The Russian Review/Volume 1/March 1916/Difficult Travel

by Sergey Gusev-Orenburgsky

Difficult Travel.

By S. Gusev-Orenburgsky.

Translated for "The Russian Review."

The train was going in the direction of Cheliabinsk. At one of the way stations, a pale, round-shouldered peasant, appearing abnormally short on account of his extreme thinness, entered, or rather slipped, into a car of the third class, treading stealthily, and casting furtive glances on all sides. Under his arm he held a small dirty bag, which must have been extremely light, since it did not hamper, in the slightest degree, its owner's movements. First the peasant tried the bench behind the door, but his glance met the stern face belonging to an individual of the retired Captain's rank, who filled two benches with himself and his personal belongings. The look with which the retired Captain greeted the peasant was so stern, that he hurried along through the crowded car. Pausing before another bench, he addressed a lady who was lounging on it comfortably, a shawl thrown over her shoulders, and a book in her hands.

"Lady, won't you please let a poor man sit down here? Won't you please move your feet away a little?"

"Oh! Oh!" exclaimed the lady nervously, dropping the book on the floor. "What do you want?"

"A little bit of room, lady."

"Oh, don't you touch me with your filthy hands! Isn't there a separate car for peasants? Get along, get along, now!"

She took out a lace handkerchief, and carried it to her pretty, little nose, as if she were being suffocated by some very unpleasant odor.

In the meantime, the peasant slipped along timidly, and suddenly rushed to a bench, on which he noticed a severe-looking, long-bearded peasant dressed in a new black coat with large collar, who sat there wrapt in thought, leaning against the back of the bench.

"Brother, brother," began the little peasant in a joyful, hoarse whisper, "won't you let me sit here with you? I don't have far to go. The conductor will first ask the ticket of the fellow who is standing up. And I want to go only a station or two."

The peasant looked at him in silence, measuring him from head to foot with a severe glance, and then moved quietly to one side.

"Haven't you got a ticket?" asked he, when the other had finally settled down and tucked away his bag.

"No, brother, that's the second thousand I'm traveling that way."

Suddenly he was seized by a violent fit of coughing that shook his whole frail body. An official, with black hair and beard, dressed in full uniform, who was sitting by the window smoking a cigar, looked at the peasant with interest, and then turned away again.

"Are you a laborer?" continued the bearded peasant.

"No, I'm going to a new place. To Siberia. To live there."

"So-o!" The bearded peasant nodded several times. "But how can you expect to go so far without a ticket?"

"Just as God wills."

"So you haven't got any money, either, have you?"

"Lord, no! What do I want money for? Money's nothing. I can earn it, if I get work. But I've got another trouble,—no document."

"Haven't you got a passport?"

"No, brother, that's the worst of it."

The bearded peasant nodded again, his glance sterner than ever.

"How is it then?" said he. "No ticket, no money, no passport, and still you're going?"

The little peasant burst out laughing, like a child.

"Just so . . . Going . . . Started out at Chernigov . . . Part of the way on train, part on foot . . ."

"And sometimes astride a stick, eh?" said the black-haired official.

He burst out into contemptuous laughter, and again applied himself to the contemplation of the night landscape outside.

The peasant brightened up at once.

"That's it exactly, your Honor," said he. "That's just it. 'Move along on your own two.' That's said about us."

"But they'll send you back." The bearded peasant continued to express his astonishment. "The police will bring you back. And you'll see enough of prison yet for your unruliness."

"People say they don't send you back. A soldier was in our village some time ago,—an experienced fellow. Well, he used to say that there are places in Siberia about which the authorities don't know anything at all. There's a great big swamp. So big, it's, say, a thousand versts. You can't go through it on foot, or on horseback. Nobody can get through, except a squirrel or a hare, it's such an awful swamp. On one side of the swamp is the Ocean Sea, on the other, the Turkish land, right where the Turks live. China isn't far away, either. And right in the middle of this swamp there is a big forest. The soldier used to say it's so big, so big . . . There isn't another one like it in the whole country. And all sorts of trees grow there, pines, and oaks, and elms, and hazel-nuts, and they grow like grass, and nobody counts them. You can chop down as many as you like, nobody will ever say a word. And right in the middle of that forest there is a village, a big village, almost like a capital. And the authorities don't know anything about the village, and never find their way there."

