The Author, Disguised
The Author, Disguised
When darkness fell Ivan Sergeievitch accompanied me to the station and part of the way in the train, though we sat separately so that it should not be seen that I was travelling with one who was known to be a Russian officer.
“And remember, Pavel Pavlovitch,” said Ivan Sergeievitch, “go to my flat whenever you are in need. There is an old housekeeper there who will admit you if you say I sent you. But do not let the house porter see you—he is a Bolshevik—and be careful the house committee do not know, for they will ask who is visiting the house.”
I was grateful for this offer, which turned out to be very valuable.
We boarded the train at Viborg and sat at opposite ends of the compartment, pretending not to know each other. When Ivan Sergeievitch got out at his destination he cast one glance at me but we made no sign of recognition. I sat huddled up gloomily in my corner, obsessed with the inevitable feeling that everybody was watching me. The very walls and seat seemed possessed of eyes! That man over there, did he not look at me—twice? And that woman, spying constantly (I thought) out of the corner of her eye! They would let me get as far as the frontier, then they would send word over to the Reds that I was coming! I shivered and was ready to curse myself for my fool adventure. But there was no turning back!Forsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit, wrote Virgil. (I used to write that on my Latin books at school—I hated Latin.) “Perhaps some day it will amuse you to remember even these things”—cold comfort, though, in a scrape and with your neck in a noose. Yet these escapadesareamusing—afterwards.
At last the train stopped at Rajajoki, the laststation on the Finnish side of the frontier. It was a pitch-dark night with no moon. Half-a-mile remained to the frontier, and I made my way along the rails in the direction of Russia and down to the wooden bridge over the little frontier river Sestra. I looked curiously across at the gloomy buildings and the dull, twinkling lights on the other bank. That was my Promised Land over there, but it was flowing not with milk and honey but with blood. The Finnish sentry stood at his post at the bar of the frontier bridge, and twenty paces away, on the other side, was the Red sentry. I left the bridge on my right and turned to look for the house of the Finnish patrols to whom I had been directed.
Finding the little wooden Villa with the white porch I knocked timidly. The door opened, and I handed in the slip of paper on which Melnikoff had written the password. The Finn who opened the door examined the paper by the light of a greasy oil lamp, then held the lamp to my face, peered closely at me, and finally signalled to me to enter.
“Come in,” he said. “We were expecting you. How are you feeling?” I did not tell him how I was really feeling, but replied cheerily that I was feeling splendid.
“That’s right,” he said. “You are lucky in having a dark night for it. A week ago one of our fellows was shot as we put him over the river. His body fell into the water and we have not yet fished it out.”
This, I suppose, was the Finnish way of cheering me up. “Has anyone been over since?” I queried, affecting a tone of indifference. “Only Melnikoff.” “Safely?” The Finn shrugged his shoulders. “We put him across all right—a dalshe nezanyu... what happened to him after that I don’t know.”
The Finn was a lean, cadaverous-looking fellow. He led me into a tiny eating-room, where three men sat round a smoky oil lamp. The window was closely curtained and the room was intolerably stuffy. The table was covered with a filthy cloth on which a few broken lumps of black bread, some fish, and a samovar were placed. All four men were shabbily dressed and very rough in appearance. They spoke Russian well, but conversed in Finnish amongst themselves. One of them said something to the cadaverous man and appeared to be remonstrating with him for telling me of the accident that had happened to their colleague a week before. The cadaverous Finn answered with some heat. “Melnikoff is a chuckle-headed scatter-brain,” persisted the cadaverous man, who appeared to be the leader of the party. “We told him not to be such a fool as to go into Petrograd again. The Redskins are searching for him everywhere and every detail of his appearance is known. But hewouldgo. I suppose he loves to have his neck in a noose. With you, I suppose, it is different. Melnikoff says you are somebody important—but that’s none of our business. But the Redskins don’t like the English. If I were you I wouldn’t go for anything. But it’s your affair, of course.”
We sat down to the loaves and fishes. The samovar was boiling and while we swilled copious supplies of weak tea out of dirty glasses the Finns retailed the latest news from Petrograd. The cost of bread, they said, had risen to about 800 or 1000 times its former price. People hacked dead horses to pieces in the streets. All the warm clothing had been taken and given to the Red army. TheTchrezvichaika(theExtraordinary Commission) was arresting and shooting workmen as well as the educated people. Zinoviev threatened to exterminate all the bourgeoisie if any further attempt were made to molest the Soviet Government. When the Jewish Commissar Uritzky was murdered Zinoviev shot more than 500 at a stroke; nobles, professors, officers, journalists, teachers, men and women, and a list of a further 500 was published who would be shot at the next attempt on a Commissar’s life. I listened patiently, regarding the bulk of these stories as the product of Finnish imagination. “You will be held up frequently to be examined,” the cadaverous man warned me, “and do not carry parcels—they will be taken from you in the street.”
After supper we sat down to discuss the plans of crossing. The cadaverous Finn took a pencil and paper and drew a rough sketch of the frontier.
“We will put you over in a boat at the same place as Melnikoff,” he said. “Here is the river with woods on either bank. Here, about a mile up, is an open meadow on the Russian side. It is now ten o’clock. About three we will go out quietly and follow the road that skirts the river on this side till we get opposite the meadow. That is where you will cross.”
“Why at the open spot?” I queried, surprised. “Shall I not be seen there most easily of all? Why not put me across into the woods?”
“Because the woods are patrolled, and the outposts change their place every night. We cannot follow their movements. Several people have tried to cross into the woods. A few succeeded, but most were either caught or had to fight their way back. But this meadow is a most unlikely place for any one to cross, so the Redskins don’t watch it. Besides, being openwe can see if there is any one on the other side. We will put you across just here,” he said, indicating a narrow place in the stream at the middle of the meadow. “At these narrows the water runs faster, making a noise, so we are less likely to be heard. When you get over run up the slope slightly to the left. There is a path which leads up to the road. Be careful of this cottage, though,” he added, making a cross on the paper at the extreme northern end of the meadow. “The Red patrol lives in that cottage, but at three o’clock they will probably be asleep.”
There remained only the preparation of “certificates of identification” which should serve as passport in Soviet Russia. Melnikoff had told me I might safely leave this matter to the Finns, who kept themselves well informed of the kind of papers it was best to carry to allay the suspicions of Red guards and Bolshevist police officials. We rose and passed into another of the three tiny rooms which the villa contained. It was a sort of office, with paper, ink, pens, and a typewriter on the table.
“What name do you want to have?” asked the cadaverous man.
“Oh, any,” I replied. “Better, perhaps, let it have a slightly non-Russian smack. My accent——”
“They won’t notice it,” he said, “but if you prefer——”
“Give him an Ukrainian name,” suggested one of the other Finns, “he talks rather like a Little Russian.” Ukrainia, or Little Russia, is the south-west district of European Russia, where a dialect with an admixture of Polish is talked.
The cadaverous man thought for a moment. “‘Afirenko, Joseph Ilitch,’” he suggested, “that smacks of Ukrainia.”
