Part 26

At last the steamer arrived, none the worse for its encounter with the bar. Usually, the mail steamers halt three hours--half-merchandise steamers four hours--at Kazan and other important towns on the Volga, affording hasty travelers an opportunity to make a swift survey in a drosky; but on this occasion one hour was made to suffice, and at last we were really off on our way to the estate down the river where we were to pay our long-promised visit.

We were still at a reach of the river where the big steamer might sit down on another reef, and the men were kept on guard at the bow, with hardly an intermission, gauging the depth of the water with their striped poles, to guide the helmsman by their monotonous calls: "Vosim!" "Schest-s-polovino-o-o-iu!" "Sim!" (Eight! Six and a half! Seven!) They had a little peculiarity of pronunciation which was very pleasing. And we soon discovered that into shallower water than five and a half quarters we might not venture.

The river was extremely animated above the mouth of the Kama, the great waterway from the mines and forests of the Ural and Siberia. Now and then, the men on a float heavily laden with iron bars, which was being towed to the Fair at Nizhni Novgorod, would shout a request that we would slacken speed, lest they be swamped with our swell. Huge rafts of fine timber were abundant, many with small chapel-like structures on them, which were not chapels, however. Cattle steamers passed, the unconfined beasts staring placidly over the low guards of the three decks, and uttering no sound. We had already learned that the animals are as quiet as the people, in Russia, the Great Silent Land. Very brief were our halts at the small landings. The villagers, who had come down with baskets of fresh rolls and berries and bottles of cream, to supply hungry passengers whose means or inclination prevented their eating the steamer food, had but scant opportunity to dispose of their perishable wares.

As the evening breeze freshened, the perfume of the hayfields was wafted from the distant shores in almost overpowering force. The high right bank, called the Hills, and the low left shore, known as the Forests, sank into half-transparent vagueness, which veiled the gray log-built villages with their tiny windows, and threw into relief against the evening sky only the green roofs and blue domes of the churches, surmounted by golden crosses, which gleamed last of all in the vanishing rays of sunset. A boatload of peasants rowing close in shore; a red-shirted solitary figure straying along the water's edge; tiny sea-gulls darting and dipping in the waves around the steamer; a vista up some wide-mouthed affluent; and a great peaceful stillness brooding over all,--such were the happenings, too small for incidents, which accorded perfectly with the character of the Volga. For the Volga cannot be compared with the Rhine or the Hudson in castles or scenery. It has, instead, a grand, placid charm of its own, imperial, indefinable, and sweet. One yields to it, and subscribes to the Russian faith in the grand river.

No one seemed to know how much of the lost time would be made up. Were it spring, when Mother Volga runs from fifty to a hundred and fifty miles wide, taking the adjoining country into her broad embrace, and steamers steer a bee-line course to their landings, the officers might have been able to say at what hour we should reach our destination. As it was, they merely reiterated the characteristic "Ne znaem" (We don't know), which possesses plural powers of irritation when uttered in the conventional half-drawl. Perhaps they really did not know. Owing to a recent decree in the imperial navy, officers who have served a certain number of years without having accomplished a stipulated amount of sea service are retired. Since the Russian war vessels are not many, while the Naval Academy continues to turn out a large batch of young officers every year, the opportunities for effecting the requisite sea service are limited. The officers who are retired, in consequence, seek positions on the Volga steamers, which are sometimes commanded by a rear-admiral, in the imperial uniform, which he is allowed to retain, in addition to receiving a grade. But if one chances upon them during their first season on the river, their information is not equal to their fine appearance, since Mother Volga must be studied in her caprices, and navigation is open only, on the average, between the 12th of April and the 24th of November. Useless to interrogate the old river dogs among the subordinates. The "We don't know" is even more inveterate with them, and it is reinforced with the just comment, "We are not the masters."

Knowing nothing, in the general uncertainty, except that we must land some time during the night, we were afraid to make ourselves comfortable even to the extent of unpacking sheets to cool off the velvet divans, which filled two sides of our luxurious cabin. When we unbolted the movable panels from the slatted door and front wall, to establish a draft of fresh air from the window, a counter-draft was set up of electric lights, supper clatter, cigarette smoke, and chatter, renewed at every landing with the fresh arrivals. We resolved to avoid these elegant mail steamers in the future, and patronize the half-merchandise boats of the same line, which are not much slower, and possess the advantage of staterooms opening on a corridor, not on the saloon, and are fitted with skylights, so that one can have fresh air and quiet sleep.

