CHAPTER VICOURTING ARREST

A killed dragoon and horse

Peasants shot downGuerilla warfare

Peasants shot down

Guerilla warfare

side, a little behind me, and another at my left. A third man in civil dress, evidently an officer, stood immediately behind the general. A Cossack guard, rifle in hand, stood by the door. It was evident that, in spite of my credentials, the general had decided to keep an eye upon me. He knew full well that sooner or later his life would be attempted, as indeed it was a few weeks after this interview.[5]

Without further preliminary, I came abruptly to the point upon which I desired light.

“Your Excellency,” I said, “I have come to you on a strange errand. I have heard worse stories about you than I have ever heard about any living human being. As an American I do not wish to repeat these stories to my countrymen, if they are not true. On the other hand, if they are true, I want to hear your side of the case, your justification—if such there be.”

The general was somewhat surprised by my abruptness, but inquired as to the nature of these stories.

“The people of this province,” I replied, “tell me that your soldiers are burning the homes of the people indiscriminately at your order,—the homes of people against whom there is no legal evidence, only suspicion; that your soldiers are encouraged to loot and to pillage the shops; that not only the women and the girls, but also little children, fare very badly at their hands.”

The general received these words quietly, but answered with some heat: “The people of this province are bad, all bad, very bad. There is no other way to repress them than as my soldiers are now doing.”

“There are many people here,” I added, “many different tribes and races—are none good?”

“No! they are all bad! The Georgians are the worst, but they are all against the government, and must be put down.”

“By putting down, do you mean arresting them and burning their homes, or are these stories false?”

The general showed slight irritation at this, and replied: “There are more than one hundred thousand houses in this province, one hundred and twenty have been ordered burned since I came to Kutais. What are one hundred and twenty out of so many?” Then, flashing his eyes directly upon me, he added, in excellent French: “These people are terrorists, they are socialists, and revolutionists. When I hear that a man is a socialist or revolutionist, I order my soldiers to burn down his house. It is the only way.”

“One hundred and twenty houses, general?” I replied. “I have been only a short time in Kutais, but I have seen the ashes of far more than one hundred and twenty houses.”

“Oh, yes,” replied the general. “That may be explained: My soldiers are ordered to burn down a certain house, but of course they do not always have time to see that other houses do not catch fire and so burn also.”

Later I had opportunity to verify the truth of this explanation. The soldiers would apply the torch to a particular house and if a wind chanced to be blowing up the valley of the Rion the flames would spread from house to house and leap from street to street, and perhaps the whole village would be destroyed.

Pursuing the interview further, I told the general of the rumors which I heard on every hand concerning the treatment of the women and the girls by the soldiers. I spoke specially of a rumor concerning five little girls of tender years, the oldest, I believe, thirteen, who hadwithin a few days been sent from Kutais to a hospital in a neighboring city as a result of the outrages perpetrated upon them by the soldiers. He denied any knowledge of this incident, but he admitted that officers have their headquarters in the hotels and were frequently ignorant of the whereabouts of their soldiers, and, of course, not responsible for single acts of violence which might occur from the hands of the soldiers. Any officer, he maintained, would prevent such gross outrages as that of which I had spoken. He added that his soldiers were frequently forced to shoot women, but that was because women were often revolutionists.

Just here Ivan could scarcely contain his wrath at the general. A flush of angry resentment crossed his face, but as soon as he realized that he was showing his incredulity he became almost paralyzed with fear. His anguish was almost pain to look upon. He suddenly went pallid. When he tried to speak his tongue cleaved to the roof of his mouth and refused to act. I motioned him to cease trying, and for the rest of the interview I talked directly with the general in French.

In regard to the looting of shops, the general made no attempt to deny the fact, merely explaining that the pillaged stores were owned invariably by revolutionists and socialists. Inasmuch as the general had already called all of the people in the district “socialists” and “revolutionists” and “bad,” this classification and explanation was rather sweeping. Further conversation with him merely emphasized his position. He was on the spot to “pacify” the people, to “suppress” all signs of revolutionary activity, even of passive resistance. In other words, to restore the province to normal conditions, and the policy employed to do this was the only policy which General Alikhanoff believed could be crownedwith success, namely, the policy of repression or extermination.

As we talked he leaned both arms on the desk before him and his fingers toyed quietly with a box of cigarettes. A bright jewel in a large ring on one of his fingers constantly caught the glint from a near-by light and flashed its rainbow colors. The cold, hard flash of the jewel was no brighter than that of the general’s gray eyes, which flashed fire as he spoke and reflected the indomitable will of a man who is accustomed to fight against odds, and who lives in constant expectation, though not in fear, of assassination.

When I had questioned him as fully as I desired and was fully convinced that he had no further justification for his extreme policy than that which he so frankly offered me, I thanked him for his courtesy and candor, and retired with Ivan.

At the head of the stairs my arms were returned to me, and as we descended to the main hall I took from my pocket a small gold coin and dropped it into the hands of Ivan, with the remark that never before in his life had he earned so much money in so short a time.

“That is true, sir,” he answered, “but if I had to do it again to-morrow, sir, I would put myself in the river to-night, sir.”

It was eight o’clock when we started to leave the residence of the governor-general, and night had settled over Kutais. Ivan and I took our places in our littledroshky, and as we started away, the colonel, who had been present throughout the interview, called after us, bringing us to a standstill.

“Have you no escort?” he asked.

“Why, no,” I replied. “I think none is necessary.”

“We cannot even permit you to return to your hotel without an escort. You must never go from one street to another unaccompanied. One moment, please.” The colonel disappeared, returning in a moment with a Cossack soldier, who at the command of the colonel took his place on the box next to our driver, his unslung rifle resting loosely across his lap.

Once more the carriage started, and once more the colonel stopped us.

“Where is your revolver?” he asked.

“It is here, sir,” I replied, “in my belt.”

