WELL- it has been quite a while indeed…I apologize profusely for the disgustingly large gap of time this story has sat without updates, I really do- I always try to cut out time to write, but, we all know the all-too-familiar devil of procrastination. Funnily enough, I'm writing this one day into my semester exams- I honestly do not know what possessed me to take time out of studying to do this. I won't call it wasting time, but it is pretty stupid…man, I hope I do well on those exams.

Anyways- that is entirely beside the point. The point IS, for anyone who's actually still reading this (who is, by the way?…), sorry it's taken so long- et voila! This chapter is really what's getting into the 'meat' of the story now, which is good news…so, naturally, it'll get me more excited about writing; and you can probably expect me to update again at some weird time like in a bathroom break between exams on Wednesday or something.

Enjoy!…

The morning we were to leave Sweden dawned a dismal and dreary gray- and I knew this because I was there outside, standing at the harbor, to witness it. Mother and Father had woken Philippe and I at some ridiculously early hour, the two of us yawning and sighing as our parents chatted naturally and energetically about the days ahead and the very journey on which we were now embarking.

This was the main part, this was the very marrow of the trip; Stockholm had hardly been a short scenic detour on our way to our final destination. Russia was what Mother and Father were primarily excited about, and their enthusiasm was contagious: after all, Philippe and I had heard so many stories it was hard to keep our imaginations from wandering wild.

Finally the ship appeared, and though the boarding was slow, we were soon installing ourselves in our cabins, Philippe and I making claims to beds and attempting to unpack in any free shelves or corners of the cramped space. As we hopped around, our parents sat together murmuring softly, the excitement brewing between them almost palpable.

Finally Philippe and I settled ourselves down enough to listen and join into their conversation.

"How big is Russia?" I asked eagerly.

"Far bigger than France," Philippe put in. "I've seen it in my books."

"Oh, you and your books," I huffed. "Mother? Dad?"

"Bigger than two Frances, even," our father smiled. "So big we won't be able to see it all on this trip."

This disappointed me considerably, until I was reassured that that meant we would indeed be taking another trip back to see the rest.

"Where are we going in Russia?" Philippe asked finally.

This seemed an entirely new concept to me: before, Russia had simply seemed like some vast, foreign place with a way of travel entirely unlike France. It hadn't occurred to me that its size guaranteed there being lots of different places inside of it.

To my great surprise after this realization, Mother and Father simply looked at each other with strange smiles and shrugged together.

"When we travel, we really just let things happen as we go," Mother explained.

"Wherever the wind carries us," our father quipped with a wink.

We talked a little more all together, Philippe's and my fascination growing with every word we heard. Soon, though, our hunger got the best of us, and our parents brought us to the dining area to have a large, if not slightly early, breakfast. We spent the rest of the day wandering about the ship as we had before, my brother and I getting acquainted with the other children we found and pestering the sailors once more, being at an age where shyness wasn't for a second in question.

It was our bedtime before we knew it, but we were certainly more tired than we knew. It had been an unusually long and active day, and I began to feel drowsy the moment we finished supper and began to return to our cabins. As Mother and Father tucked us in to bed, we begged once more for stories of their previous travels, and so we were lulled to sleep by their gentle voices spinning rich, soft tapestries of mystical adventures; lying just at our feet now, too.

This became routine every night on the ship, and our excitement and anticipation grew heavier and thicker with each passing day. It soon grew to the point where Philippe and I were so irritable that we refused to leave the cabin in the daytime, not wanting to partake in any activity that would distract us from our waiting adventures, and our parents had to force us out to be sociable with the other children (whom we believe, in turn, began to avoid us more and more because of our ill tempers).

Fortunately, that impatient phase didn't have to last long: one late evening, the captain passed the message around that we would be arriving the following morning. Philippe and I could hardly contain our excitement at this news, and we spent the night bouncing around as though mad until Father threatened to take us back home. (We slept quite soundly after that; partly for fear that he would fulfill his threat, and partly because the energy it had taken to be so excited all this time had exhausted us. Besides, we wanted to make sure we weren't a bit tired for the very beginning of our escapade across Russia!)

The morning of our arrival seemed to fly equally as quickly as our journey had been slow. From the minute we stepped out into the open air of the deck until we shut our eyes and slept that night, our minds and senses were filled with strange, bizarre, foreign but wonderful and exotic sights and smells and sounds. There were so many things new and unfamiliar to my brother and me that we couldn't even begin to try and discern certain Russian things our parents had described to us in their stories. We traveled from the ship's port by the water into the nearest town by carriage, but even the carriages there were different and strange. Philippe and I amused ourselves by trying to figure out what everyone around us was saying: the language sounded both harsh and fluid at the same time, strangely pleasing to our ears. But the only words we could possibly decipher were the driver's, which we could hear him yelling out to others along the roads and sounded the harshest of all: curses, we assumed, giggling to ourselves. We made mental notes of the sounds of the words to remember for our own amusement later. Mother and Father didn't even attempt to reprimand us: even they had lost themselves in this strange new world.

I couldn't even begin to try and describe everything I saw that day. Certain random details stuck in my mind, but others of equal importance have slipped, merely because there wasn't enough room in my mind for all the new things I encountered in that one first day. Some sights grew familiar to me, like the architecture of certain buildings, the carriages and horses, and the people's dress; but there were still so many new things to take in every day we were there that it would be impossible to recall it all.

