UNDER RUSSIAN RULE
When Dan found his seat in the dining-saloon, that evening, he glanced
up and down the long table, in the hope that Miss Vard and her father
might be among his neighbours. But they were not, and it was not until
he was half through the meal that he descried them at one of the tables
on the other side of the room. At his own table there were the usual
assorted types of the middle-class tourist, his wife and family, most of
them frankly glad that they were homeward bound, with the greatest part
of their pilgrimage accomplished.
The sea was smooth and the great boat forged ahead with scarcely any
motion, so that every seat was occupied and every one in good spirits.
There was a hum of talk and rattle of dishes; the white-coated stewards
scuttled back and forth, and the scene was as pleasant as the wholesale
human consumption of food can ever be.
Dan went on with his dinner with one eye on the far table where Miss
Vard and her father were seated; but his attention was distracted for a
time by a discussion which an Anglomaniac across the table started as
to the relative merits of England and America, and to which he could not
resist contributing a few remarks. When he glanced across the saloon
again, he saw that Miss Vard and her father were no longer there.
However, he finished his dinner with the comfortable consciousness that
the second-class quarters were limited, and that she could not escape
from them except by jumping overboard; and when the meal was ended, he
made his way leisurely through the lounge and along the decks in search
of her. There were girls, girls everywhere, but not the one he sought;
and finally, with a little smile, he mounted the ladder which led to the
after boat-deck.
Already other couples, scouting about the ship, had discovered the
advantages of its dim seclusion, and most of the benches in the lee of
the boats and about the little wireless-house were occupied; but, on
that one bench, in the shadow of the after life-boat, Dan descried a
solitary figure. He advanced without hesitation.
"I was hoping I should find you," he said.
She moved a little aside, as an invitation for him to share the bench.
"I like it up here," she said, "with no light but the stars, and that
strange luminous glow along those wires up yonder."
Looking up, Dan saw that the gridiron of wires stretched between the
masts was, indeed, faintly luminous against the sky.
"That's the wireless," he said. "Listen--you can hear it," and from the
open window of the wireless-house came the vicious snap and crackle of
electricity. "The operator is sending a message."
She looked up again at the glowing wires.
"I think it the most wonderful thing in the world!" she said. "I can't
understand it--I can't believe it--and yet, there it is!"
"Yes--and I suppose it has become an every-day affair to the operator in
there; it isn't wonderful to him any more. We forget how wonderful a lot
of things are, when we get used to them."
"How wonderful everything is," she corrected; "the sunrise, the
ocean...."
They sat for some time in silence, gazing out across the dark and
restless water, touched here and there with white, as a wave combed and
broke. Then Dan's gaze wandered to her face. Seen thus, in the dim
light, framed by her dark hair, it, too, seemed wonderful to him; there
was about it a mystic allusiveness, a subtle charm, far more compelling
than mere beauty ever is; her eyes had depths to them....
She felt his gaze upon her and turned her face to him and smiled.
"You may smoke, if you wish," she said. "I can feel that at the back of
your mind."
"I believe I _was_ thinking about it," Dan admitted, and got out his
pipe; but he had himself been scarcely conscious of the thought, and it
amazed him that she should have detected it. There was the flare of a
match, and he sat back again, exhaling a long puff. "Now," he said, "you
are going to begin my education. I am ready for the first lesson."
"How shall I begin?"
"I think an excellent way would be to tell me something about yourself,"
he suggested.
She considered him gravely.
"Are you really in earnest?" she asked.
"Indeed I am," he answered quickly, colouring a little under her
searching eyes. "Forgive me if I seemed not to be. And please begin in
any way you think best."
"I will tell you something about Poland," she said, "and then you will
understand a little what I and all like me feel for America. You know, I
suppose, that there is no longer any such land as Poland?"
"I know that Russia and one or two other powers divided it, about a
hundred years ago."
"Yes; but you cannot know what that division meant! The Poles were a
brave and patriotic people; they loved their country as few peoples do;
and all at once, great armies were flung upon them; they were
overwhelmed, and their country was taken away. They lost more than
their country: they lost their language, their history, their national
life. But in spite of it all, they remained Poles.