“In your belt? But of what use is it there? In your hand, if you please, sir.”

I laughed outright at this. I had seen officers going through the streets with their revolvers in their hands, but I had always looked upon this as an affectation or the result of an absurd timidity. In Vladikavkaz when I was about to drive out with the chief of police, I had been asked to put my revolver in my outside overcoat pocket, in order to have it ready for immediate use, but I had at no time dreamed of carrying my revolver in my hand. However, since the colonel commanded, rather than suggested it, I drew my Browning from its holster, only adding that it seemed unnecessary with a Cossack on the box and only eight o’clock in the evening.

“Pardon me,” answered the colonel in excellent French. “No precaution is unnecessary just now. Your revolver in your hand, please—your ungloved hand.”

And so we drove to the hotel.

Once a man slunk back into the shadow of a building as we approached; he might have been a Kurd tramp, I could not see clearly. At every corner stood soldiers, and several times we passed a mounted patrol. Not another sign. Not a store open. Not a human voice, nor footstep. Deserted streets, as of a city of the dead. Literally a city of “dreadful night.” For here was Alikhanoff, “Bloody Alikhanoff,” who was pushing forward the repression and all Kutais knew that Alikhanoff’s peace was obtained through a policy of pacification which, if resisted, meant extermination.

When we were once more in the hotel, Ivan, forgetting that his friend had sworn in that very room a few hours before that “even the walls have ears,” burst forth into a perfect frenzy at what he called the “bad things” Alikhanoff had told me.

I told Ivan that I thought the general had been exceedingly frank in admitting that he burned the homes of the people and that his soldiers looted and pillaged at their own will and pleasure without restraint. “But he did not admit to you, sir,” said Ivan, “what beastly things they do to our women and little girls.”

Early next morning Ivan awoke me. He appeared to be much excited and asked me to come immediately down-stairs to talk with a man whom he had brought to me. He would not explain, but merely urged me to haste.

When I went below Ivan confronted me with a workingman—a carpenter, I think,—a man of ordinary intelligence. Ivan told me that I must listen to this man’s story.

Briefly it was this: In the dead of night, twelve soldiers with no officer to restrain them had entered his home; they had pinned him in a corner and then each of the twelve soldiers had violated his wife before his eyes.

About the time I was here an official commission was collecting testimony to put on authoritative record the things that happened under “Bloody Alikhanoff.”

“Pacification”“Of course I order my soldiers to burn down the homes of these people.” General Alikhanoff

“Pacification”

“Of course I order my soldiers to burn down the homes of these people.” General Alikhanoff

Here is a single page from a volume of evidence collected:

The Village of Tug(1)Takui Kushlyanz, 30 to 35 years old. When the detachment arrived and the women ran away, I also ran; the Cossacks were chasing us; being pregnant and frightened, I gave birth to a child who died on the spot.(3)Mathusan Pulyeva, 35 years old. I could not run away because I have a baby at the breast, and my other children are also small. Three Cossacks broke into our house, beat and bruised my husband, and all three violated me. My husband was beaten so mercilessly that he is still sick. The traces of the assault are still evident.(4)Mariam Ovanesyanz, 60 years old, married: Being an old woman I did not run away, thinking that they would not touch me. The Cossacks were given freedom, all rushed into the house; they began to beat, rob, and assault; throughout the village cries for help were heard, but the authorities paid no attention to that. In our house the locks were broken from the doors of the rooms, and they took silver, dresses, and various other things, and then they violated me. There were three or four Cossacks in our house.(5)Balakhanuma Chitchayanz, 25 years old: Having a nursling and other small children, I could not run away; the most terrible assaults were committed by the Cossacks in my house; the Cossacks broke into our house several times in separate groups; my little girl, Nadyezhda, 4 years old, died for fright; she was healthy before, and my boy Armenak is still lying in bed sick from fright. Each group entered and violated me; there was about six or seven such groups,—I don’t remember exactly how many, because I lay almost unconscious, and after they left I was very sick in bed and am still sick.(6)Maibo Sarkisyanz, 16 or 17 years old: I have been married for two years, I did not succeed in running away in time. Two Cossacks broke into our house, beat my husband, drove him out, and both of them violated me; then, gathering together all valuable things, they went away.(9)Shoganata Chakh-Misyanz, 14 years old: I was among those women that did not succeed to hide in time. On Monday morning two Cossacks came up our stair-case. I ran into the room and was about to hide myself, but they broke into the room and one after another violated me. I was a virgin. I became unconscious.[6]

The Village of Tug

(1)Takui Kushlyanz, 30 to 35 years old. When the detachment arrived and the women ran away, I also ran; the Cossacks were chasing us; being pregnant and frightened, I gave birth to a child who died on the spot.

(3)Mathusan Pulyeva, 35 years old. I could not run away because I have a baby at the breast, and my other children are also small. Three Cossacks broke into our house, beat and bruised my husband, and all three violated me. My husband was beaten so mercilessly that he is still sick. The traces of the assault are still evident.

(4)Mariam Ovanesyanz, 60 years old, married: Being an old woman I did not run away, thinking that they would not touch me. The Cossacks were given freedom, all rushed into the house; they began to beat, rob, and assault; throughout the village cries for help were heard, but the authorities paid no attention to that. In our house the locks were broken from the doors of the rooms, and they took silver, dresses, and various other things, and then they violated me. There were three or four Cossacks in our house.

(5)Balakhanuma Chitchayanz, 25 years old: Having a nursling and other small children, I could not run away; the most terrible assaults were committed by the Cossacks in my house; the Cossacks broke into our house several times in separate groups; my little girl, Nadyezhda, 4 years old, died for fright; she was healthy before, and my boy Armenak is still lying in bed sick from fright. Each group entered and violated me; there was about six or seven such groups,—I don’t remember exactly how many, because I lay almost unconscious, and after they left I was very sick in bed and am still sick.

