Memoirs of an Armenian Revolutionary, Volume 1 — Chapter 7: Erevan and Nikol Duman

Barely seven months did I stay in the province of Kars, and I can say that of its people I formed a very definite idea, in all their strata. As for the political leadership of that people, I hardly came to know it at all. With Erevan it was otherwise. I had lived for years at Etchmiadzin, and on various occasions had been many times in Erevan and its districts; but having no contact with the people of those parts, I had not been able to know them in all their strata — while on the very first day I came to know the higher leadership of Erevan.

This circumstance made glaring the difference that existed between the two provinces from the point of view of organizational form. Whereas in Kars the people were no riddle,

but their higher leadership was — an intangible essence — in Erevan, on the contrary, the people were a riddle, a thing I could not grasp, while the leadership was a tangible, visible reality. In Kars the will lay with the people, in Erevan with the leadership: which undoubtedly had its drawbacks. From the very first contact I felt it, and fell into a kind of confusion.

With two valises I stepped into the small wooden office, where a handsome, mustached man of the present day was sitting at the desk. He was rather stout, and had a very kindly look about him. When he saw me he asked at once:

— What do you want, my lamb?

But when Hamo came in behind me, his face red and his back bent under the load, he rose to his feet and called out to me reprovingly:

— Help the lad — he's a little one;^t1 he'll break his back.

— It won't break, it won't break, bidza [old fellow] — arkhein gats (don't trouble yourself), — Hamo bristled at once, offended.

— All right, all right; it was for your own sake I said it. What is it you want? Why have you come, and from where?

— We want nothing at all. We want to see Sarkis Ohanjanian.^t2 Go and call him; let him put the questions to us.

With a smile he said: — The man you are looking for is myself. Speak.

Hamo, like a man pinned against the wall, objected:

— We want to make what we have to say known to the Central Committee through Sarkis.

Sarkis, knitting his brows a little, answered Hamo:

— The Central Committee is myself as well — and its chairman, too.

Hamo had no way out left:

— You're not joking? You — chairman of the Central Committee?

At last Sarkis lost his temper:

— You young pup, is it a passport you want, or a certificate? Who

are you? That is what you are to tell me.

Understanding before whom we stood, I gathered myself together and kept a becoming silence, while Hamo, who was forever flinging himself forward, went on:

— Since you are everything, then take these four valises that have been brought to you. Vagho sent them — a hatia (gift) for you.

— Vagho? Which Vagho? Vagho of Badual? — Sarkis said, half to himself; and suddenly guessing what the valises held, he pulled a sour face.

— Now is that a thing to be bringing here in broad daylight? And what if some mischance had come of it?… What carriage did you come in? Did anyone see you bringing them?…

I kept silent, but hot-blooded Hamo answered:

— You won't take them — very well, I'll carry them back; I can be master of these valises myself. We came by rail; of course people saw us. We hired a driver, who was a Turk, and for a traveling companion we had a Russian officer.

— Vah! Is the boy mad?

I saw that the matter was growing complicated, and turned to Hamo:

— You have finished your business and you have an appointment to keep; go now about your own affairs and leave us here alone.

Hamo went.

I explained the substance of the thing to Sarkis at length — Hamo's resourcefulness too — pointing out that no danger threatened us from the Russian officer or from the Tatar driver. When he had learned how it had gone, his face brightened:

— Well, you should have said so from the start, man alive; then we'd not have had to lecture that raw lad. If that is how it is, sit here in my place, and I'll go and tell the lads of the Boriaz(*)^t3 to come and get these cleared away.

() Boriaz* was the name given to that fierce wind which rose over Erevan almost every afternoon and covered the whole city with dust. With that apt name a number of over-zealous and eager young men (most of them schoolboys) had christened their own group. Later, during the Armeno-Tatar clashes, it played a great part.

He went, and I fell to wondering why this misunderstanding had come about, and who was to blame for it.