We rode around for most of the day when we weren't walking, and my memories of that seem a big colorful blur. However, I remember the inn we stopped to spend the night at: it was large and therefore noticeable from the carriage window, so we got out and inquired inside about staying there for a night or two. It turned out they had plenty of room- though how my parents communicated with the Russians I never knew; perhaps they spoke it- so we went out a back door of the main room, walked down a pretty little garden-type path in a low courtyard, and stopped at one of the many little cottage-looking huts under the roof that surrounded the open area of the courtyard. It was nothing fancy, but it seemed a palace to my brother and I- it might as well have been; how were we to know what kind of furniture or lodgings were considered high-class in Russia? Either way, we could make believe anything our hearts desired; that was the real magic and beauty of travel in foreign lands.

That night, after wandering through the town and buying food to eat as we walked (such an outlandish, uncivilized way to dine! But, perhaps that was considered well-mannered in Russia), our parents got out a worn, slightly ripped map and pointed out to us where we'd sailed in, and where we were now. I remember seeing it on the map, but the name of the town was lost on me: I hardly cared for that; I only wanted to trace my finger along the map and imagine myself traveling by camel or elephant over the vast, dusty land that it represented. The thing that made this time different from doing it at home on painted wooden globes or in history books was that I knew I could very well be doing it for real the very next day; only hours from then. The mere thought of it stirred my blood almost to the point of making me tremble with excitement…and what letters I would write to Christine! What sights I would be able to describe to her! I could show her maps and trace my finger not along where I dreamed of going, but where I'd been.

The thought of Christine brought the world of my life in Paris to a crashing halt, clashing against this new world of Russian adventure. I'd hardly thought about her since we'd left Sweden. Part of me was enormously relieved: I'd left the painful memory of her behind in her own home country. But I was a little sad at not being able to take my imagination-Christine along with me on my adventures…it was probably for the best, though- the constant thought of her stopped me from being as joyful as I was while I was traveling. And, one day, perhaps I could actually take her with me; and have my travels and my love…

Love! I felt silly thinking the thought: I was only a young boy; I knew it was absurd to go thinking I was in love with someone at my age. But yet another part of me felt grown-up and ready for it- I was old enough to partake in such dangerous travels, so why couldn't I be old enough to love? Anyways, I loved my parents, and I loved my brother…surely with Christine it wasn't that different. Perhaps it was that at this age it was impossible to understand love; that was why you couldn't love until you understood it, therefore you couldn't love until you were old enough to understand.

Pleased with my logic, I drifted off to sleep in the unfamiliar but comfortable bed I was sharing with my brother, and dreamed of the day to come.

We spent many days traveling from town to town in that manner; sleeping for only one or two nights in the same place before moving on to another town that seemed the same, yet had entirely new sights and places. It was strange to think that the people in all these separate, different towns had their own lives that mattered as much to them as mine did to me; but they all seemed the same to me: I didn't discriminate between Russians of one town and the next.

Already just the travel from town to town was an adventure to me on its own- we met so many interesting, eccentric (or at least, they seemed so to me) people on our way that I already had enough in my mind to write a series of novels on the trip thus far. However, my mother and father assured me that the adventure was really only to begin once we got to the heart of Russia; once we were out of the common civilized areas and into the wild of the land.

But for me, my own personal adventure began one day very soon after that. Perhaps it didn't impact my parents or Philippe as it did me, but what happened in the few days following our rapid initial travel would impact the rest of my life in ways I never would have imagined.

It truly began the day the night before we set off for a place called Nijni-Novgorod. (It was the only name of anywhere in Russia that I remember, reallyonly because what would happen there was so utterly crucial.) We'd stopped at an unusually lively inn; full of life and laughter of merry-making people celebrating their various events or simply enjoying a pleasant evening.

After putting our (considerably light) luggage in our rooms, we returned to the main area, the source of all the festive noise. As we sat down to a table, Mother and Father speaking to each other about where we were to go the following day, a man at a table next to ours overheard us.

"You are French?" he asked, in accurate French but a terrible accent, directing his question towards my father but looking at all of us in a friendly manner.

My parents engaged in conversation with him, Philippe and I only half-listening; curious that this man spoke French but not curious enough to follow their complicated, detailed discussions of French and Russian politics.

Soon, though, the man turned to look at us two with a smile.

"Do you like fairs?" he asked. "Carnivals? Games, and food, and magic?"

This perked our interest, and we both nodded, now fully attentive to the man.

"Your parents tell me you go to Nijni-Novgorod tomorrow. There is a wonderful fair there; a big, grand fair. The Great Yarmark. And a magician, a great magician, who does tricks, and magic- real magic!"

There wasn't a word he could say now that would slip past our ears.

"They say he is from God; they say he could turn water to wine and back again. And music, too- he sings, with the voice of an angel, they say."

"Who is he?" I couldn't help asking in a tumble, earning a sharp jab in the ribs from Philippe at my right. The man laughed.

"Who knows? They say an angel, but an angel wouldn't spend his time in a tent in a carnival in Nijni…"

Magic, and music! Once more I felt the memory of Christine nudging at the edges of my overflowing mind, and this time I welcomed her in willingly. This was one thing I really was profoundly sad she had to miss…it was just the kind of thing she would have loved, I knew.

A magician, a musician…I yearned with all my being for the next day to dawn. How could I sleep through the night now, knowing what I was to see tomorrow?

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