At four o'clock in the morning we landed. The local policeman, whose duty it is to meet steamers, gazed at us with interest. The secret of his meditations we learned later. He thought of offering us his services. "They looked like strangers, but talked Russian," he said. The combination was too much for him, and, seeing that we were progressing well in our bargain for a conveyance, he withdrew, and probably solved the riddle with the aid of the postboy.

The estate for which we were bound lay thirty-five versts distant; but fearing that we might reach it too early if we were to start at once, I ordered an equipage for six o'clock. I was under the impression that the man from the posting-house had settled it for us that we required a pair of horses, attached to whatever he thought fit, and that I had accepted his dictation. The next thing to do, evidently, was to adopt the Russian stop-gap of tea.

The wharfinger, who occupied a tiny tenement on one end of the dock, supplied us with a bubbling samovar, sugar, and china, since we were not traveling in strictly Russian style, with a fragile-nosed teapot and glasses. We got out our tea, steeped and sipped it, nibbling at a bit of bread, in that indifferent manner which one unconsciously acquires in Russia. It is only by such experience that one comes to understand the full--or rather scanty--significance of that puzzling and oft-recurring phrase in Russian novels, "drinking tea."

As we were thus occupied in one of the cells, furnished with a table and two hard stuffed benches, to accommodate waiting passengers, our postboy thrust his head in at the door and began the subject of the carriage all over again. I repeated my orders. He said, "Kharasho" (Good), and disappeared. We dallied over our tea. We watched the wharfinger's boys trying to drown themselves in a cranky boat, like the young male animals of all lands; we listened to their shrill little songs; we counted the ducks, gazed at the peasants assembled on the brow of the steep hill above us, on which the town was situated, and speculated about the immediate future, until the time fixed and three quarters of an hour more had elapsed. The wharfinger's reply to my impatient questions was an unvarying apathetic "We don't know," and, spurred to action by this, I set out to find the posting-house.

It was not far away, but my repeated and vigorous knocks upon the door of the izba (cottage), ornamented with the imperial eagle and the striped pole, received no response. I pushed open the big gate of the courtyard alongside, and entered. Half the court was roofed over with thatch. In the far corner, divorced wagon bodies, running-gear, and harnesses lay heaped on the earth. A horse, which was hitched to something unsubstantial among those fragments, came forward to welcome me. A short row of wagon members which had escaped divorce, and were united in wheeling order, stood along the high board fence. In one of them, a rough wooden cart, shaped somewhat like a barrel sawed in two lengthwise, pillowed on straw, but with his legs hanging down in an uncomfortable attitude, lay my faithless postboy (he was about forty years of age) fast asleep. The neighboring vehicle, which I divined to be the one intended for us, was in possession of chickens. A new-laid egg bore witness to their wakefulness and industry.

While I was engaged in an endeavor to rouse my should-be coachman, by tugging at his sleeve and pushing his boots in the most painful manner I could devise, a good-looking peasant woman made her tardy appearance at the side door of the adjoining izba, and seemed to enjoy the situation in an impartial, impersonal way. The horse thrust his muzzle gently into his master's face and roused him for me, and, in return, was driven away.

I demanded an explanation. Extracted by bits in conversational spirals, it proved to be that he had decided that the carriage needed three horses, which he had known all along; and, chiefly, that he had desired to sleep upon a little scheme for exploiting the strangers. How long he had intended to pursue his slumberous meditations it is impossible to say.

He dragged me through all the mazes of that bargain once more. Evidently, bargaining was of even stricter etiquette than my extensive previous acquaintance had led me to suspect; and I had committed the capital mistake of not complying with this ancestral custom in the beginning. I agreed to three horses, and stipulated, on my side, that fresh straw should replace the chickens' nest, and that we should set out at once,--not saytchas but sooner, "this very minute."

I turned to go. A fresh difficulty arose. He would not go unless I would pay for three relays. He brought out the government regulations and amendments,--all that had been issued during the century, I should think. He stood over me while I read them, and convinced myself that his "Yay Bogu" (God is my witness) was accurately placed. The price of relays was, in reality, fixed by law; but though over-affirmation had now aroused my suspicions, in my ignorance of the situation I could not espy the loophole of trickery in which I was to be noosed, and I agreed once more. More quibbling. He would not stir unless he were allowed to drive the same horses the whole distance, though paid for three relays, because all the horses would be away harvesting, and so forth and so on. Goaded to assert myself in some manner, to put an end to these interminable hagglings, I asserted what I did not know.

"Prince X. never pays for these relays," I declared boldly.

"Oh, no, he does n't," replied the man, with cheerful frankness. "But you must, or I'll not go."

That settled it; I capitulated once more.

