One morning, at length, Paul awakened from a troublous sleep. The train had stopped, and looking out of the window in the early mist he saw some strange figures standing by the side of the track—bearded men, mostly, with brilliant scarlet shirts, and trousers tucked into huge clumsy boots—some of them half-covered with long white aprons. He recognized these gentry as customs officials and porters. At last he had reached the Russian frontier!
He dressed quickly, eager, for the first time in his life, to have his baggage examined and his passports inspected. Usually Paul regarded such performances as a violation of the Heaven-sent rights of an Englishman to wander unmolested over the face of the earth. But now—once the ceremony was over—it meant that he was one step nearer the goal.
Having satisfied the zealous subjects of the Tsar that he was neither a Nihilist nor a Jew, and that his luggage contained no high explosives, nor other contraband goods, Paul's history was carefully written down in a leather covered book, and he was granted the right as an English gentleman to seek amusement where he would throughout the domains of the Little Father at St. Petersburg.
The other passengers having in their turn been duly examined, the train at last moved on, to drag itself monotonously for hour after hour through countless cornfields and stretches of forest. At last—and Paul had begun to think the time would never come—he stepped down and stretched his tired muscles in the railway station at Warsaw. The prospect of a good hotel, with a tub, a well-served dinner and a real bed once more, Paul considered for a moment. But no! he would push on at once. He could rest at his journey's end—this was no time to look after the comfort of his body; the cry of his soul must first be satisfied.
And after a brief delay he found himself again en route.
On his travels in out-of-the-way corners of the globe, Paul had long ago accustomed himself to discomfort—even hardship. But he shuddered as he thought of his dainty lady being subjected to the vicissitudes of a long trip on those primitive Russian railways. For two days and a night, in a heaving, swaying train, in a carriage full of reeking people smoking rancid tobacco, he was forced to curb his eagerness. As the time of his arrival drew nearer Paul found it all the more difficult to endure the delay.
It seemed as if the end would never come. The country was almost all forest now and more bleak and mournful than any Paul had ever seen. The innumerable willow trees, with their branches drooping to earth as if they, of all living things, denied the joys of spring, exerted on him a strangely depressing influence.
But finally, to Paul's relief, the country became more open, and at last, as the train rolled along the edge of a clear upland, Paul saw the sheen of the glorious Dnieper, a silver thread beyond which rose a low range of brown hills covered with woods. And soon he made out the spires and domes of Kieff.
A little while longer—and then with a long-drawn sigh of satisfaction he felt the firm earth under foot once more. Kieff at last! Paul could scarcely believe it.
Into one of the open vans that meet the weary traveller Paul climbed, and rode across the hills to the fashionable quarter of the town. The Grand Hotel, he found, was very comfortable, and he retired that night in a calmer frame of mind than he had known since he left Paris.