A Hero of Our Time - Mikhail IUr'evich Lermontov [23]
But perhaps you want to know how the Bela story ends? Firstly, I am not writing a novel, but travel notes: so it follows that I can’t make the staff captain start recounting the tale before he actually starts telling it to me. So, wait a while, or, if you like, turn a few pages—only I don’t advise you to do that because the traverse across the Krestovaya Mountain (or as the scholar Gamba calls it, the Mont St. Christophe) is worthy of your interest.
So, we came down off Gud Mountain into the Chertova Valley . . . now there’s a romantic name! You immediately imagine a nest of evil spirits in between the unassailable crags—but not at all: the name of the Chertova Valley comes from cherta (as in boundary) not chert (as in devil), because apparently this was once the border of Georgia. This valley was crammed with snowdrifts, rather vividly reminiscent of Saratov, Tambov and other dear little29 places of our fatherland.
“That is Krestovaya!”30 the staff captain said to me, when we were traveling down into the Chertova Valley, pointing to a mountain, covered in swaddling snow. A stone cross made a black silhouette at its peak, and a road, just barely visible, led past it, along which people travel when the road flanking the hill is obstructed by snow. Our cart drivers relayed to us that there hadn’t yet been any avalanches, and, in consideration of the horses, they led us around on the flanking road. At the bend, we met about five men, Ossetians. They offered us their services, and catching hold of our wheels, with one cry, they took to dragging and supporting our carts. And to be sure, the road was dangerous: on the right, heaps of snow hung over our heads, ready, it seemed, to come away and fall into the ravine at the first gust of wind. The narrow road was partly covered in snow, which collapsed beneath your feet in some parts, and in other places had turned into ice after the effects of sun-rays and night frosts, so that it was with difficulty that we pushed our way through. The horses fell from time to time; a deep fissure gaped to our left in which a stream flowed downhill, sometimes hidden by an icy crust, sometimes jumping with foam along the black rocks. We barely managed to make our way around Krestovaya Mountain in two hours—two versts in two hours! In the meantime, the clouds had descended, pouring down hail and snow. The wind, digging itself into the ravine, bellowed and whistled like a Nightingale-Robber,31 and soon the stone cross was covered in mist, waves of which, one more dense and more packed than the next, accumulated from the east . . . Incidentally, a strange but universal legend exists about this cross. It seems it was put here by Emperor Peter the First, who traveled through the Caucasus. But first of all, Tsar Peter had only been to Dagestan, and second, an engraving on the cross in large letters says that the cross was put here under the orders of General Yermolov in 1824 exactly. But the legend, ignoring the engraving, has taken root such that really, you’re not sure whom to believe, which is only added to by the fact that we aren’t used to believing engravings anyway.
We still had to descend about five versts along the ice-covered rock-face and muddy snows to reach Kobi station. The horses were exhausted, and we were chilled to the bone. The storm droned stronger and stronger, just like our native northern storms—only this one’s wild melodies were more sad, more plaintive. “You’re an exile too,” I thought, “you cry for your wide, sweeping Steppe. There, you have room to unfurl your cold wings, but here it so stifled and cramped—you are like an eagle, who beats against the iron bars of his cage with a cry.”
“No good!” said the staff captain. “See, nothing is visible here, only mist and snow, and you have to watch or we’ll fall into an abyss or get lodged in a