(6)Maibo Sarkisyanz, 16 or 17 years old: I have been married for two years, I did not succeed in running away in time. Two Cossacks broke into our house, beat my husband, drove him out, and both of them violated me; then, gathering together all valuable things, they went away.

(9)Shoganata Chakh-Misyanz, 14 years old: I was among those women that did not succeed to hide in time. On Monday morning two Cossacks came up our stair-case. I ran into the room and was about to hide myself, but they broke into the room and one after another violated me. I was a virgin. I became unconscious.[6]

Why continue this revolting story? During the length of my stay in this region each day added to the weightof tragedies. I was more than five weeks, all told, in the Caucasus. Time enough for me to see what Russian administration there means, time enough to learn of and to witness the terrible inhumanities of an army of “pacification” under a General Alikhanoff. The hours I spent with my officer companions were pleasant hours, bright with song and laughter. They were good fellows. And yet—I could not but understand, through them, and through other officers and officials with whom I came in contact, why assassination is deemed a legitimate weapon of warfare by the people of the Caucasus. I am a thoroughgoing American in spirit. As such, revolution is my most sacred heritage. If I lived in the Caucasus, suffering and bleeding under Russian misrule, I would be a revolutionist. If my home were invaded, and burned by an Alikhanoff before any legal evidence were gathered against me; if members of my household were abused by Cossacks precisely as hundreds of girls and women there are abused, I think I might reply to these barbarous weapons—sanctioned and approved by the Czar’s government—with the most effective weapons I could command—possibly even the revolver, the knife, and the bomb.

It is easy enough to talk restraint, when one has not been wronged. To look upon the things I looked upon in the Caucasus with one’s own eyes brings the awfulness of the régime home with overwhelming force, and if one is not actually driven to take up arms in defense of helpless, outraged, human beings, one is at least forced to charity and forbearance in passing judgment upon the methods of these wronged people in their efforts to defend themselves, and to correct by every means they know the cruel and inhuman régime under which they live and suffer.

A journey in the interior—Warned back—The start—A typical Volga province—Causes of the famine—Arrival at Tsaritzin—Two medical students—“Open! Open to the Police!”—The search—Condition of the peasants—Pesky—A group of remarkable personalities—Village customs—A dramatic meeting—A night ride—A sudden interruption in our plan.

OCCASIONAL massacres of Jews, of Armenians, of Tartars, of intellectuals in interior towns—these the world knows about. Massacres are instituted to accomplish certain definite results, such as the terrorizing of a section of the population into passivity, or to coerce popular opinion in a given direction. But these occur only at intervals, and in widely different sections of the empire. Police misrule, on the other hand, is constant, and exists everywhere. The tourist in Russia is met by the police at the frontier—his books are liable to confiscation, his private papers to minute examination; once settled in St. Petersburg or Moscow his letters are very likely opened and frequently parts of them extracted. I remember that at one time all of my letters were regularly opened by the police before they were delivered to me, and more than once a page or two, or perhaps a whole sheet, would be missing when my letter was finally delivered. The power of the police is as omniscient as it is omnipresent. It is the one authorityin czardom that can descend upon the Czar himself. About the time of the convocation of the Duma a Moscow publisher brought out a complete set of the Emperor’s speeches. The volume was small, and it was not edited nor annotated in any way, yet the police confiscated the whole edition and forbade its circulation! The weakness and true character of Nicholas II was so plainly revealed in the collection that this step was held to be justifiable.

To meet this police power casually, or to read about it, is one matter. To live under its absolute domination is quite another. The so-called agrarian revolts are often insurrections against the intolerable will of the police.

After leaving the Caucasus I traveled to the town of Saratoff, the capital of the province of the same name, there to begin a journey of a few hundred miles through the peasant country. Spring was fast approaching, at which time the ravages of hunger with greater or less rigor sweep over the peasant villages of central Russia year after year. Incidentally I saw rather more than I anticipated, particularly of the rural police.

“You will not be permitted to travel through the district,” I was told in Saratoff city. “Every correspondent who attempts it is arrested or turned back for one reason or another.”

I had come more than one thousand miles to make this journey and consequently I was not of a mind to be unofficially turned aside. I procured an interpreter, and arranged for horses and a peculiarly Russian wagon with a body of wicker like a great basket, called atarrantass.

Atroika, with loud, jingling bells, carried us out of Saratoff city and straight away to the north, away from all railroads and towns of size. The fast greening stepperolled to hillocks on the east and the hillocks mounted to hills, higher and higher, farther and farther to the east, till the heights of the Urals seemed to loom vaguely in the purple distance.

Two hours out from Saratoff houses became fewer. As far as the eye could reach to west and north was the boundless, lone steppe. Now and then we passed a miserable village with ugly houses of stone and mud and crumbling, thatched roofs. Twice during the ride we passed the ruins of a landlord’s house, reduced to ashes by infuriated peasantry. Telegraph poles lay felled along the roadside.

Saratoff government borders on the majestic Volga. No mightier or lovelier river winds through the dominions of the Czar. Fields which might be fertile, and dessiatines with wonderful possibilities for rich production, roll backward from its banks many miles. Yet here men faint from hunger; women sink beneath the burden of days, and little children waste to shadows, and die. The ugliest of diseases root among the people and flourish like weeds in a pasture—not because nature has been scant in her provision of resources, but because all development of agricultural lands is still unknown. “Dry farming” has never been heard of; and irrigation projects which could so easily be carried out have never been thought of. But more than all the rest, perhaps, is the iniquitous system of landholding that still continues. Where one man owns one hundred thousand dessiatines,[7]two thousand men possessonedessiatine each! The man with the hundred thousand is rich and lives in Moscow, in St. Petersburg, or Paris, and only occasionally visits his “estates” here in the interior. The two thousand are born, fret through their weary lives, and die on the littlepatch of once good, but now exhausted, land which originally their fathers held when serfdom was abolished, or their fathers’ fathers of many generations ago bought when colonization was encouraged by Catharine, or Elizabeth, or Peter. And as the demands of life to-day have multiplied since the time of Catharine, or even Alexander I, while the peasant holdings have remained the same, the impossible condition which so extensively prevails throughout central and eastern Russia is easy to understand.

