Collected Shorter Fiction, Volume 2

‘Did I just imagine it, or was he really not asleep?’ Albina wondered. ‘I expect I imagined it,’ she thought, and turned back to her husband.

‘Try to put up with it a little longer,’ she said. ‘Do you want anything to eat?’

‘No. But I should like to smoke.’

Albina again turned to look at the Cossack. He was sleeping.

‘Yes, I imagined it,’ she thought.

‘I am going to see the governor now.’

‘Well, it is as good a time as any …’

And Albina took a dress out of her trunk and went back to her room to change.

When she had changed into her best widow’s dress Albina took a boat across the Volga. On the embankment she hired a cab-driver and drove to the governor’s residence. The governor agreed to see her. This pretty little Polish widow with her sweet smile, speaking beautiful French, made a tremendous impression on the governor, an elderly man who liked to appear younger than his age. He granted all her requests and asked her to come to see him again the next day to receive a written order to the town governor of Tsaritsyn. Rejoicing in the success of her petition and the effect of her own attractiveness which she could see from the governor’s manner, Albina, happy and full of hope, drove back in a carriage down the unmetalled street towards the jetty. The sun had already risen above the woods and its slanting beams were already playing on the rippling water of the mighty river. To right and left on the hillside she could see apple trees like white clouds, covered in fragrant blossom. A forest of masts came into view by the river bank and the sails of the boats showed white on the water lit up by the sun and rippling in a light breeze. At the landing-stage, having consulted the driver, Albina asked whether it was possible to engage a boat to take her to Astrakhan, and at once dozens of noisy, cheerful boatmen offered her their boats and their services. She came to an arrangement with one of the boatmen she particularly liked the look of and went to inspect his open-hulled barge which was lying amid a crowd of others at the wharf. The boat had a mast which could be stepped at will and a sail to allow it to use the power of the wind. In case there should be no wind there were oars provided, and two healthy, cheerful-looking barge-haulers-cum-oarsmen, who were sitting on the boat enjoying the sun. The jovial pilot advised her not to leave the tarantass behind but to remove the wheels and instal it in the boat. ‘It’ll go in just right, and you’ll be more comfortable sitting in there. If God grants us a bit of good weather we shall make the run down to Astrakhan in five days clear.’

Albina bargained with the boatman and instructed him to come to the Logins’ inn at the Pokrovskaya settlement so that he could have a look at the tarantass and collect a deposit. The whole thing worked out more easily than she had expected. In a state of rapturous happiness Albina crossed the Volga once more, and bidding farewell to the driver, made for the coaching inn.

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