YASHKA
[Illustration]
YASHKA
MY LIFE AS PEASANT, EXILE
AND SOLDIER
BY
MARIA BOTCHKAREVA
Commander of the Russian
Women’s Battalion of Death
AS SET DOWN BY
ISSAC DON LEVINE
LONDON
CONSTABLE AND COMPANY
LIMITED
_First published 1919_
_Copyright, 1919, by_
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
_All Rights Reserved_
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I MY CHILDHOOD OF TOIL 1
II MARRIAGE AT FIFTEEN 13
III A LITTLE HAPPINESS 25
IV THE ROAD TO EXILE 43
V ESCAPE FROM EXILE 57
VI I ENLIST BY THE GRACE OF THE TSAR 69
VII MY FIRST EXPERIENCE OF NO MAN’S LAND 84
VIII WOUNDED AND PARALYSED 101
IX EIGHT HOURS IN GERMAN HANDS 121
X THE REVOLUTION AT THE FRONT 135
XI I ORGANIZE THE BATTALION OF DEATH 151
XII MY FIGHT AGAINST COMMITTEE RULE 169
XIII THE BATTALION AT THE FRONT 181
XIV ERRAND FROM KERENSKY TO KORNILOV 206
XV THE ARMY BECOMES A SAVAGE MOB 227
XVI THE TRIUMPH OF BOLSHEVISM 247
XVII FACING LENIN AND TROTZKY 260
XVIII CAUGHT IN A BOLSHEVIK DEATH-TRAP 279
XIX SAVED BY A MIRACLE 297
XX I SET OUT ON A MISSION 312
INTRODUCTION
In the early summer of 1917 the world was thrilled by a news item
from Petrograd announcing the formation by one Maria Botchkareva of
a women’s fighting unit under the name of “The Battalion of Death.”
With this announcement an obscure Russian peasant girl made her début
in the international hall of fame. From the depths of dark Russia
Maria Botchkareva suddenly emerged into the limelight of modern
publicity. Foreign correspondents sought her, photographers followed
her, distinguished visitors paid their respects to her. All tried
to interpret this arresting personality. The result was a riot of
misinformation and misunderstanding.
Of the numerous published tales about and interviews with Botchkareva
that have come under my observation, there is hardly one which does not
contain some false or misleading statement. This is partly due to the
deplorable fact that the foreign journalists who interpreted Russian
men and affairs to the world during the momentous year of 1917 were,
with very few exceptions, ignorant of the Russian language; and partly
to Botchkareva’s reluctance to take every adventurous stranger into her
confidence. It was her cherished dream to have a complete record of her
life incorporated in a book some day. This work is the realization of
that dream.
To a very considerable extent, therefore, the narrative here unfolded
is of the nature of a confession. When in the United States in the
summer of 1918, Botchkareva determined to prepare her autobiography.
Had she been educated enough to be able to write a letter fluently,
she would probably have written her own life-story in Russian and then
had it translated into English. Being semi-illiterate, she found it
necessary to secure the services of a writer commanding a knowledge of
her native language, which is the only tongue she speaks. The procedure
followed in the writing of this book was this: Botchkareva recited to
me in Russian the story of her life, and I recorded it in English in
longhand, making every effort to set down her narrative verbatim. Not
infrequently I would interrupt her with a question intended to draw out
some forgotten experiences. However, one of Botchkareva’s natural gifts
is an extraordinary memory. It took nearly a hundred hours, distributed
over a period of three weeks, for her to tell me every detail of her
romantic life.
At our first session Botchkareva made it clear that what she was going
to tell me would be very different from the stories about her related
in the press. She would reveal her innermost self and break open for
the first time the sealed book of her past. This she did, and in
doing so completely discredited several widely circulated tales about
her. Perhaps the chief of these is the statement that Botchkareva
had enlisted as a soldier and gone to war to avenge her fallen
husband. Whether this invention was the product of her own mind or was
attributed to her originally by some prolific correspondent, I do not
know. In any event it was a convenient answer to the eternal question
of importunate journalists how she came to be a soldier. Unable to
explain to the conventional world that profound impulse which really
drove her to her remarkable destiny, she adopted this excuse until she
had an opportunity to record the full story of her courageous life.
