door of the former department store, wearing bands over their noses to
keep them from freezing, came to the present arms smartly. We went up
the stairs and strode down a long hall. Little staff officers, smart
as paint and most affable, took our cards, and spoke in Russian to
Mr. S---- who startled and delighted them by responding in their own
language.
A bevy of Japanese orderlies abased themselves and took our heavy
coats. The Japanese machine moves with noiseless precision, and without
any waste motions--one, our garments; two, bows and clicks; three, this
door, please.
The door opens. Oba stands just inside, smiling a welcome. Clicks,
bows, handshakes. The season’s greetings. We enter. The room is
decorated with wistaria vines and Japanese dwarf trees. At a long table
running down the center of the room, and laden with bottles and food,
Japanese and Cossack officers are standing talking in various languages
and eating and drinking.
A Buddhist priest, chaplain to Oba’s forces, wearing a conventional
frock coat, with an embroidered stole-like green and gold collar thrown
over his shoulders, addresses me in English, and tells me that he lived
seven years in Vancouver. He says I must have a potion of saki from a
lacquered saucer, presented by a Japanese soldier. The liquor is poured
from a vase-like china bottle. The Japanese custom, I am informed. As I
move down the table after drinking the saki, bowing deeply the while,
everybody clicks and bows. I meet another priest, who does not speak
English. Mr. S---- informs me that he is the head of another Buddhist
sect, and kind of an hereditary pope.
A Russian doctor, wearing mufti, but displaying a couple of orders of
the old Russian régime, tries me in German, then Italian. We get on
quite well for a time, when he breaks into English--“My son--four years
Yokohama in school--she talks very good English--one, two, three, four
years. I study English two months.” I congratulate him on his ability
in English after such a short period of study.
Japanese captains come smiling, to inform me that they do not speak
English, whereupon they proceed to do so with amazing facility. It is
the Japanese custom to deprecate their own accomplishments.
I am urged to drink a glass of vodka with a Cossack officer, and at the
same time a Japanese officer asserts that he will be overjoyed if I
will drink with him a thimble full of saki. Another Japanese comes with
a bottle of brandy and holds out a glass for me, and on the other side
of the table a Japanese holds up a bottle of French wine and informs me
joyously that it is “White Wine,” and that I must have some with him.
While this is going on a Japanese soldier, egged on by the Buddhist
priest, is pouring me a glass of Sapporo beer because I have mentioned
the fact that I was once in Sapporo, Japan. I now have a half circle of
filled glasses before me, and in order to avoid drinking them all at
once, profess great interest in a dish on the table which appears to
be filled with raw shark, the skin still on the pieces.
The Vancouver priest tells me it does not taste good, and makes a
grimace, but he says I must eat it, for it is Japanese custom. I do so,
while all my friends who have poured out liquors for me, wait patiently
for me to consume the contents of the various glasses. I have visions
of myself carried back to my hotel on a board, and wonder how diplomats
ever attain long lives.
The Russian doctor catches my eye across the table once more. He goes
around the flank in great excitement, grasps the arm with which I am
feeding myself raw shark, and informs me in stentorian tones: “My
son--four years Yokohama--she speaks very good English. I study two
months.” I swallow the shark and congratulate him.
My eye roves. It cannot evade the semi-circle of friendly eyes which
wait like wolves ready to attack, in case I do not drink from the
glasses before me. I take a sip from each glass, bowing deeply each
time I pretend to drink. I feel that while I may not be a brilliant
success as a diplomat, I have unsuspected possibilities as an acrobat.
I discovered muscles in my back which I never knew before that I
had--and they were getting tired. Everybody bows in triumph as I sip
from the last glass, and I am sure that the mixture of liquors I have
absorbed has poisoned me--if it has not, the shark will!
Once more the polyglot conversation is resumed. I eat chestnuts from
a plate, and note the orders and decorations worn by Russian and
Japanese officers--colorful insignia gained some fourteen years before
on the millet plains of Manchuria, not so far away from Chita. I think
of the legions of dead burned like cord-wood, or buried in trenches,
of Nogi and his sacrificial battalions before Port Arthur. And Nanshan
and 304 Metre Hill, and the Baltic fleet fathoms deep in the sea of
Japan--the Czar, whose stupid stubborness led to that stupid war--I
wonder if he is really dead in a well.
