Jules Verne (11 page)

At the sight of this wild pursuit the Caternas held their sides, the
young Chinaman, Pan Chao, shouted with laughter, while Dr. Tio-King
remained imperturbably serious.

The German purple, puffling and panting, could do no more. Twice he had
got his hand on his hat, and twice it had escaped him, and now suddenly
he fell full length with his head lost under the folds of his overcoat;
whereupon Caterna began to sing the celebrated air from "Miss Helyett":

"Ah! the superb point of view—ew—ew—ew!
Ah! the view unexpected by you—you—you—you!"

I know nothing more annoying than a hat carried away by the wind, which
bounds hither and thither, and spins and jumps, and glides, and slides,
and darts off just as you think you are going to catch it. And if that
should happen to me I will forgive those who laugh at the comic
endeavor.

But the baron was in no mood for forgiveness. He bounded here, and
bounded there, he jumped on to the line. They shouted to him, "Look
out! look out!" for the Merv was coming in at some speed. It brought
death to the hat, the engine smashed it pitilessly, and it was only a
torn rag when it was handed to the baron. And then began again a series
of imprecations on the Grand Transasiatic.

The signal is given. The passengers, old and new, hurry to their
places. Among the new ones I notice three Mongols, of forbidding
appearance, who get into the second-class car.

As I put my foot on the platform I hear the young Chinese say to his
companion:

"Well, Dr. Tio-King, did you see the German with his performing hat?
How I laughed!"

And so Pan Chao speaks French. What do I say? Better than French—he
speaks Persian! Most extraordinary! I must have a talk with him.

We started to time. The baron could not complain this time. After all,
I understood his impatience; a minute's delay might cause him to lose
the mail boat from Tien Tsin to Japan.

The day looked promising, that is to say, there might have been a wind
strong enough to put out the sun as if it were a candle, such a
hurricane as sometimes stops the locomotives of the Grand Transasiatic,
but to-day it is blowing from the west, and will be supportable, as it
blows the train along. We can remain out on the platforms.

I want to enter into conversation with Pan Chao. Popof was right; he
must be the son of some family of distinction who has been spending
some years in Paris for education and amusement. He ought to be one of
the most regular visitors at the
Twentieth Century
"five o'clocks."

Meanwhile I will attend to other business. There is that man in the
case. A whole day will elapse before I can relieve his anxiety. In what
a state he must be! But as it would be unwise for me to enter the van
during the day, I must wait until night.

I must not forget that an interview with the Caternas is included in
the programme. There will be no difficulty in that, apparently.

What will not be so easy is to get into conversation with my No. 12,
his superb lordship Faruskiar. He seems rather stiff, does this
Oriental.

Ah! There is a name I must know as soon as possible, that of the
mandarin returning to China in the form of a mortuary parcel. With a
little ingenuity Popof may manage to ascertain it from one of the
Persians in charge of his Excellency. If it would only be that of some
grand functionary, the Pao-Wang, or the Ko-Wang, or the viceroy of the
two Kiangs, the Prince King in person!

For an hour the train is running through the oasis. We shall soon be in
the open desert. The soil is formed of alluvial beds extending up to
the environs of Merv. I must get accustomed to this monotony of the
journey which will last up to the frontier of Turkestan. Oasis and
desert, desert and oasis. As we approach the Pamir the scenery will
change a little. There are picturesque bits of landscape in that
orographic knot which the Russians have had to cut as Alexander cut the
gordian knot that was worth something to the Macedonian conqueror of
Asia. Here is a good augury for the Russian conquest.

But I must wait for this crossing of the Pamir and its varied scenery.
Beyond lay the interminable plains of Chinese Turkestan, the immense
sandy desert of Gobi, where the monotony of the journey will begin
again.

It is half-past ten. Breakfast will soon be served in the dining car.
Let us take a walk through the length of the train.

Where is Ephrinell? I do not see him at his post by the side of Miss
Horatia Bluett, whom I questioned on the subject after saluting her
politely.

"Mr. Ephrinell has gone to give an eye to his cases," she replies.