I could not find Hamo guilty. After all, I too, like him, was of the "new generation." And to me as well the attitude the "Old" ones showed us was insufferable — the guardian's part they had taken upon themselves toward us. Like so many hayrigs [little fathers], they even worried that "you may break your back if you lift a heavy valise." These elders of ours did not understand that independence, initiative, daring were dearer to us than their fatherly love — even at the price of breaking our backs. In spirit I was with Hamo.

On the other hand, I wondered what Sarkis had done, that Hamo should christen him with the name of bidza. He was an old worker, a man of sacrifice, who but yesterday had been fighting on the plain of Khanasor, and who now was the leader of a whole province, chairman of the Central Committee, and felt himself answerable for the safety of us all. If he did not come at things as we did — we madcaps and hare-brains — that came of the love and the care he bore us all. Was it not ingratitude to feel no reverence for him? I felt myself in the wrong.

These reflections of mine were broken off when two young fellows burst in, asked cheerfully whether these were Vagho's valises, and, without waiting for an answer, took them up and vanished. Of the Boriaz they must be, these chaqu-keshan^t4 (the breakers of every tie, the unbridled ones), who, against the will of the Central Committee, had organized a band of their own, and whose need was always felt in tight days and for daring work of this kind. They too, like Hamo and me,

loved to go unbridled, and would endure neither khamut (the horse's collar) nor palan [pack-saddle].

An hour passed; Sarkis came back. He looked round on all sides and exclaimed:

— Have they taken them? I forgot to ask — have you no letters, then? What was in the valises? And I never asked you: are you fed, or hungry?

I took out the letters and gave them to him. He read; and when he came to the letter signed "Anton,"^t5 his face took on a childlike, happy look, and turning to me he said in a caressing voice:

— So our Simon has taken a liking to you?

— Which Simon? — I asked. — I have brought no letter from any Simon.

— Here is the letter. Have you really never seen him?

Only then did I understand that Anton had been Simon all along. I, disappointed in him, had set him down for a mere "schoolmaster"; and he had written that I "might be of use for making a draft-ox out of a wild bullock."

Sarkis looked the older man of the two, yet he read Simon's letter as though it had come from durraken[?],^t6 from his adored hayrig, lost to him these many years.

All these little things, at a time when I was a yellow-beak and of the new generation, so imprinted themselves upon me that I have not forgotten them to this day. Looking at Sarkis's boundlessly kind face, I concluded that he had such tenderness in him that he took himself for the hayrig of us all, and such love that he would not spare even his own life for us. And at the same time he was so patriarchal that he too went looking for a hayrig of his own, and believed he had found one in the person of Simon. (A little later I saw that before Nikol Duman as well he became a meek and biddable child, worshipping him and moving at his glance.) I formed the conviction, too, that Sarkis was truly a good bidza — kind, disinterested, self-sacrificing. But could he be counted a revolutionary? Could he be chairman of the Central Committee, as he said he was? My answer was no.

My own resolve was very sharp: to free myself from every fatherly guardianship and to walk by my own strength. In Sarkis, on the contrary, tenderness toward the young was so strong that he wished to carry their sorrows himself — which, however, he had no power to do. From this was born that endless conflict between fathers and sons which goes on to this day.

Sarkis, after thinking a little, turned to me and said:

— This evening you will come to our meeting, and you will have your answer. You seem a stranger to the city; I'll commend you to Ado.^t7 He is a good head — let him take you in hand; he is to be at the meeting in any case, and you can come together. And see what has become of that madcap, that raw lad. (He meant Hamo.)

Ado was a man of middle height, close to forty, with the look of a schoolmaster. In his face there was an effort to appear venerable; his gaze was directed toward the distances. I was seeing him for the first time (and it was to be the last), but the impression I took from him I kept for long years. What he did for a living I do not know, and I leave it to those who know to tell it; but to all appearances he was a member of the leading body, and had the thankless duty of taking upon himself the prosecution of the youth and the work of leading them. Ado, as it seemed, performed his part conscientiously. Once he had got hold of me, after a short conversation he noticed at once that my ideas on social questions were wavering and vague, and he laid siege to me with all his powers. He spoke of our social doctrine, set it beside the materialist theories of Marx, brought out the names of Nechayev,^t8 of Bakunin, of the men of the French Revolution, and adduced testimonies from history. And all this in such a manner that Galust Aloyan, coming upon our conversation, stood open-mouthed, and with his astonishment seemed to be saying: "You see? We have heads like this among us too." But Aloyan did not hold out long under that downpour of names; and having told

a couple of anecdotes about his wine-works at Tabriz (of which he was one of the founders), he left me to Ado's care and went off, charging us to take supper that evening at his house.

