On the Journey
I
The railway carriage was full as we left Cannes. We were chatting, for everybody was acquainted. As we passed Tarascon someone remarked: “Here’s the place where they assassinate people.”
And we began to talk of the mysterious and untraceable murderer, who for the last two years had taken, from time to time, the life of a traveller. Everyone made his guess, everyone gave his opinion; the women shudderingly gazed at the dark night through the car windows, fearing suddenly to see a man’s head at the door. We all began telling frightful stories of terrible encounters, meetings with madmen in a flying-express, of hours passed opposite a suspected individual.
Each man knew an anecdote to his credit, each one had intimidated, overpowered, and throttled some evildoer in most surprising circumstances, with an admirable presence of mind and audacity.
A physician, who spent every winter in the south, desired, in his turn, to tell an adventure:
“I,” said he, “never have had the luck to test my courage in an affair of this kind; but I knew a woman, now dead, one of my patients, to whom the most singular thing in the world happened, and also the most mysterious and pathetic.
“She was Russian, the Comtesse Marie Baranow, a very great lady, of exquisite beauty. You know how beautiful Russian women are, or at least how beautiful they seem to us, with their fine noses, their delicate mouths, their eyes of an indescribable colour, a blue grey, and their cold grace, a little hard! They have something about them, mischievous and seductive, haughty and sweet, tender and severe, altogether charming to a Frenchman. At the bottom, it is, perhaps, the difference of race and of type which makes me see so much in them.
“Her physician had seen for many years that she was threatened with a disease of the lungs, and had tried to persuade her to come to the south of France; but she obstinately refused to leave St. Petersburg. Finally, last autumn, deeming her lost, the doctor warned her husband, who directed his wife to start at once for Mentone.
“She took the train, alone in her car, her servants occupying another compartment. She sat by the door, a little sad, seeing the fields and villages pass, feeling very lonely, very desolate in life, without children, almost without relatives, with a husband whose love was dead and who cast her thus to the end of the world without coming with her, as they send a sick valet to the hospital.
“At each station her servant Ivan came to see if his mistress wanted anything. He was an old domestic, blindly devoted, ready to execute any order she might give him.
“Night fell, and the train rolled along at full speed. She could not sleep, being wearied and nervous.
“Suddenly the thought struck her to count the money which her husband had given her at the last minute, in French gold. She opened her little bag and emptied the shining flood of metal on her lap.
“But all at once a breath of cold air struck her face. Surprised, she raised her head. The door had just opened. The Comtesse Marie, in terror, hastily threw a shawl over the money spread upon her lap, and waited. Some seconds passed, then a man in evening dress appeared, bareheaded, wounded on the hand, and panting. He closed the door, sat down, looked at his neighbor with gleaming eyes, and then wrapped a handkerchief around his wrist, which was bleeding.
“The young woman felt herself fainting with fear. This man, surely, had seen her counting her money and had come to rob and kill her.
“He kept gazing at her, breathless, his features convulsed, doubtless ready to spring upon her.
“He suddenly said:
“ ‘Madame, don’t be afraid!’
“She made no response, being incapable of opening her mouth, hearing her heartbeats, and a buzzing in her ears.
“He continued:
“ ‘I am not a criminal, Madame.’
“She continued to be silent, but by a sudden movement which she made, her knees meeting, the gold coins began to run to the floor as water runs from a spout.
“The man, surprised, looked at this stream of metal, and he suddenly stooped to pick it up.
“Terrified, she rose, casting her whole fortune on the carpet and ran to the door to leap out on to the track.
“But he understood what she was going to do, and springing forward, seized her in his arms, seated her by force, and held her by the wrists.
“ ‘Listen to me, Madame,’ said he, ‘I am not a criminal; the proof of it is that I am going to gather up this gold and return it to you. But I am a lost man, a dead man, if you do not assist me to pass the frontier. I cannot tell you more. In an hour we shall be at the last Russian station; in an hour and twenty minutes we shall cross the boundary of the Empire. If you do not help me I am lost. And yet I have neither killed anyone, nor robbed, nor done anything contrary to honour. This I swear to you. I cannot tell you more.’
“And kneeling down he picked up the gold, even hunting under the seats for the last coins, which had rolled to a distance. Then, when the little leather bag was full again he gave it to his neighbour without saying a word, and returned to seat himself in the other corner of the compartment. Neither of them moved. She kept motionless and silent, still faint from terror, but gradually growing quieter. As for
