Chapter 7 Chapter Seven Down the Volga

A few minutes before twelve o'clock at noon, the bell on the steamer rang, and a large crowd was drawn to the wharves of the Volga, both those who were about to leave and those who wanted to. no. The boilers of the "Caucasus" were already under sufficient pressure.From the chimney of the boiler there was only a thin plume of smoke, while the exhaust pipe nozzles and the tops of the valves released a large amount of white steam. Needless to say, the Caucasus was monitored by the police for departures, and they showed no mercy to passengers who did not meet the conditions to leave the city.

There were many Cossacks coming and going on the docks, ready to assist the police, but there was no need for them to intervene, and everything went smoothly without the slightest resistance. When the appointed time for sailing arrived, the last bell rang, the cables were untied, the steamer's powerful impellers beat the water with their hinged blades, and the "Caucasus" was forming Nizhny Novgorod. Speeding between the two cities of Rhodes. Michel Storgoff and the Levanian girl have boarded the "Caucasus".They had no difficulty getting on board.You know that this pass, written under the name of Nikolai Kolpanov, allows the wholesaler to be accompanied on a trip to Siberia, so this is a brother and sister, traveling under the guarantee of the Royal Police .

They both sat in the stern, watching the city fly by, and what confusion the governor's decrees had caused here! Michel Storgoff said nothing to the girl or asked her anything.He was waiting for her to speak, if she herself thought it appropriate to do so.But she was in a hurry to leave the city, if not for this savior who unexpectedly fell from the sky and saved her life, she would have been a prisoner here.She said nothing, but her eyes thanked her for her. The Volga River, or the La River as the ancients called it, is considered the largest river in Europe, with a total length of no less than four thousand versts (4,300 kilometers).Its water flow is very unclean in the upper reaches, but as far as Nizhny Novgorod, due to the addition of the Oka River, a tributary, the water quality has changed.The Oka River originates in the central provinces of Russia and is a fast-moving river.

Someone once quite rightly compared the canals and rivers of Russia as a whole to a big tree whose branches spread over all parts of the empire. estuary.It is navigable from Rjef - a city in the provincial capital of Tver - which means most of its processes are navigable. The transport between Perm and Nizhny Novgorod was undertaken by a company whose ships could cover the 350 versts (373 km) between Nizhny Novgorod and Kazan very quickly .Indeed, these steamboats need only go down the Volga, which adds about two knots to the speed of the steamboat itself.But when they reached the confluence of the Volga and the Kama, not far below Kazan, they had to turn from the Volga to the Kama, and so had to go upstream all the way to Perm And up.So, taken together, it is impossible for the "Caucasus" to exceed sixteen versts per hour, despite the power of its machinery.Counting the one-hour stop in Kazan, the trip from Nizhny Novgorod to Perm takes about sixty to sixty-two hours.

Besides, the steamer was so well furnished that the passengers had three different classes of classes, according to their conditions and means.Michelle Storgoff purposely booked two first-class cabins so that his young female companion could retreat to her own cabin when she liked, without dealing with others. The "Caucasus" was filled with all kinds of passengers.Some were Asian merchants who thought it best to leave Nizhny Novgorod at once.In the first class of the steamboat, Armenians can be seen in long robes and various turbans, - Jews, recognizable by their conical caps, - wealthy The Chinese, in their traditional attire, loose robes, blue, purple, or black, with openings at the front and back, and covered by a robe with wide sleeves, in a style reminiscent of those worn by Orthodox priests. Monks, - Turks, who always wear their national turbans, - Indians, with square caps and a simple cord for a belt, several of whom are more specifically called Sikalburi The Shikarpuris, who controlled trade throughout Central Asia,—and finally the Tartars, with their boots decorated with multicolored ribbons and their breastplates embroidered.All these merchants were obliged to pile up their prodigious luggage in the holds or on deck, and it cost them a great deal of money to carry it, since, as a rule, no one could carry more than twenty pounds of luggage.

The bow of the "Caucasus" gathered more passengers, not only foreigners, but also Russians, and the decree did not prohibit them from returning to other cities in the province. Among them were peasants, wearing round caps or peaked caps, and small checkered shirts under wide fur coats, and Volga peasants, with blue trousers tucked into their boots, and rose-coloured cotton shirts tied up with a piece of string. , with a flat peaked cap or felt hat on the head.There were also several women in long cotton dresses over brightly colored blouses and red patterned turbans around their heads.These are mainly third-class passengers, thankfully not distressed by the lengthy return journey.In short, this part of the deck was packed.Therefore, the passengers in the back can't easily come among these mixed crowds, and there is a mark on each round stool, which is their seat.

