.
Three eunuchs entered, like three thoughts of the shah: Manouchehr-Khan, like the thought of gold; Khozrow-Khan, like the thought of the happy horse-ride; and Mirza-Yakub, like the thought of accounts written in Arabic numbers.
They sat motionless on the rugs, speaking.
Then Dr. McNeill went on his second visit to Alaiar-Khan—one of his wives was sick—and then, on his third visit, to Zil-li Sultan, the shah’s son, the governor of Tehran.
That was all that was known about the visits of Dr. McNeill.
8
In Qazvin, a young idler, Master Burgess, felt slightly under the weather. Dr. McNeill left two men with him and told them to stay there for a fortnight longer. Otherwise, he could not guarantee Master Burgess’s recovery. Nothing to worry about, but he wouldn’t run the risk of his undertaking further travel. And to entertain Master Burgess, he gave him a small assignment: to send him all the gossip by special courier.
Mr. Burgess turned out to have an easy quill.
How much drivel he wrote to Dr. McNeill!
He informed him, for instance, that the local shah-zade, the governor, was not at all inclined toward women, and on the contrary preferred graceful boys who dressed in female clothes and danced lasciviously for him.
That in his opinion, the Asians knitted their brows not because they were cross, but because they have no peaks on their turbans to protect them from the sun.
That here in Qazvin, they had strange notions of propriety: just the other day, he had seen a young woman on a cart; her head was wrapped with a crude cloth and her legs and breasts were bare.
That some areas in Qazvin reminded him of the countryside between Florence and Rome.
That every day he strolled around the bazaars, though he was still quite weak; that he was accompanied by ferrashi; and yesterday they were so assiduous that they stoned a beggar boy and made his head bleed.
“Idiot,” mumbled Dr. McNeill.
… That Mr. Griboedov was going to Tehran, that he had passed through Qazvin, and that everybody was irked with him.
Rustam-bek and Dadash-Bek (rumor had it in the bazaars that they were related to Griboedov) had demanded seventy-five chervontsy a day in Qazvin; Master Burgess explained that they were actually related to the ambassador’s wife. And yet the Persians remained displeased and kept saying that the Russians were penniless, and he, Master Burgess, explained that the Russian officials were paid irregularly, as he had heard from Colonel Macdonald. There was a huge uproar in a village near Qazvin: Mr. Rustam-bek beat up an elder who had given him nine chervonets for expenses, while the former had demanded fourteen. When Mr. Griboedov learned about it, he ordered the money collection to be stopped altogether …
In Qazvin itself, Mr. Rustam-bek had forcefully taken away a Russian Armenian from a sayyid who had already had two children by him, and who cried loudly, unwilling to return to Russia. Having learned about it, Mr. Griboedov immediately ordered that she be released. The minister plenipotentiary was traveling at breakneck speed, showing the horses no mercy. “The snow is deep over here, the roads are foul, and I am not sure, my dear doctor, when I’ll be able to see you. I may manage to set off in a week’s time.”
“Very well,” said Dr. McNeill, having finished reading, “it’s up to you whether you go or stay.”
9
The snow was indeed deep. And the roads were truly foul. It was a gloomy month, a time when Persians warmed themselves at their chilly firesides and prayed a lot: the sun was in the constellation of
Scorpio; it was the month of Rejjeb. And the pace of his travel was mad, like no man’s, not even a man traveling to meet with his beloved.
Long before they reached the city, Griboedov saw something that looked like an oscillating black cloud—he put his glasses on and understood: the military were coming to meet them. He had had so many meetings of this sort; he’d seen it all already.
He looked at his troops. The Cossacks looked despondent and disheveled. Maltsov sat with arms akimbo on his horse, which was barely lifting its hooves; the doctor looked like a sack of potatoes.
In the course of his journey, Griboedov had ridden two stallions to death and was now riding on a Cossack’s squat steed. He became aware of his horse only after he glanced at the dark cloud, which was the sarbazes. The Russian empire was entering Tehran on a bay horse, hardy and stunted.
