ESCAPE FROM EXILE
We spent about six days on the road to Amga. It was a town with a
mixed population. Half of its homes were tiny cabins, built by Russian
exiles, many of whom had married Yakut women, as the latter were
physically attractive and were proud to be the wives of white men.
The natives ill-treated their wives, and were lazy, so that the women
usually laboured to support their families. Some of the Yakuts were
very wealthy, owning as many as a thousand head of deer and cattle.
Men, women and children alike dressed only in fur. They made their
bread of a coarse flour, ground by hand.
There were about fifteen political exiles in Amga. Five of these were
university graduates, and one of them was Prince Alexander Gutemurov,
who had been arrested eight years before, and had turned grey in exile.
I was the first Russian woman to come to Amga, and the joy of the
small colony of politicals knew no bounds. As the Yakut women never
wash clothes, the filth in which the white men lived was unspeakable,
and their unkempt appearance testified eloquently to the conditions in
which they lived. They were at the mercy of vermin, and offered little
resistance to epidemics. Clean food, drinkable milk, could not be had
at any price. Money was cheap at Amga. The Prince, for instance,
received a monthly allowance of one hundred roubles (about 10 guineas),
but he could not get a bath for a thousand.
I immediately took charge of the situation, and the small cabin which
I rented at two roubles a month soon became the social centre of the
colony. I had benches made as well as a table and a bed. I obtained
flour at the general shop owned by Kariakin, who had been exiled there
for a murder in 1904, and now did a very flourishing trade. I baked
real Russian bread, cooked a regular Russian meal, and made Russian
tea, inviting all the politicals to dinner.
It was a feast fit for the Gods to them, and those of them who were
single asked me to board them regularly. I not only boarded them, but
I washed and repaired their clothes as well. I had a hut turned into
a bath-house, and it was not long before the politicals looked human
again. My duties in the house demanded all my time and energy, but I
was happy in being able to give help. The men regarded me as their
mother, and never tired of praising me.
I planted a garden, and sowed some grain, as land was given by the
community for the asking, there being few settlers in spite of the
natural riches of the district. The rivers in Northern Siberia are
full of fish, and there is no end to the wealth of timber. Less than
150 miles from us gold mines were being worked. On the strength of our
having owned the butcher’s shop in Yakutsk we were able to buy a horse
on credit and also to borrow some money.
My popularity with the politicals irritated Yasha. He grew jealous of
their kindness, now suspecting one man of courting me and now another.
As he had nothing to do, he nursed his jealousies till they grew in
his imagination. He took to playing cards, which is very popular with
the Yakuts, who like to gamble. This led gradually to his becoming a
confirmed gambler. He would leave home for some neighbouring Yakut
settlement and frequently stay away for several days, spending all
his time in gambling. Finally it became a habit with him. He would
disappear, and reappear suddenly, only in different moods.
When he had won he would return all smiles, with money jingling in his
pockets, bringing me some presents, and displaying great generosity to
all. But that was not the usual case. Most frequently he lost, and then
he would come back home gloomy and dejected, nervous and irritable,
ready to pick quarrels and give provocation. His temper was especially
roused whenever he found some political in the house. Consumed by
jealousy, he would taunt me, and not infrequently resort to blows.
“Yasha, have you lost your senses?” I would say. “Do you need some
money? You know I am always glad to help you out,” and I would have
resort to my small savings, knowing that he had lost his last penny.
But that would not alleviate my suffering. It was with relief that I
looked forward to his departures, and with apprehension that I saw him
return.
At the end of about three months, we obtained permission to visit
Yakutsk for the purpose of collecting the money due to us for the
butcher’s shop, but the man to whom we had made over the business
now denied that he owed us any money, claiming to have paid fully
at the time of our exile to Amga. There was a violent quarrel, but
no money. As I had surrendered the shop to him on trust, we could
not substantiate our claims and oust him from his possession of the
premises. There was nothing to be done but to return with empty hands,
with the burden of the debts we had incurred at Amga weighing heavily
on our shoulders. I was faced with the dreary prospect of hard and
continuous toil, in order to pay what we owed.