Ado went on with his work of instruction, but I was listening no longer. My mind flew away to the Seminary of Etchmiadzin, where I had been a pupil for long years. A whole company of learned doctors and professors — clerical-minded, it is true, but very thoroughly trained — Kostanian, Karamian, Kanayan, Mandinian, Manandian, Abeghian, Acharian, the two Dikranians, the vardapets Karapet and Garegin, the poet Hovh. Hovhannisian, the grabar scholar Set Harutiunian, and others: which of them should I name?^t9 — all rose up before me. In their learning they left Ado in the shade; he could be compared only with Gevorg Ghazarian, our prefect. I thought how all these men, so rich in learning, had wished to turn the boys of our class into conservative vardapets, teachers, inspectors like themselves — and how, of our thirty-four pupils, not one turned out so. Against all their wishing, every one of them became a revolutionary and a Dashnaktsakan. Without entering into explanations, I drew from that fact the conclusion that our teachers' failure lay neither in any clumsiness of theirs nor in any incapacity of the pupils, but in that boyish turn of mind which denies whatever the parents or the teachers hold. Youth wants to find its road for itself. I listened to Ado's words and thought that if he had been my teacher, he would surely, with these stubborn insistences of his, have driven me to give up all my revolutionary notions and turn cleric. When this thought crossed my mind, I cut Ado's talk short and asked:

— Have they never invited you to be a teacher at the Gevorgian Seminary?

He was taken aback for a moment, and answered:

— Why should those clerical-minded men invite the likes of me?

Within myself I said: "In order that the revolutionary spirit might vanish from the Seminary once and for all, and counter-revolution reign there — which is their aim." And I fancy I was not mistaken; for into what he unfolded Ado did not put the faith and the conviction that Sergei did. It did not appear that what Ado unfolded sprang from his own convictions: they were other men's thoughts that he was selling me. And the goods he wished to sell did not seem to me a very valuable article. So I came to no very good conclusion about him. I doubted whether Ado, presented as the leader of the youth, could gather men about him and carry them behind him. Me, at all events, he drove away — from himself and from his sermons.

I asked Ado to make me acquainted with the Boriaz.^t10

— They are a little too much of the chaqu-keshan [knife-wielder] sort, — he said, — but they are needed. You will meet them in good time.

But the occasion for it never came.

*

It is evening. I have lost all trace of Hamo. He has gone off to supper with his officer, no doubt, to the officers' club or to some hotel. I go to the Galust house, where a great many people are gathered. They are the notables of the province, members of the Central Committee and of the other bodies.

In Kars I had often come upon gatherings — under the pretext of a dinner, of a betrothal, or what not — but there the tables were loaded with food for form's sake only: not of any great quality, nor plentiful in quantity, but barely enough to fill men's bellies halfway. Here abundance reigned, and the food was heaped on the table not for form's sake but to honor men and to entertain them as they ought to be. Delicacies and drinks of every kind, whose very names I do not know. I cannot, however, forget the sponge-like kufta of Erevan, which you can find nowhere else. At the head of the table sat the good Sarkis, who had taken me beside him,

had assumed in fatherly fashion the direction of my share in the meal, and now and then would tenderly stroke my head, as a father does who is sending his son off into foreign parts. Often he whispered with a stern-faced man of his own age who sat beside him; and this man, casting a glance at me, demanded the letters of Sarkis, who drew them from his breast and gave them to him. He read them attentively and gave them back. He thought a moment, and, turning to me, said: "Tomorrow you will come to me early." I did not know who it was that had given me this command, but I did not even ask; I answered: "Very well."

