Of course, matters did not end here. It was agreed that the major
should leave his seat in the third car and occupy that next to mine in
the first. We had already been two inhabitants of the same town; well,
we would become two neighbors in the house, or, rather, two friends in
the same room.

At nine o'clock the signal to start was given. The train leaving Kizil
Arvat went off in a southwesterly direction towards Askhabad, along the
Persian frontier.

For another half hour the major and I continued to talk of one thing or
another. He told me that if the sun had not set, I should have been
able to see the summits of the Great and Little Balkans of Asia which
rise above the bay of Krasnovodsk.

Already most of our companions had taken up their quarters for the
night on their seats, which by an ingenious mechanism could be
transformed into beds, on which you could stretch yourself at full
length, lay your head on a pillow, wrap yourself in rugs, and if you
didn't sleep well it would be on account of a troubled conscience.

Major Noltitz had nothing to reproach himself with apparently, for a
few minutes after he had said good night he was deep in the sleep of
the just.

As for me, if I remained awake it was because I was troubled in my
mind. I was thinking of my famous packing case, of the man it
contained, and this very night I had resolved to enter into
communication with him. I thought of the people who had done this sort
of thing before. In 1889, 1891, and 1892, an Austrian tailor, Hermann