This book will also remove that distrustful attitude based on
misunderstanding that has been manifested toward Botchkareva in radical
circles. When she arrived in the United States, she was immediately
hailed as a “counter-revolutionary,” royalist and sinister intriguer by
the extremists. That was a grave injustice to her. She is ignorant of
politics, contemptuous of intrigue, and spiritually far and above party
strife. Her mission in life was to free Russia from the German yoke.
Being placed virtually in the position of a father confessor, it was my
privilege to commune with the spirit of this remarkable peasant-woman,
a privilege I shall ever esteem as priceless. She not only laid bare
before me every detail of her amazing life that memory could resurrect,
but also allowed me to explore the nooks and corners of her heart to a
degree that no friend of hers ever did. Maintaining a critical attitude
from the beginning of our association, I was gradually overwhelmed by
the largeness of her soul.
Wherein does the greatness of Botchkareva lie? Mrs. Emmeline Pankhurst
called her the greatest woman of the century. “The woman that saved
France was Joan of Arc--a peasant girl,” wrote a correspondent in
July, 1917, “Maria Botchkareva is her modern parallel.” Indeed, in the
annals of history since the days of the Maid of Orleans we encounter no
feminine figure equal to Botchkareva. Like Joan of Arc, this Russian
peasant girl dedicated her life to her country’s cause. If Botchkareva
failed--and this is yet problematical, for who will dare forecast the
future of Russia--it would not lessen her greatness. Success in our
materialistic age is no measure of true genius.
Like Joan of Arc, Botchkareva is the symbol of her country. Can
there be a more striking incarnation of France than that conveyed by
the image of Joan of Arc? Botchkareva is an astounding typification
of peasant Russia, with all her virtues and vices. Educated to the
extent of being able to scribble her own name with difficulty, she is
endowed with the genius of logic. Ignorant of history and literature,
the natural lucidity of her mind is such as to lead her directly
to the very few fundamental truths of life. Religious with all the
fervour of her primitive soul, she is tolerant in a fashion befitting
a philosopher. Devoted to her country with every fibre of her being,
she is free from impassioned partisanship and selfish patriotism.
Overflowing with good nature and kindness, she is yet capable of savage
outbursts and brutal acts. Credulous and trustful as a child, she can
be easily incited against people and things. Intrepid and rash as a
fighter, her desire to live on occasions was indescribably pathetic.
In a word, Botchkareva embodies all those paradoxical characteristics
of Russian nature that have made Russia a puzzle to the world. These
traits are illustrated almost in every page of this book. Take away
from Russia the veneer of western civilization and you behold her
incarnation in Botchkareva. Know Botchkareva and you will know Russia,
that inchoate, invincible, agonized, striving, rising colossus in all
its depth and breadth.
It must be made unmistakably clear here that the motives responsible
for this book were purely personal. In its origin this work is
exclusively a human document, a record of an exuberant life. It was the
purpose of Botchkareva and the writer to keep the narrative down to a
strict recital of facts. It is really incidental that this record is
valuable not only as a biography of a startling personality, but as a
revelation of certain phases of a momentous period in human history;
not only as a human document, but as an historical document as well.
Because Botchkareva always has been and still is strictly non-partisan
and because she does not pretend to pass judgment upon events and
men, her revelations are of prime importance. The reader gets a
picture of Kerensky in action that completely effaces all that has
hitherto been said of this tragic but typical product of the Russian
_intelligentsia_. Kornilov, Rodzianko, Lenin and Trotzky and some other
outstanding personalities of the Russian revolution appear in these
pages exactly as they are in reality.
Not a single book, as far as I know, has appeared yet giving an account
of how the Russian army at the front reacted to the Revolution. What
was the state of mind of the Russian soldier in the trenches, which
was after all the decisive factor in the developments that followed,
during the first eight months of 1917? No history of unshackled Russia
will be complete without an answer to this vital question. This book is
the first to disclose the reactions and emotions of the vast Russian
army at the front to the tremendous issues of the revolution, and is of
especial value coming from a veteran peasant soldier of the rank and
file.
Perhaps surpassing all else in interest is the horrible picture we get
of Bolshevism in action. With the claims of theoretical Bolshevism
to establish an order of social equality on earth Botchkareva has
no quarrel. She said so to Lenin and Trotzky personally. But then
come her experiences with Bolshevism in practice, and there follows
a blood-freezing narrative of the rule of mobocracy that will live
forever in the memory of the reader.
