A vagabond in the Caucasus

by Stephen Graham

It was the 23rd of December, according to the old calendar; the morrow would be Christmas Eve, and all shops would be shut. I went out into the town and made good some of my deficiencies.

I had still a hundred-mile journey to make before I reached Lisitchansk. The train left at 9 p.m. I telegraphed to my friend, asking to be met, and then went off to buy a ticket. The booking-office clerk would not issue tickets until he could be sure that the train would be run. The last express from Sevastopol had arrived ten hours late.

I waited until midnight, and then at last a notice was put out intimating that the train would start. So I purchased my ticket and took my seat, and at two in the morning we moved slowly out. My impression of that train is that everyone, including passengers, guards and driver, was drunk. It was crowded with people going home for Christmas. It was so crowded that there seemed to be no intention on the part of anyone to sleep, and I could not get a seat to myself. At length, however, a very friendly, though tipsy, Little Russian made an arrangement with the occupants of a ladies’ compartment, and I got an upper shelf there to lie upon.

When I awakened it was broad day and the train had stopped finally. A lady on a shelf opposite was reading a novel. No one else seemed to be in the carriage. I learned from her that we were snowed up. All the men employed to keep the line clear were dead drunk. No further progress would be made until after dinner. There was a forest on the right-hand side, full of wolves, the girl said. I went along to the men’s compartment and found that everyone had adjourned to a farm-house near by to get dinner. Evidently thieves were not feared in that part of the country. I followed the others to the house and had a good hot dish of cabbage soup. It was a one-room cottage, and was packed with people. The clamour was deafening. I think the family must have had an unusually large supply of vodka, for the number of Christmas healths drunk was at least treble the number of guests.

At about three o’clock the engine-driver, who was so drunk that he could not stand up, was lifted into the engine and he set the train going. Scarcely anyone was in the train, neither people nor guards, and there was a rush to get on. But only about six were successful; the rest were all left behind. We, at the farm-house, had no chance whatever. Somebody said, “The train is starting,” and there was a stampede. Every vodka glass was drained, the singing stopped, and the shouting and the step-dancing, and everyone rushed out into the snow without, as far as I could see, paying a farthing to the good woman of the house. But no one stood any chance, and when I got out at the door the train had travelled a hundred yards. The snow was a foot deep, and nothing short of a pair of skis would have enabled anyone to cross it in the time.

Que faire!

I pictured to myself the train arriving at Sevastopol without passengers or guards, and I wondered what would happen to all the unclaimed wraps and bags, and how many roubles it would cost to get them out of the lost property office. I could afford to smile. Most of my property was already lost. Among the other passengers there was consternation. They were like a pack of frightened children, whispering in awe-stricken whispers. Two men insisted on telling me their fears—fears of missing their Christmas, fears of exhausting the vodka supply, fears of wolves, fears of freezing, and a fat man, who had fallen in the snow, kept punctuating their remarks with:

“Devil take me! Lord save us!”

There was nothing to be gained by remaining where we were, so I set out along the railway lines with six others who could walk. The next station proved to be about four miles distant, and after three quarters of an hour we came in sight of it. And in sight of the train! We had walked very seriously and solemnly, like convicts marching to the mines. I, for my part, felt like freezing to death. But at the sight of the train we all burst into exclamation. The Russians gesticulated and waved their handkerchiefs. Then suddenly we thought it might start out before we reached it. The Russians began to run in that peculiar way all foreigners run—as if someone were after them. We arrived in time, feeling pleasantly warm.

I thought when the engine-driver had been remonstrated with he would have backed the train to the wayside stopping-place. But no, he said there was no time, and in ten minutes he started us off again. I have never heard how they fared, these unfortunates who were left behind.