When serfdom was abolished in 1861 a certain patch of land was given to each village, and the village council, called themir, parceled out this land to the individual villagers, re-allotting the parcels every three, five, or seven years according to the vote of each village. Since 1861 the population of many villages has doubled, and some have trebled, but the aggregate landholdings have remained what they were at the beginning. A tract of land that was barely enough for the maintenance of, say, two thousand souls in 1861 is entirely inadequate in 1907 for four or five thousand. Hence, throughout this vast district of central and eastern Russia, life has death for neighbor. The pall of famine descends upon the region in years when the crops are yielding most plentifully. Years when a frost comes, or a drought, or a blight, the situation attains the proportions of a calamity.

Dusk was gathering when we rumbled heavily into Tsaritzin, a village of 1800 inhabitants, fifty-five versts from Saratoff. Our driver pulled up before a square cottage, no better than the average, and to all appearances like the rest in the village. Before we had lifted our cramped and much-shaken limbs from the springless wagon that had brought us all the distance, two young men, strangers to us both, but bursting with cordialityand pleasure at our arrival, rushed out to greet us. They were two medical students from the temporarily closed University of Moscow, come here to direct the distribution of famine relief. We were their first visitors in several months, and, as we soon were able to see, their existence is dreary enough in this remote place. They come to serve the peasants, to administer famine relief, to look after their physical ailments and to teach them, all they can of the rudiments of education. At every turn they are hampered and harassed by the local police.

The glamour that was wont to shine round the young men and women who inaugurated the “settlement” movement in England and America, young people of education and culture who took up their living in the midst of the darkest corners of great cities to share the results of their larger opportunities with tenement dwellers, pales before the life and works of intellectual young Russia. The government closed the universities, for they were centers of revolt. But students who have lived, however briefly, in the blaze of active idealism, and who have been touched by the fire of enthusiasm to hasten the coming of Russia’s better day, are not content to return simply to their homes to await the opening of their universities at the will and pleasure of a reactionary, timid government. The free life, the glad life for Russia and all her people, is their goal. The movement tending toward that goal is their cause.

We sat down with our delighted hosts to a simple evening meal, and were still lingering over a companionable samovar when a clock in an adjoining room struck ten. The striking had scarcely ceased when a series of heavy blows descended upon the shutters of one of the windows and a voice bawled out:

“Open! Open to the police!”

One of our hosts groped through the adjoining room to light a small oil-lamp near the door. We in our room heard the crude rear door crack on its rusty hinges as it was swung wide. The tramp of heavy feet crossed the uneven floor, accompanied by the clank of spurs and the rattle of a dangling saber. A young officer of police swaggered into the room where we sat. At the threshold he paused, partly turned and bawled an order to the men behind him. The grounding of arms echoed his words.

“Your passports,” demanded the officer without preliminary.

“How many soldiers have you with you?” asked my companion.

“You may count,” replied the officer.

“One, two, three, five, seven, ten! Good. There are two of us.”

The officer betrayed his impatience. We handed him our American passports—which we naïvely thought would be sufficient to induce him to respect us. At that time I had not yet learned that in the heart of Russia to be an American citizen means no more than to belong to one of the tribes of the Iroquois Indians. We were possessed of other credentials in addition to our passports, however, and these were finally accepted, though with evident reluctance.

During the examination, our student-hosts sat nonchalantly by, smoking cigarettes. The ceremony was familiar enough to them. Their quarters were searched by this same officer and his men sometimes two or three times a week, and any book, pamphlet, or piece of handwriting that he took a fancy to declare “dangerous” was confiscated.

When the officer and his ten soldiers withdrew we

The peasants’ friendMedical students from Moscow University in charge of a famine relief station in Saratoff

The peasants’ friend

Medical students from Moscow University in charge of a famine relief station in Saratoff

could hear other feet outside the window. Curiosity prompted me to look out, so we unbarred the shutter and let the lamp-light flood the yard. Thirty more brown-coated soldiers were drawn up in two phalanxes.

Later we wondered, my companion and I, why this search officer brought forty soldiers with him. Thirty-six hours later, when we were really arrested and carried off to prison, the work was done by one police officer and one rural guard.

Toward midnight we rolled ourselves in our blankets and lay down on the floor to sleep. This is the common thing in peasants’ houses. The children and the very old sleep over the square, brick stove, on a little platform designed for the purpose, but the rest of the family, and strangers, are content with the floor. All that night we heard the slow tread of feet outside the windows. Two soldiers were keeping guard. Not till the larks had been up an hour in the adjoining fields, and day was fairly come, did these sentinels retire.

Early next morning peasants from the village began to wait upon us. We were friends of their friends and that was enough. They unbared the hardness of their lives with perfect freedom. One old man told us that he had been in jail no less than eight times because he had repeatedly volunteered to carry to the Czar—their “Little Father”—the petition of the village setting forth their wrongs. It seemed still to be the firm belief of these peasants that their condition was as it was because the Czar had never come to know of their plight. It was a striking fact throughout Russia that often among the most revolutionary peasants there was even down to the spring of 1906 strong loyalty to the Czar. Their revolt was against the government hedged round the Czar, andbarring the “Little Father” from his people. The first Duma dispelled this belief almost universally, but the first Duma was, at this time, a month away.