Botchkareva left the United States towards the end of July, 1918, after
having attained the purpose of her visit--an interview with President
Wilson. She went to England and thence to Archangel, where she arrived
early in September. According to a newspaper despatch she caused the
following proclamation to be posted in village squares and country
churches:
“I am a Russian peasant and soldier. At the request of the soldiers and
peasants I went to America and Great Britain to ask these countries for
military help for Russia.
“The Allies understand our own misfortunes and I return with the Allied
armies, which have come only for the purpose of helping to drive out
our deadly enemies, the Germans, and not to interfere with our internal
affairs. After the war is over the Allied troops will leave Russian
soil.
“I, for my own part, request all loyal free sons of Russia, without
reference to party, to come together acting as one with the Allied
forces, who, under the Russian flag, come to free Russia from the
German yoke and to help the new free Russian army with all forces,
including Russia, to beat the enemy.
“Soldiers and peasants! Remember that only a full, clean sweep of the
Germans from our soil can give you the free Russia you long for.”
ISAAC DON LEVINE.
YASHKA
Part One
YOUTH
CHAPTER I
MY CHILDHOOD OF TOIL
My father, Leonti Semenovitch Frolkov, was born into serfdom at
Nikolsko, a village in the province of Novgorod, some two hundred miles
north of Moscow. He was fifteen when Alexander II emancipated the serfs
in 1861, and remembers that historic event vividly, being fond even now
of telling of the days of his boyhood. Impressed into the army in the
early seventies, he served during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78, and
distinguished himself for bravery, receiving several medals. When a
soldier he learned to read and write, and was promoted to the rank of
sergeant.
Returning home at the end of the war, he passed through Tcharanda,
a fishermen’s settlement on the shore of a lake, in the county of
Kirilov, within thirty miles of Nikolsko. No longer dressed as a
moujik, military in gait and bearing, with coins jingling in his
pocket, he cut quite a figure in the poor hamlet of Tcharanda. There he
met my mother, Olga, the eldest daughter of Elizar Nazarev, perhaps the
most destitute inhabitant of the place.
Elizar, with his wife and three daughters, occupied a shabby hut on
the sandy shore of the lake. So poor was he that he could not afford
to buy a horse to carry his catch to the city, and was compelled to
sell it, far below the market price, to a travelling buyer. The income
thus derived was not sufficient to keep the family from hunger. Bread
was always a luxury in the little cabin. The soil was not tillable.
Elizar’s wife would hire herself to the more prosperous peasants in
the vicinity for ten kopeks (about 2¹⁄₂_d._) a day to labour from
sunrise to sunset. But even this additional money was not always to be
had. Then Olga would be sent out to beg for bread in the neighbouring
villages.
Once, when scarcely ten years old, little Olga underwent a harrowing
experience, which she could never later recall without horror. Starting
home with a basketful of bread, collected from several villages, she
was fatigued but happy at the success of her errand, and hurried
as fast as she could. Her path lay through a forest. Suddenly she
heard the howling of a pack of wolves. Olga’s heart almost stopped
beating. The dreadful sounds drew nearer. Overcome by fright, she fell
unconscious to the ground.
When she regained her senses, she found herself alone. The wolves
apparently had sniffed her prostrate body and gone their way. Her
basket of bread was scattered in all directions, trampled in the mud.
Out of breath, and without her precious burden, she arrived home.
It was in such circumstances that my mother grew to be nineteen, when
she attracted the attention of Leonti Frolkov, who was then stopping
in Tcharanda on his way home from the war. She was immensely flattered
when he courted her. He even bought her a pair of shoes for a present,
the first shoes she had ever worn. This captivated the humble Olga
completely. She joyously accepted his marriage proposal.
After the wedding the young couple moved to Nikolsko, my father’s
birthplace, where he had inherited a small tract of land. They tilled
it together, and with great difficulty managed to make ends meet. My
two elder sisters, Arina and Shura, were born here, increasing the
poverty of my parents. My father, about this time, took to drinking,
and began to maltreat and beat his wife. He was by nature morose and
egotistical. Want was now making him cruel. My mother’s life with him
became one of misery. She was constantly in tears, always pleading for
mercy and praying to God.
I was born in July, 1889, the third girl in the family. At that time
many railroads were being built throughout the country. When I was a
year old, my father, who had once been stationed at Tsarskoye Selo, the
Tsar’s place of residence near the capital, decided to go to Petrograd
to seek work. We were left without money. He wrote no letters. On the
brink of starvation, my mother somehow contrived, with the aid of kind
neighbours, to keep herself and her children alive.