I agreed. One of the men sat down to the typewriter and carefully choosing a certain sort of paper began to write. The cadaverous man went to a small cupboard, unlocked it, and took out a box full of rubber stamps of various sizes and shapes with black handles.
“Soviet seals,” he said, laughing at my amazement. “We keep ourselves up to date, you see. Some of them were stolen, some we made ourselves, and this one,” he pressed it on a sheet of paper leaving the imprintCommissar of the Frontier Station Bielo’ostrof, “we bought from over the river for a bottle of vodka.” Bielo’ostrof was the Russian frontier village just across the stream.
I had had ample experience earlier in the year of the magical effect upon the rudimentary intelligence of Bolshevist authorities of official “documents” with prominent seals or stamps. Multitudinous stamped papers of any description were a great asset in travelling, but a big coloured seal was a talisman that levelled all obstacles. The wording and even language of the document were of secondary importance. A friend of mine once travelled from Petrograd to Moscow with no other passport than a receipted English tailor’s bill. This “certificate of identification” had a big printed heading with the name of the tailor, some English postage stamps attached, and a flourishing signature in red ink. He flaunted the document in the face of the officials, assuring them it was a diplomatic passport issued by the British Embassy! This, however, was in the early days of Bolshevism. The Bolsheviks gradually removed illiterates from service and in the course of time restrictions became very severe. But seals were as essential as ever.
A Forged Certificate of Identification
A Forged Certificate of Identification
When the Finn had finished writing he pulled the paper out of the typewriter and handed it to me for perusal. In the top left-hand corner it had this heading:
Extraordinary Commissar of the Central Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Red Armymen’s Deputies.
Then followed the text:
This is to certify that Joseph Afirenko is in the service of the Extraordinary Commissar of the Central Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Red Armymen’s Deputies in the capacity of office clerk, as the accompanying signatures and seal attest.
“In the service of the Extraordinary Commission?” I gasped, taken aback by the amazing audacity of the thing.
“Why not?” said the cadaverous man coolly, “what could be safer?”
What, indeed? What could be safer than to purport to be in the service of the institution whose duty it was to hound down all, old or young, rich or poor, educated or illiterate—who ventured to oppose and sought to expose the pseudo-proletarian Bolshevist administration? Nothing, of course, could be safer!S volkami zhitj, po voltchi vitj, as the Russians say. “If you must live amongst wolves, then howl, too, as the wolves do!”
“Now for the signatures and seal,” said the Finn. “Tihonov and Friedmann used to sign these papers, though it don’t matter much, it’s only the seal thatcounts.” From some Soviet papers on the table he selected one with two signatures from which to copy. Choosing a suitable pen he scrawled beneath the text of my passport in an almost illegible slanting hand, “Tihonov.” This was the signature of a proxy of the Extraordinary Commissar. The paper must also be signed by a secretary, or his proxy. “Sign for your own secretary,” said the Finn, laughing and pushing the paper to me. “Write upright this time, like this. Here is the original. ‘Friedmann’ is the name.” Glancing at the original I made an irregular scrawl, resembling in some way the signature of the Bolshevist official.
“Have you a photograph?” asked the cadaverous man. I gave him a photograph I had had taken at Viborg. Cutting it down small he stuck it at the side of the paper. Then, taking a round rubber seal, he made two imprints over the photograph. The seal was a red one, with the same inscription inside the periphery as was at the head of the paper. The inner space of the seal consisted of the five-pointed Bolshevist star with a mallet and a plough in the centre.
“That is your certificate of service,” said the Finn; “we will give you a second one of personal identification.” Another paper was quickly printed off with the words, “The holder of this is the Soviet employee, Joseph Ilitch Afirenko, aged 36 years.” This paper was unnecessary in itself, but two “documents” were always better than one.
It was now after midnight and the leader of the Finnish patrol ordered us to lie down for a short rest. He threw himself on a couch in the eating-room. There were only two beds for the remaining four of us and I lay down on one of them with one of the Finns. I tried to sleep but couldn’t. I thought of all sortsof things—of Russia in the past, of the life of adventure I had elected to lead for the present, of the morrow, of friends still in Petrograd who must not know of my return—if I got there. I was nervous, but the dejection that had overcome me in the train was gone. I saw the essential humour of my situation. The whole adventure was really one big exclamation mark!Forsan et haec olim....
The two hours of repose seemed interminable. I was afraid of three o’clock and yet I wanted it to come quicker, to get it over. At last a shuffling noise approached from the neighbouring room and the cadaverous Finn prodded each of us with the butt of his rifle. “Wake up,” he whispered, “we’ll leave in a quarter of an hour. No noise. The people in the next cottage mustn’t hear us.”
We were ready in a few minutes. My entire baggage was a small parcel that went into my pocket, containing a pair of socks, one or two handkerchiefs, and some dry biscuits. In another pocket I had the medicine bottle of whisky I had hidden from Melnikoff and some bread, while I hid my money inside my shirt. One of the four Finns remained behind. The other three were to accompany me to the river. It was a raw and frosty November night, and pitch dark. Nature was still as death. We issued silently from the house, the cadaverous man leading. One of the men followed up behind, and all carried their rifles ready for use.
We walked stealthily along the road the Finn had pointed out to me on paper overnight, bending low where no trees sheltered us from the Russian bank. A few yards below on the right I heard the murmur of the river stream. We soon arrived at a ramshackle villa standing on the river surrounded by treesand thickets. Here we stood stock-still for a moment to listen for any unexpected sounds. The silence was absolute. But for the noise of the water there was not a sound.
We descended to the water under cover of the tumble-down villa and the bushes. The stream was about twenty paces wide at this point. Along both banks there was an edging of ice. I looked across at the opposite side. It was open meadow, but the trees loomed darkly a hundred paces away on either hand in the background. On the left I could just see the cottage of the Red patrol against which the Finns had warned me.
The cadaverous man took up his station at a slight break in the thickets. A moment later he returned and announced that all was well. “Remember,” he enjoined me once more in an undertone, “run slightly to the left, but—keep an eye on that cottage.” He made a sign to the other two and from the bushes they dragged out a boat. Working noiselessly they attached a long rope to the stern and laid a pole in it. Then they slid it down the bank into the water.
“Get into the boat,” whispered the leader, “and push yourself across with the pole. And good luck!”
I shook hands with my companions, pulled at my little bottle of whisky, and got into the boat. I started pushing, but with the rope trailing behind it was no easy task to punt the little bark straight across the running stream. I was sure I should be heard, and had amidstream the sort of feeling I should imagine a man has as he walks his last walk to the gallows. At length I was at the farther side, but it was impossible to hold the boat steady while I landed. In jumping ashore I crashed through the thin layerof ice. I scrambled out and up the bank. And the boat was hastily pulled back to Finland behind me.
“Run hard!” I heard a low call from over the water.
Damn it, the noise of my splash had reached the Red patrol! I was already running hard when I saw a light emerge from the cottage on the left. I forgot the injunctions as to direction and simply bolted away from that lantern. Halfway across the sloping meadow I dropped and lay still. The light moved rapidly along the river bank. There was shouting, and then suddenly shots, but there was no reply from the Finnish side. Then the light began to move slowly back towards the cottage of the Red patrol, and finally all was silent again.