He looked at his Cossacks again. Only one of them, a very young sergeant, had a decent horse. A jet-black Karabakh stallion was under him. They switched horses. The conical hats and the glittering saddles of the Persian generals could already be seen.
That’s how they met.
Three of the noblest chaparkhans were riding ahead of the detachment.
The sarbazes stopped. A guttural command, and they formed a double column. Slowly, in single file, the long-bearded ones rode up to Alexander Sergeyevich.
Slow speech, and steam rose from the men’s mouths and out of the muzzle of Griboedov’s horse, which was snorting because of the frost. Griboedov, the doctor, Maltsov, the gloomy Cossacks, and the battered wagons passed through the formation of the sarbazes in nothing resembling a ceremonial march.
The sarbazes closed ranks behind them. How many times had it happened before! By the gates of the city, they were met by noise and gunfire. Behind the walls, they could hear some measured screams, the meaning of which Griboedov couldn’t fathom.
When they entered, he saw that it was the royal reception. They stopped.
The ears of the stallion, unaccustomed to noise, twitched, and it backed up. Griboedov pulled the reins slowly, and the bit dug into the horse’s muzzle. Something mottled, live, huge, and wrinkled loomed in front of the horse, and he snorted. But the huge thing materialized very quickly and turned out to be the shah’s tame elephant. The elephant, adorned with multicolored ribbons, his ears gilded and his trunk silvered, was kneeling in front of the black stallion.
The troops lined the narrow street, and ahead of the square, the crowds of onlookers swarmed and clamored. The square was filled with hundreds of falconet cannon on gun rests dug into the earth.
As soon as the crowd saw them, the heralds brayed, the musicians’ trumpets blared out with their piercing din, and the Persian drums thundered like the rumble of a zel-zele—an earthquake. Tightrope walkers with measured shrieks danced and pranced above the square, balancing with their many-colored poles. They were the ones whom he had heard shrieking so steadily and plaintively when he was approaching the gates.
They were answered down below by the stamping and singing of the pahlavan, the wrestlers.
The stallion is just about ready to bolt.
Paper fountains are spurting out of the hands of the hokkebazes, the conjurers.
And here they are—the gowns—standing ahead and waiting.
And the crowds, crowds, ahead, behind, all around them. How to reach the gowns? The stallion would surely bolt.
The gusting wind beats on the broad canvas banners, called alems; they flutter and the rows of heads below bow low, as if bent by the wind.
Damn their royal reception, which looks just like the stalls at Shrove fetes—choked with crowds. And that sound comes screaming shrilly through the din, a particular piercing sound; it is not the shrieking of the pahlavani, nor the heralds.
It is as if someone is howling, sickeningly, shrilly.
Something is amiss: has someone been trampled?
The horse won’t bolt—nothing to worry about now, it has composed itself, Griboedov’s hands are wrapped hard around the reins, as if they were leeches. He is slowly entering the street of headless people: everyone has bowed so low, it looks like their heads have fallen off.
But where is that howling coming from?
The crowd sways like a human wind. They are running, recoiling, crushing one another, an acrobat has fallen, the soldiers drop their banners, the crowd is in disarray. They are howling:
“Ya Hussein! Va Hussein!”
The steed trots slowly along the suddenly cleared road. Ahead is a cluster of gowns; the gowns are waiting for him after all. Griboedov approaches them.
“Va Hussein!”
And the ones in front, who still remain, cover their faces with their hands.
“Ya Hussein!”
And then not a single soul left in the square. Only the gowns ahead—the retinue. Griboedov proceeds slowly across the empty square.
“Va Hussein!” they shout from a distance, from the alleyways.
He does not understand and looks back at his people. All of them have white stains instead of faces.
What has happened?
The murderer of the Holy Imam Hussein, the son of Ali, had once entered the city on a black horse. Ibn-Saad was the name of the accursed one. The dark month, Muharram, was drawing near, when the breast beaters would mortify their flesh, cursing Ibn-Saad and lamenting Imam Hussein.