Three old muzhiks with long, white beards and clear, blue eyes told the story of how they and five others had gone as a deputation to the then governor of the province, hoping that he would open the way to the Czar for them. As a result of their faith they were stripped to the waist and flogged. Another was of a much larger deputation—more than sixty; thirty of these were sent to prison for a short time, and thirty-six received one hundred blows each. When they found that we were sympathetic listeners, they begged us to come and see the roofs of some of their houses which were being daily torn away to feed the horses. As the roofs were largely composed of straw-thatch, there was a certain amount of nourishment in them—a last resource in the fight against the universal hunger.

“Do you have big land-owners in America?” one man asked eagerly. “Are people prevented from earning enough to live on year after year?” All of the questions asked us were vital. They were frank enough about owning to revolt. “What’s to be done?” they said. “The mere renting of land is eighteen rubles (nine dollars) a dessiatine for a season. Where’s the money to come from to pay for this? The land is ours. We do the work, and we should have it.”

That very week a Cossack officer and a police officer had summoned all the people of the village together and warned them that if any of the land belonging to the landlords was touched, that “the village would be fired from the four corners, and they would not be responsible for what happened to the people in the village.” The land referred to belonged to two vast estates whose ownershad not even seen them for years—several hundred thousand acres lying absolutely idle!

The welcome we received at Pesky, our next stopping-place, was, if possible, more demonstrative than at Tsaritzin. The group of “intellectuals” here numbered four, two women and two men. They had gathered there in early November and in six months we were their first visitors. One of the students was acting as village school-master. The other was devoting himself entirely to the famine relief-work.

The women were both remarkable personalities. They had first met each other in a St. Petersburg prison, where they had both been confined for political offences. One, a woman of twenty-five, large and strong, and fearless, still carried the mark of a Cossacknagaika[8]across her forearm, and in one of her shoulders was a Cossack bullet. Her husband at the time of my visit was in prison. She had received an ordinary finishing-school education and begun the study of medicine. During the war she volunteered as a nurse in the Red Cross organization and was sent to Manchuria, but she was returned home for “scattering seeds of sedition” among the army. Pesky we found to be in an even more serious condition than Tsaritzin. The total population was about twenty-one hundred and the number of meals dispensed each day was more than eighteen hundred. In other words, only three hundred souls, or less than seventy-five families, were self-supporting.

One who passes through this district well understands how the peasants have come to feel that it is better to chance the bullets and the Cossack nagaika than endure passively the long-drawn sufferings of the life on their inadequate dessiatines. They are almost without hope;and the hopeless are ever fearless. Industry intensified and lengthened to most cruel drudgery has little reward. Severest toil, early and late, and desperately constant while the season lasts, still is not productive of sufficient recompense to supply bread through the months when the fields lie buried under snow-drifts.

There was no mistaking the attitude of the peasants toward the young relief-workers, as we walked through the village streets with them. Children ran beside them, or called out to them. Old women addressed the women as “sister.” To the men they were “comrades.”

We entered many homes during the two days that we remained in this village. In each hut, however small, in every cottage, no matter how keen the distress, we were welcomed with obvious gladness. In one cramped hovel we found a young mother prostrate upon a pile of rags on the floor, very low with typhoid fever. Immediately beside her lay a child of three with scarlatina, and suspended from the ceiling over both their heads a crude cradle in which lay an unweaned baby which the mother was still nursing! In another we found a girl of eight wasted to a skeleton with inherited syphilis. An older sister had died of the same disease two months before. A boy lay at death’s door with scurvy. And so, from house to house we went looking upon scenes too dreadful to portray. Yet everywhere a smile greeted our entrance. In one house we found a very young girl about to become a mother. The Russian peasant is very strict in his attitude toward young girls, and sad and heavy is the lot of any peasant girl who sins. This girl dared not show herself out of her hut for fear of being publicly hooted. She was much exercised over the fate of her child, for she told us that the priest would not bless it at birth. Her mother then begged one of our party to come

A typical cottage in the famine district of Saratoff

Examination of credentials

and offer some little prayer which would save the child from the damnation which should justly fall upon the child-mother. An old man with a long white beard rushed out from another house as we passed and exhibited a wounded foot which he begged us to bandage.

Finally we were taken to the local “Duma” building, a town hall where all the males of twenty-one years of age and over gather from time to time to discuss the affairs of the community. About forty men followed us there and at the first opportunity began pouring out questions. Almost without exception these queries had to do with the land. In America did all the people starve half the year unless given food by the government, or by some other agency? What did we do with landlords in America who could not possibly work or use the land and yet would not allow the people to use it? These and other questions were put to us with great directness. At last I asked them what they proposed to do for themselves.

There was silence for a minute. Then one man, more outspoken than the rest, said: “We look to the Duma to give the land to us. We feel that it belongs to us, and we have confidence in the Duma.”

“And if you do not get it?”

The men stirred uneasily, then: “The soldiers have robbed us of our guns,” said one at last, “but we have left to us our wood-axes and our scythes. We cannot endure starvation any longer.”

This is the spirit that led to something over sixteen hundred “agrarian disturbances” during the year 1906—incipientjacquerie, foreshadowing, I believe, greater uprisings soon to overtake Russia.

That night about ten o’clock as we sat in the house of our friends we heard the soft tinkling of aballilikaoutside the windows, and presently the sound of many voices singing. They were low and restrained, but the words were clear. The music fairly thrilled us as we sat round the oil-lamp and our last samovar. It was the stirringMarche Funebrewith words by Gorky.

At midnight we left Pesky. Our friends feared that perhaps they had been indiscreet in allowing the discussion in the little Duma building to continue so long. Free speech is a dangerous thing in Russia, even under the constitution. My companion and I, in our eagerness to grasp the actual state of mind of the peasants, had encouraged plain speaking. We had even spoken with more frankness than discretion ourselves. There had been forty or more men in the room when we began our “interview” and the number had soon swelled. We were hopeful that all were friendly, but in Russia one never knows.

