And at almost every big station he received a telegram. He quite spoilt the conductors—running himself to the office to inquire if there was no message for him. Poor boy! He could not keep his joy to himself, but read his telegrams aloud to us, as if we had nothing else to think about except his family happiness—“Hope you are well. We send kisses and await your arrival impatiently.—SANNOCHKA, YUROCHKA.” Or: “With watch in hand we follow on the timetable the course of your train from station to station. Our spirits and thoughts are with you.” All the telegrams were of this kind. There was even one like this: “Put your watch to Petersburg time, and exactly at eleven o’clock look at the star Alpha in the Great Bear. I will do the same.”
There was one passenger on the train who was owner or bookkeeper, or manager of a gold mine, a Siberian, with a face like that of Moses the Moor,[1] dry and elongated, thick, black, stern brows, and a long, full, greyish beard—a man who looked as if he were exceptionally experienced in all the trials of life. He made a warning remark to the engineer:
[1] One of the hermits of the Egyptian Desert, a saint in the Russian Calendar.
“You know, young man, it’s no use you abusing the telegraph service in such a way.”
“What do you mean? How is it no use?”
“Well, it’s impossible for a woman to keep herself all the time in such an exalted and wound-up state of mind. You ought to have mercy on other peoples’ nerves.”
But the engineer only laughed and clapped the wiseacre on the knee.
“Ah, little father, I know you, you people of the Old Testament. You’re always stealing back home unexpectedly and on the quiet. ‘Is everything as it should be on the domestic hearth?’ Eh?”
But the man with the ikon face only raised his eyebrows and smiled.
“Well, what of it? Sometimes there’s no harm in that.”