III

A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT

Dzhugba is an aggregation of cottages and villas round about the estuary of a little river flowing down from the Caucasus to the Black Sea. On the north a long cliff road leads to Novorossisk a hundred miles, and southward the same road goes on to Tuapse, some fifty miles from Maikop and the English oil-fields.

I arrived at the little town too late to be sure of finding lodging. The coffee-house was a wild den of Turks, and I would not enter it; most private people were in bed. I walked along the dark main street and wondered in what unusual and unexpected manner I should spend the night. When one has no purpose, there is always some real providence waiting for the tramp.

The quest of a night's lodging is nearly always the origin of mysterious meetings. It nearly always means the meeting of utter strangers, and the recognition of the fact that, no matter how exteriorly men are unlike one another, they are all truly brothers, and have hearts that beat in unison. Thus did it happen that I met my strange host of Dzhugba.

A hatless but very hairy Russian met me at a turning of the road, and eyeing me with lacklustre eyes asked me gruffly as a rude shopman might, "What do you want?"

"A lodging for the night."

The peasant reflected, as if mentally considering the resources of the little town. At last after a puzzling silence he put one fat hand on my shoulder, and staring into my face, pronounced his verdict—

"The houses are all shut up and the people gone to bed. There is no place; even the coffee-house is full. But never mind, you can spend the night in a shed over here. I shall find you a place. No, don't thank me; it comes from the heart, from the soul."

He led me along to a lumber-room by the side of the plank pier. It contained two dozen barrels of "Portlandsky" cement. The floor was all grey-white and I looked around somewhat dubiously, seeing that cement is rather dirty stuff to sleep upon. But, nothing abashed, my new friend waved his hand as if showing me into a regal apartment.

"Be at your ease!" said he. "Take whatever place you like, make yourself comfortable. No, no thanks; it is all from God, it is what God gives to the stranger."

He thereupon ran out on to the sand, for the shed was on the seashore, and he beckoned me to follow. To my astonishment, we found out there an old rickety bedstead with a much rent and rusted spring mattress—apparently left for me providentially. It was so old and useless that it could not be considered property, even in Russia. It belonged to no one. Its nights were over. I gave it one night more.

The peasant was in high glee.

"Look what I've found for you," said he. "Who could have expected that to be waiting outside for you? Several days I have looked at that bedstead and thought, 'What the devil is that skeleton? Whence? Whither?' Now I understand it well. It is a bed, the bed of the Englishman on the long journey…."

The mattress was fixed to an ancient bed frame—one could not call it bedstead—with twisted legs that gave under weight and threatened to break down. We brought the "contrapshun" in.

"Splendid!" said my host.

"Impossible," I thought, trying to press down the prickly wire where the mattress was torn.

"No doubt you are hungry," my friend resumed. I assured him I was not in the least hungry, but despite my protestations he ran off to bring me something to eat. I felt sorry; for I thought he might be bringing me a substantial supper, and I had already made a good meal about an hour before. What was more, he lived at some distance, and I did not care to trouble the good man, or for him to waken up his wife who by that hour was probably sleeping.

However, he was gone, and there was nothing to be done. I laid some hay on the creaking sorrow of a bed, and endeavoured to bend to safety the wilderness of torn and rusty wire. I spread my blanket over the whole and gingerly committed my body to the comfortable-seeming couch. Imagine how the bed became an unsteady hammock of wire and how the contrivance creaked at each vibration of my body. I lay peacefully, however, looked at the array of cement barrels confronting me, and waited for my host. I expected a plate of chicken and a bottle of wine, and was gradually feeling myself converted to the idea that I wouldn't mind a nice tasty supper even though I had made my evening meal.

What was my astonishment when the good man returned bearing a square-foot slice of black bread on which reposed a single yellow carrot! I looked curiously at the carrot, but my host said, "Nitchevo, nitchevo, vinograd"—"Don't worry, don't worry, a grape, that's all."

He had also brought a kerosene lamp, which, however, lacked a glass. He stood it on one of the grey barrels and turned it monstrously high, just to show his largeness of heart, I suppose. I got up and turned it down because it was smoking, and he waved his hand once more deprecatingly, and turning the wick up and down several times, signified that I was to do with it exactly as I pleased. He left it smoking again, however.

I put the thought of a good supper out of my mind and looked at the black bread with some pathos, as who would not after conjuring before the eyes a plate of chicken and a bottle of wine? However, it was indeed nitchevo, to use the Russian phrase, a mere nothing. I averred I was not hungry and put the bread in my pack, of which I had made a pillow, and simulating comfort, said I thanked him and would now go to sleep. My host understood me, but was not less original in his parting greeting than in the rest. He shook hands with me effusively, and pointed to the roof.

"One God," he said. "And two men underneath. Two men, one soul."

He looked at me benevolently and pointed to his heart.

"Two men, one soul," he repeated, and crossed himself. "You understand?"

"I understand."

Then he added finally, "Turn the lamp as high as you like," and suited the action to the word by turning it so high that one saw a dense cloud of smoke beyond the lurid flame.

"Good-night!"

My queer guardian angel disappeared. I fastened the door so that it should not swing in the wind, and then climbed back into my wire hammock, stretched out my limbs, laid my cheek on my pack, and slept.

Nothing disturbed me, though I woke in the night, and looking round, missed the Ikon lamp which would have been burning had I been in a home. It was a saint's day. The absence of the Ikon told me the difference between sleeping in a house and sleeping in a home. Perhaps it was because of this difference that my host blessed me so earnestly.

Next morning I sought my host in vain. He had apparently left the town before dawn with a waggon of produce that had to be carted to Tuapse. At breakfast in the Turkish coffee-house I looked with some amusement at the bread and carrot, discarded the latter, but munched the former to the accompaniment of a plate of chicken and a bottle of wine. My imagining, therefore, of the previous night was not altogether vain. All that was needed was that my comical host should look in. As it was, in his absence I drank his health with a Georgian.