"I was born in Russian Poland, not far from Warsaw. From the very first,
I was taught that I was a Pole, not a Russian. But only at home, under
my own roof, could I be a Pole. The teaching of Polish was forbidden in
any school--every word spoken must be Russian. If children were
overheard talking in Polish, they were arrested by the police and their
parents summoned and fined. On every public building there was a painted
notice: 'It is forbidden to speak Polish.' All trials were conducted in
Russian, although none of the peasants understood Russian, and so had no
idea of what was being said. No official was permitted to answer a
question in Polish--I have known a tramcar conductor to be heavily fined
for doing so.
"We were taught history in which the name of our fatherland was never
mentioned, but where Russia was treated as the wisest, best, and most
powerful of nations, with the Czar second only to God himself. We could
not leave our native village without permission from the police. No Pole
could fill any public office. No Pole was permitted to publish a book or
a newspaper or even a handbill, until a Russian censor had passed upon
it. If you ever visit Poland, you will notice, here and there, groups of
tall wooden crosses. They mark graves. But if one of those crosses
decays or falls down, it may not be replaced without permission from the
government. One night, the cross over the grave of my father's mother
was struck by lightning; and for two years it lay there, until
permission to replace it had come from Petersburg. It was among such
surroundings that my childhood was passed."
Kasia did not seem to realise that, instead of telling about Poland, she
was telling about herself; and Dan was deeply moved. He had listened, in
his day, to many stories, but never to one like this. It was as though
the dead wrappings of history were stripped away, and its seething,
desperate, tragic heart laid bare.
"Go on," he said thickly, and folded his arms tightly across his breast.
"My father had hoped to be a student of science," she went on; "but he
was refused admission to the university because of some absurd
suspicion, and after that he could study only secretly. When he married,
he rented a little farm near Warsaw; and there he and mother toiled all
day long, and the children too, as soon as they were old enough. There
were four children--two boys and two girls. I was the youngest. Twice
every year, my mother, my sister and I walked in to Warsaw, and spent a
week there helping to clean the streets; this service was required of
all families in the villages about Warsaw, and could be escaped only by
paying a heavy tax. We had also to assist in keeping the roads in
repair, and for this, too, the women and children were employed, since
the men could not be spared from the work of the farm. At nightfall we
were always exhausted, and would swallow our soup and black bread
hastily, and then fling ourselves down, dressed as we were, on a heap of
straw in one corner. We were very poor, and yet not so poor as we
seemed; but to have added one little comfort to our home would have
meant a visit from the tax-inquisitor, and perhaps a search. The only
way to escape this was to live in miserable poverty.
"In spite of all this, my father still kept up his studies. At night,
after carefully closing the shutters and stuffing the cracks with rags,
so that no ray of light could be seen outside, he would light a little
tallow dip and sit reading for hours. He read the same books over and
over, for books were very hard to get. The ones he wanted were almost
always forbidden. To be found possessing one meant banishment. So all of
his books he kept concealed even more carefully than he did his money.
Indeed, he valued them more!
"Sundays he devoted to the education of his children, always with one of
us on guard outside the door. It was then that I learned to read
English. Father had taught himself with great thoroughness, because he
was determined some day to go to America. America--that was his dream!
But how to get there! It seemed certain that he could never save money
enough to pay for so many. That problem was soon to be settled."
She paused and put her hand to her throat, shivering a little.
"Are you cold?" Dan asked.
"No; I am trembling at the thought of what remains to tell. A case of
cholera appeared in our village. It was reported to the magistrate. At
once all the Russian officials removed to Warsaw, and a cordon of
Russian troops was thrown about the village. No one was permitted to
enter or to leave. The cholera spread. The people were ignorant; they
did not know what to do, and there was no one to tell them; they could
only wait and pray. At the end of a month, the disease had spent itself,
but of those who had lived in the village, only one in ten remained. Of
our family, there were left only my father and myself."
