Jules Verne (16 page)

"She is a young Roumanian. I knew her in Paris, where she was learning
the trade of a milliner. Oh, charming—"

"I am sure upon it. You need not dwell on that."

"She also returned to Bucharest, until she was invited to take the
management of a dressmaker's at Pekin. We loved, monsieur; she
went—and we were separated for a year. Three weeks ago she wrote to
me. She was getting on over there. If I could go out to her, I would do
well. We should get married without delay. She had saved something. I
would soon earn as much as she had. And here I am on the road—in my
turn—for China."

"In this box?"

"What would you have, Monsieur Bombarnac?" asked Kinko, reddening. "I
had only money enough to buy a packing case, a few provisions, and get
myself sent off by an obliging friend. It costs a thousand francs to go
from Tiflis to Pekin. But as soon as I have gained them, the company
will be repaid, I assure you."

"I believe you, Kinko, I believe you; and on your arrival at Pekin?"

"Zinca has been informed. The box will be taken to Avenue Cha-Coua, and
she—"

"Will pay the carriage?"

"Yes."

"And with pleasure, I will answer for it."

"You may be sure of it, for we love each other so much."

"And besides, Kinko, what would one not do for a sweetheart who
consents to shut himself up in a box for a fortnight, and arrives
labelled 'Glass,' 'Fragile,' 'Beware of damp—'"

"Ah, you are making fun of a poor fellow."

"Not at all; and you may rest assured I will neglect nothing which will
enable you to arrive dry and in one piece at Mademoiselle Zinca
Klork's—in short, in a perfect state of preservation!"

"Again I thank you," said Kinko, pressing my hands. "Believe me, you
will not find me ungrateful."

"Ah! friend Kinko, I shall be paid, and more than paid!"

"And how?"

"By relating, as soon as I can do so without danger to you, the
particulars of your journey from Tiflis to Pekin. Think now—what a
heading for a column:

'A LOVER IN A BOX!
ZINCA AND KINKO!!
1,500 LEAGUES THROUGH CENTRAL ASIA IN A LUGGAGE VAN!!!'"

The young Roumanian could not help smiling.

"You need not be in too much of a hurry!" he said.

"Never fear! Prudence and discretion, as they say at the matrimonial
agencies."

Then I went to the door of the van to see that we were in no danger of
surprise, and then the conversation was resumed. Naturally, Kinko asked
me how I had discovered his secret. I told him all that had passed on
the steamer during the voyage across the Caspian. His breathing had
betrayed him. The idea that at first I took him for a wild beast seemed
to amuse him. A wild beast! A faithful poodle, rather! Then with a
sneeze he went up the animal scale to human rank.

"But," said he to me, lowering his voice, "two nights ago I thought all
was lost. The van was closed. I had just lighted my little lamp, and
had begun my supper when a knock came against the panel—"

"I did that, Kinko, I did that. And that night we should have become
acquainted if the train had not run into a dromedary."

"It was you! I breathe again!" said Kinko. "In what dreams I have
lived! It was known that some one was hidden in this box. I saw myself
discovered, handed over to the police, taken to prison at Merv or
Bokhara, and my little Zinca waiting for me in vain; and never should I
see her again, unless I resumed the journey on foot. Well, I would have
resumed, yes, I would."

And he said it with such an air of resolution that it was impossible
not to see that the young Roumanian had unusual spirit.

"Brave Kinko!" I answered. "I am awfully sorry to have caused you such
apprehensions. Now you are at ease again, and I fancy your chances have
improved now we have made friends."

I then asked Kinko to show me how he managed in his box.

Nothing could be simpler or better arranged. At the bottom was a seat
on which he sat with the necessary space for him to stretch his legs
when he placed them obliquely; under the seat, shut in by a lid, were a
few provisions, and table utensils reduced to a simple pocket knife and
metal mug; an overcoat and a rug hung from a nail, and the little lamp
he used at nighttime was hooked onto one of the walls.

