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Hold up, my cousin on the left! Gee up, my little father
on the right!"
But when the pace slackened, what insulting expressions,
instantly understood by the sensitive animals!
"Go on, you wretched snail! Confound you, you slug!
I'll roast you alive, you tortoise, you!"
Whether or not it was from this way of driving, which requires
the iemschiks to possess strong throats more than muscular arms,
the tarantass flew along at a rate of from twelve to fourteen
miles an hour. Michael Strogoff was accustomed both to the sort
of vehicle and the mode of traveling. Neither jerks nor jolts
incommoded him. He knew that a Russian driver never even tries
to avoid either stones, ruts, bogs, fallen trees, or trenches,
which may happen to be in the road. He was used to all that.
His companion ran a risk of being hurt by the violent jolts
of the tarantass, but she would not complain.
For a little while Nadia did not speak. Then possessed
with the one thought, that of reaching her journey's end,
"I have calculated that there are three hundred versts
between Perm and Ekaterenburg, brother," said she.
"Am I right?"
"You are quite right, Nadia," answered Michael; "and when we have
reached Ekaterenburg, we shall be at the foot of the Ural Mountains
on the opposite side."
"How long will it take to get across the mountains?"
"Forty-eight hours, for we shall travel day and night.
I say day and night, Nadia," added he, "for I cannot stop
even for a moment; I go on without rest to Irkutsk."
"I shall not delay you, brother; no, not even for an hour,
and we will travel day and night."
"Well then, Nadia, if the Tartar invasion has only left the road open,
we shall arrive in twenty days."
"You have made this journey before?" asked Nadia.
"Many times."
"During winter we should have gone more rapidly and surely,
should we not?"
"Yes, especially with more rapidity, but you would have suffered much
from the frost and snow."
"What matter! Winter is the friend of Russia."
"Yes, Nadia, but what a constitution anyone must have to endure
such friendship! I have often seen the temperature in the Siberian
steppes fall to more than forty degrees below freezing point!
I have felt, notwithstanding my reindeer coat, my heart
growing chill, my limbs stiffening, my feet freezing in triple
woolen socks; I have seen my sleigh horses covered with a
coating of ice, their breath congealed at their nostrils.
I have seen the brandy in my flask change into hard stone,
on which not even my knife could make an impression.
But my sleigh flew like the wind. Not an obstacle on the plain,
white and level farther than the eye could reach! No rivers
to stop one! Hard ice everywhere, the route open, the road sure!
But at the price of what suffering, Nadia, those alone could say,
who have never returned, but whose bodies have been covered up
by the snow storm."
"However, you have returned, brother," said Nadia.
"Yes, but I am a Siberian, and, when quite a child, I used to follow
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