"You must be afraid of the authorities," said the official from his corner, and laughed again.

"Why, sure, your Honor! Nobody can help fearing the authorities," answered the peasant eagerly. "They're our fathers. What would we do without the authorities? If the people were not afraid of the authorities, they'd go wild."

"But how can you get to that village, when nobody knows the way?" again asked the bearded peasant, doubtfully.

"And what about God, eh?" exclaimed the little peasant.

"D'you think he'd let a poor man perish, eh? Your tongue and your need will take you anywhere."

II.

The train was rushing along, clattering and clanging.

Night peered in through the car windows.

Dense clouds of sparks, like golden bees, were flying past the window, rapidly twirling in the air and forming themselves into fiery arcs and zig-zags.

"And then again," began the little peasant after a moment's silence, "you can join some community. Experienced people used to say that they don't send you back if you join a community."

"Yes, but who'll take you in without a passport?" The bearded peasant again shook his head in doubt and disapproval.

"Oh, they'll take me in."

"No, not without a passport. A man is not supposed to live without a passport. Only the dog lives without a passport. Well, the Turk too, I guess. But the Turk is the same as a dog, because he is of Turkish faith. And a Christian, a real Christian, can't live without a passport."

"But how're you going to get it?" The little peasant made a rapid, uneasy motion. "Take my case, for example. I am an awfully poor fellow; I guess nothing remains for me to do, except to die. Always hungry and poor. I must go somewhere else, and get a piece of land. So, I get about it. First I go to the village clerk. 'So and so,' say I, Ivan Petrovich, won't you let me have a passport, so that I could go to new lands.' And he says, 'Oh I can't do anything; you'll have to go the village head.' So, I go to the head. And he says, 'Go to the head of the volost.' And the head of the volost says, 'I can't do anything. It's up to the lord. You go to him.'"

"What lord?"

"Oh, the Zemstvo official. So I go to him. But he says right off to me, 'You throw that nonsense out of your head, and forget all about it. It's just nonsense.' Yes, nonsense, when my kids are running around all naked."

"So you've got children, too?"

"Oh, sure!" The peasant's withered face lit up. "Three of 'em."

"How could you leave them?"

"Oh, God will take care of them. What good am I to them? They'll have to starve anyway, whether I'm there or not. Just as soon as I settle down in Siberia, I'll get them over. Now just look. I've got no horse. All the land I've got is about one-quarter of a desiatina. And I owe the Church elder more than fifty pouds of grain. Borrowed it on different occasions. So I had to work the whole summer for the elder, paying off the debt. And the priest, too, wants me to work for him. I owe him a lot for baptism and funerals. Well, is that nonsense? 'Your Honor,' says I to the Lord, 'I live worse than a bird. Every crow in the woods has at least a nest of its own, and I haven't even that. I'm living in my brother's house. And when he comes home from the army, he'll want it for himself. Then I'll have to live in the street, with my little children . . . I'm just a cuckoo without a nest, your Honor!' I thought I'd get him jolly if I'd say that."

"And what did he say?"

"He laughed . . . 'Yes, I see that you're a bird, and a foolish one at that. Worse than a crow. You can't live here without aid, and how do you expect to go to Siberia? Why, the wolves will eat you up on the way. No, I won't let you. Just throw that nonsense out of your head. I've got a firm character. Won't let you.'"

Another violent fit of coughing seized the little peasant, and shook his whole emaciated frame.

"Yes ... 'I got a . . . firm character,' he says," continued he through his coughing. "'Never. Just throw that nonsense out of your head. I'll have my way about it.' So the lord says to me, and I think to myself, 'So? All right! But you won't go to the priest to work for me!'—So quietly I got my things together and slipped out of the village one dark night."

The peasant suddenly cut off his narrative and rushed on through the car. He had heard from the neighboring compartment the magic words:

"The controller is coming!"

III.

The peasant was tossing about the car, rushing from the window to the door, and then to another window. Under the bench on which sat the lady with the book, there was some baggage, but there was just enough room for the peasant to hide his thin body. He fell on his knees before the lady, and begged in a broken whisper:

"Your Honor, won't you let me get under the bench?"

The lady was so startled that she dropped her book, and cried out:

"Oh, Oh! Who's that? What is it?"

