Anthony and the officer were questioned at great length by the Kalmucks, who seemed possessed by some uneasy misgivings. On awaking, they had seen us return in the direction that led from the satza, and this circumstance had much annoyed them. The display of some game, however, with which we had taken care to furnish ourselves, and the peremptory tone of the officer, cut short all their observations.
On the day after this memorable adventure, Anthony informed us that there was no more bread. The news obliged my husband to suspend his scientific operations, and proceed to Selenoi Sastava, from which we were distant only thirty-five versts. I cannot express the delight with which the Kalmucks and Cossacks again took possession of their camels. We need not wonder at any eccentricity of taste when we see men preferring the dislocating torture of riding those detestable trotters to the fatigue of walking fifteen or twenty versts a day. Hommaire, too, did not seem at all dissatisfied at taking his place again in the britchka. In short, we were all like a set of schoolboys that had got an unexpected holiday.
Before reaching the salt-works, where we intended to ask for hospitality, we passed some Kalmuck camps; carts loaded with salt appeared in different directions. The desert was assuming a more animated aspect, and we were no longer alone between the sky and the steppe.
On arriving at Selenoi, we were taken to the house of the sub-inspector of the salt-works (the inspector was absent). We found that functionary in a most miserable hole, compared with which the hut at Houidouk was a palace. We had never seen such horrid deficiency of all needful accommodation even among the poorest Russian peasants.
We were received by a little weasel-faced man in a uniform so old and tarnished, that neither the colour of the cloth nor the lace was distinguishable. His manifestations of bewildered joy--his volubility that savoured almost of insanity--and his incessant importunity, completed our disgust. The house, a heap of ruins, kept from falling by a few half-rotten posts, was abominably filthy. We were assigned the least dilapidated chamber, but it took more than two hours to clear away the clouds of dust raised by Anthony in sweeping it. The windows were without frames, the doors were broken, and furniture there was none. How we regretted that we had not encamped as usual on the steppe. We tried to quit the house, but the lieutenant-colonel (for our host bore that title in addition to that of sub-inspector) made such an outcry, that we were obliged, whether we would or not, to resign ourselves to his singular hospitality. To make up for the want of furniture, we did like the Turks, and made a carpet and cushions on the ground serve us for a bed and a divan.
Having completed these first arrangements, we proceeded to ask our host if he had bread enough to spare us some. Having learned from our escort the reason of our coming, he was prepared with his answer. Our presence was too great a piece of good luck for a man in his extreme state of destitution to allow of our escaping out of his hands until he had made the most of us. Accordingly, he protested he could not possibly provide what we wanted in less than three or four days, and we had every reason to think we should be fortunate enough if we got out of his clutches so cheaply. The event proved that our suspicions were not unjust, and his conduct towards us, his indecorous demands, his cupidity and his thefts sufficiently explained the motives of his extravagant delight at our arrival.
On the first day of our sojourn with him, tempted by a fine wild goose which Anthony had roasted in the tent of his Kalmuck cook, he sent to beg permission to dine with us, and presently arrived, holding in his hand a plate of paltry crusts dried in the oven, which he presented to us as excellent zouckari. During all the time of dinner he diverted us exceedingly by his insatiable gluttony and continual babbling: nor was it the least amusing part of the performance to see him despatch to his own share a half mouldy loaf he had sold us that morning for a ruble and a half.