I lay motionless for some time, then rose and proceeded cautiously. Having missed the right direction I found I had to negotiate another small stream that ran obliquely down the slope of the meadow. Being already wet I did not suffer by wading through it. Then I reached some garden fences over which I climbed and found myself in the road.
Convincing myself that the road was deserted, I crossed it and came out on to the moors where I found a half-built house. Here I sat down to await the dawn—blessing the man who invented whisky, for I was very cold. It began to snow, and half-frozen I got up to walk about and study the locality as well as I could in the dark. At the cross-roads near the station I discovered some soldiers sitting round a bivouac fire, so I retreated quickly to my half-built house and waited till it was light. Then I approached the station with other passengers. At the gate a soldier was examining passports. I was not a littlenervous when showing mine for the first time, but the examination was a very cursory one. The soldier seemed only to be assuring himself the paper had a proper seal. He passed me through and I went to the ticket office and demanded a ticket.
“One first class to Petrograd,” I said, boldly.
“There is no first class by this train, only second and third.”
“No first? Then give me a second.” I had asked the Finns what class I ought to travel, expecting them to say, third. But they replied, “First, of course,” for it would be strange to see an employee of the Extraordinary Commission travelling other than first class. Third class was for workers and peasants.
The journey to Petrograd was about twenty-five miles, and stopping at every station the train took nearly two hours. As we approached the city the coaches filled up until people were standing in the aisles and on the platforms. There was a crush on the Finland Station at which we arrived. The examination of papers was again merely cursory. I pushed out with the throng, and looking around me on the dirty, rubbish-strewn station I felt a curious mixture of relief and apprehension. A flood of strange thoughts and recollections rushed through my mind. I saw my whole life in a new and hitherto undreamt-of perspective. Days of wandering Europe, student days in Russia, life amongst the Russian peasantry, and three years of apparently aimless war work all at once assumed symmetrical proportions and appeared like the sides of a prism leading to a common apex at which I stood. Yes, my life, I suddenly realized,hadhad an aim—it was to stand here on the threshold of the city that was my home, homeless, helpless, and friendless, one of the common crowd.That was it—one of the common crowd! I wanted not the theories of theorists, nor the doctrines of doctrinaires, but to see what the greatest social experiment the world has ever witnessed did for the common crowd. And, strangely buoyant, I stepped lightly out of the station into the familiar streets.
One of the first things that caught my eye as I emerged from the station was an old man, standing with his face to the wall of a house, leaning against a protruding gutter-pipe. As I passed him I noticed he was sobbing. I stopped to speak to him.
“What is the matter, little uncle?” I said.
“I am cold and hungry,” he whimpered without looking up and still leaning against the pipe. “For three days I have eaten nothing.” I pushed a twenty-rouble note into his hand. “Here, take this,” I said.
He took the money but looked at me, puzzled. “Thank you,” he mumbled, “but what is the good of money? Where shall I get bread?” So I gave him a piece of mine and passed on.
There was plenty of life and movement in the streets, though only of foot-passengers. The roadway was dirty and strewn with litter. Strung across the street from house to house were the shreds of washed-out red flags, with inscriptions that showed they had been hung out a few weeks earlier to celebrate the anniversary of the Bolshevistcoup d’état. Occasionally one came across small groups of people, evidently of the educated class, ladies and elderly gentlemen in worn-out clothes, shovelling away the early snow and slush under the supervision of a workman, who as taskmaster stood still and did nothing.
The Fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul
The Fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul
Crossing the Liteiny Bridge on my way into thecity I stopped, as was my wont, to contemplate the marvellous view of the river Neva. No capital in Europe possesses so beautiful an expanse of water as this city of Peter the Great. Away on the horizon the slender gilded spire of the cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul rose from the gloomy fortress. By force of habit I wondered who was now incarcerated in those dark dungeons. Years ago, before the revolution, I used to stand and look at the “Petropavlovka,” as the fortress is popularly called, thinking of those who pined in its subterranean cells for seeking the liberty of the Russian people.
My first destination was the house of an English gentleman, to whom I shall refer as Mr. Marsh. Marsh was a prominent business man in Petrograd. I did not know him personally, but he had been a friend of Captain Crombie and until recently was known to be at liberty. He lived on the quay of the Fontanka, a long, straggling branch of the Neva flowing through the heart of the city. Melnikoff knew Marsh and had promised to prepare him for my coming. I found the house and, after assuring myself the street was clear and I was not observed, I entered. In the hall I was confronted by an individual, who might or might not have been the house-porter—I could not tell. But I saw at once that this man was not disposed to be friendly. He let me in, closed the door behind me, and promptly placed himself in front of it.
“Whom do you want?” he asked.
“I want Mr. Marsh,” I said. “Can you tell me the number of his flat?” I knew the number perfectly well, but I could see from the man’s manner that the less I knew about Marsh, the better for me.
“Marsh is in prison,” replied the man, “and his flat is sealed up. Do you know him?”
Devil take it, I thought, I suppose I shall be arrested too, to see what I came here for! The idea occurred to me for a moment to flaunt my concocted passport in his face and make myself out to be an agent of the Extraordinary Commission, but as such I should have known of Marsh’s arrest, and I should still have to explain the reason of my visit. It wouldn’t do. I thought rapidly for a plausible pretext.
“No, I don’t know him,” I replied. “I have never seen him in my life. I was sent to give him this little parcel.” I held up the packet containing mytrousseauof socks, biscuits, and handkerchiefs. “He left this in a house at Alexandrovsky the other night. I am an office clerk there. I will take it back.”
The man eyed me closely. “You do not know Mr. Marsh?” he said again, slowly.
“I have never seen him in my life,” I repeated, emphatically, edging nearer the door.
“You had better leave the parcel, however,” he said.
“Yes, yes, certainly,” I agreed with alacrity, fearful at the same time lest my relief at this conclusion to the incident should be too noticeable.
I handed him over my parcel. “Good-morning,” I said civilly, “I will say that Mr. Marsh is arrested.” The man moved away from the door, still looking hard at me as I passed out into the street.
Agitated by this misfortune, I turned my steps in the direction of the hospital where I hoped to find Melnikoff. The hospital in question was at the extreme end of the Kamenostrovsky Prospect, in the part of the city known as The Islands because it forms the delta of the river Neva. It was a good four-mile walk from Marsh’s house. I tried to get on to a street-car, but there were very few running and they were so crowded that it was impossible to boardthem. People hung in bunches all round the steps and even on the buffers. So, tired as I was after the night’s adventure, I footed it.
Melnikoff, it appeared, was a relative of one of the doctors of this hospital, but I did not find him here. The old woman at the lodge said he had been there one night and had not returned since. I began to think something untoward must have occurred, although doubtless he had several other night-shelters besides this one. There was nothing to do but wait for the afternoon and go to the clandestine café to which he had directed me.