When I was nearly six years old a letter came from my father, the first
he had written during the five years of his absence. He had broken his
right leg and, as soon as he was able to travel, had started home. My
mother wept bitterly at the news, but was glad to hear from her husband
whom she had almost given up for dead. In spite of his cruelty toward
her, she still loved him. I remember how happy my mother was when my
father arrived, but this happiness did not last long. Poverty and
misery cut it short. My father’s harsh nature asserted itself again.
Hardly had a year gone by when a fourth child, also a girl, arrived in
our family. And there was no bread in the house.
From all parts of our section of the country peasants were migrating
that year to Siberia, where the Government allowed them large grants
of land. My father wanted to go, but my mother was opposed to it.
However, when our neighbour, Verevkin, who had left sometime before for
Siberia, wrote glowingly of the new country, my father made up his mind
to go, too.
Most of the men would go alone, obtain grants of land, till them, build
homesteads, and then return for their families. Those of the peasants
who took their families with them had enough money to tide them over.
But we were so poor that by the time we got to Tcheliabinsk, the last
station in European Russia, and the Government distribution point, we
had not a penny left. At the station my father obtained some hot water
to make tea, while my two elder sisters were sent to beg for bread.
We were assigned to Kuskovo, eighty miles beyond Tomsk. At every
station my sisters would beg food, while father filled our tea-kettle
with hot water. Thus we got along till Tomsk was reached. Our grant
of land was in the midst of the _taiga_, the virgin Siberian forest.
There could be no thought of immediately settling on it, so my father
remained in Tomsk, while the rest of us were sent on to Kuskovo. My
sisters went to work for board and clothing. My mother, still strong
and in good health, baked bread for a living, while I took care of the
baby.
One day my mother was expecting visitors. She had baked some cakes and
bought a pint of vodka, which she put on the shelf. While she was at
work I tried to lull the baby to sleep. But baby was restless, crying
incessantly. I did not know how to calm her. Then my eyes fell on the
bottle of vodka.
“It must be a very good thing,” I thought, and decided to give a glass
to baby. Before doing so I tasted it myself. It was bitter, but I
somehow wanted more. I drank the first cup and, the bitterness having
somewhat worn off, I drained another. In this manner I disposed of the
entire bottle. Drowsy and weak, I took the baby into my arms and tried
to rock it to sleep. But I myself began to stagger, and fell with the
child to the floor.
Our mother found us there, screaming at the top of our voices.
Presently the visitors arrived, and my mother reached for the bottle,
only to discover that it had been emptied. It did not take her long to
find the culprit. I shall always remember the whipping I got on that
occasion.
Toward winter my father arrived from Tomsk. He brought little money
with him. The winter was severe, and epidemics were raging in the
country. We fell ill one by one, father, mother, then all the girls.
As there was no bread in the house, and no money to buy anything, the
community took care of us till the spring, housing and feeding us. By
some miracle all of us escaped death, but our clothes had become rags.
Our shoes fell to pieces. My parents decided to move to Tomsk, where
we arrived barefoot and tattered, finding shelter at a poor inn on the
outskirts of the town.
My father would work only a couple of days a week. He was lazy. The
remainder of the week he idled away and drank. My sisters served as
nurse-maids, while my mother worked in a bakery, keeping the baby and
me with her. We slept in the loft of a stable, with the horses stamping
below us. Our bed was of straw laid on the floor, which consisted of
unshaven planks thrown across logs. Soon the baker’s wife began to
object to feeding an extra mouth, which belonged to me. I was then over
eight years old.
“Why don’t you send her to work? She can earn her own bread,” she
argued.
My mother would draw me to her breast, weep and beg for mercy. But the
proprietress became impatient, threatening to throw us all out.
Finally my father came to see us, with the good tidings that he had
found a place for me. I was to care for a five-year-old boy, in return
for my board and eighty-five kopeks a month.
“If you do well,” my father added, “you will by and by receive a
rouble.”
Such was the beginning of my career in life. I was eight and a half
years old, small and very thin. I had never before left my mother’s
side, and both of us wept bitterly at parting. It was a grey, painful,
incomprehensible world into which I was being led by my father. My view
of it was further blurred by a stream of tears.
