THE GREEN SHAWL
I will pass briefly over the days that followed Marsh’s flight. They
were concentrated upon efforts to get news of Mrs. Marsh and Melnikoff.
There were frequent hold-ups in the street: at two points along the
Nevsky Prospect all passengers were stopped to have their documents
and any parcels they were carrying examined, but a cursory glance at
my passport of the Extraordinary Commission sufficed to satisfy the
militiamen’s curiosity.
I studied all the Soviet literature I had time to devour, attended
public meetings, and slept in turn at the homes of my new
acquaintances, making it a rule, however, never to mention anywhere the
secret of other night-haunts.
The meetings I attended were all Communist meetings, at each of which
the same banal propagandist phraseology was untiringly reeled off. The
vulgar violence of Bolshevist rhetoric and the triumphant inaccuracy of
statement due to the prohibition of criticism soon became wearisome. In
vain I sought meetings for discussion, or where the people’s point of
view would be expressed: freedom of speech granted by the revolution
had come to mean freedom for Bolshevist speech only and prison for any
other. Some of the meetings, however, were interesting, especially when
a prominent leader such as Trotzky, Zinoviev, or Lunacharsky spoke, for
the unrivalled powers of speech of a few of the leading Bolsheviks,
who possess in a marked degree “the fatal gift of eloquence,” had an
almost irresistible attraction.
During these days also I cultivated the friendship of the
ex-Journalist, whom, despite his timidity, I found to be a man of taste
and culture. He had an extensive library in several languages, and
spent his leisure hours writing (if I remember rightly) a treatise on
philosophy, which, for some reason or other, he was convinced would be
regarded as “counter-revolutionary” and kept locked up and hidden under
a lot of books in a closet. I tried to persuade him of the contrary and
urged him even to take his manuscript to the department of education,
in the hope that someone of the less virulent type there might be
impressed with the work and obtain for him concessions as regards
leisure and rations.
When I visited him the day after Marsh’s flight I found him, still
wrapped in his green coat, running feverishly from stove to stove
poking and coaxing the newly lit fires. He was chuckling with glee at
the return of forgotten warmth and, in truly Russian style, had lit
every stove in his flat and was wasting fuel as fast as he possibly
could.
“What the devil is the use of that?” I said in disgust. “Where the
deuce do you think you will get your next lot of wood from? It doesn’t
_rain_ wood in these regions, does it?”
But my sarcasm was lost on Dmitri Konstantinovitch, in whose system of
economy, economy had no place. To his intense indignation I opened all
the grates and, dragging out the half-burnt logs and glowing cinders,
concentrated them in one big blaze in the dining-room stove, which also
heated his bedroom.
[Illustration: THE AUTHOR, DISGUISED]
“That’s just like an Englishman,” he said in unspeakable disgust
as he shuffled round watching me at work. “You understand,” I said,
resolutely, “this and the kitchen are the only stoves that are ever to
be heated.”
Of course I found his larder empty and he had no prospect of food
except the scanty and unappetizing dinner at four o’clock at the local
communal eating-house two doors away. So, the weather being fine, I
took him out to the little private dining-room where I had eaten on
the day of my arrival. Here I gave him the biggest meal that miniature
establishment could provide, and intoxicated by the unaccustomed fumes
of gruel, carrots, and coffee he forgot--and forgave me--the stoves.
A day or two later the Journalist was sufficiently well to return to
work, and taking the spare key of his flat I let myself in whenever
I liked. I took him severely to task in his household affairs, and
as the result of our concerted labours we saved his untidy home from
degenerating completely into a pig-sty. Here I met some of the people
mentioned by Marsh. The Journalist was very loth to invite them, but
in a week or so I had so firm a hold over him that by the mere hint of
not returning any more I could reduce him to complete submission. If I
disappeared for as much as three days he was overcome with anxiety.
Some people I met embarrassed me not a little by regarding me as a
herald of the approaching Allies and an earnest of the early triumph
of the militarist counter-revolution. Their attitude resembled at the
other extreme that recently adopted by the Bolshevist Government toward
impartial foreign labour delegates, who were embarrassingly proclaimed
to be forerunners of the world revolution.
One evening the Journalist greeted me with looks of deep cunning
and mystification. I could see he had something on his mind he was
bursting to say. When at last we were seated, as usual huddled over the
dining-room stove, he leaned over toward my chair, tapped me on the
knee to draw my very particular attention, and began.
“Michael Mihailovitch,” he said in an undertone, as though the chairs
and table might betray the secret, “I have a won-der-ful idea!” He
struck one side of his thin nose with his forefinger to indicate the
wondrousness of his idea. “To-day I and some colleagues of former
days,” he went on, his finger still applied to the side of his nose,
“determined to start a newspaper. Yes, yes, a secret newspaper--to
prepare the way for the Allies!”
“And who is going to print it?” I asked, fully impressed with the
wondrousness of his idea.
“The Bolshevist _Izvestia_,” he said, “is printed on the presses of the
_Novoye Vremya_,[2] but all the printer-men being strongly against the
Bolsheviks, we will ask them to print a leaflet on the sly.”
“And who will pay for it?” I asked, amused by his simplicity.
“Well, here you can help, Michael Mihailovitch,” said the Journalist,
rather as though he were conferring an honour upon me. “You would not
refuse, would you? Last summer the English----”
“Well, apart from technique,” I interrupted, “why are you so certain of
the Allies?”
Dmitri Konstantinovitch stared at me.
“But you----” he began, then stopped abruptly.
There followed one of those pauses that are more eloquent than speech.
“I see,” I said at last. “Listen, Dmitri Konstantinovitch, I will
tell you a story. In the north of your vast country there is a town
called Archangel. I was there in the summer and I was there again
recently. When I was there in the summer the entire population was
crying passionately for the Allies to intervene and save them from a
Bolshevist hooligan clique, and when at last the city was occupied
the path of the British general was strewn with flowers as he stepped
ashore. But when I returned some weeks after the occupation, did I find
jubilation and contentment, do you think? I am sorry to say I did not.