I retraced my steps slowly into town. All around was shabbiness. Here and there in the roadway lay a dead horse. The wretched brutes were whipped to get the last spark of life and labour out of them and then lay where they fell, for the ladies who were made to sweep the streets were not strong enough to remove dead horses. Every street, every building, shop, and porch spoke to me of bygone associations, which with a pang I now realized were dead. A few stores remained open, notably for music, books, and flowers, but Soviet licences were required to purchase anything except propagandist literature, which was sold freely at a cheap price, and flowers, which were fabulously dear. Hawkers with trucks disposed of second-hand books, obviously removed from the shelves of private libraries, while a tiny basement store, here and there peeping shamefacedly up from beneath the level of the street, secreted in semi-obscurity an unappetizing display of rotting vegetables or fruits and the remnants of biscuits and canned goods. But everything spoke bitterly of the progressive dearth of things and the increasing stagnation of normal life.
I stopped to read the multifarious public notices and announcements on the walls. Some bore reference to Red army mobilization, others to compulsory labour for the bourgeoisie, but most of them dealt with the distribution of food. I bought some seedy-looking apples, and biscuits that tasted several years old. I also bought all the newspapers and a number of pamphlets by Lenin, Zinoviev, and others. Finding a cab with its horse still on four legs, I hired it and drove to the Finland Station, where upon arrival in the morning I had noticed there was a buffet. The food exhibited on the counter, mostly bits of herring on microscopic pieces of black bread, were still less appetizing than my biscuits, so I just sat down to rest, drank a weak liquid made of tea-substitute, and read the Soviet papers.
There was not much of news, for the ruling Bolshevist1class had already secured a monopoly of the Press by closing down all journals expressing opinions antagonistic to them, so that all that was printed was propaganda. While the Press of the Western world was full of talk of peace, the Soviet journals were insisting on the creation of a mighty Red army that should set Europe and the globe aflame with world-revolution.
At three o’clock I set out to look for Melnikoff’s café, a clandestine establishment in a private flat on the top floor of a house in one of the streets off the Nevsky Prospect. When I rang the bell the door was opened just a wee bit and I espied a keen and suspicious eye through the chink. Seeing it wasimmediately about to close again I slid one foot into the aperture and asked quickly for Melnikoff.
“Melnikoff?” said the voice accompanying the eagle eye. “What Melnikoff?”
“N——,” I said, giving Melnikoff’s real name. At this point the door was opened a little wider and I was confronted by two ladies, the one (with the eagle eye) elderly and plump, the other young and good-looking.
“What is his first name and patronymic?” asked the younger lady. “Nicolas Nicolaevitch,” I replied. “It is all right,” said the younger lady to the elder. “He said someone might be coming to meet him this afternoon. Come in,” she went on, to me. “Nicolas Nicolaevitch was here for a moment on Saturday and said he would be here yesterday but did not come. I expect him any minute now.”
I passed into a sitting-room fitted with small tables, where the fair young lady, Vera Alexandrovna, served me to my surprise with delicious little cakes which would have graced any Western tea-table. The room was empty when I arrived, but later about a dozen people came in, all of distinctly bourgeois stamp, some prepossessing in appearance, others less so. A few of the young men looked like ex-officers of dubious type. They laughed loudly, talked in raucous voices, and seemed to have plenty of money to spend, for the delicacies were extremely expensive. This café, I learned later, was a meeting-place for conspirators, who were said to have received funds for counter-revolutionary purposes from representatives of the allies.
Vera Alexandrovna came over to the table in the corner where I sat alone. “I must apologize,” she said, placing a cup on the table, “for not giving youchocolate. I ran out of chocolate last week. This is the best I can do for you. It is a mixture of cocoa and coffee—an invention of my own in these hard times.” I tasted it and found it very nice.
Vera Alexandrovna was a charming girl of about twenty summers, and with my uncouth get-up and general aspect I felt I was a bad misfit in her company. I was painfully conscious of attracting attention and apologized for my appearance.
“Don’t excuse yourself,” replied Vera Alexandrovna, “we all look shabby nowadays.” (She herself, however, was very trim.) “Nicolas Nicolaevitch told me you were coming and that you were a friend of his—but I shall ask no questions. You may feel yourself quite safe and at home here and nobody will notice you.” (But I saw four of the loud-voiced young officers at the next table looking at me very hard.)
“I scarcely expected to find these comforts in hungry Petrograd,” I said to Vera Alexandrovna. “May I ask how you manage to keep your café going?”
“Oh, it is becoming very difficult indeed,” complained Vera Alexandrovna. “We have two servants whom we send twice a week into the villages to bring back flour and milk, and we buy sugar from the Jews in the Jewish market. But it is getting so hard. We do not know if we shall be able to keep it going much longer. Then, too, we may be discovered. Twice the Reds have been to ask if suspicious people live in this house, but the porter put them off because we give him flour.”
Vera Alexandrovna rose to attend to other guests. I felt extremely ill at ease, for it was clear I was attracting attention and I did not at all like the looks of some of the people present.
“Ah,ma chèreVera Alexandrovna!” exclaimed afat gentleman in spectacles who had just come in, kissing her hand effusively. “Here we are again! Well, our Redskins haven’t long to last now, I’ll be bound. The latest is that they are going to mobilize. Mobilize, indeed! Just a little push from outside, and pouf! up they’ll go like a bubble bursting!”
At once one of the four young men rose from the next table and approached me. He was tall and thin, with sunken eyes, hair brushed straight up, and a black moustache. There was a curious crooked twitch about his mouth.
“Good-afternoon,” he said. “Allow me to introduce myself. Captain Zorinsky. You are waiting for Melnikoff, are you not? I am a friend of his.”
I shook hands with Zorinsky, but gave him no encouragement to talk. Why had Melnikoff not told me I should meet this “friend of his”? Had this Zorinsky merely guessed I was waiting for Melnikoff, or had Vera Alexandrovna told him—Vera Alexandrovna, who assured me no one would notice me?
“Melnikoff did not come here yesterday,” Zorinsky continued, “but if I can do anything for you at any time I shall be glad.”
I bowed and he returned to his table. Since it was already six I resolved I would stay in this café no longer. The atmosphere of the place filled me with indefinable apprehension.
“I am so sorry you have missed Nicolas Nicolaevitch,” said Vera Alexandrovna as I took my leave. “Will you come in to-morrow?” I said I would, fully determined that I would not. “Come back at any time,” said Vera Alexandrovna, with her pleasant smile; “and remember,” she added, reassuringly, in an undertone, “here you are perfectly safe.”
Could anybody be more charming than VeraAlexandrovna? Birth, education, and refinement were manifested in every gesture. But as for her café, I had an ominous presentiment about it, and nothing would have induced me to re-enter it.
I resolved to resort to the flat of Ivan Sergeievitch, Melnikoff’s friend who had seen me off at Viborg. The streets were bathed in gloom as I emerged from the café. Lamps burned only at rare intervals. And suppose, I speculated, I find no one at Ivan Sergeievitch’s home? What would offer a night’s shelter—a porch, here or there, a garden, a shed? Perhaps one of the cathedrals, Kazan, for instance, might be open. Ah, look, there was a hoarding round one side of the Kazan Cathedral! I stepped up and peeped inside. Lumber and rubbish. Yes, I decided, that would do splendidly!