The night was wonderful, moonless but starried. As we drove out of the yard our friends, the four who were feeding, tending, and revolutionizing Pesky, took up the refrain the peasants had sung in serenade two hours before. The last sounds we heard were the voices of this brave little band singing ever so softly, but with, oh, so much feeling, the refrain of the peasants’Marseillaise.

Our road turned out to be terribly rough. In places it ran to a mere trail which more than once we lost. Then we had to retrace our way, or circle about till we found it again. The wagon in which we rode was springless and every jolt became painful. A little after three o’clock the larks began to sing. With the earliest light in the east we could see them quivering high in air, joyously hailing the day. The dawn wind came up chill and struck us to the marrow. We shivered and drew ourblankets closer around us. Five o’clock had sounded when we drove into a post-station village where we were to change horses. We told the men to make ready the freshtroikaquickly; in the meantime we would order a samovar and eggs at the post-house. The aged mistress of the place was already stirring when we entered and she promised us the tea and eggs “directly.” But before the water had come to the boil we were placed under arrest and our plans for the remainder of our trip altered “in the name of the Czar.”

“Cossacks”—Questioned—Taken—Five charges to account for—Accused of being an agitator—Eighteen versts to the gendarmerie—A tedious night—Back to Saratoff—“Take the dogs away”—Prison—Clamoring for freedom—Discouragement—Parole—Release.

SLEEP laid siege to us instantly we entered the warm room of the station-house. I noticed two girls asleep in a bed in one corner of the room, and a young man, rolled in an overcoat, on the bare floor, snoring loudly in the opposite corner. More than twenty hours had passed since we had slept and our painful night ride had wearied me excessively. Furthermore, I was faint with hunger and eager for a glass of hot tea. I dropped into a chair by the table and lolled back in it, nodding miserably, while the old woman of the station polished her samovar.

When I opened my eyes a rural policeman stood before me, and with him was the chief of the local police. We submitted gracefully to his long and searching examination. Who were we? What were we? What were we doing in that place? Where had we come from? Why did we go there? By whose authority were we traveling through the country? These, and many other questions, were rapidly put to us, and as promptly answered. We produced our American passports, our Russian credentials, our photographic permit. Still this officer persisted in trying to discover a flaw in one of our papers. Suddenly he pointed to the Saratoff stamp on the back of our passports. It is customary for travelers in Russia to send their passports to the police to be examined and stamped immediately upon arrival in every town of any size. This is almost invariably done through the hotel office. A few days before, when we had arrived in Saratoff, we had followed the custom and surrendered our passports to the hotel. In due course they had come back to us, properly stamped, as we had reason to believe. This chief of police put his finger on these Saratoff stamps and declared that they had not been put on by the police. We asked him how he accounted for them, and he replied: “You probably put them on yourselves!”

The tea and eggs had now been set on the table, and I called for two extra glasses and chairs, and begged the police-master and thestrajnikto join us at our modest breakfast, adding that we would all feel more like continuing conversation after we had drunk hot tea. The police-master wavered, but we pressed him until he and thestrajnikboth fell to upon the eggs and the tea with as much apparent relish as my companion and I, who had been on the road since midnight.

“I have been pacing that road all night,” remarked thestrajnik.

“What for?” I asked politely.

“You!” he rejoined.

We changed the topic for a few minutes and talked pleasantly of the weather, the spring ploughing, and other safe topics, hoping to bring out the friendly side of the men in order that we might find out what we were “in” for.

“The other day at Alexanderburg you photographed the priest,” at last said the chief of police.

We looked at him and laughed.

“What of it?” we asked.

“Antichrist!” he replied.

Ah! That was interesting. Several days before when passing through Alexanderburg we had found a village priest in the midst of a quaint Easter-time ceremony, going from house to house blessing the bread which was to be eaten immediately after the close of the Lenten fast. He had with him several acolytes and assistants and the picture they presented was full of color and quaint interest. We asked the priest if he objected to being photographed, and he not only readily consented, but expressed his pleasure at the suggestion. When we had taken several photographs of him and his followers we put a shining silver ruble on the plate he carried. Such unwonted liberality evidently had excited his suspicions to the extent that he had reported the matter to the police.

“You paid one ruble and a half (seventy-five cents) for two dinners at Mordwa,” went on the police-master impressively.

“What else?” we asked.

“At Tsaritzin you visited the free dining-rooms and photographed the village baths.”

We now realized that we had been followed every step of the way, or else a report had been received from each place we had passed through. The only village which the chief failed to mention was Pesky, from which we had just come. This was the one place where we had been indiscreet. The report of a spy upon the informal meeting which we had quite without forethought been instrumental in gathering the night before might easily have been construed to our serious disadvantage. Certainly we would be convicted for “propaganda”; possibly of a yet more serious offence, which would mean expulsion from the country, or worse.

We chatted with the two men in uniform with all the nonchalance we could muster, we plied them with tea and boiled eggs. At last the police-master, in a sudden burst of frankness, exclaimed: “It’s all a mistake! The man’s a fool!”

The man took from his pocket a paper and spread it on the table before us. “I have no right to do it,” he said, “but I want to convince you that I am not responsible. Thestarshinawrote to the zemstvonachalnik, who has ordered your arrest. We have had men posted on all the roads all night waiting for you.”

Astarshinais a man of the people, elected by the people every three years, to preside over the meetings of several villages in a given district, which are called to consider matters of local interest. The zemstvo nachalnik is a superior officer who presides over a larger district—a section of a government.

“Read this for yourselves,” said the police-master.

We read. The general charge against us was “propaganda.” But when we read the specific charges they were all so ridiculous that we sat back in dumb amazement:

1. We had photographed a priest—therefore we “were antichrist.”

2. We had paid one ruble and a half for two meals. The comment to this was to the effect that “no one would throw away money like this who did not have an ulterior motive for winning the goodwill of the people.”

