Michael Strogoff quotes

“Sire, a fresh dispatch.”

“Is the wire cut beyond that city?”

“Yes, sire; but he voluntarily returned there,” replied the chief of police, adding, and slightly lowering his voice, “there was a time, sire, when none returned from Siberia.”

“Well, whilst I live, Siberia is and shall be a country whence men can return.”

The Czar had the right to utter these words with some pride, for often, by his clemency, he had shown that Russian justice knew how to pardon.

“Then thou wilt pass whatever happens?”

“I shall pass, or they shall kill me.”

“I want thee to live.”

“I want thee to live.”

“I shall live, and I shall pass,” answered Michael Strogoff.

The Czar appeared satisfied with Strogoff’s calm and simple answer.

The Czar appeared satisfied with Strogoff’s calm and simple answer.

“Go then, Michael Strogoff,” said he, “go for God, for Russia, for my brother, and for myself!”

The courier, having saluted his sovereign, immediately left the imperial cabinet, and, in a few minutes, the New Palace.

“I think so, sire,” replied General Kissoff; “and your majesty may be sure that Michael Strogoff will do all that a man can do.”

“He is indeed a man,” said the Czar.

“Sister,” repeated Michael Strogoff, “we are authorized to continue our journey to Irkutsk. Will you come?”

“I will follow you, brother,” replied the girl, putting her hand into that of Michael Strogoff.

And together they left the police station.

“Are you going to Irkutsk, brother?”

“Yes, sister,” answered the young man. “We are both going the same way. Consequently, wherever I go, you shall go.”

“Tomorrow, brother, you shall know why I left the shores of the Baltic to go beyond the Ural Mountains.”

The iemschik, on coming up with his team, threw an inquisitive glance at the passengers of the tarantass. No luggage!—and had there been, where in the world could he have stowed it? Rather shabby in appearance too. He looked contemptuous.

“Crows,” said he, without caring whether he was overheard or not; “crows, at six kopecks a verst!”

“No, eagles!” said Michael, who understood the iemschik’s slang perfectly; “eagles, do you hear, at nine kopecks a verst, and a tip besides.”

“Crows,” said he, without caring whether he was overheard or not; “crows, at six kopecks a verst!”

“No, eagles!” said Michael, who understood the iemschik’s slang perfectly; “eagles, do you hear, at nine kopecks a verst, and a tip besides.”

He was answered by a merry crack of the whip.

“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!

“But the telga,” observed the Englishman.

“There is not the slightest fear that it will fly away, my dear Blount!” exclaimed Alcide; “it has taken such good root in the ground, that if it were left here until next spring it would begin to bud.”

“Come then, gentlemen,” said Michael Strogoff, “and we will bring up the tarantass.”

“I never heard it,” replied Harry Blount.

“Then you do not know what that suckling had become by the time judgment was given in favor of the nurse?”

“Colonel of the Imperial Guard!”

Alcide, enchanted with his own joke, drew out his notebook, and in it wrote the following memorandum, destined to figure in a forthcoming French and Russian dictionary:

“Telga, a Russian carriage with four wheels, that is when it starts; with two wheels, when it arrives at its destination.”

Going up to him as he had come to her in the police-station at Nizhny Novgorod:

“Your hand, brother,” said she.

And at the same time her hand, with an almost maternal gesture, wiped away a tear which sprang to her companion’s eye.

Then in a peculiarly calm tone,

“Be off, my friend,” said he: “be off! I could kill you.”

The postmaster understood. “I like him better for that,” he muttered and retired without another word.

But before Michael had time to reply one of the boatmen exclaimed in an accent of terror:

“The Tartars! the Tartars!”

There were indeed boats full of soldiers, and in a few minutes they must reach the ferryboat, it being too heavily laden to escape from them.

“Friend,” replied Michael Strogoff, “Heaven reward thee for all thou hast done for me!”

“Reward! Only fools expect reward on earth,” replied the muzhik.

Michael Strogoff went out of the hut. When he tried to walk he was seized with such faintness that, without the assistance of the muzhik, he would have fallen; but the fresh air quickly revived him.

The fields, trodden down by horses’ hoofs, afforded but too clear evidence that their hordes had passed that way; the same, indeed, might be said of these barbarians as of the Turks:

“Where the Turk goes, no grass grows.”

Michael saw at once that in traversing this country the greatest caution was necessary. Wreaths of smoke curling upwards on the horizon showed that huts and hamlets were still burning.

He again interrupted the clerk, who, quite unmoved, merely replied—

“It is his right, sir, it is his right⁠—at ten kopecks a word.”

And he telegraphed the following news, just brought him by Blount—

Did he consider himself conquered by the series of disasters which, since the adventure of Ishim, had increased in magnitude? Did he think his cause lost? that his mission had failed? that his orders could no longer be obeyed?

Michael was one of those men who never give in while life exists.

He was yet alive; he still had the imperial letter safe; his disguise had been undiscovered. He was included amongst the numerous prisoners whom the Tartars were dragging with them like cattle;

“Then you are something of a doctor?”

“All Frenchmen are something of doctors.”

And on this affirmation Alcide, tearing his handkerchief, made lint of one piece, bandages of the other, took some water from a well dug in the middle of the enclosure, bathed the wound, and skillfully placed the wet rag on Harry Blount’s shoulder.