Ivan Sergeievitch’s house was in a small street at the end of Kazanskaya, and like Vera Alexandrovna’s his flat was on the top floor. My experience of the morning had made me very cautious, and I was careful to enter the house as though I were making a mistake, the easier to effect an escape if necessary. But the house was as still as death. I met nobody on the stairs, and for a long time there was no reply to my ring. I was just beginning to think seriously of the hoarding round the Kazan Cathedral when I heard footsteps, and a female voice said querulously behind the door, “Who is there?”
“From Ivan Sergeievitch,” I replied, speaking just loud enough to be heard through the door.
There was a pause. “From which Ivan Sergeievitch?” queried the voice.
I lowered my tone. I felt the other person was listening intently. “FromyourIvan Sergeievitch, in Viborg,” I said in a low voice at the keyhole.
There was another pause. “But who are you?” came the query.
“Do not be alarmed,” I said in the same tone. “I have a message to you from him.”
The footsteps receded. I could hear voices conferring. Then two locks were undone, and the door was partially opened on a short chain. I saw a middle-aged woman peering at me with fear and suspicion through the chink.
I repeated what I had already said, adding in a whisper that I myself had just come from Finland and would perhaps be going back shortly. The chain was then removed and I passed in.
The woman who opened the door, and who proved to be the housekeeper spoken of by Ivan Sergeievitch, closed it again hastily, locked it securely, and stood before me, a trembling little figure with keen eyes that looked me up and down with uncertainty. A few paces away stood a girl, the nurse of Ivan Sergeievitch’s children, who were in Finland.
“Ivan Sergeievitch is an old friend of mine,” I said, not truthfully, but very anxious to calm the suspicions of my humble hostesses. “I knew him long ago and saw him again quite recently in Finland. He asked me, if I found it possible, to come round and see you.”
“Come in, come in, please,” said the housekeeper, whom I shall call Stepanovna, still very nervously. “Excuse our showing you into the kitchen, but it is the only room we have warmed. It is so difficult to get firewood nowadays.”
I sat down in the kitchen, feeling very tired. “Ivan Sergeievitch is well and sends his greetings,” I said. “So are his wife and the children. They hope you are well and not suffering. They wouldlike you to join them but it is impossible to get passports.”
“Thank you, thank you,” said Stepanovna. “I am glad they are well. We have not heard from them for so long. May we offer you something to eat——?”
“Ivan Pavlovitch is my name,” I interpolated, catching her hesitation.
“May we offer you something to eat, Ivan Pavlovitch?” said Stepanovna kindly, busying herself at the stove. Her hands still trembled. “Thank you,” I said, “but I am afraid you have not much yourself.”
“We are going to have some soup for supper,” she replied. “There will be enough for you, too.”
Stepanovna left the kitchen for a moment, and the nursing maid, whose name was Varia, leaned over to me and said in a low voice, “Stepanovna is frightened to-day. She nearly got arrested this morning at the market when the Reds came and took people buying and selling food.”
I saw from Varia’s manner that she was a self-possessed and intelligent girl and I resolved to speak to her first regarding my staying the night, lest I terrified Stepanovna by the suggestion.
“When I went to my home this afternoon,” I said, “I found it locked. I expect the housekeeper was out. It is very far, and I wonder if I may stay the night here. A sofa will do to lie on, or even the floor. I am dreadfully tired and my leg is aching from an old wound. Ivan Sergeievitch said I might use his flat whenever I liked.”
“I will ask Stepanovna,” said Varia. “I do not think she will mind.” Varia left the room and, returning, said Stepanovna agreed—for one night.
The soup was soon ready. It was cabbage soup,and very good. I ate two big platefuls of it, though conscience pricked me in accepting a second. But I was very hungry. During supper a man in soldier’s uniform came in by the kitchen door and sat down on a box against the wall. He said nothing at all, but he had a good-natured, round, plump face, with rosy cheeks and twinkling eyes. With a jack-knife he hewed square chunks off a loaf of black bread, one of which chunks was handed to me.
“This is my nephew Dmitri,” said Stepanovna. “He has just become a volunteer so as to get Red army rations, so we are better off now.”
Dmitri smiled at being mentioned, but said nothing. After two platefuls of soup I could scarcely keep my eyes open. So I asked where I might spend the night and was shown into the study, where I threw myself on the couch and fell fast asleep.
When I awoke I had such a strange sensation of unaccustomed surroundings that I was completely bewildered, and was only brought to my senses by Varia entering with a glass of tea—real tea, from Dmitri’s Red rations.
Then I recalled the previous day, my adventurous passage across the frontier, the search for Marsh and Melnikoff, the secret café, and my meeting with my present humble friends. With disconcerting brusqueness I also recollected that I had as yet no prospects for the ensuing night. But I persuaded myself that much might happen before nightfall and tried to think no more about it.
Stepanovna had quite got over her fright, and when I came into the kitchen to wash and drink another glass of tea she greeted me kindly. Dmitri sat on his box in stolid silence, munching a crust of bread.
“Been in the Red army long?” I asked him, by way of conversation.
“Three weeks,” he replied.
“Well, and do you like it?”
Dmitri pouted and shrugged his shoulders disparagingly.
“Do you have to do much service?” I persisted.
“Done none yet.”
“No drill?”
“None.”
“No marching?”
“None.”
Sounds easy, I thought. “Whatdoyou do?”
“I draw rations.”
“So I see,” I observed.
Conversation flagged. Dmitri helped himself to more tea and Stepanovna questioned me further as to how Ivan Sergeievitch was doing.
“What were you in the old army?” I continued at the first opportunity to Dmitri.
“An orderly.”
“What are you now?”
“A driver.”
“Who are your officers?”
“We have a commissar.” A commissar in the army is a Bolshevist official attached to a regiment to supervise the actions of the officer staff.
“Who is he?”
“Who knows?” replied Dmitri. “He is one like the rest,” he added, as if all commissars were of an inferior race.
“Whatisthe Red army?” I asked, finally.
“Who knows?” replied Dmitri, as if it were the last thing in the world to interest any one.
Dmitri was typical of the mass of the unthinkingproletariat at this time, regarding the Bolshevist Government as an accidental, inexplicable, and merely temporary phenomenon which was destined at an early date to decay and disappear. As for the thinking proletariat they were rapidly dividing into two camps, the minority siding with the Bolsheviks for privilege and power, the majority becoming increasingly discontented with the suppression of the liberties won by the revolution.
“Have you a Committee of the Poor in this house?” I asked Stepanovna. “Yes,” she said, and turning to Dmitri added, “Mind, Mitka, you say nothing to them of Ivan Pavlovitch.”
Stepanovna told me the committee was formed of three servant girls, the yard-keeper, and the house-porter. The entire house with forty flats was under their administration. “From time to time,” said Stepanovna, “they come and take some furniture to decorate the apartments they have occupied on the ground floor. That is all they seem to think of. The house-porter is never in his place in the hall” (for this I was profoundly thankful), “and when we need him we can never find him.”
Varia accompanied me to the door as I departed. “If you want to come back,” she said, “I don’t think Stepanovna will mind.” I insisted on paying for the food I had eaten and set out to look again for Melnikoff.