"Lady! Your Honor! . . . They're coming!"

"Get out of here! What do you want?"

"Lady! Please let the poor man . . . There won't be any harm done . . . Just quietly . . . Lady ! . . ."

"Here, conductor!" suddenly shouted the lady.

The peasant rushed away, then came back again and fell on his knees once more. As though trying to touch her with the word, he said, looking at her beseechingly:

"Please, madam!"

At this, the dark official burst out laughing, and pronounced the magic word, as he removed a large suit-case from under his bench:

"Get in!"

It seemed as though a blast of wind had blown the little peasant away. A second later, nothing but his worn-down, torn old boots were visible from under the bench, and even they soon disappeared.

At the same moment the passengers heard the request:

"Your tickets, please. Your tickets."

As the conductor repeated these words, the controller walked silently through the car, examining the tickets by the light of his lantern, and then punching them. He was a young man, with a kindly face. At the corners of his mouth there was the little humorous twist characteristic of the Little Russian. He performed his operation with the tickets in such a manner as though he felt that it was the most useless occupation in the world. "Click-click," went the puncher in the hushed car, joining its clicking to the clattering of the train. In the meantime, the conductor was looking under the benches. It seemed that the poor "traveller" was safe. The dark official sitting there by the window, with such a haughty and independent look on his face, and a cigar in his mouth, must have seemed to the conductors sufficient guarantee that everything was in order under the bench. They did not examine his baggage. There was, however, one man who must have noticed the "free passenger," for the humorous twist around his mouth trembled ever so slightly and became plainly visible. While the controller was standing before the official's bench, the betraying boot suddenly appeared and touched the controller's shining patent-leather shoe. The light of the lantern played on the shoe and the boot. And the boot looked so pitiful, so worn down, and on its torn sole were so plainly visible the mud and dust of thousands of versts, that the controller . . .

"Your tickets, please! Get your tickets ready!"

The conductor's voice came from the next compartment.

But the lady, who was waiting with eager interest to see how the peasant would be "discovered," rose from her bench, and moved towards the door with a determined look on her face.

"Shame on you, lady," said the bearded peasant, evidently guessing her intentions.

But she was already saying in her thin, aristocratic voice:

"Mr. Controller, you have missed one passenger."

The moment she said these words, the conductor rushed into the compartment and began to pull at the feet that were protruding from under the bench. The passengers looked on with great interest. Even the stern face of the retired Captain appeared from behind the end bench, and gazed on the scene with sternly set brows.

"Come on, you! Come on!" shouted the conductor, trying to pull out the ticketless passenger.

"Your Honor . . ." whispered the peasant, without getting out.

"Come on, come on! Dont you hear what I'm saying?" The conductor was getting angry. "Come out, now!"

Dishevelled, emaciated, pitiful in the extreme, and just then seized by another racking fit of his coughing, the peasant finally appeared from under the bench. The controller watched this pitiful figure with a tired, half-contemptuous expression.

"Where's your ticket?" insisted the conductor.

"Your Honor, I've lost it. God is my witness . . . As though I would . . .?"

"Where did you get on?" shouted the conductor, now thoroughly exasperated.

"On the last station, your Honor. May I never move from this spot . . . I lost the ticket, and my senses, too, I guess, so I hid under the bench."

The peasant attempted to twist his face into a pitiful smile, as though he himself considered the "incident" funny.

The controller was silent.

"It is not true. It is not true," the lady said with a coquettish smirk. "He's been in the car for a long time. How can you let them in . . . They might steal something, or murder somebody."

"Something like this happened to me once," said the retired Captain from his corner, "That is, not to me exactly, but to a trunk."

At that moment a whistle sounded at a distance.

The train began to slow down.

"Come on over to the station," said the conductor and began to "encourage" the peasant to move on.

The controller thanked the lady with over-emphasized politeness. She was delighted. The passengers began to discuss the incident. Some of them denounced the peasant, others spoke disapprovingly of the lady's action. Many a lance was broken. The retired Captain, silent until now, began to narrate enthusiastically the scarcely credible adventures of some phenomenal suitcase. Only the dark official took no part in the conversation. He was still sitting by the window, and, as the train pulled out, he alone saw a tall gendarme leading the peasant into the interior of the dark station along the dimly-lit platform, with its gas-light violently swayed by the strong north wind.