I found strife, intrigue, and growing bitterness.
“A democratic government was nominally in power with the venerable
revolutionist Tchaikovsky, protégé of the Allies, at its head. Well,
one night a group of officers--Russian officers--summarily arrested
this government established by the Allies, while the allied military
leaders slyly shut one eye so as not to see what was going on. The
hapless democratic ministers were dragged out of their beds, whisked
away by automobile to a waiting steam launch, and carried off to
a remote island in the White Sea, where they were unceremoniously
deposited and left! Sounds like an exploit of Captain Kidd, doesn’t it?
Only two escaped, because they happened that evening to be dining with
the American Ambassador, and he concealed them in his bedroom.
“Next morning the city was startled by a sensational announcement
posted on the walls. ‘By order of the Russian Command,’ it ran, ‘the
incompetent government has been deposed, and the supreme power in North
Russia is henceforth vested exclusively in the hands of the military
commander of the occupying forces.’
“There was a hell of a hubbub, I can tell you! For who was to untangle
the knot? The allied military had connived at the kidnapping by Russian
plotters of a Russian government established by order of the Allies!
The diplomats and the military were already at loggerheads and now
they were like fighting-cocks! Finally, after two days’ wrangling,
and when all the factories went on strike, it was decided that the
whole proceeding had been most unseemly and undemocratic. ‘Diplomacy’
triumphed, a cruiser was despatched to pick up the wretched ministers
shivering on the remote White Sea island, and brought them back
(scarcely a triumphal procession!) to Archangel, where they were
restored to the tarnished dignity of their ministerial pedestals, and
went on trying to pretend to be a government.”
The Journalist gaped open-mouthed as I told him this story. “And what
is happening there now?” he asked after a pause. “I am rather afraid to
think of what is happening now,” I replied.
“And you mean,” he said, slowly, “the Allies are not----?”
“I do not know--they may come, and they may not.” I realized I was
rudely tearing down a radiant castle the poor Journalist had built in
the air.
“By why--Michael Mihailovitch--are you----?”
“Why am I here?” I said, completing his unfinished question. “Simply
because I wanted to be.”
Dmitri Konstantinovitch gasped. “You--wanted to be _here_?”
“Yes,” I replied, smiling involuntarily at his incredulity. “I wanted
to be here and took the first chance that offered itself to come.” If
I had told him that after mature consideration I had elected to spend
eternity in Gehenna rather than in the felicity of celestial domains I
should not have astonished the incredulous Journalist more.
“By the way,” I said rather cruelly, as a possibility occurred to me,
“don’t go and blurt that Archangel story everywhere, or you’ll have to
explain how you heard it.”
But he did not heed me. I had utterly demolished his castle of hope.
I felt very sorry as I watched him. “Maybe they will learn,” I added,
wishing to say something kind, “and not repeat mistakes elsewhere.”
Learn? As I looked into the Journalist’s tear-dimmed eyes, how heartily
I wished they would!
* * * * *
While the journalist’s home until my arrival was only on the downward
grade toward pig-stydom, that of the Policeman had already long since
arrived at the thirty-third degree. His rooms were in an abominable
condition, and quite unnecessarily so. The sanitary arrangements in
many houses were in a sad state of dilapidation, but people took urgent
measures to maintain what cleanliness they could. Not so the Policeman,
who lived in conditions too loathsome for words and took no steps to
check the progressive accumulation of dust, dirt, and filth.
He kept a Chinese servant, who appeared to be permanently on strike,
and whom he would alternately caressingly wheedle and tempestuously
upbraid, so far as I could see with equal ineffect. In the nether
regions of the house he occupied there lived, or frequently gathered,
a bevy of Chinamen who loafed about the hall or peeped through
gratings up the cellar stairways. There was also a mysterious lady,
whom I never saw, but whom I would hear occasionally as I mounted
the stairs, shrieking in an hysterical caterwaul, and apparently
menacing the little Policeman with physical assault. Sometimes he would
snarl back, and one such _scène d’amour_ was terminated by a violent
crash of crockery. But the affable female, whom I somehow figured
as big and muscular with wild, floating hair, a sort of Medusa, had
always vanished by the time I reached the top of the stairs, and the
loud door-slam that coincided with her disappearance was followed by
death-like silence. The little Policeman, whose bearing was always
apologetic, would accost me as though nothing were amiss, while the
insubordinate Chinese servant, if he condescended to open the front
door, would stand at the foot of the staircase with an enigmatical
sneering grin spread over his evil features. It was altogether an
uncanny abode.
Marsh had prepared the way, and the Policeman received me with profuse
demonstrations of regard. I was fortunately not obliged to accept his
proffered hospitality often, but when I did, it was touching to note
how he would put himself out in the effort to make me as comfortable
as the revolting circumstances would permit. Despite his despicable
character, his cringing deceitfulness, and mealy-mouthed flattery,
he still possessed human feelings, showed at times a genuine desire
to please not merely for the sake of gain, and was sincerely and
passionately fond of his children, who lived in another house.
He was excessively vain and boastful. In the course of his career he
had accumulated a collection of signed photographs of notables, and
loved to demonstrate them, reiterating for the fiftieth time how Count
Witte said this, Stolypin said that, and So-and-so said something
else. I used to humour him, listening gravely, and he interpreted my
endurance as ability to venerate the great ones of the earth, and an
appreciation of his illustrious connections, and was mightily pleased.
He was full of grandiose schemes for the downthrow of the Red régime,
and the least sign of so much as patience with his suggestions excited
his enthusiasm and inspired his genius for self-praise and loquacity.
“Your predecessors, if you will allow me to say so,” he launched forth
on the occasion of my first visit, “were pitifully incompetent. Even
Mr. Marsh, delightful man though he was, hardly knew his business. Now
_you_, Michael Ivanitch, I can see, are a man of understanding--a man
of quite different stamp. I presented a scheme to Marsh, for instance,”
and he bent over confidentially, “for dividing Petrograd into ten
sections, seizing each one in turn, and thus throwing the Bolsheviks
out. It was sure of success, and yet Mr. Marsh would not hear of it.”
