These speculating Chinese were most rude and insolent to the Siberians. I saw a pair of them drive a woman and her two children from a seat, and leave them standing, in order to get the seat for themselves. A young Cossack officer hove them out bodily, but they ran after the train and rescued their baggage. They who had been so overbearing with a helpless woman, gave a fine exhibition of cringing when they in turn found themselves in the presence of a strong and ruthless personality.
The provodnik distributed candles as darkness came on, and we rattled along through the night at about ten miles an hour, slowing down discreetly to cross temporary bridges, which had been built where the Bolshevists, as they fled before the Allies, had blown out the original structures.
The candles increased the richness of our air-mixture, and as they burned low and guttered smoking tallow over bare feet of sleepers, the odor of the salmon-roe, cached in tin cans about the car, almost lost its lusty pervasiveness. I awoke at about midnight, and though the candles were still glimmering faintly and producing a nut-flavored smoke, the salmon-roe still held its own, and asserted its presence unmistakably.
The cause of my waking was a burly Chinese, who mistaking me for a peasant as I lay on my shelf rolled in my blankets, took the liberty of heaving several of his heavy boxes in upon me, in an attempt to discourage me from occupying so much space. My reading of Darwin made me realize that it was a case of the survival of the fittest. I felt particularly fit, and when that Chinese had eliminated himself from the car, along with his baggage, I went back to sleep. I forgot in the meantime the necessity for maintaining cordial international relations with China, and made it a purely personal matter.
Incidentally, it must be the boldest spirits among the Chinese who dared travel in that part of Siberia with anything of value. I was awakened later that night by a great to-do in the car, when Cossacks at a station went through the train and looked all the passengers over, including baggage. They took two Chinese out of the car, with some bulky bundles. The bundles proved to be full of packets of paper rubles. The Cossacks debated among themselves as to whether so much wealth was not in itself evidence of criminality, and favored confiscating the money. How much was given up, I do not know, but once more the Chinese came back, settled themselves for sleep upon their shelf and we rolled merrily on.
Toward morning I was awakened once more by a big peasant who stepped upon my face, in order to climb to the top of the car. I watched him mount upward, till he was in reach of a ventilator, and I came to the conclusion that I had misjudged peasants when it came to desiring fresh air—it was obvious that this man desired to tamper with the ventilator in the ceiling so that it would provide a better opening to let out our bad odors.
But instead, before my horrified eyes, he closed it! And not satisfied with its natural tightness, he stuffed into it a Russian newspaper in which had been wrapped salmon-eggs! I roused myself, dressed, and went out on the car-platform in the crisp, cool air where I waited for the sun to rise over the bleak hills.
Before long, we came to a small yellow depot, with this signboard upon it, as near as I can reproduce with Roman letters: “YXXYMYH”—it was Ooshoomoon, or Ushumun, the y’s distributed through its system providing the oo sounds in Russian.
Not an American soldier in sight. We learned from the telegraph operator that Major Miller and his force had left the evening before in a troop-train, and had passed us during the night, going in the direction from which we came.
As for my telegram to Major Miller, the operators had never heard of it. I suppose the operator at Botchkereva had pocketed my rubles, and let it go at that. Anyhow, that is the most brilliant procedure I can ascribe to him. He was either a fool or a knave. With the people then operating the trans-Siberian railroad, the theory that they mask their knavery under stupidity has proven true with me, in the long run. By appearing stupid, and so making fools of the smart Americanskys, they prove their superiority to us, according to their Asiatic style of reasoning. They would rather pocket our money than to show to us something in the nature of human intelligence.