Dan's hand went out to hers. She did not draw away.
"For a time," she went on, "father was stunned by the blow; I have
always believed that he was very near madness. But he shook off his
sorrow and decided that the time had come to seek America. We could not
depart openly; that was not permitted; so one night he dug up the little
hoard of money he had concealed, cut off my hair and dressed me in boys'
clothes, arrayed himself in the rags of a goat-herd, and about midnight
we set off. I was eleven years old at the time, and I remember every
incident distinctly. We could travel only at night, hiding at every
sound. By day, we concealed ourselves under culverts, in ditches, under
heaps of brush. Luckily, Polish people are eager to help each other, so
we did not starve, and we got forward a little every night. At the end
of six weeks, we crossed the frontier and were safe.
"There is not much more to tell. We reached New York; and I was placed
in school--I wish you could realise all that meant to me! For a long
time, I could not go out into the street without being afraid. It seemed
impossible that there was no longer anything to fear. When at last I
understood, it was as though a great load were lifted. That was ten
years ago. For the past three years, I have been a teacher in the Hester
Street school."
She sat silent for a moment, then with a long breath, drew her hand
away.
"Do you wonder that I love America?" she asked.
"No," said Dan; "and you have made me a better patriot."
She turned to him, with a little smile.
"And now I think of it," she added, "it was my story I told you, after
all!"
"Your story helps me to understand Poland's. That is the way history
should be written."
"I think so, too. There is not enough in most histories of the common
people. And my father says it is only they who really matter. He has
thought very deeply. It is his dream to make all other countries like
America--free, peaceful, industrious--only better than America has yet
become, in that poverty and inequality and injustice will be abolished."
"A magnificent dream," Dan agreed, with a smile; "but impossible of
accomplishment, I'm afraid."
"No, it is not impossible!" she cried quickly. "It will be accomplished,
and by him!"
Dan looked at her curiously. Her eyes were blazing, and she spoke with a
conviction, with an enthusiasm, which puzzled him.
"Tell me something about your father," he suggested. "You said he was
the most wonderful man in the world."
"And I meant it. Could anything be more wonderful than to force all the
nations of the earth to break up their navies, to dismantle their forts,
to disband their armies? Could anything be more wonderful than to put an
end, once for all, to this waste of life and treasure, which is eating
at the heart of the world? Could anything be more wonderful than to turn
all these armies of useless men back into honest and useful labour? Then
no longer would you see women gathering the harvest, or struggling under
cruel burdens, or cleaning the streets, or spreading manure over the
fields! No, nor walking the pavements of the cities! Would you not say
that the man who brought all this about was a wonderful man?"
"Wonderful!" echoed Dan. "Why, wonderful would be no name for it! But it
is something that no man can ever do."
"It will be done, believe me," she said, solemnly, "and by my father."
Dan could only stare at her. It seemed absurd to suppose that she could
be in earnest; but certainly her face was earnest to solemnity. It shone
with consecration.
"But I don't understand," he stammered. "It's too big for me. How is it
to be accomplished? How can one man bring it about? I can see how the
Czar or Kaiser might set to work, but even they could not hope to
succeed. The Czar did try something of the sort, didn't he?"
"Yes; but he was not in earnest, and the other nations laughed. At my
father they will not laugh, for he is in deadly earnest. As to how this
is to be done, I may not tell you, not yet--some day, perhaps. But one
thing I may tell you, and it is this--my father holds the nations of the
world in the hollow of his hand!"
For a moment there was silence between them. The moon had risen as they
talked, and the dark sea was illumined by a broad path of silver. The
boat-deck was almost deserted; the snapping of the wireless had ceased.
Miss Vard looked about her with a little start.
"It must be very late," she said. "I must be going."
As Dan followed her across the deck, he noticed a dark figure on the
bench next to the one where he and Miss Vard had sat. And as they
passed, the stranger struck a match and lighted a cigarette. By the
glare of the flame, Dan saw that it was his roommate, Chevrial.