There is an uproar about the table; everyone is talking, eating, drinking. The jests that are made are sometimes sharp, sometimes rather poor ones. I look toward the door, and in fancy I search there for Hagop Zilinkarian,^t11 who in Kars used to sit before the door with two girls, collecting money. They are not here; nor is Hamo, who used to come in and empty into the basket whatever money he had. Here men seemed to have come to eat and to be merry; they drank one another's health. And yet every one of them looked with awe and with fear at that dry, stern-faced man seated at the head of the table, with whom they neither joked nor exchanged a word. He was silent; it seemed he did not care to eat, either. Only now and then he carried his wineglass to his lips, and he was sunk deep in his own thoughts. He seemed to be absent from that place. That man was Nikol (Duman),^t12 who to me was a legend and a riddle. Attentively, from under my eyes, I watched him.

Two sunken eyes flashed out of two black hollows so in the dark that when he fixed his pupils upon you, you felt them pierce into your inward parts, and you gave way before them. Nikol's face was covered with a trimmed black beard, short mustaches, and thick brows. The wavy black hair of his head was in harmony with his features and gave him the look of a mysterious forest. When the weather was calm, Nikol had the air of a deep and brooding

sage, whom it was not permitted to disturb. When the weather was stormy, Nikol had the look of a bearer of lightning, and there was no coming near him. When the weather was bright, his face was smiling; but that smile was a favor merely, and you did not dare accept it and be caressed by it. Nikol was tall and thin, like a switch. When I saw him he was already bent — the effect of the rheumatism from which he suffered.

The gathering was in his honor, but he was indifferent to it. When they sang, of the songs dedicated to him, the Song of Derik, his face would brighten; when they sang Boghaz Keasan [the Throat-Cutter], he would darken; and when they struck up the Song of Khanasor, he would turn bitter.^t13 So the night went by, moving some, gladdening others. Nikol, however, was silent, and by that silence of his he ruled them all. I was stirred, and impatient to know why this mysterious man had wanted to see me the next day.

*

Early in the morning I go to Nikol. He is at the Torosents house (Galust Aloyan's). I am waiting in the reception room when Nikol comes in, a glass of tea in his hand.

— So, then: you want to go to Van. Not bad. Do you know Torgom, Sergei? You are of their sort; not bad — they are good lads. In short: do you want me to send you to Van with Tokhmakh, or do you want me to take you with me?^t14

I felt that his decision hung upon my answer.

— Tokhmakh I do not know; but I have spoken with Yerkat, and it does not sit with my mind. He wants to get me as far as Akhlat, and my road turns aside from that.

— If that is so, I will take you with me, — said Nikol. And I, without knowing where he would be taking me, felt happy at the command. He, it appears, noticed this, and answered in my stead: "So you agree? The matter is closed. Today until evening you are free; in the evening you will

come here and sleep, and in the morning we set out. There will be no one to see us off, and the hour and the day of our going will not be known. Go about your business."

*

How am I to see the day out? Nikol's last word was "Go about your business" — but I have no business to go about. If I go to my old acquaintances, what am I to say to them, seeing that I cannot share with them my gladness at tomorrow's parting, which may be a final one? I put that thought away. An inner voice urged me to go and find Hamo, and not to leave him without a farewell. Was he not my comrade of Kars? Was it not he who brought me through, and got me here without mishap? Did he not long to go with me even to death, and believe that I would never be parted from him? I wanted to see him, to tell him everything, to open my heart, to explain to him why I was going without him — but before my eyes rose Nikol, with his black sunken eyes, who had declared that no one was to see us off, and no one was to know when or where we went. With this thought I wandered the streets. It makes no difference: even if I wanted to, I would not be able to find Hamo — so I comforted myself.