3. One of us (namely, myself) had a small pointed beard and “looked like a Jew.”

4. This man (namely, myself) had false hair.

5. This same man smoked a gold pipe.

The first two clauses were understandable. We had photographed the priest—asked his permission and then given him a ruble. And we had paid seventy-five cents for our meals and were willing to admit that we might properly have paid less, but the woman who had prepared these meals was very old and her abject poverty aroused our pity.

The other “charges” were less clear. I have been mistaken for French, German, Swedish, and Russian at one time or another, but never before has any one suggested I might be Jewish. As for my hair being false—I have worn it since birth. I never saw a gold pipe, that I can recall. I certainly never owned one.

“There must be something back of all this,” said my companion when we had read the paper to the end.

The conclusion drawn from these charges, as penned at the bottom of the page, was that all these strange and unusual things about us made us suspicious persons, and “probably we were propagandists.”

The fact that there was no reference to Pesky only added to our fears, and forced us to the conclusion that this preliminary, and seemingly slight, report against us was merely as a blind, and an excuse for taking us into custody. The more serious charges would be forthcoming at the proper moment, we were convinced. However, we agreed to assume nothing, and to shake free of the threatening entanglement as speedily as possible. It soon developed that we were anticipating, without reckoning with our captors. Any little man of brief authority may order an arrest, but, as we were destined to learn, only a governor or governor-general may order a release. And the way from a remote villagestarshinato the governor is long and tedious.

“Since we must appear before a magistrate, or whatever corresponds to a magistrate, let us go and have it over with him,” I said, when the last egg was eaten and our samovar exhausted. “We can leave the luggage here.”

“But it is eighteen versts,” answered the police-master.

“Eighteen versts!” I had supposed we were to be taken across the road, or around the corner.

“You may as well pay your driver,” the police-master went on.

We reluctantly dismissed our man and sadly watched the fresh horses which had been made ready for us unharnessed and returned to their stable.

Prisoners we literally were, despite the goodwill of the police-master that we had been at such pains to win. The soldier who had first intruded upon us was left to guard us while the police-master retired to write his report to his superior, to whom we were to be delivered in the next village, eighteen versts away. We were not permitted to leave the room, but several men about the station joined us and freely sympathized with us. One took occasion to warn us that we would surely be thoroughly searched at some near period, and if we had any compromising letters or papers about us we had better get rid of them. It so happened that I had in my portfolio a letter from a friend in New York in which was described a scheme which had been launched in America in aid of “Free Russia.” This scheme included the issuance of a series of facsimile greenbacks stamped “The United States of Russia.” I knew well enough that that letter would unquestionably incriminate us under the present circumstances. By stealth I succeeded in extracting the letter from its place and tearing it intosmall pieces, but how to get rid of it was a puzzle. I carried the torn pieces in the palm of my hand for a long time. Nor did I see a chance to drop them until the wagon was being made ready which was to carry us on our way. While the police-master and the soldier were talking together, I succeeded in dropping the little ball of torn paper unnoticed into a hole in the ground. Then, as I turned round, I tripped over a peat brick, which fell over the hole.

A discussion arose as to the number of horses we should have. The government furnished only one, the police-master told us, but we might have two more by paying for them ourselves. The idea of paying to be carried to prison did not appeal to either of us, so it was finally decided to give us two, inasmuch as there would be four men in the wagon, including our guard and the driver.

The wagon was a kind of basket on trucks. There were no seats. An armful of straw was placed in the bottom and on this we sat. There was a simple seat for the driver, and thestrajnikwho was to accompany us shared the driver’s seat, only his back was to the horses and his feet in the wagon, his legs so spread apart that mine stretched between his. His rifle lay across his knees and his saber rested against his side.

“Fiercesome prisoners you have,” I ventured.

“Every man who has two legs and uses them is liable to arrest these days,” he replied.

By the time Liski was reached we were on fairly friendly terms with our guard.

We were taken directly to the local gendarmerie, which was all the jail the town possessed. The room we were led to was of moderate size, containing two benches, a table, and a bed. An armed guard was placed in theroom with us, and periodically changed every few hours, up to the time of our leaving, the following day. The priestoff, and indeed every official of authority, was away, and we were informed that we must await the return of either the priestoff or zemstvo nachalnik. Toward evening we grew very hungry, for since early morning we had had nothing to eat, and then only the inevitable tea and boiled eggs. “We must feed you. We are bound to do that!” said the gracious chief of the gendarmes. But at seven o’clock there was still no food forthcoming.

“Can you not find us some bread and cheese?” we asked.

“Cheese! People here do not know how to hold their mouths for cheese!” replied our guard.

“Plain bread, then,” we said. Any food would be better than none. The gendarme told us that he had had nothing since morning, either, and that when the famine was on they all became accustomed to living on next to nothing. He was most philosophical about it. The milk, he explained, was not good, and all food, except black bread, and eggs, and tea, was scarce. We did not relish the idea of being detained long in that kind of a place, so we begged our guards to hurry us on to Saratoff that night, for we were told that the return of the proper authorities was a matter of complete uncertainty and if we wished we might be transferred to Saratoff.

This we did desire most ardently. The distance to Saratoff was fifty-eight versts, and we were promised an immediate start if fresh horses could be procured in the village. Two gendarmes were commissioned to secure these horses. For a long time they did not return, and when they did it was with the report that there were not two horses in the village in condition to start that night,so we reluctantly abandoned all hope of pushing on before the following day, and then turned our attention once more to the food question, which was fast becoming serious. A samovar was promised us “directly.”

Earlier in the day we had attempted to send a message to friends in Saratoff, but were prevented. We now learned that telegraphic communication between this place and Saratoff had been temporarily resumed, whereupon we thought to inform friends of our plight in case the situation developed the serious aspect which we had reason to believe it might. My companion broached the matter to our guard, who called another guard, who said he would go with one of us to the telegraph office. My companion started. At the very door of the office they were overtaken by a messenger from the chief of the gendarmes, forbidding us to send out any message by telegraph or otherwise. This made us feel more than ever that we had been acquainted with only part of the report concerning us. Furthermore, our guards were extremely watchful of us. Their attitude clearly indicated that they were impressed with our importance—or possible importance.

