_July 5, 1915._
_Darlingest Mother and Dad:--_
We have been in Kiev several days. Our passports have been handed in to
the police station to be viséed and put in order for our return trip to
Bucharest. They say a human being in Russia is made of body and
passport.
Kiev is full of color. It is framed in green trees that hide the
ugliness of modern buildings and seem to lift the gold and silver domes
of the churches up into the air. And how many churches there are! Kiev
is in truth a holy city. Late afternoon, when the sun shines through the
dust of the day and envelops the city in golden powder; when the gold
and silver domes of the churches float up over the tree-tops like
unsubstantial, gleaming bubbles, and the bells fill the air with lovely,
mellow sounds,--then I can truly say I have felt more deeply religious
than ever before in my life. Yet, suddenly, I see the woman who climbs
Institutska Oulitza every evening on her knees. She is dressed in black,
and deeply veiled, and every evening she climbs the hill on her knees.
At first I thought she was a cripple, but, on arriving at the top of the
hill, she rose to her feet and walked away.
"What is she doing?" I asked Marie.
"Oh, a penance, probably, that the Church has imposed on her."
And then the churches and their domes grow almost hateful to me. I think
of the Russian peasants with their foreheads in the dust, and the
greasy, long-haired priests I see on the streets.
Yet I don't know--perhaps the priests don't really matter. After all,
there must be something in the people's hearts--a belief--an idealism--a
faith in God that keeps them loving Russia, dreaming for her, and able
to dream again after they've seen their dreams trampled on. No, the
priests and their autocracy don't matter. The people believe, and that's
the important thing.
We went out yesterday afternoon to the Lavra--the stronghold of Black
Russia. It is a monastery on the edge of the town, overlooking the
Dnieper and flanked with battlemented walls to withstand the attacks of
the infidels in olden times. From all over Russia and the Balkans
pilgrims go there to visit the catacombs, where many church saints are
buried, their bodies miraculously preserved under red and gold
clothes--so the priests say.
The road leading to it passed the barracks, where we saw young recruits
drilling. They were learning to walk, and their arms swung stiffly and
self-consciously, and their legs bent at the knees and straightened
again like the wooden legs of mechanical toys. As they marched, they
sang wonderful Russian soldier songs. They appeared to be about
twenty-three or twenty-four, as though they had got their growth, and
were tall and broad-shouldered--not at all like the batch of Austrian
prisoners we passed a few minutes later, and who looked like pathetic,
bewildered children, beardless for the most part, and in uniforms too
large for them. They shuffled along in a cloud of gray dust under a
metallic sun. Some were slightly wounded in the head or arm, and were
supported by their comrades. As I passed, I encountered certain
eyes--frank, gray eyes that reminded me of Morris. The long, white,
dusty road became tragic to me, with the prisoners in their worn blue
uniforms, and those who were about to die, singing in the distance.
We met bullock-carts crawling into town, coming from distant villages,
with fresh vegetables for the markets. The peasants walked by the oxen,
prodding them with short sticks. There seem to be so many men here of
military age, yet not in the army. It isn't like other countries, where
every one but the Jews is in uniform. Russia has so many men. They say
five million more could easily be raised if they had the officers and
ammunition.
We reached a high plaster wall, with little booths built under its
shadows, where pilgrims bought souvenirs of the Lavra--gaudy ikons,
colored handkerchiefs and shawls, beads and baskets.
A group of pilgrims entered the gate in front of us, all from the same
village, evidently, for the women's dresses resembled each other's in
cut and embroidery, and a few of the younger women's were even dyed the
same color, as often happens in wool of the same shearing. In spite of
the heat, the men wore sheepskin coats and fur caps, and the women's
skirts were thick with petticoats. Some of the women led children by the
hand; others carried babies in their arms, poor little mites, with faces
covered with sores, and eyes red and blinking as though they were going
blind. They all bent and kissed the hand of the priest who sold candles
under the covered arched gateway, and then they passed into the open
square surrounded by the monastery walls. There was a sort of garden
here; all the grass worn off by the countless pilgrims who had visited
the shrine, but with trees in whose shade the peasants rested when their
sins had been forgiven. Some lay curled up on the ground, fast asleep;
others sat with their legs spread comfortably apart, eating bread and
meat; and others drank thirstily from the well, or let the water run
over their tired feet.
Facing us was the church with its gold domes blindingly bright against
the blue sky. We followed the pilgrims and entered the chapel, where
everything suddenly grew hushed and dark, with a strange odor--a mixture
of thick, sweet incense and melting candle grease, and smelly,
perspiring peasants.
The pilgrims bought candles and lighted them, and knelt on the flagging
before the altar. Behind an elaborate railing the lustrous jewels and
gold of the vessels and crucifixes glowed richly in the dim light.
Priests in gorgeous vestments were going through some church ceremony.
Their deep chanting filled the church. They knelt and rose, and finally,
by a mechanical contrivance, something was raised in an inner shrine,
and a priest took off a cloth of crimson and gold, and uncovered a
wonderful gold cup encrusted with jewels. I leaned against a pillar,
watching the kneeling peasants, and over their bent backs the mystery
and richness of the altar glowing with jewels and only half disclosed by
the tiny pointed candle flames flickering in the darkness. The Lavra is
one of the two richest monasteries in Russia. Its wealth is fathomless.