General Oba comes to me. He speaks appreciatively of the way in which
the United States “managed” the war with Germany. I reply through Mr.
S---- that the Allies appreciated what Japan did for them in China and
the Pacific. I am a bit taken aback at being thanked for winning the
war, but I suppose I represent the United States, and must not take the
splendid compliments too seriously.
I wish General Oba a happy New Year, and great prosperity for his
nation. My group of friends dispersed discreetly when Oba approached.
He takes me to the other end of the room to explain some of the things
he has there for the New Year festival. The knot of rice straw on the
wall with white strips of paper hanging from it, is a Shinto symbol,
and a prayer for good crops.
On the little table before it is a pyramid of fruits, shrine-like with
two larger rice cakes upon the pyramid--an offering to the gods who
make the rice grow. On them lies a strip of fishes skin, symbolical, if
my memory serves me right, of plenty. As the word for plenty and the
word for joy are nearly the same, the skin makes a pun. The Japanese
are fond of puns, and play upon words. Rampant against the pile of food
stuff is a red lobster, symbolical of agility, and on top of all, two
Japanese oranges which make another pun.
Then we went to the door letting in from the hall, and outside, where
Oba explained the pine tree, bamboo poles tied along its hole, and the
blooming plum shrub at the base of the tree. General Oba says: “This
bamboo signifies that a man’s character must be upright, the tree
signifies long life, for the pine grows to great age, and as the plum
bush blooms early, coming to flower despite the cold of early spring,
it stands for perseverance in the face of adversity.”
Japan is a land of beautiful symbols. These stands of triple symbols
are shown before every home in Japan on New Year’s Day.
We return to the guest table, and I thank Oba for his kindness in
explaining the various decorations. We have a thimble of _saki_, and
bow. He turns to speak to a Cossack officer, and the smiling little
Buddhist priest with the green stole comes to chat with me again. Once
more the Russian doctor comes to tell me of his son in Yokohama and
how well he speaks English. He drags me to a great Japanese map of
Russia on the wall and shows me how close Japan is, and then with an
all-embracing sweep of his hand, informs me that America is far away
across the Pacific. I agree.
A Japanese officer looks at the map, and comparing the size of Russia
with the little island Empire of Japan, observes whimsically that Japan
is very small. I tell him that greatness is not always measured by
size, and wonder if in an effort to be polite to Japan I have not given
Russia a left-handed compliment. But the Japanese bows and hisses,
evidently well pleased.
Cossack officers with great swinging sabers, more like scimitars than
anything else, come and shake hands with me solemnly, and rattle their
spurs. Once more the Buddhist priest takes me in tow and swears I must
drink one more drop of saki with him if the cordial relations between
Japan and the United States are to be preserved. We preserve the
cordial relations between the two countries, and the thought of myself
on a board recurs--I begin to fear that the Russian doctor across the
table, now regarding me with serious mien, is about to dash around the
table again and tell me once more about his son in Japan.
I decided that it is time to go, and spying Oba near the door, I work
my way toward him, and when he is disengaged, come to attention with
my loudest click. We bow and shake hands. I step backward four paces,
about face, and find myself in the hall. Staff officers come forward
in a rush and make a great ceremony of my coat and furs, and I go down
the hall amid a perfect orgy of bows, while the bayonets of sentries in
the long hall shoot upward at the present, to do me honor. I plunge out
into the frigid air. East and West have met, and I like General Oba
and his staff.
When I returned to my room, I got word that General Knox of the British
Indian army was in his train at the station. I went down to call. His
train had arrived from Vladivostok, and he was on his way to Omsk. I
found a group of British officers in splendid first-class coaches, and
palatial dining-car. They fairly hustled me into that dining-car, and
on came the tea and jam and cakes.
Colonels, majors, and captains wearing service stripes which proclaimed
the fact that they had been in the war a long time, sat round and
talked. I noted many of the red chevrons which marked their wearers as
members of the gallant old “Contemptibles.”