“How were you going to do it?”
He seized a sheet of paper and began hastily making sketches to
illustrate his wonderful scheme. The capital was all neatly divided
up, the chiefs of each district were appointed to their respective
posts, he had the whole police force at his beck and call and about
half-a-dozen regiments.
“Give but the signal,” he cried, dramatically, “and this city of Peter
the Great is ours.”
“And the supreme commander?” I queried. “Who will be governor of the
liberated city?”
The sanguine little Policeman smiled a trifle confusedly. “Oh, we will
find a governor,” he said, rather sheepishly, hesitant to utter the
innermost hopes of his heart. “Perhaps you, Michael Ivanitch----”
But this magnanimous offer was mere formal courtesy. It was plain that
I was expected to content myself with the secondary rôle of king-maker.
“Well, if all is so far ready,” I said, “why don’t you blow the
trumpets and we will watch the walls of Jericho fall?”
The little man twirled his moustache, smirking apologetically. “But,
Michael Ivanitch,” he said, growing bold and bordering even on
familiarity, “er--funds, don’t you know--after all, nowadays, you know,
you get nowhere without--er--money, _do_ you? Of course, you _quite_
understand, Michael Ivanitch, that I, personally----”
“How much did you tell Marsh it would cost?” I interrupted, very
curious to see what he would say. He had not expected the question
to be put in this way. Like a clock ticking I could hear his mind
calculating the probability of Marsh’s having told me the sum, and
whether he might safely double it in view of my greater susceptibility.
“I think with 100,000 roubles we might pull it off,” he replied,
tentatively, eyeing me cautiously to see how I took it. I nodded
silently. “Of course, we _might_ do it for a little less,” he added as
if by afterthought, “but then there would be subsequent expenses.”
“Well, well,” I replied, indulgently, “we will see. We’ll talk about it
again some time.”
“There is no time like the present, Michael Ivanitch.”
“But there are other things to think of. We will speak of it again
when----”
“When----?”
“When you have got Mrs. Marsh out of prison.”
The little man appeared completely to shrivel up when thus dragged
brusquely back into the world of crude reality. He flushed for a
moment, it seemed to me, with anger, but pulled himself together at
once and reassumed his original manner of demonstrative servility.
“At present we have business on hand, Alexei Fomitch,” I added, “and I
wish to talk first about that. How do matters stand?”
The Policeman said his agents were busily at work, studying the ground
and the possibilities of Mrs. Marsh’s escape. The whole town, he
stated, was being searched for Marsh, and the inability to unearth him
had already given rise to the suspicion that he had fled. In a day
or two the news would be confirmed by Bolshevist agents in Finland.
He foresaw an alleviation of Mrs. Marsh’s lot owing to the probable
cessation of cross-examinations. It only remained to see whether she
would be transferred to another cell or prison, and then plans for
escape might be laid.
“Fire ahead,” I said in conclusion. “And when Mrs. Marsh is free--we
will perhaps discuss other matters.”
“There is no time like the present, Michael Ivanitch,” repeated the
little Policeman, but his voice sounded forlorn.
* * * * *
Meanwhile, what of Melnikoff?
Zorinsky was all excitement when I called him up.
“How is your brother?” I said over the ‘phone. “Was the accident
serious? Is there any hope of recovery?”
“Yes, yes,” came the reply. “The doctor says he fears he will be in
hospital some time, but the chances are he will get over it.”
“Where has he been put?”
“He is now in a private sanitarium in Goróhovaya Street, but we hope he
will be removed to some larger and more comfortable hospital.”
“The conditions, I hope, are good?”
“As good as we can arrange for under present-day circumstances. For the
time being he is in a separate room and on limited diet. But can you
not come round this evening, Pavel Ivanitch?”
“Thank you; I am afraid I have a meeting of our house committee to
attend, but I could come to-morrow.”
“Good. Come to-morrow. I have news of Leo, who is coming to Petrograd.”
“My regards to Elena Ivanovna.”
“Thanks. Good-bye.”
“Good-bye.”
The telephone was an inestimable boon, but one that had to be
employed with extreme caution. From time to time at moments of panic
the Government would completely stop the telephone service, causing
immense inconvenience and exasperating the population whom they were
trying to placate. But it was not in Bolshevist interests to suppress
it entirely, the telephone being an effectual means of detecting
“counter-revolutionary” machinations. The lines were closely watched,
a suspicious voice or phrase would lead to a line being “tapped,” the
recorded conversations would be scrutinized for hints of persons or
addresses, and then the Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold to
seize books, papers, and documents, and augment the number of occupants
of _Goróhovayan_ cells. So one either spoke in fluent metaphor or by
prearranged verbal signals camouflaged behind talk of the weather or
food. The “news of Leo,” for instance, I understood at once to mean
news of Trotzky, or information regarding the Red army.
Zorinsky was enthusiastic when I called next day and stayed to dinner.
“We’ll have Melnikoff out in no time,” he exclaimed. “They are holding
his case over for further evidence. He will be taken either to the
Shpalernaya or Deriabinskaya prison, where we shall be allowed to send
him food. Then we’ll communicate by hiding notes in the food and let
him know our plan of escape. Meanwhile, all’s well with ourselves, so
come and have a glass of vodka.”
I was overjoyed at this good news. The conditions at either of the two
prisons he mentioned were much better than at _No. 2 Goróhovaya_, and
though transference to them meant delay in decision and consequent
prolongation of imprisonment, the prison régime was generally regarded
as more lenient.
“By the way,” said Zorinsky, “it is lucky you have come to-day. A
certain Colonel H. is coming in this evening. He works on the General
Staff and has interesting news. Trotzky is planning to come up to
Petrograd.”
Elena Ivanovna was in a bad mood because a lot of sugar that had been
promised to her and her colleagues had failed to arrive and she had
been unable to make cakes for two days.