The morning was raw and snow began to fall. People hurried along the streets clasping bundles and small parcels. Queues, mostly of working women, were waiting outside small stores with notices printed on canvas over the lintel “First Communal Booth,” “Second Communal Booth,” and so on, where bread was being distributed in small quantities against foodcards. There was rarely enough to go round, so people came and stood early, shivering in the biting wind. Similar queues formed later in the day outside larger establishments marked “Communal Eating House, Number so-and-so.” One caught snatches of conversation from these queues. “Why don’t the ‘comrades’ have to stand in queues?” a woman would exclaim indignantly. “Where are all the Jews? Does Trotzky stand in a queue?” and so on. Then, receiving their modicum of bread, they would carry it hastily away, either in their bare hands, or wrapped up in paper brought for the purpose, or shielded under the shawls which they muffled round their ears and neck.
Again I trudged across the river and up the long Kamenostrovsky Prospect to Melnikoff’s hospital, but again he had not returned and they knew nothing of him. Wandering irresolutely about the city I drifted into the district where I had formerly lived, and here in a side-street I came unexpectedly upon a window on which a slip of paper was pasted with the word “Dinners,” written in pencil. This, I could see, was no “communal eating-house.” Without a ticket I could not go to a communal eating-house, so I peered cautiously into the door of the little establishment and found that a single room on the ground floor, probably once a store, had been cleared out and fitted with three tiny tables, large enough to accommodate half-a-dozen people in all. Everything was very simple, clearly a temporary arrangement, but very clean. The room being empty, I entered.
“Dinner?” queried a young lady, appearing from behind a curtain. “Yes, please.” “Will you sit down a moment?” she said. “It is rather early, but it will be ready soon.”
Presently she brought a plate of gruel, small in quantity but good. “Bread, I am afraid, is extra,” she observed when I asked for it. “Can I get dinner here every day?” I inquired. “As long as they do not close us down,” she replied with a shrug. I drew her into conversation. “We have been here a week,” she explained. “People come in who have no food cards or who want something better than the communal eating-houses. My father used to keep a big restaurant in Sadovaya Street and when the Bolsheviks shut it he went into a smaller one in the backyard. When that was closed, too, we moved in here, where one of father’s cooks used to live. We cannot put up a sign, that would attract attention, but you can come as long as the paper is in the window. If it is not there, do not enter; it will mean the Reds are in possession.”
For second course she brought carrots. Three other people came in during the meal and I saw at once that they were persons of education and good station, though they all looked haggard and worn. All ate their small portions with avidity, counting out their payment with pitiful reluctance. One of them looked a typical professor, and of the others, both ladies, I guessed one might be a teacher. Though we sat close to each other there was no conversation.
Purchasing three small white loaves to take with me, I returned in the afternoon to Stepanovna’s. My humble friends were delighted at this simple contribution to the family fare, for they did not know white bread was still procurable. I telephoned to Vera Alexandrovna, using a number she had given me, but Melnikoff was not there and nothing was known of him.
So with Stepanovna’s consent to stay another nightI sat in the kitchen sipping Dmitri’s tea and listening to their talk. Stepanovna and Varia unburdened their hearts without restraint, and somehow it was strange to hear them abusing their house committee, or committee of the poor, as it was also called, composed of people of their own station. “Commissars” and “Communists” they frankly classed assvolotch, which is a Russian term of extreme abuse.
It was a prevalent belief of the populace at this time that the allies, and particularly the British, were planning to invade Russia and relieve the stricken country. Hearing them discussing the probability of such an event, and the part their master Ivan Sergeievitch might take in it, I told them straight out that I was an Englishman, a disclosure the effect of which was electric. For a time they would not credit it, for in appearance I might be any nationality but English. Stepanovna was a little frightened, but Dmitri sat still and a broad smile gradually spread over his good-natured features. When we sat down about nine I found quite a good supper with meat and potatoes, prepared evidently chiefly for me, for their own dinner was at midday.
“However did you get the meat?” I exclaimed as Stepanovna bustled about to serve me.
“That is Dmitri’s army ration,” she said, simply. Dmitri sat still on his box against the kitchen wall, but the smile never departed from his face.
That night I found Varia had made up for me the best bed in the flat, and lying in this unexpected luxury I tried to sum up my impressions of the first two days of adventure. For two days I had wandered round the city, living from minute to minute and hour to hour, unnoticed. I no longer saw eyes in everywall. I felt that I really passed with the crowd. Only now and again someone would glance curiously and perhaps enviously at my black leather breeches. But the breeches themselves aroused no suspicions, for the commissars all wore good leather clothes. None the less, I resolved I would smear my breeches with dirt before sallying forth on the morrow, so that they would not look so new. How shabbily everyone was dressed, I mused drowsily. But the peasants looked the same as ever in their sheepskin coats and bast shoes. One of the pamphlets I had bought was an address to the peasantry, entitledJoin the Communes, urging the peasants to labour not for pecuniary gain but for the common weal, supplying bread to the town workers who would in turn produce for the peasantry. The idea was a beautiful one, but the idealistic conception was completely submerged in the welter of rancour and incitement of class-hatred. I recalled my talk with the cabman who told me it cost him two hundred roubles a day to feed his horse because the peasantry refused to bring provender to the cities. Two hundred roubles, I reflected dreamily as I dozed off, was half my monthly wages of the previous year and twice as much as I earned before the war teaching English. I reheard snatches of conversation at the railway station, at the little dining-room, and with Stepanovna. Was everyone really so bitter as Stepanovna said they were? Stepanovna and Varia were devoted to their master and thought in their simplicity Ivan Sergeievitch would return with the English. Anyway, it was nice of them to give me this bed. There were no sheets, but the blankets were warm and they had even found me an old pair of pyjamas. I nestled cosily into the blankets; the streets, Stepanovna, and the roomfaded away in a common blur, and I passed into the silent land of no dreams.
I was awakened rudely by a loud ring at the bell, and sprang up, all alert. It was a quarter to eight. Who, I asked myself, could the callers be? A search? Had the house committee heard of the unregistered lodger? What should I say? I would say Stepanovna was a relative, I would complain rudely of being disturbed, I would bluster, I would flaunt my passport of the Extraordinary Commission. Or perhaps Stepanovna and Varia would somehow explain away my presence, for they knew the members of the committee. I began dressing hastily. I could hear Stepanovna and Varia conferring in the kitchen. Then they both shuffled along the passage to the door. I heard the door opened, first on the chain, and then a moment’s silence. At last the chain was removed. Someone was admitted and the door closed. I heard men’s voices and boots tramping along the passage. Convinced now that a search was to be made I fished feverishly in my pockets to get out my passport for demonstration, when—into the room burst Melnikoff! Never was I so dumbfounded in my life! Melnikoff was dressed in other clothes than I had seen him in when we last parted and he wore spectacles which altered his appearance considerably. Behind him entered a huge fellow, a sort ofIlia Murometz, whose stubble-covered face brimmed over with smiles beaming good-nature and jollity. This giant was dressed in a rough and ragged brown suit and in his hand he squeezed a dirty hat.