Britain never loses a chance to turn a slur into an honor, and every
officer and man who was at the front or on the way over seas to fight
for the motherland at the time that the Kaiser referred to England’s
“contemptible little army” gets the red chevron on his sleeve which
allows him to call himself a “contemptible.” Those are the little
things on which a great nation is built.
These officers were as jolly and unassuming as a lot of school boys. I
like the way in which the British can, at times, forget rank and put
behind them the things they have done. They decline to take themselves
seriously--yet they manage to make the rest of the world do so.
Other nations take themselves seriously, and have something in their
manner that suggests with more or less menace that you must have the
same attitude toward them. But the British have welded an empire out of
many queer nationalities with the simple idea that a gentleman does not
have to insist that he is a gentleman--the instant he does so he ceases
to be a gentleman.
I do not believe the British have always been right, but they have
been right often enough to win my admiration. And the best any nation
can do is to try and be right all the time. Standards of conduct for
individuals and nations are always changing, despite the assertions
of many people that “human nature cannot be changed.” Quite true, but
human nature which displays barbaric tendencies can be controlled.
At one time a man had to get drunk to be a gentleman, and he had to
fight a duel if challenged, or challenge to a duel if he suffered what
he considered insult. Human nature has not changed, but we have changed
the standards for decent human conduct. And some day there will be
no wars because human nature is willing to meet the new standards we
shall set up. In the meantime, we cannot end wars by throwing away our
own guns and allowing the other fellow to keep his. We must evolute
by education rather than by legislation, though continual legislating
internationally will advance the education by providing a free
interchange of ideas and a setting up of international ideals.
I did not have the pleasure of paying my respects in person to General
Knox, for I think he was calling on Ataman Semenoff. But I left my
card. As I walked back to my hotel in the Siberian twilight, I passed
a Siberian _moujik_ staggering drunkenly from the effects of vodka.
And as I went on after letting him have all the road to pass me, I
philosophized in an amateur way in this wise: What is the difference
between this Siberian _moujik_ and me? Why should I feel myself his
superior? Was it anything that I myself had done? No. The difference
between me and the drunken Siberian _moujik_ lay entirely in the
fact that I had been luckier than he in my ancestors. My progenitors
established, and left to me a form of government which meant
opportunity instead of oppression. I had begun life as a factory boy,
but not as the descendant of a line of ignorant serfs.
The men and women of my race who had stood for freedom ages before I
was born, were now dust in ancient graves. They had wrested from King
John of England the Great Charter of human liberties, and from German
George the Third, freedom for the American colonies. The _moujik_ had
only just begun to think of freedom, and was making rather a mess of
the job. If his ancestors had begun to fight for freedom a thousand
years before, I would not be in Siberia wondering what was to be done.
This was the real Siberian twilight--the twilight which precedes the
sunlight of full freedom, a twilight which reveals queer goblins, and
bizarre shapes burning and slaying through the night which must come
and pass before dawn.
These musings were undoubtedly due to having been entertained by the
kindly Oba, and then the startling contrast of having been made to feel
at home with the hospitable British--or maybe it was the raw shark I
had eaten which made my mind wander.
XVIII
DIPLOMACY AND--MICE
In a previous chapter I mentioned Captain B----, a Russian serving
in Semenoff’s forces, who had his room in the Hotel Select full of
food. This officer, and his wife, a frail little woman who had been
desperately ill and was still in the convalescent stage, became my
closest friends in Chita.
Every afternoon at four I was in their room for tea, and Mrs. B----,
who was an accomplished musician, played Russian operas and sang. The
piano had been borrowed from the wife of a Russian doctor living in the
hotel. Mrs. B----’s few sheets of music were all that were left to her
from a large collection, after several encounters with Bolshevists,
in which the most of her baggage had been stolen or confiscated. This
couple had spent the previous year in flights from various cities.
They had escaped from Odessa, from Ekaterinburg, from Irkutsk--from
countless places. And many times they were in deadly peril.