In the rear of the second car Faruskiar and Ghangir have installed
themselves; they are alone at this moment, and are talking together in
a low tone.

As I return I meet Ephrinell, who is coming back to his traveling
companion. He shakes my hand Yankee fashion. I tell him that Miss
Horatia Bluett has given me news of him.

"Oh!" says he, "what a woman yonder! What a splendid saleswoman! One of
those English—"

"Who are good enough to be Americans!" I add.

"Wait a bit!" he replies, with a significant smile.

As I am going put, I notice that the two Chinamen are already in the
dining car, and that Dr. Tio-King's little book is on the table.

I do not consider it too much of a liberty for a reporter to pick up
this little book, to open it and to read the title, which is as follows:

The temperate and regular life,
Or the art of living long in perfect health.
Translated from the Italian of
Louis Cornaro, a Venetian noble.
To which is added the way of correcting a bad constitution,
and enjoying perfect felicity to the most advanced years.
and to die only from the using up of the original humidity
in extreme old age.
Salerno,
1782.

And this is the favorite reading of Dr. Tio-King! And that is why his
disrespectful pupil occasionally gives him the nickname of Cornaro!

I have not time to see anything else in this volume than
Abstinentia
adjicit vitam
; but this motto of the noble Venetian I have no
intention of putting in practice, at least at breakfast time.

There is no change in the order in which we sit down to table. I find
myself close to Major Noltitz, who is looking attentively at Faruskiar
and his companion, placed at the extremity of the table. We are asking
ourselves who this haughty Mongol could be.

"Ah!" said I, laughing at the thought which crossed my mind, "if that
is—"

"Who?" asked the major.

"The chief of the brigands, the famous Ki-Tsang."

"Have your joke, Monsieur Bombarnac, but under your breath, I advise
you!"

"You see, major, he would then be an interesting personage and worth a
long interview!"

We enjoyed our meal as we talked. The breakfast was excellent, the
provisions having come freshly on board at Askhabad and Douchak. For
drink we had tea, and Crimean wine, and Kazan beer; for meat we had
mutton cutlets and excellent preserves; for dessert a melon with pears
and grapes of the best quality.

After breakfast I went to smoke my cigar on the platform behind the
dining car. Caterna almost immediately joins me. Evidently the
estimable comedian has seized the opportunity to enter into
conversation with me.

His intelligent eyes, his smooth face, his cheeks accustomed to false
whiskers, his lips accustomed to false moustaches, his head accustomed
to wigs red, black, or gray, bald or hairy, according to his part,
everything denoted the actor made for the life of the boards. But he
had such an open, cheery face, such an honest look, so frank an
attitude, that he was evidently a really good fellow.

"Sir," said he to me, "are two Frenchmen going all the way from Baku to
Pekin without making each other's acquaintance?"

"Sir," I replied, "when I meet a compatriot—"

"Who is a Parisian—"

"And consequently a Frenchman twice over," I added, "I am only too glad
to shake hands with him! And so, Monsieur Caterna—"

"You know my name?"

"As you know mine, I am sure."

"Of course, Monsieur Claudius Bombarnac, correspondent of the
Twentieth Century
."

"At your service, believe me."

"A thousand thanks, Monsieur Bombarnac, and even ten thousand, as they
say in China, whither Madame Caterna and I are bound."

"To appear at Shanghai in the French troupe at the residency as—"

"You know all that, then?"

"A reporter!"

"Quite so."

"I may add, from sundry nautical phrases I have noticed, that you have
been to sea."

"I believe you, sir. Formerly coxswain of Admiral de Boissondy's launch
on board the
Redoubtable
."

"Then I beg to ask why you, a sailor, did not go by way of the sea?"

"Ah, there it is, Monsieur Bombarnac. Know that Madame Caterna, who is
incontestably the first leading lady of the provinces, and there is not
one to beat her as a waiting maid or in a man's part, cannot stand the
sea. And when I heard of the Grand Transasiatic, I said to her, 'Be
easy, Caroline! Do not worry yourself about the perfidious element. We
will cross Russia, Turkestan, and China, without leaving
terra
firma
!' And that pleased her, the little darling, so brave and so
devoted, so—I am at a loss for a word—well, a lady who will play the
duenna in case of need, rather than leave the manager in a mess! An
artiste, a true artiste!"