One summer day a new party of exiles arrived at Amga. One of them was a
young man of about twenty. Yasha took a fancy to him and proposed that
he should remain in our house as my assistant. Knowing Yasha’s jealousy
I objected.
“Yasha,” I argued, “what are you doing? You know how jealous you become
when you find one of the colony in the house, and now you want me to
keep this young man here, while you will be away most of the time.
You are only making trouble for me, I don’t want him, I need no help.
Please don’t burden me with him.”
“Marusia,” Yasha replied, tenderly, “I swear that I won’t be jealous
any more. I won’t, dear. Forgive me for all the pain I have caused you.”
Yasha’s words did not entirely pacify me, but he overruled my
objections, promising to be reasonable in the future. The same
afternoon a Yakut called for him, and they left together to go to a
gambling place. The young man remained with me. Nothing occurred the
first day or two. Then, one night, I was awakened by the young man
bending over me. I repelled him, appealing to his sense of shame, but
as he persisted in his advances, I struck him violently, jumped out of
bed, and seizing a chair and shouting at the top of my voice, drove him
out of the house.
It was about one o’clock in the morning. Prince Gutemurov was returning
home from an evening with a friend and saw me drive the young man
out into the night. The latter, however, harboured a deep feeling of
vengeance against me. He resolved to await Yasha’s return, on the road
outside the village, and tell him a false version of the story!
“A fine wife you have,” he addressed Yasha, derisively, as soon as the
latter appeared.
“What do you mean?” questioned Yasha excitedly. The young man replied
that the night before I had come to him, but, being a loyal friend to
Yasha, he drove me away and left the house with the purpose of meeting
him and informing him of the incident. Yasha only had sufficient
self-control to thunder out:
“Swear, are you telling the truth?”
The young rascal answered:
“Certainly it’s the truth.”
When Yasha appeared on the threshold I observed immediately with
horror that he was in a ferocious mood, but was suppressing his fury.
That made him the more dangerous. He spoke slowly, picking his words
deliberately, words which struck terror to my soul.
“You are a faithless woman. You always have been faithless, deceiving
me continually, but you are caught now, and you won’t escape. It’s
fortunate that Dmitri is a decent young fellow and repelled your
advances. You can say your last prayers, you base creature.”
While speaking thus Yasha proceeded in a cold, business-like,
purposeful manner to make a noose to hang me. It was this calm about
Yasha’s actions, expressive of his terrible earnestness, that made me
tremble all over.
“Yasha, I am innocent, Yasha,” I sobbed, throwing myself at his feet
and kissing them. “I swear that I am innocent,” I cried. “Have mercy!
think what you are doing! I tell you I am innocent!”
Yasha went on with his preparations undisturbed.
He attached the rope to a hook on the ceiling and tested the noose.
“Yasha, come to your senses,” I implored, hugging his legs.
He pushed me aside, placed a stool under the rope and ordered me, in a
terrible voice, to stand up on it.
“Now say your last prayers,” he repeated.
He then placed the noose around my neck and jerked the stool from under
my feet. In an instant it tightened about my throat, I wanted to cry
out but could not, the pressure against the crown of my head was so
terrific that it seemed about to crack open. Then I lost consciousness.
As the noose was tightening around my neck Yasha came to himself and
hastened to loosen it. I dropped, lifeless, to the floor. In response
to his calls for help several politicals, among whom were a couple of
medical students, came running to the house. They made every effort to
revive me, succeeding only after long and persistent attempts. When
I opened my eyes, the whole colony was at my bedside. Pressed for an
explanation of his inhuman act Yasha told Dmitri’s story.
Then Prince Gutemurov revealed what he had seen the previous night, on
his way home. Yasha was overwhelmed. He fell on his knees and begged my
forgiveness, cursing Dmitri and promising to make short work of him.
But Yasha could not find him. Dmitri learned of the disclosure and
disappeared forever from Amga.