It was the second day that I was in Erevan, and already I had seen a great deal, and what I saw did not resemble what I had seen in Kars. Here there was no "queen bee." The Central Committee was out in the open, and I fell into the midst of it at once. Its members took the place of the traveling workers of Kars, and were themselves men working at first hand. They seemed of a better quality: one was proud of his heroism and loved to speak of Khanasor; another, an old worker, was the founder of a workshop; a third was an intellectual and a theorist; and among their number were the venerable Melik-Musian, Sahak, and others, who to be sure had more service behind them than the men I saw — but with these I never spoke at all. Here everything was the contrary of what I had seen and learned, and that threw me into confusion. Here there was not even the torment

of finding my road. I saw Nikol; and without any long talk, in five minutes he disposed of my fate. There is nothing left for me to decide. It is not I who am to think how I will go, where I will go, with whom I will go, and what will come of it all in the end… Nikol the wind, and I a speck of dust; or he the road, and I riding its back:^t15 wherever they send me, there I go with them.

Thinking so, I was strolling about at loose ends when suddenly someone struck me on the back. I turned round: it was Hamo.

— Where have you got lost, boy? It is well we met, or I should have been driven to go to that "bidza" and hunt for you.

— Hamo jan, do not call Mr. Sarkis bidza. He is a very, very good man, a dardiman [a man weighed down with cares]. You wounded him, and yet he thinks about you.

— Very well, let that papa be yours; you never had a papa anyway, you were left an etum (orphan). I have a papa who is a millstone about my neck; let him be a millstone for you too, — said Hamo, laughing. — You tell me: what did you see, what did you do?

I mixed the false with the true and served it up to Hamo:

— After you went, Mr. Sarkis sat me down in his own place and went off to find the madmen of the Boriaz. Two gizhes — madmen — came and carried off the valises. Mr. Sarkis came back, and after him came Ado and Galust, and we talked long and long. Then they took me off to somebody's house — I don't know whose — and I slept there; and now I was wandering the streets looking for you. Other news I have none.

To this day the thought torments me: why did I deceive Hamo, who had a boundless faith and trust in me? He took my lie for truth — as was plain from the childlike expression

of his face as he listened to what I told him. I in my turn asked how he had spent his day.

— I found Khosrov of Davali, who is in the Boriaz. Thinking that that bidza — your pardon, Mr. Sarkis — could not settle the business of the valises as it should be settled, I began to lay the matter out for him; but I had not finished when they came and said that Mr. Sarkis was calling Khosrov. I understood at once that it was to get the valises hidden away, and I was easy. Chattering with his comrades, we fell into the streets, and near Saburi (the Russian cathedral) I saw you with Ado. We did not come up to you, because the lads at my back^t16 said: "Let us run, or Ado will catch us and start ironing our heads." We went into a drinking-house, warmed our heads, and made merry enough. The lads were talking of our elders, and saying that with their years their wits too had given out. "We are sick of the schools' mangana^t17 (the press), and we show the schoolmasters the pistol and demand with a row that they set us a five-and-cross (the highest mark) without asking us the lesson, and give us the certificate, so that we may be free of it at last — and this Ado of yours catches everybody in the streets and gives them lessons… they understand nothing."

I did not gainsay him. I saw that he was acquainted with the Boriaz, and so I asked:

— Beriaz, boriaz — so they call it. What is it?

He laughed, and answered:

— Do you not know? Shall I make you acquainted with it? In the Boriaz they are all lads of our own age — some still at school, some who have finished, some who left it halfway, some who took their certificate without any school at all; but every one of them has taken blood into his eye, and they do not know what dying is. The boriaz is this: that it has hung the davul (the drum) on the Central Committee's neck, but the chombakhs (the little sticks for beating the drum) it does not give it — it keeps them in its own hand and beats whatever it pleases. There are no fools among them, as we are,

to dance attendance on Hagop Zilinkarian or the Central Committee.

— Hamo, so they are kashiroghuk[?], then?^t18

— The fault is not theirs, the fault is the Central Committee's, which wants to be a zurnachi without a zurna, and wants to be a davulji without a chombakh.

Hamo stopped a moment, and whispered:

— I am going to tell you a secret; you must tell no man. The lads said that Nikol Duman has come to Erevan. They both fear Duman and worship him; they want him to take them into his own hand. Can you meet with him, and settle our road as well?