“Marsh,” observed Melnikoff, curtly, by way of introduction, smiling at my incredulity. We shook hands heartily all round while I still fumbled mypassport. “I was about to defy you with that!” I laughed, showing them the paper. “Tell me, how the——I thought you were in prison!”
“Not quite!” Marsh exclaimed, dropping into English at once. “I had a lucky escape! Slithered down a drainpipe outside the kitchen window into the next yard as the Reds came in at the front door. Shaved my beard at once.” He rubbed his chin. “About time, by the way, I saw the barber again. The blighters are looking for me everywhere. I was held up one evening by one of their damned spies under a lamp-post. I screwed my face into a grimace and asked him for a light. Then I knocked him down. And yesterday evening I was going into a yard on Sadovaya Street when under the arch I heard someone behind me say, ‘Marsh!’ I sprang round, just about to administer the same medicine, when I saw it was Melnikoff!”
“But how did you find me here?” I said.
“Ask Melnikoff.” I asked Melnikoff in Russian. He was nervous and impatient.
“Luck,” he replied. “I guessed you might possibly be in Sergeievitch’s flat, and so you are. But listen, I can’t stay here long. I’m being looked for, too. You can meet me safely at three this afternoon at the 15th communal eating-house in the Nevsky. You don’t need a ticket to enter. I’ll tell you everything then. Don’t stay more than two nights in one place.”
“All right,” I said, “three o’clock at the 15th eating-house.”
“And don’t go to Vera’s any more,” he added as he hurried away. “Something is wrong there. Good-bye.”
“Get dressed,” said Marsh when Melnikoff had gone, “and I’ll take you straight along to a placeyou can go to regularly. But rely mainly on Melnikoff, he’s the cleverest card I ever saw.”
Stepanovna, beaming with pleasure and pride at having two Englishmen in her flat, and nervous at the same time on account of the circumstances, brought in tea, and I told Marsh of my mission to Russia. Though he had not been connected with intelligence organizations, he knew people who had, and mentioned the names of a number of persons whose aid might be re-enlisted. One or two occupied high positions in the Ministry of War and the Admiralty.
But there was a more pressing task on hand than intelligence. The Bolsheviks suspected Marsh, together with other Englishmen, of complicity, in assisting allied citizens who were refused passports to escape from the country secretly. Numerous arrests among foreigners were being made and Marsh had had a hairbreadth escape. But his wife had been seized in his stead as hostage, and this calamity filled him with concern.
Mrs. Marsh was imprisoned at the notoriousNo. 2 Goróhovaya Street, the address of the Extraordinary Commission, and Marsh was awaiting the report of a man who had connections with the Commission as to the possibilities of effecting her escape. “This man,” explained Marsh, “was, I believe, an official of theohrana(the Tsar’s personal secret police) before the revolution, and is doing some sort of clerical work in a Soviet institution now. The Bolsheviks are re-engaging Tsarist police agents for the Extraordinary Commission, so he has close connections there and knows most of what goes on. He is a liar and it is difficult to believe what he says, but” (Marsh paused and rubbed his forefinger and thumb together to indicate that finance entered into the transaction),“if you outbid the Bolsheviks, this fellow can do things. Understand?”
Marsh put me up to the latest position of everything in Petrograd. He also said he would be able to find me lodging for a few nights until I had some settled mode of living. He had wide acquaintanceship in the city and many of his friends lived in a quiet, unobtrusive manner, working for a living in Soviet offices.
“Better be moving along now,” he said when we had finished tea. “I’ll go ahead because we mustn’t walk together. Follow me in about five minutes, and you’ll find me standing by the hoarding round the Kazan Cathedral.”
“The hoarding round the Kazan Cathedral? So you know that hoarding, too?” I asked, recalling my intention of hiding in that very place.
“I certainly do,” he exclaimed. “Spent the first night there after my escape. Now I’ll be off. When you see me shoot off from the hoarding follow me as far behind as you can. So long.”
“By the way,” I said, as he went out, “that hoarding—it doesn’t happen to be a regular shelter for—for homeless and destitute Englishmen or others, does it?”
“Not that I know of,” he laughed. “Why?”
“Oh, nothing. I only wondered.”
I let Marsh out and heard his steps re-echoing down the stone staircase.
“I shall not be back to-night, Stepanovna,” I said, preparing to follow him. “I can’t tell you how grateful——”
“Oh, but, Ivan Pavlovitch,” exclaimed the good woman, “you can come here any time you like. If anything happens,” she added in a lower tone, “we’ll say you belong to us. No one need know.”
“Well, well,” I said, “but not to-night. Good-bye, good-bye.” While Stepanovna and Varia let me out I had a vision of Dmitri standing at the kitchen door, stolidly munching a crust of black bread.
Outside the hoarding of the Kazan Cathedral I espied the huge figure of Marsh sitting on a stone. When he saw me over the way he rose and slouched along with his collar turned up, diving into side streets and avoiding the main thoroughfares. I followed at a distance. Eventually we came out on to the Siennaya market, crossed it, and plunged into the maze of streets to the south. Marsh disappeared under an arch and, following his steps, I found myself in a dark, filthy, reeking yard with a back-stair entrance on either hand. Marsh stood at the stairway on the left. “Flat No. 5 on the second floor,” he said. “We can go up together.”
The stairway was narrow and littered with rubbish. At a door with “5” chalked on it Marsh banged loudly three times with his fist, and it was opened by a woman dressed plainly in black, who greeted Marsh with exclamations of welcome and relief.
“Aha, Maria,” he shouted boisterously, “here we are, you see—not got me yet. Andwon’tget me, unless I’ve got a pumpkin on my shoulders instead of a head!”
Maria was his housekeeper. She looked questioningly at me, obviously doubtful whether I ought to be admitted. Marsh roared with laughter. “All right, Maria,” he cried, “let him in. He’s only my comrade—comrades in distress, and ha! ha! ha! ‘comrades’ in looks, eh, Maria?”
Maria smiled curiously. “Certainly ‘comrades’ in looks,” she said, slowly.
“By the way,” asked Marsh, as we passed into an inner room, “what name are you using?”
“Afirenko,” I said. “But that’s official. Tell Maria I’m called ‘Ivan Ilitch.’”
Maria set the samovar and produced some black bread and butter.
“This flat,” said Marsh, with his mouth full, “belonged to a business colleague of mine. The Reds seized him by mistake for someone else. The silly fool nearly (here Marsh used a very unparliamentary expression) with funk when he got arrested. Sat in chokey three days and was told he was to be shot, when luckily for him the right man was collared. Then they let him out and I shipped him over the frontier. They’ll forget all about him. In the daytime this is one of the safest places in town.”
The flat was almost devoid of furniture. A bare table stood in one room and a desk in another. An old couch and a few chairs made up the outfit. The windows were so dirty that they were quite opaque and admitted very little light from the narrow street. Although it was nearly midday an oil lamp burned on the table of the room we sat in. Electric light was becoming rarer and rarer and only burned for a few hours every evening.
Marsh sat and talked of his adventures and the work he had been doing for the allied colonies. His country farm had been seized and pillaged, his city business was ruined, he had long been under suspicion, and yet he refused to leave. But the arrest of his wife bore constantly on his mind. From time to time his boisterous flow of talk would suddenly cease. He would pass his hand over his brow, a far-away, troubled look coming into his eyes.
