What a sad thing it was in the midst of all our ecstatic enthusiasm, to be obliged to descend to the vulgar concerns of locomotion, and to be crossed and thwarted at every step. We were more than ten versts from Georgief, when we were stopped in a village by the perversity of a postmaster, who refused to let us have horses at any price. It was raining in torrents, and the mud in the village was like a quagmire. The Cossack and Anthony ran about among all the peasants, trying to prevail on them to hire us horses; but the Russians are so lazy that they would rather lose an opportunity of earning money than quit their sweet repose. At last, after four hours search, the two men came back with three wretched hacks they had carried off by force from different peasants. For want of a roof to shelter us we had been obliged to sit all that while in the britchka, and when the miserable team was yoked it could hardly draw us out of the mud in which the wheels were embedded. The road all the way to Georgief was the most detestable that could be imagined. The weather cleared up a little, but the rain had converted all the low plains through which we had to pass into marshes, and had rendered the bridges all but impassable. Steep and very narrow descents often obliged us to alight at the risk of leaving our boots in the mud, and for a long while we feared we should not reach Georgief that day. Finally, however, by dint of flogging, our coachman forced the horses up the last hill, and at seven in the evening we reached a wide plateau, at one end of which towered the fortress that commands the road to the Caucasus.
We had been told that we should find a fair going on in Georgief, and this accounted for the number of horsemen we saw proceeding like ourselves in that direction. I must confess in all humility, that I did not feel quite at my ease whenever one of these groups passed close to our carriage. The bad weather, the darkness, the bold bearing of these mountaineers, and their arms half concealed under their black bourkas, made me rather nervous. We arrived, however, safe and sound in Georgief, where we enjoyed our repose and sipped our tea with a zest known only to way-worn travellers.
Whilst we were thus enjoying ourselves, the tinkling of a pereclatnoi bell in the yard announced a fresh arrival. But we gave ourselves very little concern about the event, for in order to be the more at our ease, we had engaged the travellers' room for ourselves alone. In travelling, people grow selfish, in spite of themselves; and in Russia it is a very lucky chance indeed that enables you now and then to display that quality. We therefore paid no heed to the tinklings that seemed with increasing vehemence to demand shelter for the late coming pilgrim. In a few moments there was a loud hubbub at our door, and we heard Anthony's voice stoutly refusing admission into our sanctuary. The postmaster seemed to play but a negative part, venturing only to say now and then, in the humblest tone, "Ne mozhna polkovnick" (it is not possible, colonel). A deluge of douraks, and a few fisticuffs distributed right and left, put an end to the discussion; the door was flung open, and a tall individual, muffled up to the nose, rushed in furiously, halted suddenly, made an awkward bow, and skipped out of the room again, without attempting even to profit by his victory. Amazed at this sudden retreat, Anthony hastily closed the door he had so bravely defended, and then told us that this officer had refused to listen to a word of explanation, and had threatened, if they provoked him, to turn us all into the street, and take our places. This did not in the least surprise us, for in Russia it is a matter of course for a colonel to behave thus to his inferiors, and as this officer was not aware of our being foreigners, he had behaved in the usual peremptory fashion; but he had been taken aback on discovering that we were something else than village pometchiks, and his tone became changed accordingly in the comical manner aforesaid. We were highly diverted by his discomfiture, and to punish his blustering, we let him go and seek a lodging elsewhere.