I looked at him doubtfully, but Hamo in his innocence set about convincing me:

— Believe it: it is certain that he is here. Last night there was a fine kef over his coming.

The thing was taking such a turn that it threatened to lay my lies open, and so I made a show of not understanding, and, changing the subject, asked:

— Where do we go to eat fifi?^t19

— We will eat the fifi, and swill the wine down on top of it.

Hamo noticed that, against my habit, I was drinking rather much, and that I was looking at him a great deal, sad and silent. There was a struggle within me: I was to part from this comrade without a farewell — but the fault was Nikol's.

— You look at me as though I were a girl. What is turning over inside you?

— Nothing, — I said. — I am to part from you. I have comrades, old acquaintances from Etchmiadzin, and I am to be with them. In the morning I will be at the station; you be there too, and we will go back to Kars together.

— Good, enough. Will you buy the tickets, or shall I? Better that I buy them; I will buy the second one out of my own pocket — only let Hagop not know of it. So I will wait for you; do not buy a ticket.

I left Hamo without looking at him one last time, went out into the street, and came near to sobbing from the pain within me. I do not know whether we should ever meet again, or whether this had been our last meal together.

*

Before the dawn had broken, the carriage was standing at the door. They are tying the valises on behind. Two of those valises were known to me: we had brought them from Gyumri. I remembered Hamo with longing. Nikol's two intimates, Galust and Sarkis, have come to see him off. When he had climbed into the carriage, and I saw Sarkis's mournful gaze turned toward Nikol, I was envious. Why has Hamo not come?… I was thinking. I remembered our parting. He is waiting for me now at the station… Why did I do it? So carried away was I by these thoughts that, in my utter bewilderment, I forgot to say good-bye.

— Here, ker-oghlu [cousin], come and let me kiss you, — the good Sarkis called out, and drawing me by the arm, he kissed me. I kissed him too — but through him I was kissing Hamo.

The carriage moved off; and when we had gone a little way, the sharp-eyed Nikol asked the cause of my distraction. I told him the truth, saying that on his account I had deceived my close comrade Hamo, and that he was now at the station with the tickets in his hand, waiting for me. Nikol laughed; and I saw with astonishment that he too knew how to laugh.

— That Hamo of yours is cursing you now, and calling you a traitor. Let it be upon my head — only let our road be ughurov (successful, fortunate).

The horses are running toward the east. The plain of Ararat is magnificent; the farther we go, the narrower it grows, while Ararat changes its face and draws nearer to us. We say "the plain of Ararat," and count ourselves its children. Yet the Armenians are but a little island in it: the road we travel, to the right and to the left alike, is Tatar and nothing else. With these thoughts I remember Sergei,

and think of what manner of man this famous Nikol Duman may be, seated at my side. I do not dare to disturb him. At last Duman, wearied of the silence, it seems, opened the talk, and began to question me: who I was, where I had had my schooling, what aims I had. I told him at length and with fervor. Nikol listened attentively, and now and then encouraged my story with a question of his own.

— You are a young lad. Have you no betrothed? — he asked, and began to watch me from under his eyes. It seemed to me that he was searching for some fault in me, and so, a little wounded, I objected:

— I have nothing of the sort. Did I not tell you that with my comrades I have taken a vow to die?

— Good; but why die?

And I began to make citations out of books, out of philosophy, out of natural science, out of theology, and to expound at great length the essence of death. I must have said things from so high and from so low that I carried away Duman's head altogether.

At last he brought me up short and said:

— You have talked much, but you have explained nothing. Understand this: whatever it is that we do not know, we give it the name of death. You, who keep bringing out Buckle,^t20 Schopenhauer, Kant, and the rest of the names — now tell me what learning is, and what reading is.

I began once more to expound theories, and warmly to defend learning and reading. Nikol objected mockingly:

— If you wish not to be independent, and to forget your own self, then read many books. But if you wish not to be a cask, and to be an independent man who stands on his own, then labor to understand the questions within yourself, and only afterward read books — that you may be able to digest them.