“You are so, gentlemen,” answered Ogareff; “and I shall be curious to read your articles in the Daily Telegraph.”

“Sir,” replied Blount, with the most imperturbable coolness, “it is sixpence a number, including postage.”

And thereupon he returned to his companion, who appeared to approve completely of his replies.

And raising the knout he struck Ogareff a sharp blow across the face.

“Blow for blow!” said he.

“Well repaid!” cried a voice, happily concealed by the tumult.

The truth is something between these two opinions. Tomsk, which contains twenty-five thousand inhabitants, is picturesquely built on a long hill, the slope of which is somewhat steep.

But even the prettiest town in the world would become ugly when occupied by invaders.

Who would wish to admire it then? Defended by a few battalions of foot Cossacks, who resided permanently there, it had not been able to resist the attack of the Emir’s columns.

In the meantime the greater part of the prisoners were passing before the Emir, and as they passed each was obliged to prostrate himself, with his forehead in the dust, in token of servitude.

Slavery begins by humiliation.

When the unfortunate people were too slow in bending, the rough guards threw them violently to the ground.

The blind man knew not who had freed him, for Nadia had not spoken a word.

“Come, brother,” replied Nadia, “use my eyes whilst yours sleep. I will lead you to Irkutsk.”

Her heart for an instant ceased to beat when the aged Siberian woman fell senseless to the ground, but one thought restored her to her former energy.

“I will be the blind man’s dog,” said she.

On Ogareff’s departure, Nadia had concealed herself in the shade. She had waited till the crowd left the square. Michael, abandoned as a wretched being from whom nothing was to be feared, was alone.

“And you stayed at your post up to the last moment?”

“Why, it’s at that moment one ought to be there!”

“It was the day when an Englishman and a Frenchman were disputing, rubles in hand, for the place at your wicket, and the Englishman telegraphed some poetry.”

“What! you do not remember it?”

“I never read the dispatches I send. My duty being to forget them, the shortest way is not to know them at all.”

This reply showed Nicholas Pigassof’s character. In the meanwhile the kibitka pursued its way, at a pace which Michael longed to render more rapid. But Nicholas and his horse were accustomed to a pace which neither of them would like to alter.

On the Obi, after his horse had been struck by a bullet, he had only by a miracle escaped from the horsemen who were pursuing him. In fact, this passage of the Yenisey had been performed the least disastrously.

“That would not have been so amusing,” exclaimed Nicholas, rubbing his hands, as they disembarked on the right bank of the river, “if it had not been so difficult.”

“That which has only been difficult to us, friend,” answered Michael Strogoff, “will, perhaps, be impossible to the Tartars.”

“That would not have been so amusing,” exclaimed Nicholas, rubbing his hands, as they disembarked on the right bank of the river, “if it had not been so difficult.”

“That which has only been difficult to us, friend,” answered Michael Strogoff, “will, perhaps, be impossible to the Tartars.”

And she who just now was dragging herself with difficulty along, suddenly recovered strength, under violent excitement.

“We have left the road,” said Michael, feeling that he was treading no longer on powdery soil but on short grass.

“Yes … we must! …” returned Nadia. “It was there, on the right, from which the cry came!”

Nadia fell on her knees beside it.

Nicholas, buried up to his neck, according to the atrocious Tartar custom, had been left in the steppe to die of thirst, and perhaps by the teeth of wolves or the beaks of birds of prey!

Frightful torture for the victim imprisoned in the ground—the earth pressed down so that he cannot move, his arms bound to his body like those of a corpse in its coffin!

He recognized Michael and Nadia. Then—

“Farewell, my friends!” he murmured. “I am glad to have seen you again! Pray for me!⁠ ⁠…”

These words were his last.

Alcide directly communicated with the old boatman, and asked a passage for himself and his companion, offering to pay anything he demanded, whatever it might be.

“No one pays here,” replied the old man gravely; “everyone risks his life, that is all!”

The two correspondents came on board, and Nadia saw them take their places in the forepart of the raft.

“But those blackguards have destroyed your sight,” said Alcide.

“I have Nadia, and her eyes are enough for me!”

In half an hour the raft left the little port of Livenitchnaia, and entered the river. It was five in the evening and getting dusk. The night promised to be dark and very cold also, for the temperature was already below zero.

The Englishman thought of the readers of the Daily Telegraph, and the Frenchman of those of his Cousin Madeleine. At heart, both were not without feeling some emotion.

“Well, so much the better!” thought Alcide Jolivet, “to move others, one must be moved one’s self! I believe there is some celebrated verse on the subject, but hang me if I can recollect it!”

And with his well-practiced eyes he endeavored to pierce the gloom of the river.

The old man looked attentively.

“They are only wolves!” said he. “I like them better than Tartars. But we must defend ourselves, and without noise!”

The fugitives would indeed have to defend themselves against these ferocious beasts, whom hunger and cold had sent roaming through the province. They had smelt out the raft, and would soon attack it.

“If it is God’s will!” answered the old man.

“Against His will there is nothing to be done.”

“You hear them,” said Alcide.

The latter, turned to his officers—

“The Czar will not refuse to ratify that pardon,” said he, smiling; “we need heroes to defend the capital of Siberia, and I have just made some.”

This pardon, so generously accorded to the exiles of Irkutsk, was indeed an act of real justice and sound policy.