However, the "Caucasus" was driving at full speed between the two banks of the Volga.It encountered a number of ships carrying various cargoes to Nizhny Novgorod, being pulled upstream by tugboats.Then came rafts that grew as tailless as the Atlantic sargassum, and flat-bottomed barges full of cargo that didn't reach the gunwales.These transports are meaningless now, since the trade fair has been abruptly disbanded after only a few days. The waves stirred up by the wake of the steamer splashed on both sides of the Volga River, and flocks of ducks flew ashore panickingly screaming.A little farther on, among the dry fields surrounded by alder, willow, and aspen, were scattered crimson cows, brown sheep, and herds of large black and white herds. Piggy.A few fields, sporadically planted with cultivated wheat and rye, extended to the end of the partially cultivated hills, but on the whole the hills did not reveal anything extraordinary.Faced with this monotonous scenery, if a painter wants to capture some beautiful scenery and draw it with a pencil, he will find nothing.

Two hours after the "Caucasus" sailed, a Livanian girl asked Michel Storgov: "Are you going to Irkutsk, brother?" "Yes, sister," answered the young man, "we are walking the same way. So wherever I pass, you must pass." "Tomorrow, brother, you will know why I left the Baltic coast for the Ural Mountains." "I don't ask you anything, sister." "You will know everything," the girl replied, with a sour smile on the corner of her mouth, "A younger sister should not hide anything from her elder brother. But today, I can't tell!... The exhaustion and despair just now have exhausted me Already!"

"Would you like to go and rest in your cabin?" Michel Storgoff asked. "Okay...okay...tomorrow..." "Then let's go..." He pondered, and didn't finish the sentence, as if he wanted to call the name of his girlfriend at the end of the sentence, but he didn't know her name yet. "Nadya," she told him, and gave him her hand. "Come on, Nadya," replied Michel Storgov, "I am your brother Nikolai Kolpanov, and if you need anything, please feel free to call me." Then he sent the girl to the cabin he had reserved for her in the stern.

Michel Storgoff was back on deck, eager to hear some news that might change his course, so he squeezed into the crowds of passengers, listening quietly, but never Do not participate in their conversations.Also, if by chance someone asked him a question and he had to answer it, he would tell them that he was the wholesaler Nikolai Kolpanov, who was ordered to leave the country, and therefore boarded the "Caucasus" because He didn't want anyone to guess that he was on a charter trip to Siberia. The foreigners transported by the steamer could obviously talk only of the events of the day, the decree, and its consequences.These poor people who have come here through Central Asia, have not yet recovered from the fatigue of the journey, and are looking at having to go back. The reason why they did not vent their anger and despair loudly is because they dare not.They were seized with a sense of awe.It is likely that plainclothes police have quietly boarded the "Caucasus" to monitor the passengers' words and deeds, so it is best not to talk nonsense, anyway, it is better to be deported than to be locked in prison.Therefore, among these travelers, some were silent, while others were chatting cautiously, and hardly any useful information could be obtained from it.

