Now let me tell you of an adventure for which I am indebted to Siberian driving. Except that I ask Mama not to groan or lament, for everything came out all right. On the sixth of May, before dawn, I was being driven by a very nice old man with a team of horses. I was in a little buggy. I was drowsing and to make time pass was observing the tongues of flame darting about the fields and birch groves; people here burn the pre- vious year's grass this way. Suddenly I heard the broken thud of wheels. Coming toward us at full tilt, like a bird, dashed a three-horse carriage. My old man quickly turned to the right, the post carriage sailed past and then I discerned in the shadows an enormous, heavy three-horse post wagon with a driver mak- ing the return trip. Behind this wagon I could see another tearing along, also at full speed. \Ve hurried to turn right. . . . To my great bewilderment and alarm the cart turned to the left, not the right. I scarcely had time to think to myself, "My God, we'll collide!" when there was a desperate crash, the horses mingled into one dark mass, the yokes fell, my buggy stood on end, I lay on the ground and my baggage on top of me. But that wasn't all. . . . A third cart dashed upon us . . . . Verily, this should have crushed me and my suitcases, but thank God, I was not sleeping, didn't fracture any bones and managed to jump up quickly enough to run to one side. "Stop!" I yelled at the third cart, "Stop!" It hurled itself upon the second one and came to a halt. Of course, if I had been able to sleep in my buggy, or if the third wagon had flung itself im- mediately upon the second, I would have returned home a cripple or a headless horseman. Results of the collision: broken shafts, torn harness, yokes and baggage on the ground, scared, exhausted horses and terror at the thought of having expe- rienced a moment of peril. It seemed that the first driver had urged on his horses, while the drivers of the other two wagons were asleep; nobody was steering. After recovering from the tumult my old fellow and the drivers of all three vehicles began swearing furiously at one another. How they cursed! I thought it would wind up in a free-for-all. You cannot con- ceive how alone you feel in the midst of this wild, cursing horde, in the open country, at dawn, in sight of flames lapping up the grass in the distance and close at hand, but not throw- ing off a bit of heat into the frigid night air! How grief-stricken was my soul! You listen to the swearing, look down at the broken shafts and your own torn baggage and you seem to be thrust into another world, about to be trampled down. After an hour long of cursing, my old man began tying up the shafts and harness with cord; my straps were pressed into service too. We dragged ourselves to the station somehow, with plenty of stops in between, and barely made it.
After the fifth or sixth day the rains began, accompanied by a stiff wind. It poured day and night. Out came the leather coat to save me from the rain and wind. It is a marvelous coat. The mud became practically impassable and the drivers were unwilling to drive by night. But the most terrible busi- ness of all, which I won't ever forget, were the river crossings. You reach a river at night. You and the driver both start shout- ing. . . . Rain, wind, sheets of ice creep along the river, you hear a splash. To enliven things appropriately, we hear a bit- tern screeching. These birds live on Siberian rivers. That means they don't recognize climate, but geographical position. Well, sir, in an hour a massive ferryboat in the form of a barge looms in the shadows; it has immense oars resembling the pincers of a crab. The ferrymen are a mischievous lot, for the most part exiles, deported here by society to atone for their sins. They use foul language to an intolerable degree, shout, demand money for vodka. . . . It is a long, long trip across the river . . . one long agony! . . .
The seventh of May, when I asked the driver for horses, he told me the Irtish had overflown its banks and flooded the meadows, that yesterday Kuzma had gone that way and had scarcely managed to return, and that it was impossible to go on, that we would have to wait. I asked until when. Reply: "The Lord only knows!" Here was an indefinite answer for me, and besides, I had promised myself to get rid of two vices en route which had caused me considerable expense, trouble and incon- venience: a readiness to comply and let myself be talked into things. I would quickly come to terms with a driver and find myself riding on the devil knows what, sometimes paying twice the usual price, and waiting for hours on end. I decided not to give in and not to believe what was told me and I've had less aches and pains. For instance, they would get out a plain, jolting wagon instead of a carriage. I'd refuse to ride in it, lay down the law, and a carriage would inevitably appear, although previously I had been assured there wasn't a single one in the whole village, etc.
Well, sir, suspecting that the flood on the Irtish had been dreamed up expressly to avoid driving through the mud at night, I protested and gave orders to go on. . . . Off we went. Mud, rain, a furious wind, cold . . . and felt boots on. Do you know what wet felt boots are like? They are footwear made of gelatin. \Ve kept on and suddenly before my vision spread an immense lake, with mounds of earth and bushes jutting out in clumps—these were the inundated meadows. In the distance ranged the Irtish's steep bank and on it the patches of snow lay white. \Ve started negotiating the lake. We should have turned back, but my obstinacy stood in the way, I was in a sort of defiant fervor, that same fervor that compelled me to bathe in the midst of the Black Sea from the yacht, and which has led me to perform all sorts of foolish acts. It's probably a psychotic condition. On we went, picking out little islets and strips of land. Big and little bridges are supposed to show the way, but they had been washed out. To get past them the horses had to be unharnessed and led one at a time. The driver did so, and I jumped into the water—in my felt boots—to hold the horses. . . . What sport! And with it the rain, the wind. Save us, Heavenly Mother! Finally we made our way to an islet with a roofless cabin. Wet horses were wandering about in wet man- ure. A mujik with a long stick came out of the cabin and volun- teered to show us the way. He measured the depth of the water with his stick and tested the ground. God bless him, he steered us to a long strip of ground which he called a "ridge." He showed us how to get our bearings from this ridge and take the road to the right, or maybe the left, I don't remember exactly, and land on another ridge. This we did.
On we went. . . . Finally—O Joy—we reached the Irtish. The other bank was steep, on our side it sloped. . . The Irtish does not murmur, or roar, but resigns itself to its fate, which, as it were, is to hammer as though coffins were reposing on its bottom. Cursed impression! The other bank was high, mat- brown, desolate.
\Ve came to the cabin where the ferrymen lived. One of them came out to announce it was impossible to allow a ferry across, as a storm was brewing. The river, they told us, was wide and the wind strong. What to do? \Ve had to spend the night in the cabin. I recall that night, the snoring of the ferrymen, and of my driver, the howl of the wind, the patter of the rain, the growling of the Irtish. . . .
In the morning they were reluctant to ferry us across because of the wind. So we had to row our way over. There I was sail- ing across the river, with the rain beating down, the wind blowing, the baggage getting drenched, the felt boots, which had been dried overnight in the stove, again turning into