“Jamal Eddin remained a mystery to me. He never confided in me. All I knew of him was what my brother Dmitri had told me. I don’t think he even revealed his feelings to Buxhöwden, his best friend, of whom I was jealous.

“He was fiercely sensitive, and dignified, in a haughty way that sometimes made him aggressive—and dangerous to anyone who insulted him or was suspected of doing so. But he knew how to laugh and have a good time, too. He had an instinctive curiosity about everything around him and was always game for pranks and mischief. A great teaser, and an excellent comrade. In other circumstances, I believe he really would have been full of joie de vivre. He liked to clown around, especially on horseback, when he became downright impish and droll.

“But his own lightheartedness seemed to shock and displease him, and he tried to contain it. When he found he was enjoying something too much, as was often the case, when he was learning how to draw, for example, or how to dance—he was the best dancer, the most agile of all of us—sooner or later he would become annoyed with himself and tone it down. He stifled his own impulses and, in the end, he always tried to break himself.

“As for his arm, though he had scars all over both of his arms, this wound that the Czar knew about had attracted our curiosity. As usual, he was very discreet about it, and we had to worm it out of him. He told us, with great reserve and difficulty, that a Cossack of the Don had wounded him with a lance when his family was escaping from Akulgo. His family had managed to get away when he, Jamal Eddin, had fallen from his horse. That was when he had been captured and made a prisoner.

“I think he doctored the truth a little and mixed up several incidents, because he couldn’t admit that his own people had given him up. He still couldn’t bear the idea.

“But I did not understand that until later, in our room, when Youssouf, humiliated by the Emperor’s remarks and probably envious, started shouting that, if Jamal Eddin was in Russia, it wasn’t because he had been captured when he was running away, but because he had been betrayed and given away by his father.

“The fight that followed cost them both dearly.

“As luck would have it, after the Czar left, our company had been assigned a new captain—Captain Argamakov, also known as The Beast—who loved the sight of blood. The usual punishment for insubordination was twenty-five lashes with the cane. But twenty-five lashes from Argamakov were like the knout used in public beatings of true delinquents. In this case, the punishment was forty lashes for each of the two Muslims.

“The problem with Argamakov’s thrashings wasn’t so much the pain as the splinters they left all over you. He chose birch sticks covered with short, dry shoots three or four centimeters in length, and these cut deeply into the flesh during the flogging. If we did not remove the splinters immediately, they would get infected, and then we could do nothing—they would only emerge on their own, with the pus. But by that time, they could have made a person very sick. The doctor had advised the proctors to make Argamakov’s switches more flexible by soaking them in water. So they did the easiest thing and left them on the floor in the toilets. As a result, the infections caused by the filthy canes were even more serious. The only way to limit the damage was to bribe the guard to let us into the shed where The Beast kept his damned switches. Then, with utensils stolen from the refectory, we could cut off all the shoots to make what Jamal Eddin called ‘velvet canes.’ He could make a hatchet out of a spoon and knew better than anyone how to sharpen knives. Before exams, we got very busy with this task, because we knew our bad grades would inevitably lead to more beatings. Jamal Eddin called these secret sessions of honing the canes ‘cramming.’ Unfortunately for him and for Youssouf, we didn’t have a chance to hone or prepare anything, since their punishment was carried out on the spot.

“This was unusual. Monday was caning day for the youngest cadets, Saturday for the oldest. The administration had not chosen these days by chance. The wounds of those who had been caned on Monday had a whole week to heal before they went home on Sunday. Saturday’s canings meant being restricted on Sunday, so those cadets would have time to rest before the beginning of the week. The director’s goal was obviously to send the cadets back to their illustrious families in acceptable condition. However, this thinking did not apply to the Cherkesses. If they ever left the Corps at all, it was only on the rare occasions when they were invited to the barracks of the Montagnards of His Majesty’s Personal Guard. Usually, the Montagnards came to the school to pay obligatory visits. The Grand Duke Mikhaïl Pavlovitch had instituted a weekly visit from the Muslim officers, so that the children would not forget their native dialects.

“So Jamal Eddin took off his cherkeska and was the first to lie down flat on the bench, his torso bare. Argamakov had picked three older students known for their strength to beat him.