The sliding panel allowed the prisoner to leave his prison
occasionally. But if the case had been placed among other packages, if
the porters had not deposited it with the precautions due to its
fragility, he would not have been able to work the panel, and would
have had to make a friend somehow before the end of the journey.
Fortunately, there is a special Providence for lovers, and divine
intervention in favor of Kinko and Zinca Klork was manifested in all
its plenitude. He told me that very night he had taken a walk either in
the van or else on the station platform where the train had stopped.

"I know that, Kinko. That was at Bokhara. I saw you!"

"You saw me?"

"Yes, and I thought you were trying to get away. But if I saw you, it
was because I knew of your presence in the van, and I was there
watching you, no one else having an idea of spying on you.
Nevertheless, it was dangerous; do not do it again; let me replenish
your larder when I get an opportunity."

"Thank you, Monsieur Bombarnac, thank you! I do not believe I am in
danger of being discovered, unless at the Chinese frontier—or rather
at Kachgar."

"And why?"

"The custom house is very keen on goods going into China. I am afraid
they will come round the packages, and that my box—"

"In fact, Kinko," I replied, "there are a few difficult hours for you."

"If they find me out?"

"I shall be there, and I will do all I can to prevent anything
unpleasant happening."

"Ah! Monsieur Bombarnac!" exclaimed Kinko, in a burst of gratitude.
"How can I repay you?"

"Very easily, Kinko."

"And in what way?"

"Ask me to your marriage with the lovely Zinca."

"I will! And Zinca will embrace you."

"She will be only doing her duty, friend Kinko, and I shall be only
doing mine in returning two kisses for one."

We exchanged a last grip of the hand; and, really, I think there were
tears in the good fellow's eyes when I left him. He put out his lamp,
he pushed back the panel, then through the case I heard one more
"thanks" and an "
au revoir
."

I came out of the van, I shut the door, I assured myself that Popof was
still asleep. In a few minutes, after a breath or two of the night air,
I go into my place near Major Noltitz.

And before I close my eyes my last thought is that, thanks to the
appearance of the episodic Kinko, the journey of their energetic
"Special" will not be displeasing to my readers.

In 1870 the Russians endeavored without success to establish a fair at
Tachkend which would rival that at Nijni-Novgorod. Some twenty years
later the attempt would have succeeded, and as a matter of fact the
fair now exists, owing to the making of the Transcaspian to unite
Samarkand and Tachkend.

And now not only do merchants with their merchandise crowd into this
town, but pilgrims with their pilgrimage outfits. And there will be
quite a procession, or rather an exodus, when the time comes for the
Mussulman faithful to ride to Mecca by railway.

Meanwhile we are at Tachkend, and the time-table shows that we stop
here two hours and a half.

Of course I shall not have time to visit the town, which would be worth
my while to do. But I must confess that these cities of Turkestan are
very much alike, and to have seen one is to have seen another, unless
we can go into details.

Crossing a fertile region where poplars like distaffs rise gracefully
erect, skirting fields bristling with vines, running by gardens where
fruit trees abound, our train stops at the new town.

As is inevitable since the Russian conquest, there are two towns side
by side at Tachkend as at Samarkand, as at Bokhara, as at Merv. Here
the old town has tortuous streets, houses of mud and clay, bazaars of
poor appearance, caravanserais built of bricks dried in the sun, a few
mosques, and schools as numerous as if the czar had decreed by ukase
that everything French should be imitated. It is true that the scholars
are wanting, but there is no want of schools.

The population of Tachkend does not differ very much from that met with
in other parts of Turkestan. It comprises Sarthes, Usbegs, Tadjiks,
Khirgizes, Nogais, Israelites, a few Afghans and Hindoos and—as may be
naturally supposed—a fair supply of Russians.

It is perhaps at Tachkend that the Jews are gathered in the greatest
numbers. And from the day that the town passed under Russian
administration their situation has considerably improved. From that
epoch dates the complete civil and political liberty they now enjoy.

I have only two hours to spare in visiting the town, and I do my work
in true reporter style. You should have seen me dashing through the
grand bazaar, a mere wooden building, which is crammed with Oriental
stuffs, silk goods, metal ware, specimens of Chinese manufacture,
including some very fine examples of porcelain.

