"At last, the following decision arrives: the run-away serf, Nikita Volokita, will be transferred from the prisons of Zarevo-Kokaisk to the prison of Mosaisk, from there a fresh order transfers you again to the prison in Vesegonsk, and thus you continue to be transferred from dungeon to dungeon, and you say to yourself as you inspect your new habitation:
"'I don't know, but somehow I like Vesegonsk better than any of the other places; the place is larger and cleaner, and the company here much gayer!'
"Abakum Phiroff! and what are you? where and in what part of the vast Empire could you now be met with? Have you gone down the river Volga and taken a fancy to an agitated life on the swelling waves, and joined some of the gay river men?"—
Saying this, Tchichikoff stopped short and began to muse and reflect. What might he have been thinking about? Did he try to imagine the fate of Abakum Phiroff, or did he plunge into reflections like any other Russian, whatever his age might be, no matter of what rank or fortune, when he reflects upon the broad road of human life?
And in truth where is Phiroff now? He wanders boisterously and gaily along the rich shores of the Volga; he has hired his services to some travelling merchant. Flowers and ribbons ornament his peculiarly shaped hat; he seems now as cheerful and contented as any of his comrades born and bred to that peculiar life; they are just bidding farewell to their wives and sweethearts—tall, active, and healthy women, looking as picturesque as the men, in their wide frocks and flowing tresses mixed with gay ornaments and coloured ribbons; songs with and without choruses, and again interrupted, but a solo or an accompaniment of the national guitar or balalaika is to be heard all along the piers and shores. The bustle and life among the people assembled is now at its height, for they are completing the cargo of their barges, into which they store the last sacks, containing wheat, barley, oats and other grains, which the fertile soil in that part of the country so abundantly produces.
Along the shores are yet hundreds and thousands more sacks filled with various grains, heaped in columns and towering like Egyptian pyramids into the air, and ready to be shipped as soon as the warm rays of the spring can burst the melting ice, and allow this bread-stuff arsenal to drift down the river, barge following barge like a band of swans when proudly floating down the rapid stream.
Such is the occupation of our Russian river-men on the shores of the Volga, where he has hard work, but where he leads a comparatively independent and cheerful life, and where his gay and melodious songs are heard from the source to the efflux of that magnificent river.
[CHAPTER VII.]
"Holloa, he! twelve o'clock," Tchichikoff said at last, looking at his watch, "how could I so utterly forget myself? if at least there had been any business-like result in these reflections, but as it is, it was but folly and nonsense!" Saying this, he changed his highland costume for a more becoming one, buckled tighter up his full stomach, perfumed his face and hands with some Eau de Cologne, put his warm travelling-cap in his hand, and the various documents under his arm and hurriedly left the inn, hastening towards the government offices to conclude his contracts.