Soon afterwards, another incident occurred which further embittered my
life with Yasha. In his absence Vasili, a political, came and told me
that the authorities were in receipt of an order to arrest and send
him to Irkutsk to be tried on a new charge, which carried with it the
death-sentence. It was a regular practice of the Tsar’s government to
recall exiles for second trials on some additional bit of evidence.
Vasili asked me to lend him our horse, “Maltchik,” to help him escape.
Knowing how attached Yasha was to the horse, I refused Vasili’s
request. But he persisted in imploring me, claiming that Prince
Gutemurov had seen the order for the arrest, and that the sheriff was
already on his tracks.
“But how could the horse be returned?” I asked Vasili, touched by his
continuous pleading. He replied that he would leave it with a certain
Yakut friend of ours, some hundred versts away, and I finally yielded,
although not without misgivings. As soon as he left with “Maltchik”
my anxiety grew into alarm. I hurried to Prince Gutemurov to verify
Vasili’s story. How thunder-struck I was upon learning from the Prince
that he knew of no order to arrest Vasili, and that he had not even
seen him. It was clear that I had been swindled and that I would never
see the horse again.
“My God!” I thought, “what will happen upon Yasha’s return and his
discovery that “Maltchik” is gone?”
The fear of death rose up before me, the impression of my recent escape
from hanging still fresh in my mind. I trembled at the thought of
Yasha, with the feeling of an entrapped animal seeking an escape. But
there seemed to be no remedy.
It was August, 1914. Rumours of the great conflict were just reaching
the remote Siberian provinces. The order for mobilization came, and
there was great excitement, even in the death-bound Arctic settlements,
as if suddenly a new life had been infused into that land of monotony.
Upon the heels of the call to arms came the Tsar’s Manifesto,
abolishing the scourge of our national life--vodka, and with it a
gigantic wave of popular enthusiasm, sweeping the steppes, valleys, and
forests of vast Russia, from Petrograd and Moscow, across the Ural
mountains and Siberia, to the borders of China, and the Pacific coast.
There was something sublime about the nation’s response. Old men, who
had fought in the Crimean War, in the Turkish Campaign of 1877-78, and
The Russo-Japanese War, declared that they never saw such exaltation
of spirit. It was a glorious, inspiring, unforgettable moment in one’s
life. My soul was deeply stirred, and I had a dim realization of a new
world coming to life, a purer, a happier and a holier world.
And when Vasili robbed me of our horse, and I was filled with the dread
of Yasha’s fury, intensified by my helplessness in the face of this
misfortune, the thought, “WAR!” suddenly flashed into my mind.
“Go to war to help save the country!” a voice within me called.
To leave Yasha for my personal comfort and safety was almost
unthinkable. But to leave him for the field of unselfish sacrifice,
that was a different matter. And the thought of going to war penetrated
deeper and deeper into my whole being, giving me no rest.
When Yasha returned, Prince Gutemurov and several other friends were in
the house ready to defend me. He had already learned from the natives,
on his way home, that Vasili had escaped on our horse. He could not
believe that I would have given his favourite horse to anybody without
his permission, and he therefore suspected that I had an intrigue with
Vasili, and that I had despatched him to make preparations for an
elopement. He made a violent scene, attacking me savagely, with showers
of blows. My friends tore him away, which only infuriated him the more.
This inability to give vent to his rage made him act like one demented.
His temper was clearly becoming a danger, which called for a remedy. A
physician came to Amga only once a month. As Yasha considered himself
in good health, there could be no question of suggesting to him that
he should consult the physician. It was, therefore, agreed among my
friends that Prince Gutemurov should take a walk about the village
with the doctor when he arrived, pass by our house as if by accident,
and that I should greet them with an invitation to come in for tea.
Everything went smoothly. The physician was introduced to Yashka and
immediately remarked upon his pallor and his bloodshot eyes.
“What ails you?” he asked Yasha, “you seem to have fever. Let me
examine you.”
The result of the examination was the advice to Yasha to go to a
hospital for treatment, which he, of course, scoffed at. Privately, the
doctor informed Prince Gutemurov that Yasha’s nerves had broken down
and that he was dangerous to live with, as he might kill me for some
trivial cause. The physician urged that I should leave him at once.