We had omitted to telegraph to our friends, partly in order to save them the trouble of sending a carriage, partly because we were thirsting for "experiences." It began to look as though our thirst was to be quenched in some degree, since we were in this man's power as to a vehicle, and it might be true that we should not be able to obtain any other in the town, or any horses in the villages, if indeed there were any villages. Fortified by another volley of "Yay Bogu" of triumphant fervor, we survived a second wait. At last, near nine o'clock, we were able to pack ourselves and our luggage.

The body of our tarantas, made, for the sake of lightness, of woven elm withes, and varnished dark brown, was shaped not unlike a baby carriage. Such a wagon body costs about eight dollars in Kazan, where great numbers of them are made. It was set upon stout, unpainted running-gear, guiltless of springs, in cat's-cradle fashion. The step was a slender iron stirrup, which revolved in its ring with tantalizing ease. It was called a pletuschka, and the process of entering it resembled vaulting on horseback.

Our larger luggage was tied on behind with ropes, in precarious fashion. The rest we took inside and deposited at our feet. As there was no seat, we flattened ourselves out on the clean hay, and practiced Delsartean attitudes of languor. Our three horses were harnessed abreast. The reins were made in part of rope; so were the traces. Our yamtschik had donned his regulation coat over his red shirt, and sat unblenchingly through the heat. All preliminaries seemed to be settled at last. I breathed a sigh of relief, as we halted at the posting-house to pay our dues in advance, and I received several pounds of copper coin in change, presumably that I might pay the non-existent relays.

The troika set off with spirit, and we flattered ourselves that we should not be long on the road. This being a county town, there were some stone official buildings in addition to the cathedral, of which we caught a glimpse in the distance. But our road lay through a suburb of log cabins, through a large gate in the wattled town fence, and out upon the plain.

For nearly five hours we drove through birch forests, over rolling downs, through a boundless ocean of golden rye, diversified by small patches of buckwheat, oats, millet, and wheat. But wheat thrives better in the adjoining government, and many peasants, we are told, run away from pressing work and good wages at hand to harvest where they will get white bread to eat, and return penniless.

Here and there, the small, weather-beaten image of some saint, its face often indistinguishable through stress of storms, and shielded by a rough triangular penthouse, was elevated upon a pole, indicating the spot where prayers are said for the success of the harvest. Corn-flowers, larkspur, convolvulus, and many other flowers grew profusely enough among the grain to come under the head of weeds.

The transparent air allowed us vast vistas of distant blue hills and nearer green valleys, in which nestled villages under caps of thatch, encircled by red-brown fences cleverly wattled of long boughs. In one hollow we passed through a village of the Tchuvashi, a Turkish or Finnish tribe, which was stranded all along the middle Volga in unrecorded antiquity, during some of the race migrations from the teeming plateaux of Asia. The village seemed deserted. Only a few small children and grannies had been left at home by the harvesters, and they gazed curiously at us, aroused to interest by the jingling harness with its metal disks, and the bells clanging merrily from the apex of the wooden arch which rose above the neck of our middle horse.

The grain closed in upon us. We plucked some ears as we passed, and found them ripe and well filled. The plain seemed as trackless as a forest, and our postboy suspected, from time to time, that he had lost his way among the narrow roads. A few peasant men whom we encountered at close quarters took off their hats, but without servility, and we greeted them with the customary good wishes for a plentiful harvest, "Bog v pomozh" (God help), or with a bow. The peasant women whom we met rarely took other notice of us than to stare, and still more rarely did they salute first. They gazed with instinctive distrust, as women of higher rank are wont to do at a stranger of their own sex.

Although the grain was planted in what seemed to be a single vast field, belonging to one estate, it was in reality the property of many different peasants, as well as of some proprietors. Each peasant had marked his plot with a cipher furrow when he plowed, and the outlines had been preserved by the growing grain. The rich black soil of the fallow land, and strips of turf separating sections, relieved the monotony of this waving sea of gold.

The heat was intense. In our prone position, we found it extremely fatiguing to hold umbrellas. We had recourse, therefore, to the device practiced by the mountaineers of the Caucasus, who, in common with the Spaniards, believe that what will keep out cold will also keep out heat. We donned our heavy wadded pelisses. The experiment was a success. We arrived cool and tranquil, in the fierce heat, at the estate of our friends, and were greeted with fiery reproaches for not having allowed them to send one of their fifteen or twenty carriages for us. But we did not repent, since our conduct had secured for us that novel ride and a touch of our coveted "experience," in spite of the strain of our thirty hours' vigil and the jolts of the springless vehicle.