Page:Siberia and the Exile System Vol 2.djvu/85

bread, which was all that we could get, we immediately went to bed, Frost lying on the floor near the oven, while I took a wooden bench beside the window. After a long struggle with parasitic vermin, I finally sank into a doze. I was almost immediately awakened by the arrival of an under-officer traveling on a Government padarózhnaya. Candles were lighted; the officer paced back and forth in our room, talking loudly with the station-master about the condition of the roads; and sleep, of course, was out of the question. In half an hour he went on with fresh horses, the lights were again put out, and we composed ourselves for slumber. In twenty minutes the post arrived from Irkutsk. The transferring of twelve teléga-loads of mailbags from one set of vehicles to another, and the changing of about thirty horses, caused a general hubbub which lasted another hour. Every time the door was opened there was a rush of cold air into the overheated room, and we alternated between a state of fever and a state of chill. About half-past one o'clock in the morning the post finally got away, with much shouting and jangling of bells, the lights were put out, and the station again quieted down. We had hardly closed our eyes when the door was thrown wide open, and somebody stalked in shouting lustily in the dark for the station-master. This party of travelers proved to be a man, his wife, and a small baby with the croup. The woman improvised a bed for the infant on two chairs, and then she and her husband proceeded to drink tea. The hissing of the samovár, the rattling of dishes, the loud conversation, and the croupy coughing of the child kept us awake until about four o'clock, when this party also went on and the lights were once more extinguished. All the bedbugs in the house had by this time ascertained my situation, and in order to escape them I went and lay down on the floor beside Frost. In the brief interval of quiet that followed I almost succeeded in getting to sleep, but at half-past four there was another rush of cold air from the