It was to be supposed that under the circumstances this station
was abandoned; but even if it was, Michael could take refuge there,
and wait till nightfall, if necessary, to again set out across
the steppe covered with Tartar scouts.
He ran up to the door and pushed it open.
A single person was in the room whence the telegraphic messages
were dispatched. This was a clerk, calm, phlegmatic, indifferent to
all that was passing outside. Faithful to his post, he waited behind
his little wicket until the public claimed his services.
Michael ran up to him, and in a voice broken by fatigue,
"What do you know?" he asked.
"Nothing," answered the clerk, smiling.
"Are the Russians and Tartars engaged?"
"They say so."
"But who are the victors?"
"I don't know."
Such calmness, such indifference, in the midst of these terrible events,
was scarcely credible.
"And is not the wire cut?" said Michael.
"It is cut between Kolyvan and Krasnoiarsk, but it is still working
between Kolyvan and the Russian frontier."
"For the government?"
"For the government, when it thinks proper. For the public,
when they pay. Ten copecks a word, whenever you like, sir!"
Michael was about to reply to this strange clerk that he had no
message to send, that he only implored a little bread and water,
when the door of the house was again thrown open.
Thinking that it was invaded by Tartars, Michael made ready to leap
out of the window, when two men only entered the room who had nothing
of the Tartar soldier about them.
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