“You must excuse the bad dinner to-night, Pavel Ivanitch,” she said. “I
had intended to have chocolate pudding for you, but as it is there will
be no third course. Really, the way we are treated is outrageous.”
“Your health, Pavel Ivanitch,” said Zorinsky, undismayed by the
prospect of no third course. “Here we have something better even than
chocolate pudding, haven’t we?”
He talked on volubly in his usual strain, harping back again to pre-war
days and the pleasures of regimental life. I asked him if he thought
most of the officers were still monarchists.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I expect you’ll find they are pretty
evenly divided. Very few are socialists, but a lot think themselves
republicans. Some, of course, are monarchists, and many are nothing at
all. As for me,” he continued, “when I joined my regiment I took the
oath of allegiance to the Tsar.” (At the mention of the Tsar he stood
upright and then sat down again, a gesture which astonished me, for it
really seemed to be spontaneous and unfeigned.) “But I consider myself
absolved and free to serve whom I will from the moment the Tsar signed
the deed of abdication. At present I serve nobody. I will not serve
Trotzky, but I will work with him if he offers a career. That is, if
the Allies do not come into Petrograd. By the way,” he added, checking
himself abruptly and obviously desirous of knowing, “do you think the
Allies really will come--the English, for instance?”
“I have no idea.”
“Strange. Everyone here is sure of it. But that means nothing, of
course. Listen in the queues or market places. Now Cronstadt has been
taken, now the Allies are in Finland, and so on. Personally, I believe
they will bungle everything. Nobody really understands Russia, not even
we ourselves. Except, perhaps, Trotzky,” he added as an afterthought,
“or the Germans.”
“The Germans, you think?”
“Surely. Prussianism is what we want. You see these fat-faced
commissars in leathern jackets with three or four revolvers in their
belts? or the sailors with gold watch-chains and rings, with their
prostitutes promenading the Nevsky? Those rascals, I tell you, will
be _working_ inside of a year, working like hell, because if the
Whites get here every commissar will be hanged, drawn and quartered.
_Somebody_ must work to keep things going. Mark my words, first the
Bolsheviks will make their Communists work, they’ll give them all sorts
of privileges and power, and then they’ll make the Communists make the
others work. Forward the whip and knout! The good old times again! And
if you don’t like it, kindly step this way to _No. 2 Goróhovaya_! Ugh!”
he shuddered. “_No. 2 Goróhovaya!_ Here’s to you, Pavel Ivanitch!”
Zorinsky drank heavily, but the liquor produced no visible effect on
him.
“By the way,” he asked, abruptly, “you haven’t heard anything of Marsh,
have you?”
“Oh, yes,” I said, “he is in Finland.”
“_What!_” he cried, half rising from the table. He was livid.
“In Finland,” I repeated, regarding him with astonishment. “He got away
the day before yesterday.”
“He got away--ha! ha! ha!” Zorinsky dropped back into his seat. His
momentary expression changed as suddenly as it had appeared, and he
burst into uproarious laughter. “Do you _really_ mean to say so? Ha!
ha! My God, won’t they be wild! Damned clever! Don’t you know they’ve
been turning the place upside down to find him? Ha, ha, ha! Now that
really is good news, upon my soul!”
“Why should _you_ be so glad about it?” I inquired. “You seemed at
first to----”
“I was astounded.” He spoke rapidly and a little excitedly. “Don’t you
know Marsh was regarded as chief of allied organizations and a most
dangerous man? But for some reason they were dead certain of catching
him--dead certain. Haven’t they got his wife, or his mother, or
somebody, as hostage?”
“His wife.”
“It’ll go badly with her,” he laughed cruelly.
It was my turn to be startled. “What do you mean?” I said, striving to
appear indifferent.
“They will shoot her.”
It was with difficulty that I maintained a tone of mere casual
interest. “Do you really think they will shoot her?” I said,
incredulously.
“Sure to,” he replied, emphatically. “What else do they take hostages
for?”
For the rest of the evening I thought of nothing else but the
possibility of Mrs. Marsh being shot. The Policeman had said the direct
opposite, basing his statement on what he said was inside information.
On the other hand, why on earth should hostages be taken if they were
to be liberated when the culprits had fled? I could elicit nothing more
from Zorinsky except that in his opinion Mrs. Marsh might be kept in
prison a month or two, but in the long run would most undoubtedly be
shot.
I listened but idly to the colonel, a pompous gentleman with a bushy
white beard, who came in after dinner. Zorinsky told him he might
speak freely in my presence and, sitting bolt upright, he conversed in
a rather ponderous manner on the latest developments. He appeared to
have a high opinion of Zorinsky. He confirmed the latter’s statements
regarding radical changes in the organization of the army, and said
Trotzky was planning to establish a similar new régime in the Baltic
Fleet. I was not nearly so attentive as I ought to have been, and had
to ask the colonel to repeat it all to me at our next meeting.
* * * * *
Maria was the only person I took into my confidence as to all my
movements. Every morning I banged at the chalk-marked door. Maria
let me in and I told her how things were going with Mrs. Marsh. Of
course, I always gave her optimistic reports. Then I would say,
“To-night, Maria, I am staying at the Journalist’s--you know his
address--to-morrow at Stepanovna’s, Friday night at Zorinsky’s, and
Saturday, here. So if anything happens you will know where it probably
occurred. If I disappear, wait a couple of days, and then get someone
over the frontier--perhaps the coachman will go--and tell the British
Consul.” Then I would give her my notes, written in minute handwriting
on tracing paper, and she would hide them for me. Two more Englishmen
left by Marsh’s route a few days after his departure and Maria gave
them another small packet to carry, saying it was a letter from herself
to Marsh. So it was, only on the same sheet as she had scrawled a
pencil note to Marsh I wrote a long message in invisible ink. I made
the ink by--oh, it doesn’t matter how.
Zorinsky’s reports as to Melnikoff continued to be favourable. He
hinted at a certain investigator who might have to be bought off, to
which I gave eager assent. He gave me further information on political
matters which proved to be quite accurate, and repellent though his
bearing and appearance were, I began to feel less distrustful of him.
