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| 2017/02/20 14:24:50瀏覽134｜回應0｜推薦0 | |
The proposal had much to attract me. For more than eleven years I had never left Kara, and I knew only the adjacent villages. Now I was offered the chance of travelling a distance of some hundreds of versts, and that in a province which, as I was aware, contained much that was of great interest. The work of drawing up the general report likewise interested me. The only objection was association with a man I had come against in such an unpleasant way; but the eloquence of the starshinà again prevailed over my doubts, and I agreed to undertake the task. Permission for me to leave my place of internment was at once given, and I set off on my journey. Of course I travelled at the State’s expense. I received a pass from the Governor, which entitled me to requisition horses for my use wherever I went, and to lodge in the zèmskaya kvàrtira, or official residences;[113] in short, I was for the time being an official travelling on Government business. in a Siberian winter is no trifling matter. I was clad in furs, a dohà over all the rest, and so wrapped up in a fur rug that I could hardly move in the 320sledge. The road ran for the most of the way through a practically uninhabited part of the province, a hilly, thickly wooded country, and the horses had hard work to get the sledge along. Every thirty or forty versts we came to a halting-station, where the horses were changed. When I arrived everyone was always most subservient and polite, giving me such a reception as befitted a very important official, which was sometimes extremely funny. At the first station where I was to spend the night, the elder of the village displayed a perfect fever of official zeal. I arrived late in the evening, and had at once sought my bed, when the man came to me, much disturbed. “Has your Excellency any orders for me?” I begged him to see that horses were ready for my start next morning; but that did not seem to satisfy him. He said that my gracious commands should be obeyed, and still insisted on decorating me with a title. When I explained to him who I really was, he admitted “certainly that was another thing”; but orders he was determined to have, notwithstanding, and asked if he should not fetch the census-takers of the village to wait on me. I naturally did not wish to disturb them in the middle of the night, which he could not understand at all. The people of other villages also astonished me by the fervour of their attentions; and I could not quite comprehend it, until I learned that our masterful prìstav had travelled by the same route a few days before, and had spurred up his subordinates with injunctions to receive the “Censor of Shilkinskaya” (as I was entitled) with all honour, and to fulfil his orders most carefully. |
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