Neither the clerk with the
gendarme's face, nor the gendarmes themselves could hinder my departure.
I take a ticket for Baku, first class. I go down on the platform to the
carriages. According to my custom, I install myself in a comfortable
corner. A few travelers follow me while the cosmopolitan populace
invade the second and third-class carriages. The doors are shut after
the visit of the ticket inspector. A last scream of the whistle
announces that the train is about to start.
Suddenly there is a shout--a shout in which anger is mingled with
despair, and I catch these words in German:
"Stop! Stop!"
I put down the window and look out.
A fat man, bag in hand, traveling cap on head, his legs embarrassed in
the skirts of a huge overcoat, short and breathless. He is late.
The porters try to stop him. Try to stop a bomb in the middle of its
trajectory! Once again has right to give place to might.
The Teuton bomb describes a well-calculated curve, and has just fallen
into the compartment next to ours, through the door a traveler had
obligingly left open.
The train begins to move at the same instant, the engine wheels begin
to slip on the rails, then the speed increases.
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