It was about a week later, when I called him up, that he told me
“the doctors had decided his brother was sufficiently well to leave
hospital.” Tingling with excitement and expectation I hurried round.
“The investigator is our man,” explained Zorinsky, “and guarantees to
let Melnikoff out within a month.”
“How will he do it?” I inquired.
“That rather depends. He may twist the evidence, but Melnikoff’s is a
bad case and there’s not much evidence that isn’t damaging. If that’s
too hard, he may swap Melnikoff’s _dossier_ for somebody else’s and
let the error be found out when it’s too late. But he’ll manage it all
right.”
“And it must take a whole month?”
“Melnikoff will be freed about the middle of January. There’s no doubt
about it. And the investigator wants 60,000 roubles.”
“_Sixty thousand roubles!_” I gasped. I was appalled at this unexpected
figure. Where should I get the money from? The rouble was still worth
about forty to the pound, so that this was some £1,500.
“Melnikoff’s case is a hopeless one,” said Zorinsky, dryly. “No one
can let _him_ off and go scot-free. The investigator wants to be
guaranteed, for he will have to get over the frontier the same night,
too. But I advise you to pay only half now, and the rest the day
Melnikoff gets out. There will also be a few odd bribes to accomplices.
Better allow 75,000 or 80,000 roubles all told.”
“I have very little money with me just now,” I said, “but I will try to
get you the first 30,000 in two or three days.”
“And by the way,” he added, “I forgot to tell you last time you were
here that I have seen Melnikoff’s sister, who is in the direst straits.
Elena Ivanovna and I have sent her a little food, but she also needs
money. We have no money, for we scarcely use it nowadays, but perhaps
you could spare a thousand or so now and again.”
“I will give you some for her when I bring the other.”
“Thank you. She will be grateful. And now, unpleasant business over,
let’s go and have a glass of vodka. Your health, Pavel Ivanitch.”
Rejoicing at the prospect of securing Melnikoff’s release, and burdened
at the same time with the problem of procuring this large sum of money,
I rang up next day the business friend of whom Marsh had spoken, using
a pre-arranged password. Marsh called this gentleman the “Banker,”
though that was not his profession, because he had left his finances
in his charge. When I visited him I found him to be a man of agreeable
though nervous deportment, very devoted to Marsh. He was unable to
supply me with all the money I required, and I decided I must somehow
get the rest from Finland, perhaps when I took Mrs. Marsh away.
The “Banker” had just returned from Moscow, whither he had been called
with an invitation to accept a post in a new department created to
check the ruin of industry. He was very sarcastic over the manner in
which, he said, the “government of horny hands” (as the Bolsheviks
frequently designate themselves) was beginning “to grovel before people
who can read and write.” “In public speeches,” said the Banker, “they
still have to call us ‘_bourzhu_ (bourgeois) swine’ for the sake of
appearances, but in private, when the doors are closed, it is very
different. They have even ceased ‘comrading’: it is no longer ‘Comrade
A.’ or ‘Comrade B.’ when they address us--that honour they reserve
for themselves--but ‘Excuse me, Alexander Vladimirovitch,’ or ‘May I
trouble you, Boris Konstantinovitch?’” He laughed ironically. “Quite
‘pogentlemensky,’” he added, using a Russianized expression whose
meaning is obvious.
“Did you accept the post?” I asked.
“I? No, sir!” he replied with emphasis. “Do I want a dirty workman
holding a revolver over me all day? That is the sort of ‘control’ they
intend to exercise.” (He did accept it, however, just a month later,
when the offer was renewed with the promise of a tidy salary if he took
it, and prison if he didn’t.)
On the following day I brought the money to Zorinsky, and he said he
would have it transferred to the investigator at once.
“By the way,” I said, “I may be going to Finland for a few days. Do not
be surprised if you do not hear from me for a week or so.”
“To Finland?” Zorinsky was very interested. “Then perhaps you will not
return?”
“I am certain to return,” I said, “even if only on account of
Melnikoff.”
“And of course you have other business here,” he said. “By the way, how
are you going?”
“I don’t know yet; they say it is easy enough to walk over the
frontier.”
“Not quite so easy,” he replied. “Why not just walk across the bridge?”
“What bridge?”
“The frontier bridge at Bielo’ostrof.”
I thought he was mad. “What on earth do you mean?” I asked.
“It can be fixed up all right--with a little care,” he went on. “Five
or six thousand roubles to the station commissar and he’ll shut his
eyes, another thousand or so to the bridge sentry and he’ll look the
other way, and over you go. Evening is the best time, when it’s dark.”
I remembered I had heard speak of this method in Finland. Sometimes it
worked, sometimes it didn’t. It was the simplest thing in the world,
but it wasn’t sure. Commissars were erratic and not unfearful of
burning their fingers. Furthermore, the Finns sometimes turned people
back. Besides, Mrs. Marsh would be with me--I hoped--and of that
Zorinsky must know nothing.
“That is a splendid notion,” I exclaimed. “I had never thought of that.
I’ll let you know before I start.”
Next day I told him I had decided not to go to Finland because I was
thinking of going to Moscow.
* * * * *
“Madame Marsh has not been moved from _No. 2 Goróhovaya_,” declared
the little Policeman as I sat opposite him in his fetid den. “Her case
is in abeyance, and will doubtless remain so for some time. Since they
learned of Marsh’s flight they have left her alone. They may perhaps
forget all about her. Now, I think, is the time to act.”
“What will they do to her if her case comes on again?”
“It is too early yet to conjecture.”
It was shortly before Christmas that the Policeman began to grow
nervous and excited, and I could see that his emotion was real. His
plan for Mrs. Marsh’s escape was developing, occupying his whole mind
and causing him no small concern. Every day I brought him some little
present, such as cigarettes, sugar, or butter, procured from Maria,
so that he should have fewer household cares to worry over. At last I
became almost as wrought up as he was himself, while Maria, whom I kept
informed, was in a constant state of tremor resulting from her fever of
anxiety.
