Watson, Ian - Novel 11 by Chekhov's Journey (v1.1) Page A

           If
he could only get over to the other side! But the bargees only pulled rude
faces at him and shouted abuse.
                 He
fled from the riverbank, pursued by their taunts, and immediately came upon a
cemetery. The stone gate posts were crumbling, as were the tombs within; yet a
funeral procession had just arrived, and filed inside. The mourners seemed to
comprise everyone he had ever known. Suvorin was there. So was Pleshcheyev. Olga Kundasova, too—and Nikolai Leikin. Modest Tchaikovsky
stood next to Maria Kiseleva. Levitan, Evgenia, Masha . . . And without
exception everyone was weeping un- consolably.
                 Anton
rushed into the cemetery to try to explain that the coffin was full of stones.
But the mocking laughter of the bargees still rang in his ears, confusing him. Those
evil fellows were still watching him from somewhere—openly and contemptuously
like police spies . . .
                 He
woke up with a start—and the majestic Yenisey lay before him, in full flood,
rather than that Styx of his dreams. A stalwart ferry was
ploughing against the fierce current, ever nearer to the shore, to bear him
back to Krasnoyarsk . Horses stamped fretfully; harness jingled.
                 “Ever
thought you were being watched, Ilya?” he asked Sidorov, who was holding the
reins. “You know the feeling? The old animal sense, as if something’s boring
between your shoulder blades?”
                 “Uh.” Sidorov made a feeble attempt to shake himself out of
his stupor.
                 “I
ought to be in Sakhalin now, taking a census. And something’s
driving me down a different road—like a bayonet sticking in my back. I must be
sick in my mind. A psychopath, eh?”
                 “Uh.”
                 And
there it was! Not insanity, but fatigue. Exhaustion was the cause of his dream and source of his mental confusion.
Neurasthenia reached unique new depths on any Siberian journey—but especially
on a trip through the endless forests of the taiga. Time stopped entirely.
One’s brain clogged up.
                 “Uh huh.” Sidorov’s face was so grimy that he might have
been masquerading as a Negro, smeared with boot polish.
                 Anton
rubbed his own face. His knuckles came away black as a lamp wick. Whenever
Summer lightning struck the forests, fires dragged sooty palls across the Road.
Which was worse: the floods and gluey mud before—or this dry dusty smoking
heat? Both were vile . . . And no matter how many trees were burned to a
cinder, it never seemed to diminish by one jot the endless ranks of pines
reeking of resin, of larches and firs, and those gloomy birches which were
darker than the birches of Russia , less sentimental in hue . . .
                 “My
God, if a jaunt of three hundred versts to Kansk and back knocks a fellow up
like this—that’s on a road, mind you!—Heaven help us once we’re off the beaten
track!”
                 “Don’t
worry, Anton Pavlovich.” Sidorov had come alive again. “Wherever Man exists,
there are tracks. The Tungusi know where the paths are . . . One day, I swear
to you, this forest will be driven back—oh, maybe as far as Kansk itself!
You’ll see fields of cabbages and potatoes. And the one thing which will bring
that day closer is to call attention to Siberia !”
                 “You
know, back in Russia I used to think the crash of an axe was such a cruel sound . . .”
                 “We’re
all of us lost in a dark wood, blundering around. We need to let a little light
in. Don’t we?’’
                 “Yes.’’
                 “Really,
our problem’s just one of timing—as our surveyor friend says. We could hop in a
boat right away. The Yenisey would carry us off to the North without us lifting
a finger. But as soon as we left the river