Chapter 19 - Page 2

Scari! Scan! (Hurry!)"

The isvotchick pounded his horses, crowding past the dvornicks who
watched at the corners of the houses during the St. Petersburg night.
"Dirigi! dirigi! dirigi! (Look out!)"

The country, somber in the somber night. The vast open country.
What monotonous desolation! Rapidly, through the vast silent spaces,
the little car glided over the lonely route into the black arms of
the pines.

Rouletabille, holding on to his seat, looked about him.

"God! this is as sad as a funeral display."

Little frozen huts, no larger than tombs, occasionally indicated
the road, but there was no mark of life in that country except the
noise of the journey and the two beasts with steaming coats.

Crack! One of the shafts broken. "What a country!" To hear
Rouletabille one would suppose that only in Russia could the shaft
of a carriage break.

The repair was difficult and crude, with bits of rope. And from
then on the journey was slow and cautious after the frenzied speed.
In vain Rouletabille reasoned with himself. "You will arrive
anyway before morning. You cannot wake the Emperor in the dead of
night." His impatience knew no reason. "What a country! What a
country!"

After some other petty adventures (they ran into a ravine and had
tremendous difficulty rescuing the trunk) they arrived at
Tsarskoie-Coelo at a quarter of seven.

Even here the country was not pleasant. Rouletabille recalled the
bright awakening of French country. Here it seemed there was
something more dead than death: it was this little city with its
streets where no one passed, not a soul, not a phantom, with its
houses so impenetrable, the windows even of glazed glass and further
blinded by the morning hoar-frost shutting out light more thoroughly
than closed eyelids. Behind them he pictured to himself a world
unknown, a world which neither spoke nor wept, nor laughed, a world
in which no living chord resounded. "What a country! 'Where is
the chateau? I do not know; I have been here only once, in the
marshal's carriage. I do not know the way. Not the great palace!
The idiot of a driver has brought me to this great palace in order
to see it, I haven't a doubt. Does Rouletabille look like a tourist?
Dourak! The home of the Tsar, I tell you. The Tsar's residence.
The place where the Little Father lives. Chez Batouchka!"

The driver lashed his ponies. He drove past all the streets.
"Stoi! (Stop!)" cried Rouletabille. A gate, a soldier, musket at
shoulder, bayonet in play; another gate, another soldier, another
bayonet; a park with walls around it, and around the walls more
soldiers.

"No mistake; here is the place," thought Rouletabille. There was
only one