December 18th dawned bleak and raw. The wind tore in angry gushes round
the corners of the houses, snatching up the sandy snow, and flinging it
viciously in the half-hidden faces of hurrying, harassed pedestrians.
Toward noon the storm abated, and Maria and I set out together for a
neighbouring market-place. We were going to buy a woman’s cloak, for
that night I was to take Mrs. Marsh across the frontier.
The corner of the Kuznetchny Pereulok and the Vladimirovsky Prospect
has been a busy place for “speculators” ever since private trading was
prohibited. Even on this bitter winter day there were the usual lines
of wretched people standing patiently, disposing of personal belongings
or of food got by foraging in the country. Many of them were women of
the educated class, selling off their last possessions in the effort
to scrape together sufficient to buy meagre provisions for themselves
or their families. Either they were unable to find occupation or were
here in the intervals of work. Old clothing, odds and ends of every
description, crockery, toys, nick-nacks, clocks, books, pictures,
paper, pots, pans, pails, pipes, post-cards--the entire paraphernalia
of antiquarian and second-hand dealers’ shops--could here be found
turned out on to the pavements.
Maria and I passed the people selling sugar by the lump, their little
stock of four or five lumps exposed on outstretched palms. We also
passed the herrings, and the “bread patties” of greenish colour.
Passers-by would pick up a patty, smell it, and if they did not like
it, would put it back and try the next. Maria was making for the old
clothing, and as we pushed through the crowd we kept eyes and ears open
for warning of a possible raid, for from time to time bands of guards
would make a sudden dash at the “speculators,” arrest a few unlucky
ones, and disperse the rest.
Maria soon found what she wanted--a warm cloak which had evidently seen
better days. The tired eyes of the tall, refined lady from whom we
bought it opened wide as I immediately paid the first price she asked.
“_Je vous remercie, Madame_,” I said, and as Maria donned the cloak and
we moved away the look of scorn on the lady’s face passed into one of
astonishment.
“Don’t fail to have tea ready at five, Maria,” I said as we returned.
“Am I likely to fail, Ivan Ilitch?”
We sat and waited. The minutes were hours, the hours days. At three
I said: “I am going now, Maria.” Biting her fingers, Maria stood
trembling as I left her and set out to walk across the town.
* * * * *
The dingy interior of the headquarters of the Extraordinary Commission,
with its bare stairs and passages, is an eerie place at all times of
the year, but never is its sombre, sorrow-laden gloom so intense as
on a December afternoon when dusk is sinking into darkness. While
Maria and I, unable to conceal our agitation, made our preparations,
there sat in one of the inner chambers at _No. 2 Goróhovaya_ a
group of women, from thirty to forty in number. Their faces were
undistinguishable in the growing darkness as they sat in groups on
the wooden planks which took the place of bedsteads. The room was
over-heated and nauseatingly stuffy, but the patient figures paid no
heed, nor appeared to care whether it be hot or cold, dark or light. A
few chatted in undertones, but most of them sat motionless and silent,
waiting, waiting, endlessly waiting.
The terror-hour had not yet come--it came only at seven each evening.
The terror-hour was more terrible in the men’s chambers, where the toll
was greater, but it visited the women, too. Then, every victim knew
that if the heavy door was opened and his name called, he passed out
into eternity. For executions were carried out in the evening and the
bodies removed at night.
At seven o’clock, all talk, all action ceased. Faces set, white and
still, fixed on the heavy folding-door. When it creaked every figure
became a statue, a death-statue, stone-livid, breathless, dead in life.
A moment of ghastly, intolerable suspense, a silence that could be
felt, and in the silence--a name. And when the name was spoken, every
figure--but one--would imperceptibly relapse. Here and there a lip
would twitch, here and there a smile would flicker. But no one would
break the dead silence. One of their number was doomed.
The figure that bore the spoken name would rise, and move, move slowly
with a wooden, unnatural gait, tottering along the narrow aisle between
the plank couches. Some would look up and some would look down; some,
fascinated, would watch the dead figure pass; and some would pray, or
mutter, “To-morrow, maybe, I.” Or there would be a frantic shriek, a
brutal struggle, and worse than Death would fill the chamber, till
where two were, one only would be left, heaving convulsively, insane,
clutching the rough woodwork with bleeding nails.
But the silence was the silence of supreme compassion, the eyes that
followed or the eyes that fell were alike those of brothers or sisters,
for in death’s hour vanish all differences and there reigns the only
true Communism--the Communism of Sympathy. Not there, in the Kremlin,
nor there in the lying soviets--but here in the terrible house of
inquisition, in the Communist dungeons, is true Communism at last
established!
But on this December afternoon the terror-hour was not yet. There were
still three hours’ respite, and the figures spoke low in groups or sat
silently waiting, waiting, endlessly waiting.
Then suddenly a name was called. “_Lydia Marsh!_”
The hinges creaked, the guard appeared in the doorway, and the name was
spoken loud and clearly. “It is not the terror-hour yet,” thought every
woman, glancing at the twilight through the high, dirt-stained windows.
A figure rose from a distant couch. “What can it be?” “Another
interrogation?” “An unusual hour!” Low voices sounded from the group.
“They’ve left me alone three days,” said the rising figure, wearily. “I
suppose now it begins all over again. Well, _à bientôt_.”
The figure disappeared in the doorway, and the women went on
waiting--waiting for seven o’clock.
“Follow me,” said the guard. He moved along the corridor and turned
down a side-passage. They passed others in the corridor, but no one
heeded. The guard stopped. Looking up, the woman saw she was outside
the women’s lavatory. She waited. The guard pointed with his bayonet.
“In here?” queried the figure in surprise. The guard was silent. The
woman pushed the door open and entered.
Lying in the corner were a dark green shawl and a shabby hat, with two
slips of paper attached. One of them was a pass in an unknown name,
stating that the holder had entered the building at four o’clock and
must leave before seven. The other had scrawled on it the words: “Walk
straight into St. Izaac’s Cathedral.”