In the meantime I grew restless in the stuffy room where we were confined, and asked that I might go out for a breath of air. My request was granted, but a guard with a gun accompanied me. Some small boys were at play in the road. Their game was a ball-game played with a miniature catapult. I watched them a little while and then made to join them. This seemed to please them, and until dark stopped us I continued to play with the boys—my guard standing by all the while, amused, and ever watchful.

On his way back from the telegraph office my companion succeeded in negotiating with some one for foureggs, which were boiled for us, and served when the samovar was at last ready. Weary and worn with our long journey, without sleep and still very hungry, we stretched out on narrow wooden benches shortly after nine o’clock, and I, at least, slept soundly till five o’clock in the morning. The only bed in the room was used by our guards. They did not lie down, but reclined against the pillows, their rifles always in their hands ready for instant use.

A little before seven o’clock the following morning we were en route for Saratoff. As on the previous day, we had two horses, and a wagon without seats. Our driver proved to be an out-and-out revolutionist. He freely damned the army, the police, and every representative of the government. He even rebelled at sharing his seat with our guard, and tried to make him walk. He sympathized with all who fell under the finger of the authorities, whether for political or criminal offenses. Such recklessness of speech is unusual and is accounted for by the fact that this uncouth lout felt physically superior to the guard, and had little terror of his authority. A few versts out of the town he held his horses to a slow walk. “Why don’t you go faster?” we asked.

“You’ll soon enough be under lock and key,” he answered cheerfully. “Make the most of the sunshine while you have it. God knows when you’ll get more of it.”

Midway my interpreter suddenly remembered a letter in his pocket-book which contained the names and addresses of several prominent revolutionists. His tardy recollection of this document startled us both, for there seemed to be no way of disposing of it, our guard was so painfully watchful. We succeeded in transferring it under our coats from his hand to mine, and I slowlyand patiently tore it to small bits, and, as often as seemed possible, dropped one bit at a time out of the wagon. This was a long and delicate business, for if we had been discovered it would have added one more embarrassing charge against us. From the point where we effected the transfer of the paper from his hands to mine to the point where the last scrap was dropped was twelve versts.

The long, dusty ride to Saratoff came to an end early in the afternoon. At the edge of the town we asked our guard to permit us to stop at a fruit-store and purchase oranges, but this he curtly refused. We found a sweet revenge for this in a moment. The axle of our wagon suddenly broke and threw us all out into the street. When it was found that it would be impossible to immediately repair the damage our guard ordered us to pick up our luggage and march on. This we politely declined to do. Go with him we would—there was no alternative. But carry our luggage we certainly would not. We also reminded him that he was responsible for it, as well as ourselves, whereupon he gathered our bags and blankets under his arm and struggled on with them, sweating like a stevedore, his gun and saber very much in the way. That we made an unusual spectacle was evident from the attention bestowed upon us by the townspeople.

First we were marched to the office of the priestoff, but he was out of town. Then to the office of the Espravnik, and he was out of town. “Then you must gosomewhere,” said our guard.

“Do you mean to prison?”

“Yes. Until the priestoff comes.”

Again we made an effort to communicate with friends.

“Take the dogs away—don’t stand there talking.”

We turned at these words and looked upon the watchman. He, at least, had not been impressed with our importance from our appearance. The prison to which we were conducted was near by, and a messenger had evidently announced our coming, for we were led immediately and without ceremony to a cell about ten feet long by five feet broad, one of a row, each one just like the next. The face of an old man with gray beard was pressed against the peep-hole of the adjoining cell. We entered the one to which we were assigned—both of us in one—and the heavy timber door banged shut behind us.

The cell was mostly below the ground. Flush with the ceiling was a small window which looked out level with the ground. At one end of the cell was a bare wooden platform, like a wide shelf. This was the only bed provided. In a corner near to the ceiling was a small icon. Other furniture there was none.

Many initials and names were inscribed on the walls, most of them cut with a knife or other sharp instrument.

We settled ourselves as best we could and tried to devise a plan of release. The vermin which always swarm in Russian prisons were not slow in discovering us, and it early became evident that we must sooner or later submit to their persistent attacks. It was, indeed, several weeks before I entirely got rid of the effects of these pestiferous creatures.

In due time a keeper came to inform us we might send for any food or drink that we desired. This was an improvement over the gendarmerie where we had passed the previous night, but we were now bent on getting out rather than upon making ourselves permanently comfortable. We put a few questions to the guard, which he answered readily.

“What kind of prisoners are usually put into this cell?”

“Anybody.”

“Civil and criminal prisoners as well as political?”

“Yes. Anybody.”

“How long are we to remain here?”

“Till the priestoff comes.”

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know.”

“When will he be here?”

“I don’t know.”

“Have you no idea what time he will arrive? Will it be in an hour, or not until night?”

“Oh, he is away. He may be back in a week, or he may not be here for a month.”

“And we must wait for him—perhaps a month?”

“Yes.”

We then explained to him at length that we were American citizens, that we should be taken immediately before some authority and given ample satisfaction for such treatment. After much argument he consented to take a message for us to a certain superior officer’s assistant. The answer came back, “The prisoners must wait till the priestoff comes.”

We sent a more imperative message, demanding that some one be sent to us without delay.

“Nothing’s to be done. Keep still,” was the answer returned.

A story had recently been told us of a German subject who had been arrested in that very province and all trace of him lost. The German government had pressed its inquiries, but to no end. The man had disappeared as completely as if the earth had swallowed him. At last, after two years, he was found in a prison like ours. He had been locked up there and forgotten. Our arrest might work out in the same way—a most discouraging

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