A RUSSIAN STREET SCENE
A CAUCASIAN CHIEF
At dinner-time his wife forbade him to go to Lisitchansk, and he, after some protest about his promises, obeyed her. The Christmas festival was evidently ending. The feasting and revelry of the past three days was like a gay dream from which we were awaking, awaking into a grey, ordinary world.
“If you go to the Caucasus come via Rubezhniya,” said Uncle, as he kissed us in the sledge and bade us good-bye.
CHAPTER V
AMONG MOSCOW STUDENTS
AT Kharkov, on my return journey, I recovered half of my lost luggage; the other half, a box full of books and papers, had not turned up: neither by bribes nor by words could it be found. We spent a whole day searching the Customs House, but failed to find any trace of it. I learned afterwards that it had been left behind at Ostend, through the negligence of a porter there. The loss of this box was a matter of sorrow. All through the winter I felt the loss of it. It was only in April, after immense correspondence, that I recovered it, and then it was no use since I had made up my mind to spend the summer on the mountains.
The loss of my overcoat and of my box had evidently made a deep impression on Nicholas. He was determined he should lose none of his things. We were travelling together all the way to Moscow. He was going to be a student at the University, and he hoped to share lodgings with me. Our journey took three days. Nicholas’s luggage consisted of nine heavy portmanteaux and boxes. This luggage was a matter of amazement to myself, my fellow-travellers and the porters. Surely no one ever before started from a pine cottage with such an accumulation. How Nicholas came by it all will always be an interesting page in his life history.
A year ago, Nicholas had been studying in Moscow and supporting himself by giving lessons in English, music and mathematics. Of all his studies the favourite was English; and in English he excelled. His professor regarded him as a lad of promise, and advised him to go for a season to England and learn to speak the language. Nicholas was of an adventurous spirit and the advice pleased him. He saved a few pounds and set off for England. First he went home and told the deacon and his mother. They were astonished beyond words. They did not, however, forbid the journey; they blessed him and bade him farewell, commending him to the saints. His mother kissed the little Ikon which hung round his neck, and looked her son in the eyes with that peculiar expression of faith which is part of the In-itself of life. Zhenia kissed him good-bye, and the young adventurer went out into the wide world into the new lands. His route was interesting, being the route which so many poor emigrants were taking at that time, lured by the stories of fabulous wages in England, America and Canada. He took steamer at Ekaterinoslav and came leisurely up the Dneiper to Kiev, the busy city generally spoken of as ancient, though new as Paris and swirling with electric cars. From Kiev he went by train; third-class to the Konigsberg frontier and thence across Germany, fourth-class to Hamburg. Does the reader know a fourth-class emigrant train? It is a series of cattle-trucks for human beings, and indeed the occupants behave more like animals than human beings. Anything more filthy, indecent and odious than the condition of a Jews’ train can scarcely be imagined. I think Nicholas felt very sick and weary before he got to Hamburg. But it was cheap travelling. I think his whole fare, from Lisitchansk to London, cost less than two pounds ten.