Bab Bab 5 · THE TWO ANNOUNCEMENTS

. THE TWO ANNOUNCEMENTS

NIJNI-NOVGOROD, Lower Novgorod, situate at the junction of the Volga and

the Oka, is the chief town in the district of the same name. It was here

that Michael Strogoff was obliged to leave the railway, which at the

time did not go beyond that town. Thus, as he advanced, his traveling

would become first less speedy and then less safe.

Nijni-Novgorod, the fixed population of which is only from thirty to

thirty-five thousand inhabitants, contained at that time more than three

hundred thousand; that is to say, the population was increased tenfold.

This addition was in consequence of the celebrated fair, which was held

within the walls for three weeks. Formerly Makariew had the benefit of

this concourse of traders, but since 1817 the fair had been removed to

Nijni-Novgorod.

Even at the late hour at which Michael Strogoff left the platform, there

was still a large number of people in the two towns, separated by the

stream of the Volga, which compose Nijni-Novgorod. The highest of

these is built on a steep rock, and defended by a fort called in Russia

“kreml.”

Michael Strogoff expected some trouble in finding a hotel, or even an

inn, to suit him. As he had not to start immediately, for he was going

to take a steamer, he was compelled to look out for some lodging;

but, before doing so, he wished to know exactly the hour at which the

steamboat would start. He went to the office of the company whose boats

plied between Nijni-Novgorod and Perm. There, to his great annoyance,

he found that no boat started for Perm till the following day at twelve

o’clock. Seventeen hours to wait! It was very vexatious to a man so

pressed for time. However, he never senselessly murmured. Besides, the

fact was that no other conveyance could take him so quickly either to

Perm or Kasan. It would be better, then, to wait for the steamer, which

would enable him to regain lost time.

Here, then, was Michael Strogoff, strolling through the town and

quietly looking out for some inn in which to pass the night. However, he

troubled himself little on this score, and, but that hunger pressed

him, he would probably have wandered on till morning in the streets

of Nijni-Novgorod. He was looking for supper rather than a bed. But

he found both at the sign of the City of Constantinople. There, the

landlord offered him a fairly comfortable room, with little furniture,

it is true, but not without an image of the Virgin, and a few saints

framed in yellow gauze.

A goose filled with sour stuffing swimming in thick cream, barley bread,

some curds, powdered sugar mixed with cinnamon, and a jug of kwass, the

ordinary Russian beer, were placed before him, and sufficed to satisfy

his hunger. He did justice to the meal, which was more than could be

said of his neighbor at table, who, having, in his character of “old

believer” of the sect of Raskalniks, made the vow of abstinence,

rejected the potatoes in front of him, and carefully refrained from

putting sugar in his tea.

His supper finished, Michael Strogoff, instead of going up to his

bedroom, again strolled out into the town. But, although the long

twilight yet lingered, the crowd was already dispersing, the streets

were gradually becoming empty, and at length everyone retired to his

dwelling.

Why did not Michael Strogoff go quietly to bed, as would have seemed

more reasonable after a long railway journey? Was he thinking of the

young Livonian girl who had been his traveling companion? Having nothing

better to do, he WAS thinking of her. Did he fear that, lost in this

busy city, she might be exposed to insult? He feared so, and with

good reason. Did he hope to meet her, and, if need were, to afford her

protection? No. To meet would be difficult. As to protection--what right

had he--

“Alone,” he said to himself, “alone, in the midst of these wandering

tribes! And yet the present dangers are nothing compared to those she

must undergo. Siberia! Irkutsk! I am about to dare all risks for Russia,

for the Czar, while she is about to do so--For whom? For what? She is

authorized to cross the frontier! The country beyond is in revolt! The

steppes are full of Tartar bands!”

Michael Strogoff stopped for an instant, and reflected.

“Without doubt,” thought he, “she must have determined on undertaking

her journey before the invasion. Perhaps she is even now ignorant of

what is happening. But no, that cannot be; the merchants discussed

before her the disturbances in Siberia--and she did not seem surprised.

She did not even ask an explanation. She must have known it then, and

knowing it, is still resolute. Poor girl! Her motive for the journey

must be urgent indeed! But though she may be brave--and she certainly

is so--her strength must fail her, and, to say nothing of dangers and

obstacles, she will be unable to endure the fatigue of such a journey.

Never can she reach Irkutsk!”

Indulging in such reflections, Michael Strogoff wandered on as chance

led him; being well acquainted with the town, he knew that he could

easily retrace his steps.

Having strolled on for about an hour, he seated himself on a bench

against the wall of a large wooden cottage, which stood, with many

others, on a vast open space. He had scarcely been there five minutes

when a hand was laid heavily on his shoulder.

“What are you doing here?” roughly demanded a tall and powerful man, who

had approached unperceived.

“I am resting,” replied Michael Strogoff.

“Do you mean to stay all night on the bench?”

“Yes, if I feel inclined to do so,” answered Michael Strogoff, in a tone

somewhat too sharp for the simple merchant he wished to personate.