Captain B---- belonged to the old Russian aristocracy. He had an estate
in the Altai mountains, which had been destroyed by Bolshevists, and
gold mines. He had a villa in Japan. He had travelled round the world
many times, and knew Africa, for instance, like the palm of his hand.
He referred casually to Lake Nyanza and Victoria Falls in the same
matter-of-fact way that he mentioned his visit to Niagara Falls. He
spoke nine languages. He had been attached to the Russian Consulate in
New York for a long time. He spoke English fluently, and was a most
delightful chap. His saber-hilt had the monogram of the Czar--he was
close to the imperial family, without doubt, though he discreetly kept
off the subject of his former associations with the court life.
Mrs. B---- came originally from Bessarabia, and had lived in
Moscow. She spoke French well, and was learning English. I picked
up considerable Russian at those teas, and Mrs. B---- practiced her
English on me, her husband laughing gaily at her mistakes.
I remember one afternoon that the table cover had upon it embroidered
butterflies. And while Mrs. B---- was serving my tea, I put my
finger on one of these butterflies, and said, “Butterfly,” for the
purpose of giving her the English of it. She looked at her husband in
consternation after giving me a startled glance, and said something in
Russian. He was busy opening a can of jam, and looked up in surprise at
what she had said to him, for she was on the point of tears.
He smiled and asked me: “What was it you just said? I did not hear. My
wife did not understand.”
“I said this was a butterfly,” I replied, pointing to the embroidery.
He dropped the can of jam and roared with laughter, at the time patting
his wife’s hand.
It happened that the table cover was much the worse for wear, though of
fine linen.
Captain B---- spoke in explanation to his wife, and she too laughed,
and began to chatter merrily.
“My wife could not understand why you should mention the fact that the
table cover is very old and no good,” said Captain B----. “The Russian
word ‘butterclou’ means trashy, old and worn out--junk. And she thought
you were referring to the table cloth as no good, when you put your
finger on it and said ‘butterfly.’”
I made my apologies. And then I told of the American of our Committee
on Public Information who arrived at Harbin at two in the morning, and,
ordered the drosky-driver to take him to a hotel. The driver looked
very surprised, but he drove away with the American, and they rolled
through most of the streets of Harbin, up and down and all around for
an hour.
The American noticed that the driver peered in at shop windows, and was
in the mercantile part of the city, especially among the Chinese shops.
He demanded in exasperation why the driver could not find a hotel, but
all the poor driver could do was scratch his head and protest that he
was doing his best.
Finally, they found somebody who could translate, and discovered that
the American had not asked for a “gasteenitsah,” or hotel, but had told
the driver that he wished some mustard, the Russian word for mustard
being quite similar to the Russian word for hotel. The driver had been
trying to find a grocery store open at that early hour.
This inability to grasp the meaning of a sentence from the
circumstances despite a slight mispronunciation of the vital word in
the sentence, I found to be typical among most Russians. Every word
must be pronounced accurately, or the Russian is completely at sea for
your meaning.
For several weeks I shocked waiters and waitresses in restaurants by
asking for cakes with my tea. They regarded me with distrustful eyes,
and plainly disapproved of me. I could not understand why when I asked
for a provodnik with my tea, I never got one, but did get a frightened
look.
The explanation is that the attendants were taken aback at the
discovery that Americans are cannibals, despite all reports to the
contrary. For a provodnik is not a cake, but the man who looks after
the fires in a passenger car, and pretends to sweep the floor when you
want to sleep. Naturally, they did not serve me a provodnik--neither
did they give me a cake. I got my cake by going to the counter and
pointing it out. Yet provodnik strikes me as a far better name for cake
in Russian, than the word they use, which is proven by the fact that I
can remember provodnik now, but forget entirely the word for cake.
I found that the British were not nearly so dependent upon interpreters
as we were. They had officers who spoke Russian perfectly, some of them
being Russian-born. This expert knowledge of the language may be due in
part to the fact that England for a long time feared Russia. Some of
Kipling’s early stories of garrison life in India express this mistrust
for “the man who walks like a bear.” And, in fact, the Siberian peasant
does walk like a bear, for his shambling gait, a great body slightly
stooped, with long powerful arms at his side, he suggests Bruin
amazingly.