“If only it were an ordinary prison,” he would say,“if only they were human beings. But these——! By the way, will you come with me to see the Policeman? I am going to meet him in half-an-hour.” The “Policeman” was the nickname by which we referred to the Tsarist official of whom Marsh had spoken in the morning. I reflected for a moment. Perhaps the Policeman might be useful to me later. I consented.
Telling Maria to look out for us both about that time next morning, we left the flat by the back entrance, as we had entered it. Again Marsh walked ahead, and I followed his slouching figure at a distance as he wound in and out of side streets. The dwelling we were going to, he told me, was that of an ex-journalist, who was now engaged as a scribe in the Department of Public Works, and it was at the Journalist’s that he had arranged to meet the Policeman.
The Journalist lived all alone in a flat in the Liteiny Prospect. I watched Marsh disappear into the entrance and waited a moment to convince myself he was not being tracked. From the opposite sidewalk I saw him look back through the glass door, signalling that all was well within, so giving him time to mount the stairs I followed.
He rang the bell at a door covered with oilcloth and felt. After a moment’s silence there was a shuffling of slippers, an inner door opened, and a voice said, “Who’s there?”
“He expects me to say who’s here, the silly fool,” growled Marsh under his breath, adding just loud enough to be heard through the door, “I.”
“Who? ‘I’?” persisted the voice.
“I, Peter Sergeievitch” (aloud), “blithering idiot” (undertone), said Marsh.
There was much undoing of bars and bolts, and finally, the door opening slightly on the chain, a pair of nervous, twinkling eyes peered through the chink.
“Ah!” said the nervous face, breaking into a smile, “Ivan Petrovitch!” The door closed again and the chain was removed. Then it reopened and we passed in.
“Why the devil couldn’t you open at once?” grumbled Marsh. “You knew I was coming. ‘Who’s there?’ indeed! Do you want me to bawl ‘Marsh’ at the top of my voice outside your door?” At this the nervous man looked terrified. “Well, then, why don’t you open? ‘Ivan Petrovitch’ or ‘Peter Sergeievitch’—can’t any one be Ivan Petrovitch? Isn’t that just why Iam‘Ivan Petrovitch’?”
“Yes, yes,” answered the nervous man, “but nowadays one never knows who may be at the door.”
“Well, then, open and look, or next time Iwillshout ‘Marsh.’” The nervous man looked more terrified than ever. “Well, well,” laughed Marsh, “I am only joking. This is my friend—er——”
“Michael Mihailovitch,” I put in.
“Very glad to see you, Michael Mihailovitch,” said the nervous man, looking anything but glad.
The Journalist was a man of thirty-five years of age, though his thin and pale features, dishevelled hair, and ragged beard gave him the appearance of being nearly fifty. He was attired in an old greenish overcoat with the collar turned up, and dragged his feet about in a pair of worn-out carpet slippers. The flat was on the shady side of the street, the sun never peered into its gloomy precincts, it was dark and musty, and icy cold.
“Well, how go things, Dmitri Konstantinovitch?” asked Marsh.
“Poorly, poorly, Ivan Petrovitch,” said the Journalist, coughing. “This is the third day I have not been to work. You will excuse my proceeding with business; I’m having lunch. Come into the kitchen, it is the least cold of all rooms.”
The Journalist, preparing his noonday meal, was engaged in boiling a few potatoes over a stick fire in a tiny portable stove. “Two days’ rations,” he remarked, ironically, holding up a salt herring. “How do they expect us to live, indeed? And half-a-pound of bread into the bargain. That’s how they feed the bourgeois in return for sweating for them. And if youdon’tsweat for them, then you get nothing. ‘He who toileth not, neither let him eat,’ as they say. But it’s only ‘toil’ if it is totheiradvantage. If you toil to your own advantage, then it is called ‘speculation,’ and you get shot. Ugh! A pretty state our Russia has come to, indeed! Do we not rightly say we are a herd of sheep?”
Continuing in this strain the Journalist scraped his smelly herring and began eating it with his potatoes ravenously and yet gingerly, knowing that the quicker he finished the scanty repast the sooner he would realize there was nothing more. Picking the skeleton clean, he sucked the tail and dug his fork into the head for the last scraps of meat.
“Plus 1,000 roubles a month,” he went on. “Here I eat two days’ rations at a single meal, and what can I buy with 1,000 roubles? A few pounds of potatoes, a pound or two of bread and butter? Then there’s nothing left for fuel, when wood that used to cost 5 roubles a sazhen now costs 500!”
From his overcoat pocket Marsh produced half-a-pound of bread. “Here, Dmitri Konstantinovitch,” he said, thrusting it toward him, “your health!”
The Journalist’s face became transfigured. Its haggard look vanished. He glanced up, his mouth fixed in a half-laugh of delight and incredulity, his sunken eyes sparkling with childlike pleasure and gratitude.
“For me?” he exclaimed, scarcely believing his eyes. “But what about yourself? Surely you do not get sufficient, especially since——”
“Don’t worry about me,” said Marsh, with his good-natured smile. “You know Maria? She is a wonder! She gets everything. From my farm she managed to save several sacks of potatoes and quite a lot of bread, and hide it all here in town. But listen, Dmitri Konstantinovitch, I’m expecting a visitor here soon, the same man as the day before yesterday. I will take him into the other room, so that he need not see you.”
The Journalist, I could see, was overcome with fear at being obliged to receive Marsh’s unwelcome visitor, but he said nothing. He wrapped the bread carefully up in paper and put it away in a cupboard. A moment later there were three sharp rings at the bell. Marsh hurried to the door, admitted his visitor, and led him into the Journalist’s study.
“You may as well come in, too,” he said to me, looking into the kitchen.
“Michael Ivanitch,” I whispered, pointing at myself, as we passed in. Marsh introduced me. “My friend, Michael Ivanitch Schmit,” he said.
My first impulse when I saw the individual Marsh nicknamed “the Policeman” was to laugh, for any one less like a policeman than the little man who rose and bowed I have seldom seen. I will not describe him too precisely, but he was short, red-faced, and insignificant-looking. In spite of this, however, his manner showed that he had a very high opinion ofhis own importance. He shook hands and reseated himself with comical dignity.
“Go on, Alexei Fomitch,” said Marsh. “I want my friend to know how matters stand. He may be able to help.”
“Madame Marsh, as I was saying,” proceeded the Policeman, “is incarcerated in chamber No. 4 with thirty-eight other women of various station, including titled personages, servant girls, and prostitutes. The chamber is not a large one and I fear the conditions are far from pleasant. My informants tell me she is cross-examined several hours every day with the object of eliciting the hiding-place of Monsieur Marsh, which they believe she knows. Unfortunately her case is complicated by the confused replies she has given, for after several hours’ interrogation it often becomes difficult to retain clarity of mind. Confused or incoherent replies, even though accidental, lead to further and still more exacting interpellation.”
Marsh followed every word with a concern that was not lost upon the Policeman. “But can we not get round the interrogators?” he asked, “they all have their price, damn it.”