But I hesitated. Another quarrel, however, was not long in coming.
Yasha actually made another attempt to kill me, but was stopped by our
comrades. The cup was full. I decided to escape.
Day and night my imagination carried me to the fields of battle, and
my ears rang with the groans of my wounded brethren. The impact of the
mighty armies was heard even in uncivilized northern Siberia. There
were rumours in the air, rumours of victory and of defeat, and in low
voices people talked of torrents of blood and of rivers of maimed
humanity, streaming back from the front, and already overflowing into
the Siberian plains. My heart yearned to be there, in the seething
caldron of war, to be baptized in its fire and scorched in its lava.
The spirit of sacrifice took possession of me. My country called me.
And an irresistible force from within impelled me.
I only waited the opportunity when Yasha should be away for several
days. It arrived one September day. Some Yakuts called for Yasha.
As soon as he left I cut off my hair, dressed in men’s clothes and
provided myself with two loaves of bread. I had no money to speak of,
as I took none of the colony into my confidence.
It was evening when I stealthily hurried out of Amga and took the road
to Yakutsk. I had before me a journey of over 130 miles. I ran at such
a pace that night, since I could not expect to travel in the day-time
without being recognized, that I covered thirty-three miles before dawn.
Several times I met Yakuts, and answered their greetings in their
native dialect, with which I had grown familiar. In the dark they must
have taken me for a Yakut. Otherwise, the journey was uneventful. The
road was dry, the weather calm, and only the stars lit my way, while
the loud throbbing of my heart echoed my footsteps.
When day broke I stopped beside a stream and breakfasted on bread and
cold water. I then made a bed of twigs in a hole by the road, lay down,
covered myself with branches and went to sleep for the day. I awoke
when evening came, offered my prayers to God, dined on some more bread
and water, and resumed my journey. It took me six nights of walking
to arrive at Yakutsk, living only on bread and water, and sleeping in
hidden nooks by the road during the day.
There was a new Governor in Yakutsk. Baron Kraft had gone to western
Europe to join his wife at some health resort, was stranded there after
the outbreak of the war, and later died a prisoner in the hands of the
enemy. The new Governor received me well, and granted my request to be
sent home, to Tomsk, at the expense of the Government. He even offered
me a convoy for protection.
My escape was a success, but my heart would not rejoice. The image of
Yasha, stricken with grief, frantically searching for me, calling to
me, rose before my eyes, and demanded an account from my conscience.
Was it right, was it just, to leave poor Yasha all alone in forlorn
Amga? Had I not vowed to remain eternally faithful to him? Was it not
my bounden duty to stand by him to the end? Should I not return to him,
then and give up this wild fancy of going to war?
I hesitated. Was it not true, on the other hand, that Yasha had become
a professional gambler? Was not life with him a perilous adventure?
Devotion to Yasha, a voice within me argued, did not mean perishing
with him, but an effort to save him. Indeed, to get Yasha out of that
wilderness was an idea which suddenly gripped my imagination. And
how could I ever expect to find a better opportunity to do so than
by distinguishing myself in war and then petitioning the Tsar in his
behalf?
So there I was again in the magic circle of war. I asked an
acquaintance to write a letter for me to Yasha. Apologizing for my
strange departure, I informed him that I was going to Tomsk to enlist
as a soldier, leave for the front and win distinction for bravery,
then petition the Tsar to pardon him, so as to enable us to resume our
peaceful life in Stretinsk.
It was a plan with which Destiny, which held no more peace for me,
played havoc. The war was to continue as many years as I had expected
it to last months, shrouding Russia in darkness, sowing revolution,
bearing thunder and lightning in its wings, spreading famine and chaos
and seeds of a new world order. In those stormy years Yasha was to
retreat to the far background of my life, then vanish altogether. But
all my heart was with him that autumn day of 1914, when I turned my
eyes toward the bleak north for the last time, as I boarded the barge
that was to carry me to Irkutsk, thence to Tomsk, and thence to war.
Part Two
WAR