But although Michel Storgoff found nothing with these travelers, although they even shut up when they saw him approaching—because no one knew him—he soon heard someone Talking blah blah blah blah, not really caring about being heard or not being heard. The man with a light voice spoke Russian, but with a foreign accent, and the other party he was talking to was a little more serious than him. Although he also answered in Russian, it was not his original language. "Why," said the first, "how, my dear colleague, I saw you at the court ball in Moscow, and vaguely saw you in Nizhny Novgorod, and now you are on this ship again." gone?" "Yes," replied the second man firmly. "Right, let's be frank, I didn't expect to be followed by you so quickly, and so closely!" "I am not following you, sir, I am ahead of you!" "In front of me! In front of me! Well, let's say we march side by side, in step, like two soldiers on review. And at least temporarily, we agree, if you will, that neither Overtake someone!" "On the contrary, I want to surpass you." "We'll see who surpasses who after we get to the battlefield, but before that, hell! Let's go together, we will have time and opportunity to become rivals in the future!" "enemy." "Well, enemy! You speak, my dear colleague, with great precision, which I like very much, at least with you I know what I know." "Is there something wrong?" "There is nothing wrong with it. So, I would like to ask you to allow me to describe the current situation between the two of us." "You tell me." "Are you . . . going to Bolm like me?" "Same as you." "And you might go from Perm to Yekaterinburg, since that's the best and safest way over the Urals?" "possible." "Once we cross the border, we will reach Siberia, that is to say the invaded area." "yes!" "Then then, and only then, should we say: 'Everyone for everyone, God for...'" "God for me!" "God for you! Alone! Very well! But since we still have seven or eight days to remain neutral, and since news along the way will not fall from the sky, let us be friends until we become rivals again." "When you become an enemy." "Yes! That's right, when we become enemies! But, before that, we must work together and not kill each other! In addition, I also promise you to keep everything I will be able to see..." "And I, keep everything I'm going to hear a secret." "A deal?" "It's a deal." "Stretch your hand over here." "Here." Then, the hand of the first interlocutor, in other words, his five widely spread fingers, vigorously shook the two fingers extended coldly by the second interlocutor. "By the way," said the first, "I telegraphed the full text of the decree to my cousin at seventeen past ten this morning." "And I sent it to the Daily Telegraph at ten-thirteen." "Excellent, Mr. Blunt." "Excellent, Monsieur Jolivet." "I will pay you back!" "It's not easy!" "That has to be tried!" As he spoke, the French reporter saluted the British reporter in a friendly way, and the British reporter also nodded with British rigidity in return. The Governor's decree has nothing to do with these two news hunters, because they are neither Russians nor foreigners from Asia.So they all set off, and the reason why they left Nizhny Novgorod together was because the same instinct drove them forward.So naturally they took the same means of transport and traveled the same road before reaching the Siberian Steppes.No matter they are traveling companions, friends or enemies, they still have eight days before the "hunting season begins".Alcide Jolivet took the initiative to approach his opponent, and Harry Blunt, albeit indifferently, accepted it. At any rate, at dinner that day, the always outspoken, even a little garrulous, Frenchman sat at the same table with the always reserved and serious Englishman and drank a real Krieger ( Cliquot) wine, six rubles a bottle, is brewed from the fresh sap of birch trees in the nearby area. Listening to Alcide Jolivet and Harry Blunt talking like this, Michel Storgoff thought to himself: "I might meet some more inquisitive and secretive people like this along the way. I'd better keep away from them." The Levanian maiden did not come to supper.She was sleeping in the cabin, and Michel Storgoff did not want to wake her up.Therefore, after nightfall, she did not appear on the deck of the "Caucasus". The long twilight cleared the air, a boon for passengers who had experienced the heat of the day.After late at night, most people didn't even think about going back to the cabin.The steamer was moving fast, bringing a breeze, and the passengers lay on the benches, breathing the cool air comfortably.At this time of year, at this latitude, the sky hardly darkened between evening and morning, allowing the helmsman to maneuver with ease among the passing ships on the Volga. However, between eleven o'clock and two o'clock in the morning, the moon came out and it was almost dark.Almost all the passengers on the deck were asleep, and there was complete silence, only the regular sound of oar blades hitting the water could still be heard. A worry keeps Michel Storgoff from sleeping.He came and went, but always in the back of the steamboat.However, once he happened to walk across the cabin and came to the part of the deck where the second and third class passengers were. The people there were asleep, not only on the benches, but also on the packs, and even on the deck floor.Only the watchman was still standing on the forecastle.Sidelights on the port and starboard sides shone two gleams, one red and one green, throwing slanted rays of light on either side of the steamer. One had to walk carefully, or one would step on the sleeping people, who lay here and there lying here and there, mostly peasants, accustomed to lying on the ground, so that lying on the deck was sufficient.They certainly don't take kindly to those who are clumsy and kick them awake. So Michel Storgoff was careful not to bump into anyone.He walked to the end of the boat in this way, thinking only of walking a little longer, so as to drive away the drowsiness. However, as he reached the forward part of the deck and began to ascend the forecastle ladder, he heard someone talking nearby.So he stopped.The voice seemed to be coming from a group of travelers wrapped in shawls and blankets, which could not be seen clearly in the darkness.But, sometimes, when a red flame accidentally bursts out amidst the blue smoke from the steamer's chimney, sparks seem to pass over the crowd as if there were thousands of them. It was as if the sheet was suddenly illuminated by a ray of light. Michel Storgoff was just about to go on when a few words came to him more clearly, in the same language that he had heard that night in the field of the trade fair. language. Instinctively, he intended to listen.Since he was hidden by the shadow of the forecastle, it was impossible for others to see him.And it was impossible for him to see clearly the passengers who were talking.So he could only prick up his ears to listen. The first few words were unimportant—at least to him—but from them he recognized that this was exactly the same man and woman he had heard in Nizhny Novgorod. the sound of.So he concentrated all his attention.Indeed, it was not impossible that the two gypsy men, whom he had heard a word of, were now deported with all their compatriots aboard the Caucasus. Fortunately he listened, for suddenly he heard this question and answer in the Tatar dialect: "A courier is said to have left Moscow for Irkutsk!" "That's what it says, Sanja, but the messenger either arrives too late or never arrives at all!" Michel Storgov shuddered involuntarily at this answer, that the words were so aimed at him.He wanted to try to identify whether the man and woman who had just spoken were the two he suspected, but the night was too dark for him to succeed. After a while Michel Storgoff crept back to the rear of the steamer, where he sat with his head in his hands.Everyone will think he is sleeping. He wasn't sleeping, and he wasn't sleepy at all.He was thinking about it with anxiety: "Who the hell knows I'm leaving? Who would be interested in knowing that?"