Vazir-Mukhtar had come in on a black horse.
09
1
Ensign Skryplev, like any other man, had habits and nightdreams of his own.
Officially, he was a terrible criminal, almost a renegade, like Abdallah, but he was also a straightforward and timid person.
It was unclear even to him how he had become naib-serheng, twice the lawful possessor of Zainab-Khanum, the right hand of Samson-Khan, and God only knows what else.
He used to be a rank-and-file ensign of the Nasheburg Infantry Regiment, Astafy Vasilyevich Skryplev, but now he didn’t know exactly who or where he was. He had never even dreamed of becoming a naib-serheng. It was because of cards. And it was an unseemly matter indeed.
Not that he liked cards in themselves; he was even apprehensive of them. When saying goodbye to him, his father, a retired official, told him:
“When you are in the regiment, son, don’t drink and brawl. It’s no good to drink and behave disgracefully, son. And above all, son, steer clear of cards. Remember what happened to Uncle Andrei? May God’s grace be with you. And don’t shun friends. One shouldn’t shun people. If you have an eye for a girl, be gentle with her … subtle … kindhearted … lower-class girls are easier to deal with, son … That’s about it.”
In the first few months at the regiment, Skryplev was really reserved and somewhat sparing with money. Deep in his soul, he was a pedant. With his poise, he could have reached the rank of colonel, or even major-general—decorated, gouty, and with walking stick and galoshes in his retirement, he could have gone back to Kherson province to live the rest of his life in peace and quiet. His life could have turned out quite well. But it was his restraint that was his undoing.
The commander of the regiment was an avid gambler and enjoyed winning. He began to look askance at Skryplev and decided that the ensign was “a canny fellow and something of a clam.”
In the very first engagement, in which Ensign Skryplev showed courage, he was overlooked for an award. Everyone got crosses and promotions except him.
Injustice secretly delights a retired colonel, even if it is directed against him. By the end of his life, a retired colonel becomes embittered, and that bitterness requires sustenance. It keeps him going; happiness kills. Not so with an ensign.
Such a simple thing as human injustice can instantaneously change his entire being altogether, particularly if an ensign is irreproachable. He is no longer that same ensign; he has altered internally. Such an ensign is capable of a crazy step.
Ensign Skryplev became a gambler. But his gambling activities ended as quickly as they began.
Perhaps he had taken it into his head to take revenge on the commander and win. His gambling was over within one night. In a big wooden peasant house that was a substitute for the nobles’ club, he lost all his money and casually scribbled down a note for ten thousand rubles that he owed to the commander.
He left the commander with a straight and steady stride and was about to blow his brains out the very same night, not only because there was not a chance in hell he could come up with the money, but also on account of the humiliation. But it passed quickly. The ensign’s mind, as precise as ever, began to plan ahead on its own. He now imagined that he would meet a rich, land-owning lady, she would fall in love with him, and the commander would be crushed. Or, suddenly, a written order from Count Paskevich would be received: the commander to be court-martialed, the ensign to be made a colonel, and again the commander crushed. Or something equally unclear would happen, some mixup would come about, and as a result, the commander would yet again be crushed.
Ensign Skryplev would often forget about the ten thousand, but then he noticed, as if he were observing a stranger, that something had changed in him, Skryplev.
And then, near Kars, during one of the nightly sorties, when the ensign’s only desire was to distinguish himself famously, he was crawling toward the enemy line and approaching it very closely. His heart started pounding: he heard the enemy talking.
Instead of roaring out “Hurrah!” and engaging the enemy or accomplishing something equally desperate, the ensign paid closer attention—and recognized Russian speech.
“Damn it, don’t smoke now,” said one of the men.
“Why the hell shouldn’t I?” replied the other one.
The ensign looked back at his five fellow soldiers. He saw that the soldiers were listening too.
“These are Samson Yakovlich’s men, Your Honor,” whispered the noncommissioned officer, who was lying next to him.
The Death of Vazir-Mukhtar Page 42