Mechanically she destroyed the second slip, adjusted the shabby hat,
and wrapping the shawl well round her neck and face passed out into the
passage. She elbowed others in the corridor, but no one heeded her. At
the foot of the main staircase she was asked for her pass. She showed
it and was motioned on. At the main entrance she was again asked for
her pass. She showed it and was passed out into the street. She looked
up and down. The street was empty, and crossing the road hurriedly she
disappeared round the corner.
Like dancing constellations the candles flickered and flared in front
of the ikons at the foot of the huge pillars of the vast cathedral.
Halfway up the columns vanished in gloom. I had already burned two
candles, and though I was concealed in the niche of a pillar, I knelt
and stood alternately, partly from impatience, partly that my piety
should be patent to any chance observer. But my eyes were fixed on the
little wooden side-entrance. How interminable the minutes seemed.
A quarter to five! Then the green shawl appeared. It looked almost
black in the dim darkness. It slipped through the doorway quickly,
stood still a moment, and moved irresolutely forward. I walked up to
the shrouded figure.
“Mrs. Marsh?” I said quietly in English.
“Yes.”
“I am the person you are to meet. I hope you will soon see your
husband.”
“Where is he?” she asked, anxiously.
“In Finland. You go there with me to-night.”
We left the cathedral and crossing the square took a cab and drove to
the place called Five Corners. Here we walked a little and finding
another cab drove near to “No. 5,” again walking the last hundred
yards. I banged at the door three times.
How shall I describe the meeting with Maria! I left them weeping
together and went into another room. Neither will I attempt to describe
the parting, when an hour later Mrs. Marsh stood ready for her journey,
clad in the cloak we had purchased in the morning, and with a black
shawl in place of the green one.
“There is no time to lose,” I said. “We must be at the station at
seven, and it is a long drive.”
The adieus were over at last, and Maria stood weeping at the door as we
made our way down the dark stone stairs.
“I will call you Varvara,” I cautioned my companion. “You call me
Vania, and if by chance we are stopped, I am taking you to hospital.”
We drove slowly to the distant straggling Okhta station, where lately
I had watched the huge figure of Marsh clamber on to the roof and
disappear through the window. The little Policeman was on the platform,
sincerely overjoyed at this happy ending to his design. I forgot his
ways, his dirtiness, his messy quarters, and thanked him heartily, and
as I thrust the packet of money Marsh had left for him into his hand, I
felt that at this moment, at least, that was not what was uppermost in
his thoughts.
“Come on, Varvara!” I shouted in Russian, rudely tugging Mrs. Marsh by
the sleeve and dragging her along the platform. “We shan’t get places
if you stand gaping like that! Come on, stupid!” I hauled her toward
the train, and seeing an extra box-car being hitched on in front,
rushed in its direction.
“Gently, gently, Vania!” cried my companion in genuine distress as I
lifted her bodily and landed her on the dirty floor.
“_Ne zievai!_” I cried. “_Sadyis! Na, beri mieshotchek!_ Don’t yawn!
Get in! Here, take the bag!” and while I clambered up, I handed her
the packet of sandwiches made by Maria for the journey. “If anything
happens,” I whispered in English when we were safely ensconced, “we are
’speculators’--looking for milk; that’s what nearly everybody here is
doing.”
The compact, seething mass of beings struggling to squirm into the
car resembled a swarm of hiving bees, and in a few moments the place
was packed like a sardine-box. In vain late arrivals endeavoured,
headforemost, to burrow a path inward. In vain some dozens of
individuals pleaded to the inmates to squeeze “just a little tighter”
and make room “for just one more.” Somehow the doors were slid to, and
we sat in the pitch darkness and waited.
Though the car must have held nearly a hundred people, once we were
shut in conversation ceased completely; scarcely any one spoke, and if
they did it was in undertones. Until the train started, the silence,
but for audible breathing, was uncanny. Only a boy, sitting next to
my companion, coughed during the whole journey--coughed rackingly
and incessantly, nearly driving me mad. After a while a candle was
produced, and round the flickering light at one end of the car some
Finns began singing folk-songs. A few people tumbled out at wayside
stations, and four hours later, when we arrived at Grusino, the car was
only three-quarters full.
It was nearly midnight. A mass of humanity surged from the train
and dispersed rapidly into the woods in all directions. I took my
companion, as Marsh had directed, along a secluded path in the wrong
direction. A few minutes later we turned, and crossing the rails a
little above the platform, took the forest track that led to Fita’s
house.
[Illustration: RAILWAY TRAVELLING IN SOVIET RUSSIA]
Fita was a Finn, the son of a peasant who had been shot by the
Bolsheviks for “speculation.” While Fita was always rewarded for his
services as guide, his father’s death was a potent incentive to him to
do whatever lay in his power to help those who were fleeing from his
parent’s murderers. Eventually he was discovered in this occupation,
and suffered the same fate as his father, being shot “for conspiring
against the proletarian dictatorship.” He was only sixteen years of
age, very simple and shy, but courageous and enterprising.
We had an hour to wait at Fita’s cottage, and while Mrs. Marsh lay down
to rest I took the boy aside to speak about the journey and question
him as to four other people, obviously fugitives like ourselves, whom
we found in his house.
“Which route are we going by,” I asked, “north or west?”
“North,” he answered. “It is much longer, but when the weather is good
it is not difficult walking and is the safest.”
“You have the best sledge for me?”
“Yes, and the best horse.”
“These other people, who are they?”
“I don’t know. The man is an officer. He came inquiring in these parts
three days ago and the peasants directed him to me. I promised to help
him.”
Besides the Russian officer, clad in rough working clothes, there was
a lady who spoke French, and two pretty girls of about fifteen and
seventeen years of age. The girls were dressed rather _à la turcque_,
in brown woollen jerkins and trousers of the same material. They
showed no trace of nervousness, and both looked as though they were
thoroughly enjoying a jolly adventure. They spoke to the officer
in Russian and to the lady in French, and I took it that she was a
governess and he an escort.