In the streets of old Tachkend a certain number of women are to be met
with. I need hardly say that there are no slaves in this country, much
to the displeasure of the Mussulmans. Nowadays woman is free—even in
her household.

"An old Turkoman," said Major Noltitz, "once told me that a husband's
power is at an end now that he cannot thrash his wife without being
threatened with an appeal to the czar; and that marriage is at an end!"

I do not know if the fair sex is still beaten, but the husbands know
what they may expect if they knock their wives about. Will it be
believed that these peculiar Orientals can see no progress in this
prohibition to beat their wives? Perhaps they remember that the
Terrestrial Paradise is not far off—a beautiful garden between the
Tigris and Euphrates, unless it was between the Amou and the Syr-Daria.
Perhaps they have not forgotten that mother Eve lived in this
preadamite garden, and that if she had been thrashed a little before
her first fault, she would probably not have committed it. But we need
not enlarge on that.

I did not hear, as Madam Ujfalvy-Bourdon did, the band playing the
Pompiers de Nanterre
in the governor-general's garden. No! On this
occasion they were playing
Le Pere la Victoire
, and if these are not
national airs they are none the less agreeable to French ears.

We left Tachkend at precisely eleven o'clock in the morning. The
country through which the Grand Transasiatic is now running is not so
monotonous. The plain begins to undulate, for we are approaching the
outer ramifications of the eastern orographic system. We are nearing
the tableland of the Pamirs. At the same time we continue at normal
speed along this section of a hundred and fifty kilometres which
separates us from Khodjend.

As soon as we are on the move I begin to think of Kinko. His little
love romance has touched me to the heart. This sweetheart who sent
himself off—this other sweetheart who is going to pay the expenses—I
am sure Major Noltitz would be interested in these two turtle doves,
one of which is in a cage; he would not be too hard on this defrauder
of the company, he would be incapable of betraying him. Consequently I
have a great desire to tell him of my expedition into the baggage van.
But the secret is not mine. I must do nothing that might get Kinko into
trouble.

And so I am silent, and to-night I will, if possible, take a few
provisions to my packing case—to my snail in his shell, let us say.
And is not the young Roumanian like a snail in his shell, for it is as
much as he can do to get out of it?

We reach Khodjend about three in the afternoon. The country is fertile,
green, carefully cultivated. It is a succession of kitchen gardens,
which seem to be well-kept immense fields sown with clover, which yield
four or five crops a year. The roads near the town are bordered with
long rows of mulberry trees, which diversify the view with eccentric
branches.

Again, this pair of cities, old and new. Both of them had only thirty
thousand inhabitants in 1868 and they have from forty-five to fifty
thousand now. Is it the influence of the surroundings which produces
the increase of the birth rate? Is the province affected by the
prolific example of the Celestial Empire? No! It is the progress of
trade, the concentration of merchants of all nations onto these new
markets.

Our halt at Khodjend has lasted three hours. I have made my
professional visit and walked on the banks of the Syr-Dana. This river,
which bathes the foot of the high mountains of Mogol-Taou, is crossed
by a bridge, the middle section of which gives passage to ships of
moderate tonnage.

The weather is very warm. The town being protected by its shelter of
mountains, the breezes of the steppe cannot reach it, and it is one of
the hottest places in Turkestan.

I met the Caternas, delighted with their excursion. The actor said to
me in a tone of the best humor:

"Never shall I forget Khodjend, Monsieur Claudius."

"And why will you never forget Khodjend, Monsieur Caterna?"

"Do you see these peaches?" he asked, showing me the fruit he was
carrying.

"They are magnificent—"

"And not dear! A kilo for four kopeks—that is to say, twelve centimes!"

"Eh!" I answer. "That shows that peaches are rather common in this
country. That is the Asiatic apple and it was one of those apples that
Mrs. Adam took a bite at—"

"Then I excuse her!" said Madame Caterna, munching away at one of these
delicious peaches.

After leaving Tachkend the railway had curved toward the south, so as
to reach Khodjend; but after leaving town it curved to the east in the
direction of Kokhan. It is at Tachkend that it is nearest to the
Transsiberian, and a branch line is being made to Semipalatinsk to
unite the railway systems of Central and Northern Asia.