I took care of the little boy for several days. One afternoon, while
amusing him by making figures in the sand, I myself became so engrossed
in the game that I quarrelled with my charge, which led to a fight. I
remember feeling keenly that I was in the right. But the child’s mother
did not inquire into the matter. She heard his screams and whipped me
for it.
I was deeply hurt by the undeserved whipping administered by a strange
woman.
“Where was my mother? Why did not she come to avenge me?”
My mother did not answer my cries. Nobody did. I felt miserable. How
wrong was the world, how unjust. It was not worth while living in such
a world.
My feet were bare. My dress was all in rags. Nobody seemed to care for
me. I was all alone, without friends, and nobody knew of the yearning
in my heart. I would drown myself, I thought. Yes, I would run to the
river and drown myself. Then I would go up, free of all pain, into the
arms of God.
I resolved to slip out at the first chance and jump into the river, but
before the opportunity presented itself my father called. He found me
in tears.
“What’s the matter, Manka?” he asked.
“I am going to drown myself, papa,” I answered sadly.
“Great Heavens! What’s happened, you foolish child?”
I then poured out my heart to him, begging to be taken to my mother. He
caressed me and talked of my mother’s distress if I left my place. He
promised to buy me a pair of shoes, and I remained.
But I did not stay long. The little boy, having seen his mother punish
me, began to take advantage of me, making my life quite unbearable.
Finally I ran away and wandered about town till dark, looking for my
mother. It was late when a policeman picked me up crying in the street
and carried me to the police-station. The officer in charge of the
station took me to his home for the night.
His house was rather large. I had never been in such a house before.
When I awoke in the morning it seemed to me that there were a great
many doors in it and all of them aroused my curiosity. I wanted to
know what was behind them. As I opened one of the doors, I beheld the
police-officer asleep on a bed, with a pistol by his side. I wanted to
beat a hasty retreat, but he awoke. He seized the pistol and, still
dazed from sleep, threatened me with it. Frightened, I ran out of the
room.
My father, meanwhile, had been informed of my flight and had gone
to the police-station in search of me. He was referred to the
police-officer’s home. There he found me, weeping in the porch, and
took me to my mother.
My parents then decided to establish a home. All their capital amounted
to six roubles (about 12_s._ 8_d._). They rented a basement for three
roubles a month. Two roubles my father invested in some second-hand
furniture, consisting of a lame table and benches, and a few kitchen
utensils. With a few kopeks from the last rouble in her purse my mother
prepared some food for us. She sent me to buy a kopek’s worth of salt.
The grocer’s shop of the street was owned by a Jewess, named Nastasia
Leontievna Fuchsman. She looked at me closely when I entered her shop,
recognizing that I was a stranger in the street, and asked me:
“Whose are you?”
“I am of the Frolkovs. We have just moved into the basement in the next
block.”
“I need a little girl to help me. Would you like to work for me?” she
asked. “I’ll give you a rouble a month, and board.”
I was overjoyed and started for home at such speed that by the time I
got to my mother I was quite breathless. I told her of the offer from
the grocery-woman.
“But,” I added, “she is a Jewess.”
I had heard so many things of Jews that I was rather afraid, on second
thoughts, to live under the same roof with a Jewess. My mother calmed
my fears on that score and went to the grocer’s shop to have a talk
with the proprietress. She came back satisfied, and I entered upon my
apprenticeship to Nastasia Leontievna.
It was not an easy life. I learned to wait on customers, to run
errands, to do everything in the house, from cooking and sewing to
scrubbing floors. All day I slaved without ceasing, and at night I
slept on a box in the passage-way between the shop and the house. My
monthly earnings went to my mother, but they never sufficed to drive
the spectre of starvation away from my home. My father earned little
but drank much, and his temper became more and more harsh.
In time my wages were raised to two roubles a month. But as I grew
I required more clothes, which my mother had to supply me from my
earnings. Nastasia Leontievna was exacting and not infrequently
punished me. But she also loved me as though I had been her own
daughter, and always tried to make up for harsh treatment. I owe a
great deal to her, as she taught me to do almost everything, both in
her business and in housework.
I must have been about eleven when, in a fit of temper, I quarrelled
with Nastasia Leontievna. Her brother frequented the theatre and
constantly talked of it. I never quite understood what a theatre was
like, but it attracted me, and I resolved one evening to get acquainted
with that place of wonders. I asked Nastasia Leontievna for money to go
there. She refused.