“Come forward, then, so I can see you,” said the man.

Michael Strogoff, remembering that, above all, prudence was requisite,

instinctively drew back. “It is not necessary,” he replied, and calmly

stepped back ten paces.

The man seemed, as Michael observed him well, to have the look of

a Bohemian, such as are met at fairs, and with whom contact, either

physical or moral, is unpleasant. Then, as he looked more attentively

through the dusk, he perceived, near the cottage, a large caravan, the

usual traveling dwelling of the Zingaris or gypsies, who swarm in Russia

wherever a few copecks can be obtained.

As the gypsy took two or three steps forward, and was about to

interrogate Michael Strogoff more closely, the door of the cottage

opened. He could just see a woman, who spoke quickly in a language which

Michael Strogoff knew to be a mixture of Mongol and Siberian.

“Another spy! Let him alone, and come to supper. The papluka is waiting

for you.”

Michael Strogoff could not help smiling at the epithet bestowed on him,

dreading spies as he did above all else.

In the same dialect, although his accent was very different, the

Bohemian replied in words which signify, “You are right, Sangarre!

Besides, we start to-morrow.”

“To-morrow?” repeated the woman in surprise.

“Yes, Sangarre,” replied the Bohemian; “to-morrow, and the Father

himself sends us--where we are going!”

Thereupon the man and woman entered the cottage, and carefully closed

the door.

“Good!” said Michael Strogoff, to himself; “if these gipsies do not wish

to be understood when they speak before me, they had better use some

other language.”

From his Siberian origin, and because he had passed his childhood in the

Steppes, Michael Strogoff, it has been said, understood almost all

the languages in usage from Tartary to the Sea of Ice. As to the exact

signification of the words he had heard, he did not trouble his head.

For why should it interest him?

It was already late when he thought of returning to his inn to take some

repose. He followed, as he did so, the course of the Volga, whose waters

were almost hidden under the countless number of boats floating on its

bosom.

An hour after, Michael Strogoff was sleeping soundly on one of those

Russian beds which always seem so hard to strangers, and on the morrow,

the 17th of July, he awoke at break of day.

He had still five hours to pass in Nijni-Novgorod; it seemed to him an

age. How was he to spend the morning unless in wandering, as he had done

the evening before, through the streets? By the time he had finished

his breakfast, strapped up his bag, had his podorojna inspected at the

police office, he would have nothing to do but start. But he was not a

man to lie in bed after the sun had risen; so he rose, dressed himself,

placed the letter with the imperial arms on it carefully at the bottom

of its usual pocket within the lining of his coat, over which he

fastened his belt; he then closed his bag and threw it over his

shoulder. This done, he had no wish to return to the City of

Constantinople, and intending to breakfast on the bank of the Volga near

the wharf, he settled his bill and left the inn. By way of precaution,

Michael Strogoff went first to the office of the steam-packet company,

and there made sure that the Caucasus would start at the appointed hour.

As he did so, the thought for the first time struck him that, since the

young Livonian girl was going to Perm, it was very possible that her

intention was also to embark in the Caucasus, in which case he should

accompany her.

The town above with its kremlin, whose circumference measures two

versts, and which resembles that of Moscow, was altogether abandoned.

Even the governor did not reside there. But if the town above was like a

city of the dead, the town below, at all events, was alive.

Michael Strogoff, having crossed the Volga on a bridge of boats, guarded

by mounted Cossacks, reached the square where the evening before he had

fallen in with the gipsy camp. This was somewhat outside the town, where

the fair of Nijni-Novgorod was held. In a vast plain rose the temporary

palace of the governor-general, where by imperial orders that great

functionary resided during the whole of the fair, which, thanks to the

people who composed it, required an ever-watchful surveillance.

This plain was now covered with booths symmetrically arranged in such

a manner as to leave avenues broad enough to allow the crowd to pass

without a crush.

Each group of these booths, of all sizes and shapes, formed a separate

quarter particularly dedicated to some special branch of commerce. There

was the iron quarter, the furriers’ quarter, the woolen quarter, the

quarter of the wood merchants, the weavers’ quarter, the dried fish

quarter, etc. Some booths were even built of fancy materials, some of

bricks of tea, others of masses of salt meat--that is to say, of

samples of the goods which the owners thus announced were there to the

purchasers--a singular, and somewhat American, mode of advertisement.

In the avenues and long alleys there was already a large assemblage of

people--the sun, which had risen at four o’clock, being well above the

horizon--an extraordinary mixture of Europeans and Asiatics, talking,

wrangling, haranguing, and bargaining. Everything which can be bought

or sold seemed to be heaped up in this square. Furs, precious stones,

silks, Cashmere shawls, Turkey carpets, weapons from the Caucasus,

gauzes from Smyrna and Ispahan. Tiflis armor, caravan teas. European

bronzes, Swiss clocks, velvets and silks from Lyons, English cottons,

harness, fruits, vegetables, minerals from the Ural, malachite,

lapis-lazuli, spices, perfumes, medicinal herbs, wood, tar, rope, horn,

pumpkins, water-melons, etc--all the products of India, China, Persia,

from the shores of the Caspian and the Black Sea, from America and

Europe, were united at this corner of the globe.

