Stretensk is like all other Siberian towns that I have seen. The houses are mostly of one storey and of wood, of logs; the streets are wide and straight, cutting each other at right angles, and the whole is flung out upon the plain; it is really, I think, rather high among the mountains, but you do not get the sensation of hills as you do from the steamer.
The rain had cleared away and it was very hot, though we had started out very early because I was determined to go west if possible that very afternoon; We went gingerly because the dangers of Siberian towns for one who looked fairly prosperous had been impressed upon me at Blagoveschensk, and I hesitated about going far from the steamer, where the mate could speak English. Still we went. I was not going to miss the Siberia of my dreams if I could help it.
I saw something more wonderful than the Siberia of my dreams.
In consequence of the ceaseless rain the roads between the log-houses with their painted windows were knee-deep in mud, a quagmire that looked impassable. In the air was the sound of martial music, and up and down in what would have been reckless fashion but for the restraining glue-like mud galloped officers and their orderlies. It was the war, the first I had seen of it. The war was taking the place of the political exiles, and instead of seeing Siberia as a background for the exiles as I had dreamed of it for so many years, I saw it busy with preparations for war. The roads were like sloughs out of which it would have been impossible to get had I ever ventured in. Naturally I did not venture, but took all sorts of long rounds to get to the places I wanted to reach. It is not a bad way of seeing a town.
The heavily built houses, built to defy the Siberian winter, might have come out of Nikolayeusk or Kharbarosvk, and though the sun poured down out of a cloudless sky, and I was gasping in a thin Shantung silk, they were hermetically sealed, and the cotton wool between the double windows was decorated with the usual gay ribbons. I dare say they were cool enough inside, but they must have been intolerably stuffy. The sidewalks too had dried quickly in the fierce sunshine. They were the usual Siberian sidewalks, with long lines of planks like flooring. Had they ever been trodden, I wonder, by the forced emigrant looking with hopeless longing back to the West. Finally we wandered into the gardens, where I doubt not, judging by the little tables and many seats, there was the usual gay throng at night, but now early in the morning everything looked dishevelled, and I could not find anyone to supply me with the cool drink of which I stood so badly in need, and at last we made our way back to the steamer, where the mate, having got over the struggle of arrival—for this was the farthest the steamer went—kindly found time enough to give himself to my affairs. I wanted a droshky to take me to the train, and as nowhere about had I seen any signs of a railway station I wanted to know where it was.
The mate laughed and pointed far away down the river on the other side. I really ought to have known my Siberia better by now. Railways are not constructed for the convenience of the townsfolk. There was nothing else for it. I had to get there somehow, and as the train left somewhere between five and six, about noon, with the mate's assistance, I engaged a droshky. The carriages that are doing a last stage in this country are not quite so elderly here as they are in Saghalien, but that is not saying much for them. The one the mate engaged for me had a sturdy little ungroomed horse in the shafts and another running in a trace alongside. On the seat was packed all my baggage, two small suit-cases and a large canvas sack into which I dumped rugs, cushions and all odds and ends, including my precious kettles, and the rough little unkempt horses towed us down through the sea of mud to the ferry, and then I saw the scene had indeed shifted. It was not long lines of exiles bearing chains I met, that was all in the past, at least for an outsider like me, but here in the heart of Asia Russia in her might was collecting her forces for a spring. The great flat ferry was crossing and recrossing, and down the swamp that courtesy called a road came endless streams of square khaki-coloured carts, driven by men in flat caps and belted khaki blouses, big fair men, often giants with red, sun-tanned faces and lint-white hair, men who shouted and laughed and sang and threw up their caps, who were sober as judges and yet were wild with excitement; they were going to the war. I could not understand one word they said, but there is no mistaking gladness, and these men were delighted with their lot. I wondered was it a case of the prisoner freed or was it that life under the old regime in a Russian village was dull to monotony and to these recruits was coming the chance of their lifetime.
Some will never come east again, never whether in love or hate will they see the steppes and the flowers and the golden sunshine and the snow of Siberia, they have left their bones on those battle-fields; but some, I hope, will live to see the regeneration of Russia, when every man shall have a chance of freedom and happiness. I suppose this revolution was in the air as cart after cart drove on to the ferry and the men yelled and shouted in their excitement. A small company of men who were going east looked at them tolerantly—I'm sure it was tolerantly—and then they too caught the infection and yelled in chorus.
I watched it all with interest.
Then half-an-hour passed and still they came; an hour, and I grew a little worried, for they were still pouring over. Two hours—I comforted myself, the train did not start till late in the afternoon—three horns, and there was no cessation in the stream. And of course I could make no one understand. It looked as if I might wait here all night. At last a man who was manifestly an officer came galloping along and him I addressed in French.
“Is it possible to cross on the ferry?”