“You little _moujitchka_,[1] what do you want with the theatre?” she
asked derisively.
[1] A peasant woman.
“You d----d Jewess!” I retorted fiercely, and ran out of the shop. I
went to my mother and told her of the incident. She was horrified.
“But now she won’t take you back. What shall we do without your wages,
Marusia? How shall we pay the rent? We shall have to go begging again.”
And she began to cry.
After some time my employer came after me, rebuking me for my quick
temper.
“How could I have known that you were so anxious to go to the theatre?”
she asked. “All right, I’ll give you fifteen kopeks every Sunday so
that you can go.”
I became a regular Sunday occupant of the gallery, watching with
intense interest the players, their strange gestures and manners of
speech.
Five years I worked for Nastasia Leontievna, assuming more important
duties as I grew older. Early in the morning I would rise, open the
shutters, knead the dough, and sweep or scrub the floors. I finally
grew weary of this daily grind and began to think of finding other
work. But my mother was ill and my father worked less and less,
drinking most of the time. He grew more brutal, beating us all
unmercifully. My sisters were forced to stay away from home. Shura
married at sixteen, and I, fourteen years old, became the mainstay of
the family. It was often necessary to get my pay in advance in order to
keep the family from starving.
The temptation to steal came to me suddenly one day. I had never stolen
anything before, and Nastasia Leontievna repeatedly pointed out this
virtue in me to her friends.
“Here is a _moujitchka_ who doesn’t steal,” she would say. But one day,
on unpacking a barrel of sugar delivered at the shop, I found seven
sugar-loaves instead of the usual six. The impulse to take the extra
loaf of sugar was irresistible. At night I smuggled it stealthily out
of the shop and took it home. My father was dismayed.
“What have you done, Marusia? Take it back immediately,” he ordered.
I began to cry and said that the sugar was not really Nastasia
Leontievna’s, that the error had been made at the refinery. Then my
father consented to keep it.
I returned to the shop and went to bed, but my eyes would not close; my
conscience troubled me. “What if she suspects that a loaf of sugar was
missing? What if she discovers that I have stolen it?” And a feeling
of shame came over me. The following day I could not look straight
into Nastasia Leontievna’s eyes. I felt guilty. My face burned. At
every motion of hers my heart quivered in anticipation of the terrible
disclosure. Finally she noticed that there was something the matter
with me.
“What’s wrong with you, Marusia?” she questioned, drawing me close to
her. “Are you not well?”
This hurt even more. The burden of the sin I had committed weighed
heavier and heavier. It rapidly became unbearable. My conscience would
not be quieted. At the end of a couple of restless days and sleepless
nights I decided to confess. I went into Nastasia Leontievna’s bedroom
when she was asleep. Rushing to her bed, I fell on my knees and broke
into sobs. She awoke in alarm.
“What’s happened, child? What is it?”
Weeping, I told the story of my theft, begging forgiveness and
promising never to steal again. Nastasia Leontievna calmed me and sent
me back to bed, but she could not forgive my parents. Next morning
she visited our home, remonstrating with my father for his failure to
return the sugar and punish me. The shame and humiliation of my parents
knew no bounds.
Sundays I spent at home, helping my mother in the house. I would go
to the well, which was a considerable distance away, for water. My
mother baked bread all the week and my father carried it to the market,
selling it at ten kopeks a loaf. His temper was steadily getting worse,
and it was not unusual for me to find my mother in the yard in tears
after my father had come home drunk.
I was now fifteen and began to grow dissatisfied with my lot. Life
was stirring within me and quickening my imagination. Everything that
passed by and beyond the narrow little world in which I lived and
laboured called me, beckoned to me, lured me. The impressions of that
unfamiliar world which I had caught in the theatre had taken deep root
in my soul and had kindled in me new ardours and desires. I wanted to
dress nicely, to go out, to enjoy life’s pleasures. I wanted to be
educated. I wanted to have enough money to secure my parents for ever
from starvation and to be able to lead for a time, for a day even, an
idle life, without having to rise with the sun, to scrub the floor or
to wash clothes.
Ah! what would I not have given to taste the sweetness, the joy, that
life held. But there seemed to be none for me. All day long I slaved
in the little shop and kitchen. I never had a spare rouble. Something
revolted within me against this bleak, purposeless, futureless
existence.