Captain B---- was commandant of the Hotel Select, used as quarters by
Semenoff’s officers and their families. His own room was down the hall
from mine, past the dining-room being used as an officers’ mess, with
German war-prisoners as waiters.
I returned to my room late one afternoon, and met Captain B---- going
out. I spoke to him, and he scarcely replied. He had on his sheepskin
coat and Cossack cap, and I noted at once that he was not wearing his
saber. It was the first time I had seen him without it. He looked pale.
There was another Cossack officer with him. I sensed something wrong at
once. Nicholas Romanoff, the agent referred to before, was with me, and
Captain B---- stepped aside and said something to Romanoff in Russian
in a guarded tone, and then marched down the hall with the Cossack.
Romanoff’s manner was troubled. We went into my room without saying a
word, and locked the door.
“What is up?” I demanded.
“Captain B---- has been arrested,” he said, sadly. “Arrested on order
of the Ataman, who is down the railroad toward Harbin.”
“With what is he charged?” I asked.
“He does not know.”
Now to be arrested in Chita by order of the Ataman, especially while
the Ataman is absent, at that time and under the prevailing conditions
is no joke; and to be arrested without being charged with the offense
for which the arrest is made, is dangerous; and to be one of Semenoff’s
officers and be arrested, is doubly dangerous. Being arrested in such
manner is quite likely to mean being shot within an hour. There was a
good chance that while Romanoff and I stood there looking at each other
we might hear a rifle volley.
It was no affair of mine. I could not prevent an execution. I had no
way of knowing what had been discovered against Captain B----, if
anything. It might be a private feud, it might be that Captain B----
had entirely too many Imperial rubles of big denominations in his
trunk, as I well knew. It was quite possible that somebody in power had
taken a fancy to Mrs. B---- and decided to eliminate her husband on a
trumped up charge while the Ataman was away. And the Ataman might or
might not have ordered the arrest--anything was possible in Chita.
Captain B---- was my friend. I made up my mind that not much time would
pass before I called upon the Ataman’s staff, to ask as diplomatically
as possible the reason for the arrest. Not that I expected to be told
the truth, but I did intend to apprise Semenoff’s headquarters that
I was aware of what had happened. And I did intend to imply that if
an officer was executed summarily without evidence against him which
justified such action, such summary action would be considered against
Semenoff’s sense of justice as a military administrator.
Semenoff or Semenoff’s officers might shoot Captain B---- to satisfy
some Cossack whim if they wished to, but if they did so they could not
expect to have me regard them as people at all fit to exercise control
over any people or part of Siberia, or to talk with me officially or
unofficially.
I was determined that if Captain B---- was shot I would know why, and
if disapproved, the relations existing between the United States and
Ataman Semenoff as represented by me, would be broken off immediately,
and that I would so report to my headquarters and if not upheld,
request my relief from duty at Chita.
Knowing that Romanoff was close to the Ataman and his staff officers,
I apprised Romanoff of my attitude very quickly, and told him to come
with me to Mrs. B----.
We found her in tears, and frantically dressing for the street. She
had not been out since she had recovered from a long illness, and
the weather was extremely cold. She said that her husband had been
arrested by order of a colonel who lived in the hotel across the
street, and that she was going over to talk with him and demand the
reason for the arrest.
I sent Romanoff with her, and again charged him to unofficially inform
the colonel or anybody else concerned of my great interest in the case,
and that I would expect a proper trial in case there was a legitimate
charge against Captain B----. In other words, that the United States
was watching, and that while there would be no interference, Cossack
methods would be judged by this affair.
Romanoff and Mrs. B---- were gone more than an hour, and when they
returned, Romanoff assured me that the colonel had promised to release
Captain B----, but Mrs. B---- was still worried. She was well aware of
the custom of shooting people first and making explanations afterward.
Many innocent persons suffered by this custom. When a mistake was made,
the official responsible generally shrugged his shoulders and asked if
there were not plenty more people in the world.