It is scarcely possible truly to portray the moving mass of human beings

surging here and there, the excitement, the confusion, the hubbub;

demonstrative as were the natives and the inferior classes, they were

completely outdone by their visitors. There were merchants from Central

Asia, who had occupied a year in escorting their merchandise across its

vast plains, and who would not again see their shops and counting-houses

for another year to come. In short, of such importance is this fair of

Nijni-Novgorod, that the sum total of its transactions amounts yearly to

nearly a hundred million dollars.

On one of the open spaces between the quarters of this temporary city

were numbers of mountebanks of every description; gypsies from the

mountains, telling fortunes to the credulous fools who are ever to

be found in such assemblies; Zingaris or Tsiganes--a name which the

Russians give to the gypsies who are the descendants of the ancient

Copts--singing their wildest melodies and dancing their most original

dances; comedians of foreign theaters, acting Shakespeare, adapted to

the taste of spectators who crowded to witness them. In the long avenues

the bear showmen accompanied their four-footed dancers, menageries

resounded with the hoarse cries of animals under the influence of the

stinging whip or red-hot irons of the tamer; and, besides all these

numberless performers, in the middle of the central square, surrounded

by a circle four deep of enthusiastic amateurs, was a band of “mariners

of the Volga,” sitting on the ground, as on the deck of their vessel,

imitating the action of rowing, guided by the stick of the master of the

orchestra, the veritable helmsman of this imaginary vessel! A whimsical

and pleasing custom!

Suddenly, according to a time-honored observance in the fair of

Nijni-Novgorod, above the heads of the vast concourse a flock of birds

was allowed to escape from the cages in which they had been brought to

the spot. In return for a few copecks charitably offered by some good

people, the bird-fanciers opened the prison doors of their captives, who

flew out in hundreds, uttering their joyous notes.

It should be mentioned that England and France, at all events, were this

year represented at the great fair of Nijni-Novgorod by two of the most

distinguished products of modern civilization, Messrs. Harry Blount

and Alcide Jolivet. Jolivet, an optimist by nature, found everything

agreeable, and as by chance both lodging and food were to his taste,

he jotted down in his book some memoranda particularly favorable to the

town of Nijni-Novgorod. Blount, on the contrary, having in vain hunted

for a supper, had been obliged to find a resting-place in the open

air. He therefore looked at it all from another point of view, and was

preparing an article of the most withering character against a town in

which the landlords of the inns refused to receive travelers who only

begged leave to be flayed, “morally and physically.”

Michael Strogoff, one hand in his pocket, the other holding his

cherry-stemmed pipe, appeared the most indifferent and least impatient

of men; yet, from a certain contraction of his eyebrows every now and

then, a careful observer would have seen that he was burning to be off.

For two hours he kept walking about the streets, only to find himself

invariably at the fair again. As he passed among the groups of buyers

and sellers he discovered that those who came from countries on the

confines of Asia manifested great uneasiness. Their trade was visibly

suffering. Another symptom also was marked. In Russia military uniforms

appear on every occasion. Soldiers are wont to mix freely with the

crowd, the police agents being almost invariably aided by a number

of Cossacks, who, lance on shoulder, keep order in the crowd of three

hundred thousand strangers. But on this occasion the soldiers, Cossacks

and the rest, did not put in an appearance at the great market.

Doubtless, a sudden order to move having been foreseen, they were

restricted to their barracks.

Moreover, while no soldiers were to be seen, it was not so with their

officers. Since the evening before, aides-decamp, leaving the governor’s

palace, galloped in every direction. An unusual movement was going

forward which a serious state of affairs could alone account for. There

were innumerable couriers on the roads both to Wladimir and to the

Ural Mountains. The exchange of telegraphic dispatches with Moscow was

incessant.

Michael Strogoff found himself in the central square when the report

spread that the head of police had been summoned by a courier to the

palace of the governor-general. An important dispatch from Moscow, it

was said, was the cause of it.

“The fair is to be closed,” said one.

“The regiment of Nijni-Novgorod has received the route,” declared

another.

“They say that the Tartars menace Tomsk!”

“Here is the head of police!” was shouted on every side. A loud clapping

of hands was suddenly raised, which subsided by degrees, and finally was

succeeded by absolute silence. The head of police arrived in the middle

of the central square, and it was seen by all that he held in his hand a

dispatch.

Then, in a loud voice, he read the following announcements: “By order of

the Governor of Nijni-Novgorod.

“1st. All Russian subjects are forbidden to quit the province upon any

pretext whatsoever.

“2nd. All strangers of Asiatic origin are commanded to leave the

province within twenty-four hours.”