I fell silent. I was wounded; I even felt hatred toward this strange man, who, after making me talk for whole hours together, wished with two little sentences to shatter all my thoughts. Other long conversations

I had with Nikol besides, about life and about our national struggle, and of the thoughts he uttered I remember these:

"The world is a dmak,^t21 and men and nations are the knife. You rail at the Kurd and the Turk to no purpose, for they, being the knife, look on us as the fat, and they carve, and they eat. We who fight — our aim is that the Armenian too should carve the fat that has fallen into his hand, and himself live like a man. And if that cannot be, then the Armenian must be eaten, and let the word of him perish."^t22

To my objection — but where then is justice, and what of the capacity of our people? — he answered:

"Justice is the peculiar property of the weak and of the tiratsus; but in life justice is the point of the dagger. Whoever conquers, he is the just man. Thus, for example: whatever we may do on our road, we will be just if in the end we reach our aim; and if we do not reach it, then whatever we may have done — though we had been wound in the shroud like Christ^t23 — we will be worthy of hell and of cursing all the same. As for the capacity of the people, of which they all make their speeches, I do not believe in it. He is capable who knows not only how to strive, but how to reach his aim."

These thoughts I did not fully grasp, though in some measure I understood them. I could not have divined then that fifteen years afterward the words "the world is a dmak, and men are the knife" would sound in me without ceasing.

Our carriage had passed the Wolf's Gate, had passed Sharur (Շարուր), and, cutting across the Tatar districts, had entered an Armenian island — the village of Khanlukhlar.^t24 After Davalu [Ararat] it was the first Armenian village on our road, some eighty kilometers distant from it. A man's spirits change when he comes into the nest of his own kind. The people of Khanlukhlar seemed to have grown used to their solitude, and felt themselves free and easy, as though in their own house.

Two men came out to meet us, one of whom I had come upon at Erevan the night before last. That was Sahak,

who had come here ahead of us to make the preparations for taking us and our goods across the frontier. His companion was a man of the place: tall, with a black cherkeska on his slender, well-made body, a belt drawn about his waist, and a Russian cap on his head. When he caught sight of Nikol Duman, he began to bob and bow about him; he did not know what to do with himself; he wanted to fling his arms about Nikol, to kiss his hand, his shoulder, or his face — but, frightened by that cold face of his, he did not so much as dare to shake his hand, and — I do not know why — he seized me and kissed me. "I am a sacrifice at your feet," he whispered. I understood that this man "for the love of the omelet licks the tail of the pan."

Sahak was talking with Nikol. Giving him some papers, Sahak climbed up into our carriage and set off with our valises, while we went up into the tall man's dwelling. (I have forgotten this man's name. He was the first man of Khanlukhlar — its renown, and the master of the Dashnaktsutiun there. One of his eyes was blind.) In the house they had made ready to receive us — rather, to receive Nikol; while I had merely "fallen into his waters."^t25 Comfortable mindars [cushioned mats] were spread, the oghi and the other drinks were set in a tray in the window, and various other davdavats[?]^t26 were waiting for us. We had hardly sat down when these were brought forward; but Nikol broke in:

— No. First let us shake this dust off ourselves and wash; afterward.

That operation was performed by means of great lakans [basins] and ibreghs [ewers].

— You are tired; take a glass of something, each of you, — said the master of the house, not daring to say more.

— No. Let us eat and sleep; the belly is not filled with these drinks.

Nikol was speaking out of my own heart. Though I had been sitting in a carriage, and it was the horses that had been running and dragging us along for more than ten hours together, still I was broken and weary. I was not hungry, the more so as I had eaten gatas and hens' eggs along the road; but

the smell of the many kinds of dishes was so provoking that I ate with appetite. Nikol took up a morsel of one thing and another, tasted them, and drew back, saying "Ey, bas" [that will do].

The host, astonished and a little aggrieved, changed the drinks glass after glass, that Nikol might drink; but the glasses stayed full. The poor man wanted to draw the meal out — whether to display his hospitality, or to hear a kind word, a piece of news, an order, I do not know. Seated at my side, he asked me softly:

— And where are you bound, with God's blessing? What is there in the world, and what is not?