We drove out from Fita’s cottage at one o’clock. The land through which
the Russian frontier passes west of Lake Ladoga is forest and morass,
with few habitations. In winter the morass freezes and is covered
with deep snow. The next stage of our journey ended at a remote hut
five miles from the frontier on the Russian side, the occupant of
which, likewise a Finnish peasant, was to conduct us on foot through
the woods to the first Finnish village, ten miles beyond. The night
was a glorious one. The day’s storm had completely abated. Huge white
clouds floated slowly across the full moon, and the air was still. The
fifteen-mile sleigh-drive from Fita’s cottage to the peasant’s hut,
over hill and dale, by bye-ways and occasionally straight across the
marshes when outposts had to be avoided, was one of the most beautiful
I have ever experienced--even in Russia.
In a large open clearing of the forest stood three or four rude huts,
with tumbledown outhouses, black, silent, and, like a picture to a
fairy tale, throwing blue shadows on the dazzling snow. The driver
knocked at one of the doors. After much waiting it was opened, and we
were admitted by an old peasant and his wife, obviously torn from their
slumbers.
We were joined a quarter of an hour later by the other party,
exchanging, however, no civilities or signs of recognition. When the
peasant had dressed we set out.
Deserting the track almost immediately, we launched into the deep snow
across the open ground, making directly for the forest. Progress was
retarded by the soft snowdrifts into which our feet sank as high as the
knees, and for the sake of the ladies we had to make frequent halts.
Winding in and out of the forest, avoiding tracks and skirting open
spaces, it seemed an interminable time before we arrived anywhere near
the actual frontier line.
Mrs. Marsh and the French lady patched up a chatting acquaintance, and
during one of our halts, while the girls were lying outstretched on the
snow, I asked her if the French lady had told her who our companions
were. But the French lady, it appeared, would not say, until we had
actually crossed the frontier.
I was astonished at the manner in which Mrs. Marsh stood the strain of
our night adventure. She had been in prison nearly a month, living on
the scanty and atrocious prison food, subjected to long, nerve-racking
and searching cross-examinations, yet she bore up better than any of
the other females in our party, and after rest-halts was always the
first to be ready to restart. There were ditches to cross and narrow,
rickety bridges to be traversed. Once our guide, laden with parcels,
suddenly vanished, sinking completely into an invisible dyke which
had filled with drifted snow. He scrambled up the other side all wet
from the water into which he had plunged through the thin ice. The
snow was so soft that we could find no foothold from which to jump,
and it looked as if there were no means of crossing except as our poor
guide had done, until the idea occurred to me that if I sprawled on my
stomach the snowdrift might not collapse under my weight. So, planting
my feet as deeply as I could, I threw myself across, digging with my
hands into the other side till I got a grip, and thus forming a bridge.
Mrs. Marsh walked tentatively across my back, the drift still held, the
others followed. I wriggled over on my stomach, and we all got over dry.
At last we arrived at a dyke about eight or ten feet broad, filled with
water and only partially frozen over. A square white-and-black post on
its bank showed that we were at the frontier. “The outposts are a mile
away on either hand,” whispered our peasant-guide. “We must get across
as quickly as possible.”
The dyke lay across a clearing in the forest. We walked along it,
looking wistfully at the other bank ten feet away, and searching for
the bridge our guide said should be somewhere here. All at once a black
figure emerged from the trees a hundred yards behind us. We stood
stock-still, expecting others to appear, and ready, if attacked, to
jump into the dyke and reach the other bank at all costs. Our guide was
the most terrified of the party, but the black figure turned out to be
only a peasant acquaintance of his from another village, who told us
there was a bridge at the other end of the clearing.
The “bridge” we found to be a rickety plank, ice-covered and slippery,
that threatened to give way as each one of us stepped on to it. One by
one we crossed it, expecting it every moment to collapse, till at last
we stood in a little group on the farther side.
“This is Finland,” observed our guide, laconically, “that is the last
you will see of _Sovdepia_.” He used an ironical popular term for
Soviet Russia constructed from the first syllables of the words Soviets
of Deputies.
The moment they set foot on Finnish soil the two girls crossed
themselves devoutly and fell on their knees. Then we moved up to a
fallen tree-trunk some distance away and sat down to eat sandwiches.
“It’s all right for you,” the peasant went on, suddenly beginning to
talk. “You’re out of it, but I’ve got to go back.” He had scarcely said
a word the whole time, but once out of Russia, even though “_Sovdepia_”
was but a few yards distant, he felt he could say what he liked. And he
did. But most of the party paid but little attention to his complaints
against the hated “_Kommuna_.” That was now all behind.
It was easy work from thence onward. There was another long walk
through deep snow, but we could lie down as often as we pleased
without fear of discovery by Red patrols. We should only have to
report to the nearest Finnish authorities and ask for an escort until
we were identified. We all talked freely now--no longer in nervous
whispers--and everyone had some joke to tell that made everybody else
laugh. At one of our halts Mrs. Marsh whispered in my ear, “They are
the daughters of the Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovitch, the Tsar’s uncle,
who was imprisoned the other day.”
The girls were his daughters by a morganatic marriage. I thought little
of them at the time, except that they were both very pretty and very
tastefully dressed in their sporting costumes. But I was reminded of
them a few weeks later when I was back in Petrograd. Without trial,
their father was shot one night in the fortress of St. Peter and St.
Paul, and his body, together with other near relatives of the murdered
Tsar, was thrown into a common and unmarked grave.
The incident did not impress me as it did some, for in the
revolutionary tornado those of high estate pass like chaff before
the wind. I could not but feel more for the hundreds less known and
less fortunate who were unable to flee and escape the cruel scythe of
revolution. Still, I was glad the young girls I had travelled with
were no longer in the place called _Sovdepia_. How, I wondered, would
they learn of the grim tragedy of the gloomy fortress? Who would tell
them? To whom would fall the bitter lot to say: “Your father was shot
for bearing the name he bore--shot, not in fair fight, but like a dog,
by a gang of Letts and Chinese hirelings, and his body lies none knows
where”? And I was glad it was not I.