"But suddenly a shudder passed through him, he staggered away from the tree and fell on his face, stretched out at full length like thistle that had been mown down, and he moved no more. He did not move, but still he felt." (667) This passage focuses our attention back to the beginning with the mention of the tattered thistle. Like the thistle, Hadji Murad is battered and broken, but still he lives until Hadji Aga delivers the finishing blow.