I knew nothing that I might answer; and had I known, it was not for me to speak. But Nikol had turned into an angry bull, whom the poor host was afraid to go near. What I said was an empty thing, sentences culled out of dictionaries:

— Keep your kef well rooted;^t27 all is well. The gentleman goes on the business of the raisin trade, I believe, and he has taken me on as his prikazchik (agent).

Of course he was not one to swallow it; it was well that I sat on the side of his blind eye, and did not notice his vexation. For years he had dreamed of seeing Nikol Duman in his house — Nikol, whom he knew from the Armenian, Turkish, and Kurdish songs and from other men's tales; and today, when that dream had come true and Nikol was his guest at last, the man had turned into a piece of rock and grudged him a smile, a word, even so much as a curse. I too found it strange; but what could I do? I showed a warm and smiling face, the more so as the household were watching our every movement attentively from their corners, to keep them forever in their memories.

The host in his despair made one last attempt:

— Baron Nikol, our lads want to see you, to hear a word from you. Will you give the order — for one minute?

— No. After my return, if there is need. Now I am tired, and I will sleep.

That attempt too had failed; the one-eyed man was beaten for good. We are asleep already in soft beds.

*

In the morning, before the sun is up, we are in a new carriage, and the horses are running. I remember my karmagh theories,^t28 and my admiration for the Armenians of the marches of Armenia. Sergei's words wake in me — Sergei, who said that he knew his own country better than I did: two out of every three are of no use to the Armenians; the rest are strong, they are necessary, but they are the walnut's shell, indigestible. I put the question to myself: "This Karabaghtsi at my side, whose fame I have heard — who is he? Of which sort of Karabaghtsis is he? That he is strong, all that is told of him confirms; that he is shrewd, appears from his words; that he is indigestible as the walnut's shell — that too he showed at Khanlukhlar, by his indigestible bearing." I was in the midst of these thoughts when Nikol roused me:

— We have taken our rest; a little later we reach Shakhtakht^t29 and cross the frontier. Take this passport and learn your name. You are to be my geada (servant) — do you understand? You know neither Russian nor Turkish; you come along behind me, with my things on your back. Not one word: you leave it all to me — do you understand? When we draw near, you will not sit at my side, but opposite me.

— Very well, — I said; and I learned my name off the false passport — a name I have now forgotten.

The carriage stopped before the government offices of Shakhtakht. I jumped down and took the baggage on my back. Nikol, gravely and without haste, as the great khans do, looked about him, and with his finger summoned one of the officials. The official came up. Nikol slowly drew the passports from his breast, and from his pocket a five-ruble piece, and, without so much as changing color, said to the official:

— I understand nothing of formalities; I want to cross the frontier at once. Tell me what I need to do. — Then, turning to me, he called out in Armenian: — Here, geada, give me your papers too.

I gave him my papers, and he handed them to the official.

— Why not? — said the man; and pocketing the five-ruble piece, he went into the office. In ten minutes the passports came back, stamped.

Now everything was in order, and we could make for the frontier bridge that stretched across the Arax. Nikol, without hurrying, cast a glance behind him, and I did the same. A cap was waving in the air: that cap was Sahak's, who had come to the frontier to forestall any mischance and to make our crossing easy. Nikol looked that way with indifference and made no sign; and I bore myself as he did. We went forward to the bridge, and when we had reached the middle of it, he smiled and said:

— Lad, your office as geada is at an end.

We came up to the Persian officials, with whom he dealt as though with the people of his own household.

— Ara, where am I to go to pay the torvad baspi (the tax for treading the soil)?^t30

He called out in such a fashion that you would have thought they were his own servants. They showed him the place, and a whole crowd went along with us. Nikol paid such a torvad basti as very few men pay, and put a coin besides into the hand of each of those who had come with us. Everything was in order. We were on the soil of the Shah-in-Shah, and the guests of the tanuter of Araksu.^t31 Nikol Duman might have been coming home to his own country — might have fallen in among his own estates.