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By Root 271 0

led to the sky because as far as the eye could see, it kept ascending, and finally, became lost in the clouds, which had rested on the heights of Gud Mountain since the day before, like a kite awaiting its prey. The snow crunched under our feet; the air became so rare that it was painful to breathe; blood flooded into our heads every minute, and with it, some sort of gratifying feeling spread to every vein. I was so delighted to be so high above the world: it was a childlike feeling, I won’t deny it, but withdrawing from the demands of society, and drawing near to nature, we become children without meaning to, and everything that has been acquired falls away from the soul—and it becomes as it once was, and probably will be once again. A person who has found himself wandering, like me, among desert mountains for a long, long time, and peering at their fantastical shapes, and who has greedily swallowed the life-giving air which pours into its gorges—that person, I’m certain, will understand my desire to relate, to tell, to paint these magical pictures. And so, at last, we gained the summit of Gud Mountain, stopped and looked around: there was a gray cloud suspended over it, and its cold breath threatened an approaching storm. But in the east, everything was so clear and golden, that we, that is the staff captain and I, forgot about it completely . . . Yes, even the staff captain forgot: the simple people among us have hearts in which the feeling of beauty, and the grandeur of nature, is stronger—a hundredfold more vivid than in us, the rapturous storytellers in words and on paper.

“I imagine you are used to these magnificent views . . .” I said to him.

“And one can get used to the whistle of bullets too, that is, used to hiding the involuntary throbbing of one’s heart.”

“I hear, on the contrary, that for some old soldiers such music is even pleasing.”

“Granted, it could be pleasing—but only because that same heart is beating more strongly than usual.

“Look,” he added, pointing to the east, “what country!” Indeed, it is likely that I shall never again see the likes of this panorama: the Koyshaursky Valley lay below us, intersected by the Aragva River and another a small river, like two silver threads. A light bluish mist was crawling along it, fleeing the warm rays of morning to the neighboring canyons. On the left and the right, the hackles of the mountains, one higher than the next, were criss-crossing and stretching along, covered in snows, bushes. In the distance, there were similar hills, where no two rock-faces were alike—and the snows burned with a rosy luster, so uplifting, so bright, that it seemed you could live here forever. The sun was just showing itself from behind the dark-blue mountains, which only an accustomed eye could discern from the thunderclouds; but there were blood-red streaks above the sun, to which my comrade was paying particular attention.

“I told you,” he exclaimed, “that there would be a lot of weather today—we must hurry, otherwise, it will catch us on the Krestovaya. Move along!” he cried to the cart drivers.

We put chains under the wheels as brakes to stop them from rolling away, and we took the horses by their bridles and started our descent. There was a crag on our right, and such a precipice fell away to the left, that a whole village of Ossetians living at its base looked like a swallow’s nest. I shuddered at the thought that some ten times a year, in the deafness of night, some courier comes along this road, where two carts can’t pass at the same time, without once climbing off his jolting carriage. One of our cart drivers was a Russian muzhik27 from Yaroslavl, the other was Ossetian. The Ossetian led his shaft-horse by the bridle, having taken every possible precaution, and unyoked the other horses beforehand. But our carefree Russ28 never once came down off his seat. When I pointed out to him that he might take some care, not least for the sake of my valise, after which I did not at all desire to clamber into this abyss, he replied to me, “Ah, sir! God willing we’ll do it no worse