It has lent emperors treasure with which to fight the infidels, and on
returning from holy wars the emperors have brought it back to the church
increased a hundred fold by royal gifts of jewels and loot.
We went out into the blinding sunlight again, and down a long flight of
cloister steps to the catacombs.
A priest was selling bottles of a white liquid.
"What is it?" Marie asked.
"Holy water," the priest replied. "It is not for your kind." But he took
the kopecks of an old peasant woman. "Rub it on your joints and it will
cure their stiffness," he said to her, with a cynical smile.
Three fat priests sat at the entrance of the catacombs, selling
different-sized candles. The very poor peasants, who came barefooted,
could only afford the very thin tapers, while the rich villagers, with
heavy, well-made boots and much embroidery on their clothes, bought
candles as thick as a man's thumb, and sometimes two or three at a time,
which they held lighted between their fingers.
A short, fat priest, his face dripping with perspiration, led us through
the catacombs. He would wipe the sweat out of his eyes with the sleeve
of his dirty gown, and point to the saints' tombs with the big iron key
he carried. I was pressed close to him by the crowd of peasants behind.
The smell of his greasy body and the powder of dandruff from his long
hair on the shoulders of his gown, the malicious way he looked at me as
though to say, "You and I know that what I'm saying is rot, but it must
be said to them"--it was indescribably disgusting.
We wound through narrow, dungeon-like passages with the cold, damp smell
of an unused cellar. Now and then, through barred windows in the stone
walls, I caught glimpses of tall forms lying in a row, covered with
dingy red and gold cloths.
"Here lie nine brothers who lived for twenty years in this cell. Their
only food was bread and water three times a week. As you see, they had
no room to stand upright in, and were always pressed close to each
other."
The peasants peered through the bars wonderingly.
We passed a body stretched out on a stone ledge.
"This holy saint cured the blind," the priest continued in a sing-song
voice. "He lived in a cell too small to lie down in. For twenty-two
years he never opened his mouth. His body, like the bodies of all the
holy saints in these catacombs, is preserved without a sign of decay
under this cloth." A peasant woman lifted her little boy up to kiss the
edge of the dirty red pall. The pale flame of her candle flickered and
the melted wax dripped on to the cloth. The woman wiped it off quickly,
and glanced in a frightened way at the priest. But he turned away
indifferently and went on.
We saw the bust of a man buried to his arm-pits in the floor. I would
have stumbled over him, but the priest caught my arm.
"This is a holy saint, who, for twenty-five years, stood as you see him,
buried in the earth to above his waist. He never spoke and only ate
bread and water twice a week."
I looked at the peasants. Their faces were scared and white. A few hung
back with a morbid curiosity.
"Come, come," the priest called impatiently. "Keep together. Some get
lost here and never get out again."
I had heard of three pretty peasant girls who had mysteriously
disappeared in the catacombs.
"Ouf!" The priest unlocked an iron door and we came squinting out into
the daylight again. He held the door open and mopped his face as we
filed past him, snuffing our candles. The pilgrims kept theirs.
Outside, some of the peasants clustered about the priest and asked him
questions. As I glanced back over my shoulder, I saw the circle of
round, inquiring faces with their look of unbounded confidence.
We went around back of the monastery to an open plateau overlooking the
Dnieper. The river curved like a blue ribbon, and we could see the three
pontoon bridges for "military reasons." On the low bank opposite were
the soldiers' white tents laid out in regular squares. A ferry-boat was
carrying some soldiers across the river. The sun flashed on the
sentries' bayonets along the bank.
I heard the whine of a hand-organ. An armless beggar was turning the
crank of an organ with his bare feet. The plateau was fairly alive with
beggars, hopping about in the dust like fleas. Some were armless; others
legless. They swung along at our heels on long, muscular arms, with
leather on the palms of their hands, or dragged distorted, paralyzed
bodies that tried to stand upright by our sides.
In the white, hot sunlight squatted an old man with a white, pointed
beard so long that it lay out on the dust in front of him. In his arms
he held a book done up in red cloth. He was blind. If you put a coin in
a tin cup he wore round his neck, he would undo his book and open it,
and by divine inspiration read the holy words of the page in front of
him.
A row of seven blind women lined the exit. They began to whine as we
approached, and stretched out their hands gropingly. The eyes of one
woman had completely disappeared as though they had been knotted up and
pulled back into her head. Another's bulged like a dead fish's, with
that dull, bluish look in them. Another's lids were closed and crusted
with sores, flies continuously creeping over them, but apparently she
was indifferent. The seven blind women sat in rags and filth. Shall I
ever forget them in the burning sunlight, with their terrible eyes and
greedy fingers and the whine of their voices merging into the tune of
the hand-organ?
When we left the monastery, a group of wounded soldiers were just
entering. With them was a woman in a man's uniform. Her hair was curly
and short, and her chin pointed. Her feet looked ridiculously small in
the heavy, high, soldier's boots, and in spite of a strut her knees
knocked together in an unmistakably feminine manner. But the men treated
her quite as one of themselves. One soldier, who had had his leg cut off
up to the thigh, supported himself by her shoulder. I have seen several
women soldiers in Kiev, and they say there are many in the Russian army.
It is strange, seeing these things without Peter. I expect to go back to
Bucharest with Marie and Janchu within a week. There Peter will meet
us. I wish he were here now.