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and Michael Strogoff, accomplished horseman as he was, could make good use of
it.
It was four o'clock in the afternoon. Michael Strogoff, compelled to wait
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till nightfall, in order to pass the fortifications, but not desiring to show
himself, remained in the posting-house, and there partook of food.
There was a great crowd in the public room. They were talking of the
expected arrival of a corps of Muscovite troops, not at Omsk, but at Tomsk--a
corps intended to recapture that town from the Tartars of Feofar-Khan.
Michael Strogoff lent an attentive ear, but took no part in the
conversation. Suddenly a cry made him tremble, a cry which penetrated to the
depths of his soul, and these two words rushed into his ear: "My son!"
His mother, the old woman Marfa, was before him! Trembling, she smiled
upon him. She stretched forth her arms to him. Michael Strogoff arose. He was
about to throw himself-
The thought of duty, the serious danger for his mother and himself in
this unfortunate meeting, suddenly stopped him, and such was his command over
himself that not a muscle of his face moved. There were twenty people in the
public room. Among them were, perhaps, spies, and was it not known in the town
that the son of Marfa Strogoff belonged to the corps of the couriers of the
Czar?
Michael Strogoff did not move.
"Michael!" cried his mother.
"Who are you, my good lady?" Michael Strogoff stammered, unable to speak
in his usual firm tone.
"Who am I, thou askest! Dost thou no longer know thy mother?"
"You are mistaken," coldly replied Michael Strogoff. "A resemblance
deceives you."
The old Marfa went up to him, and, looking straight into his eyes, said,
"Thou art not the son of Peter and Marfa Strogoff?"
Michael Strogoff would have given his life to have locked his mother in
his arms; but if he yielded it was all over with him, with her, with his
mission, with his oath! Completely master of himself, he closed his eyes, in
order not to see the inexpressible anguish which agitated the revered
countenance of his mother. He drew back his hands, in order not to touch those
trembling hands which sought him. "I do not know in truth what it is you say,
my good woman," he replied, stepping back.
"Michael!" again cried his aged mother.
"My name is not Michael. I never was your son! I am Nicholas Korpanoff, a
merchant at Irkutsk."
And suddenly he left the public room, whilst for the last time the words
re-echoed, "My son! my son!"
Michael Strogoff, by a desperate effort, had gone. He did not see his old
mother, who had fallen back almost inanimate upon a bench. But when the
postmaster hastened to assist her, the aged woman raised herself. Suddenly a
thought occurred to her. She denied by her son! It was not possible. As for
being herself deceived, and taking another for him, equally impossible. It was
certainly her son whom she had just seen; and if he had not recognized her it
was because he would not, it was because he ought not, it was because he had
some cogent reasons for acting thus! And then, her mother's feelings arising
within her, she had only one thought--"Can I, unwittingly, have ruined him?"
"I am mad," she said to her interrogators. "My eyes have deceived me!
This young man is not my child. He had not his voice. Let us think no more of
it; if we do I shall end by finding him everywhere."
Less than ten minutes afterwards a Tartar officer appeared in the
posting-house. "Marfa Strogoff?" he asked.
"It is I," replied the old woman, in a tone so calm, and with a face so
tranquil, that those who had witnessed the meeting with her son would not have
known her.
"Come," said the officer,
Marfa Strogoff, with firm step, followed the Tartar. Some moments
afterwards she found herself in the chief square in the presence of Ivan
Ogareff, to whom all the details of this scene had been immediately reported.
Ogareff, suspecting the truth, interrogated the old Siberian woman. "Thy
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name?" he asked in a rough voice.
"Marfa Strogoff."
"Thou hast a son?"
"Yes."
"He is a courier of the Czar?"
"Yes."
"Where is he?"
"At Moscow."
"Thou hast no news of him?"
"No news."
"Since how long?"
"Since two months."
"Who, then, was that young man whom thou didst call thy son a few moments
ago at the posting-house?"
"A young Siberian whom I took for him," replied Marfa Strogoff. "This is
the tenth man in whom I have thought I recognized my son since the town
has been so full of strangers. I think I see him everywhere."
"So this young man was not Michael Strogoff?"
"It was not Michael Strogoff."
"Dost thou know, old woman, that I can torture thee until thou avowest
the truth?"
"I have spoken the truth, and torture will not cause me to alter my words
in any way."
"This Siberian was not Michael Strogoff?" asked a second time Ivan
Ogareff.
"No, it was not he," replied a second time Marfa Strogoff. "Do you think
that for anything in the world I would deny a son whom God has given me?"
Ivan Ogareff regarded with an evil eye the old woman who braved him to
the face. He did not doubt but that she had recognized her son in this young
Siberian. Now if this son had first renounced his mother, and if his mother
renounced him in her turn, it could occur only from the most weighty motive.
Ogareff had therefore no doubt that the pretended Nicholas Korpanoff was
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