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A few days after the ceremony, Michael and Nadia Strogoff, accompanied by Wassili Fedor, took the route to Europe. The road so full of suffering when going, was a road of joy in returning. They traveled swiftly, in one of those sleighs which glide like an express train across the frozen steppes of Siberia.
But his connection with some secret society having been asserted, he received orders to start for Irkutsk. The police who brought the order conducted him without delay beyond the frontier. Wassili Fedor had but time to embrace his sick wife and his daughter, so soon to be left alone, when, shedding bitter tears, he was led away.
On one of the cards was inscribed: Captain Hector Servadac, Staff Officer, Mostaganem. On the other was the title: Count Wassili Timascheff, On board the Schooner "Dobryna."
The very evening the pretended courier arrived, Wassili Fedor went to the governor-general's palace and, acquainting Ogareff with the circumstances under which his daughter must have left European Russia, told him all his uneasiness about her.
"Then, Nadia," said Michael, "I think that God, in allowing us to meet, and to go through so many severe trials together, must have meant us to be united forever." "Ah!" said Nadia, falling into Michael's arms. Then turning towards Wassili Fedor, "My father," said she, blushing. "Nadia," said Captain Fedor, "it will be my joy to call you both my children!"
Tolstoi was born as late as 1828, Turgenieff in 1818 and Pushkin, the half-negro poet-humorist, was born in 1799. Contemporary with these writers was Mikhail Ivanovitch Glinka the first of the great modern composers of Russia. Still later we come to Wassili Vereschagin, the best known of the Russian painters, who was not born until 1842.
Ogareff did not know Nadia, although he had met her at Ichim on the day she was there with Michael Strogoff; but then, he had not paid more attention to her than to the two reporters, who at the same time were in the post-house; he therefore could give Wassili Fedor no news of his daughter. "But at what time," asked Ogareff, "must your daughter have left the Russian territory?"
"Indeed," remarked General Voranzoff, "Wassili Fedor is a man of worth and courage. His influence over his companions has always been very great." "How long has he been at Irkutsk?" asked the Duke. "For two years." "And his conduct?" "His conduct," answered the head of police, "is that of a man obedient to the special laws which govern him."
At twelve he became the pupil of the famous Russian teacher, Wassili Safonoff, at the conservatory at Moscow, remaining under his instruction for six years. At the same time his teachers in theory and composition were Taneieff and Arensky. In 1891 Rubinstein selected him from all the students at the conservatory to play at a concert given under the famous master's direction.
After taking leave of the staff-officer, Count Wassili Timascheff wended his way down to a small creek, and took his seat in the stern of a light four-oar that had been awaiting his return; this was immediately pushed off from shore, and was soon alongside a pleasure-yacht, that was lying to, not many cable lengths away.
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