It was a pleasure to listen to Caterna; he was in steam, as the
engineer says, and the only thing to do was to let him blow off.
Surprising as it may seem, he adored his wife, and I believe she was
equally fond of him. A well-matched couple, evidently, from what I
learned from my comedian, never embarrassed, very wide awake, content
with his lot, liking nothing so much as the theater—above all the
provincial theater—where he and his wife had played in drama,
vaudeville, comedy, operetta, opera comique, opera, spectacle,
pantomime, happy in the entertainment which began at five o'clock in
the afternoon and ended at one o'clock in the morning, in the grand
theaters of the chief cities, in the saloon of the mayor, in the barn
of the village, without boots, without patches, without orchestra,
sometimes even without spectators—thus saving the return of the
money—professionals fit for anything, no matter what.

As a Parisian, Caterna must have been the wag of the forecastle when he
was at sea. As clever with his instrument of brass or wood, he
possessed a most varied and complete assortment of jokes, songs,
monologues, and dialogues. This he told me with an immense amount of
attitude and gesture, now here, now there, legs, arms, hands, and feet
all going together. I should never feel dull in the company of such a
merry companion.

"And where were you before you left France?" I asked.

"At La Ferté-sous-Jouarre, where Madame Caterna achieved a genuine
success as Elsa in 'Lohengrin,' which we played without music. But it
is an interesting piece, and it was well done."

"You must have been a good deal about the world, Monsieur Caterna?"

"I believe you; Russia, England, both Americas. Ah! Monsieur Claudius."

He already called me Claudius.

"Ah! Monsieur Claudius, there was a time when I was the idol of Buenos
Ayres, and the pet of Rio Janeiro! Do not think I would tell you an
untruth! No! I know myself. Bad at Paris, I am excellent in the
provinces. In Paris you play for yourself; in the provinces you play
for the others! And then what a repertory!"

"My compliments, my dear compatriot!"

"I accept them, Monsieur Claudius, for I like my trade. What would you
haye? All the world cannot expect to be a senator or—a special
correspondent."

"There, that is wicked, Monsieur Caterna," said I, with a laugh.

"No; it is the last word."

And while the unwearied actor ran on in this way, stations appeared one
after the other between the shrieks of the whistle, Kulka, Nisachurch,
Kulla Minor and others, not particularly cheerful to look at; then
Bairam Ali at the seven hundred and ninety-fifth verst and Kourlan Kala
at the eight hundred and fifteenth.

"And to tell you the truth," continued Caterna, "we have made a little
money by going about from town to town. At the bottom of our boxes are
a few Northern debentures, of which I think a good deal, and take much
care, and they have been honestly got, Monsieur Claudius. Although we
live under a democratic government, the rule of equality, the time is
still far off when you will see the noble father dining beside the
prefect at the table of the judge of appeal, and the actress open the
ball with the prefect at the house of the general-in-chief! Well! We
can dine and dance among ourselves—"

"And be just as happy, Monsieur Caterna."

"Certainly no less, Monsieur Claudius," replied the future premier
comic of Shanghai, shaking an imaginary frill with the graceful ease of
one of Louis XV.'s noblemen.

At this point, Madame Caterna came up. She was in every way worthy of
her husband, sent into the world to reply to him in life as on the
stage, one of those genial theater folks, born one knows not where or
how, but thoroughly genuine and good-natured.

"I beg to introduce you to Caroline Caterna," said the actor, in much
the same tone as he would have introduced me to Patti or Sarah
Bernhardt.

"Having shaken hands with your husband," said I, "I shall be happy to
shake hands with you, Madame Caterna."

"There you are, then," said the actress, "and without ceremony, foot to
the front, and no prompting."

"As you see, no nonsense about her, and the best of wives—"

"As he is the best of husbands."

"I believe I am, Monsieur Claudius," said the actor, "and why? Because
I believe that marriage consists entirely in the precept to which
husbands should always conform, and that is, that what the wife likes
the husband should eat often."