“‘Go for it, but not just on the back and the buttocks, hit him between the legs too. As hard as possible—with the end of the canes—there, between the thighs!’

“The canes whistled through the air, delivering their splinters to the most sensitive places. His pants were soon soaked with blood. When the older boys didn’t strike him with enough energy, or when Jamal Eddin closed his legs too tightly for the switches to reach his bottom, Argamakov bellowed, ‘On his privates! Harder! Come on! Anybody else object? Silence, or else you’ll all get it. Go on, hit him on his privates!’

“Jamal Eddin did not cry out. He did not make a sound, and he did not even flinch as the blows rained down on him. I suppose he’d seen worse in the Caucasus. The Beast’s switches probably seemed like small stuff compared to the imam’s whip. This ultimate act of bravado, his silence, cost him two more points on his grade for discipline. He didn’t care though—he’d already endured the worst at that point.

“Youssouf, though, couldn’t stand the shock. Like so many before him, he howled with pain until he passed out. Argamakov’s canes made him so sick that they had to send him to the infirmary. There he caught cold. The climate of Saint Petersburg didn’t agree with the Cherkesses. A lot of them caught pneumonia, some of them consumption. That was probably what happened to Youssouf. They told us he had been sent home, and that he died shortly thereafter.

“Jamal Eddin was more somber than I had ever seen him. I guess he blamed himself for having brought misfortune to a Muslim, a boy who was one of his own people, even though Youssouf had been the incarnation of the traitor, because he belonged to the clan of the pacified who opposed the imam Shamil.

“And speaking of treason, I may be wrong, but I think he was obsessed by the idea, the fear of his own betrayal, of being a traitor. Fear of forgetting all that his father had taught him, fear of forgetting the past and the laws of his religion. This confused feeling of guilt, far from fading with time, grew greater the more and the better he adapted to the world around him.

“After Youssouf left, a certain incident bothered him for a long time. He was asked to turn in his cherkeska—the costume he had worn for over a year—and to wear the cadets’ jacket again. He asked for an explanation and resisted as best he could, but to no avail. The worst, for him, was that the uniform suited him perfectly. He really looked like a Russian, and we told him so without irony. In his green tunic and cap, with silver buttons, a red officer’s collar and shoulder straps, he was magnificent. And I was thrilled! Now there were two of us in the dorm, two cadets among the Circassians. He didn’t understand the reason for this change, though, and it annoyed him and made him touchy.

“I finally discovered why he was asked to give up his cherkeska when I was researching this article. I came across a note, preserved in our archives, from the director of the Alexandrovsky Corps to our director. It is dated August 22, 1842, and it goes without saying that Jamal Eddin was never aware of this correspondence concerning him. The reader will no doubt understand:

“‘During my last visit to Your Excellency’s establishment, on August 17th, the day of the distribution of gifts, I noted, as I passed through the halls, that former Alexandrovsky Corps student Jamal Eddin Shamil was wearing the costume of the Cherkess Montagnards. I should inform you that I made inquiries to the hierarchy regarding what dress the Dagestani rebel’s son should wear at my school. I was made aware of a precise order from His Majesty on the matter, an order from January 1, 1840, indicating that the boy should wear the uniform of the cadets. This order was respected at my establishment, but it is not being followed at yours. I am therefore warning you of this serious breach of orders so that you may remedy it and dress the rebel’s son according to His Majesty’s will.’

“Even though Jamal Eddin had been dressed like a Montagnard when the Czar had come to visit—and the Czar had made no comment about his dress at that time—our director was quick to obey the monarch, who punished any and all with the same adage: ‘I cannot permit an individual, whoever he is, to dare to oppose my wishes once he is aware of them.’

“As for our studies, what is there to say? Jamal Eddin always managed to pass from one class to the next and never had any difficulties with his studies, as far as I know. His grades were average, except in gymnastics and all the martial arts, in which, of course, he excelled. They were terrible in discipline, and quite good in mathematics. I remember he was fascinated by physics, especially anything that had to do with electrical phenomena. Like all the Cherkesses in the dormitory, he was instructed in the Muslim faith and in the drawing of General Staff maps. I wondered why maps and plans were so important for the people in my dorm. I understood only much later, when I realized that one of the purposes of educating the Montagnards was to turn them into informers who would be capable of giving us precise information as to the disposition of rebel strongholds.