"Do not speak of these things! They are not to be spoken of, much less
to _you_." He looked as though he hated me. "I beg your pardon, I am
nervous. You must excuse me." He went away hurriedly.
"Poor chap!" Professor A---- said. "It is hard for us all in this heat.
And, yes, some of us have more imagination than others."
A man in uniform came into the garden. He walked to a tree in the
center, and stood in the shade, a long sheet of paper in his hand. There
was a stir among the Jews. Those lying down got up and approached him.
The women, with their children, dragged themselves nearer. Every one
stopped talking. The apathy and indifference gave place to a strained
attention. There was a kind of dreadful anxiety on every face--a
tightening of the muscles round the eyes and mouths, as though the same
horrible fear fixed the same mark there. I have never seen a crowd where
personality was so stamped out by a single overmastering emotion. The
gendarme began to read in a sing-song voice.
"What is he saying?" I whispered.
"The names of those who are to leave this afternoon," Mme. C----
replied.
The garden was absolutely still except for the monotonous voice and the
breathing of the crowd. Oh, yes, and the flies. It was not that I forgot
the flies, only their buzzing was the ceaseless accompaniment to
everything that happened in the camp.
"How horrible this is!" Mme. C---- observed. "They all know it must
come, but when it does, it is almost unbearable. It is truly a list of
death. Many of them here cannot survive another stage of the journey in
this heat. And yet they must be moved on to make place for those who are
pressing on from behind. In this very crowd were five old men who were
killed on the way here, by the soldiers, because they couldn't keep up
with the procession. How could these civilians be expected to endure
such hardships? They are townspeople, most of them having lived indoors
all their lives, like you or me."
"Like you or me." No, no. It was unbelievable. I could not put myself in
their place. I could not imagine such insecurity--that lives could be
broken in the middle in this way.
"How useless it all seems!" I said.
"Useless. You think so?" Mme. C---- took me up. "Do you realize that
whole Galician towns have been moved into Siberia this summer? Part of
the way on foot, part in baggage cars, where they stifled to death in
the heat and for lack of water and food. One carload wasn't listed, or
was forgotten by some careless official, and when it was finally opened
it was a carload of rotting flesh. The bodies were thrown into the river
by the frightened official, but a soldier reported him and he was
court-martialed. One crowd of several thousand was taken to Siberia.
They reached Tomsk. Then the Government changed. What was the need to
transport these Galician Jews? the new Minister argued: a useless
expense to the Government: a waste of money and time. Let them go back
to their homes. So the Jews were taken back over the same route, many
more dying on the return journey, in the jails, and camps, and baggage
cars, or by the roadsides. They found themselves once more back in their
pillaged towns, with nothing to work with, and yet with their livelihood
to be earned somehow. They began to dig and plant and take up the
routine of their lives again. They began to look on themselves as human
again. The grind of suffering and hopelessness began to let up and they
had moments of hope. And then the reactionaries came into power with
their systematic oppression of the Jews. Back to Siberia with them! This
in midsummer heat. I saw them as they passed through Kiev for the third
time, a few weeks ago. Never shall I forget them as I saw them last. The
mark of the beast was on them. You couldn't call them living or
suffering or martyrs any more. They were beyond the point where they
prayed to die."
The gendarme had finished his list. The tension relaxed. Some of the
Jews settled back into their former apathy; others gathered in excited
groups, pulling their beards and scratching their heads; still others
walked up and down the paths, restless, like so many caged animals.
A man and a woman with two children approached the gendarme
deprecatingly. The man asked a question, indicating the woman and
children. The gendarme shook his head. The man persisted. The gendarme
refused again, and started to move away. The man detained him with a
hand on his arm. Another man approached. He spread out both hands, his
shoulders up to his ears. All three men spoke Polish in loud, excited
voices.
"What are they saying?" I asked.
"The gendarme has just read the names of the woman and children who are
to leave this afternoon. The father's name is not with theirs.
Naturally, he wants to be with his wife and children to protect and care
for them as best he can. If they are separated now, they can never find
each other again in Siberia--if they live till they get there. The third
man is alone. He is willing to give up his place to the father. But the
gendarme refuses. 'His name is written. Yours is not. It is the order,'
he says."
The gendarme now left the garden. The woman was sobbing in her husband's
arms. He was patting her hair. The children hung at their mother's
skirt, crying and sucking their fingers.
_August 12, 1915._
_Dearest Mother and Dad:--_
They say there was no ammunition at the front. No shells for the
soldiers. They had nothing to do but retreat. And now? They are still
retreating, fighting with empty guns and clubs and even their naked
hands. And still, trainloads of soldiers go out of Kiev every day
without a gun in their hands. What a butchery! Can you imagine how
horrible it is to see them march through the streets, swinging their
arms and singing their stirring songs,--tall, able-bodied men,--while
the beggars, cripples from the Russo-Japanese War, stand whining at the
street corners.
There seems to be no doubt about the enemy within the gates. How can the
soldiers give their lives so patiently and bravely for a Government
whose villainy and corruption take no account of the significance of
their sacrifices. The German influence is still strong. They say German
money bribes the Ministers at home and the generals at the front.
There is great distrust of the Czarina and the Monk Rasputin. The latter
was a serf in Siberia, and now has a malignant, hypnotic influence in
the Russian Court. If he is refused anything, he falls on the floor in a
fit and froths at the mouth until he gets what he wants. The Court
ladies have to lick his dirty fingers clean, for he refuses to use a
finger-bowl at table. Take this for what it's worth. At any rate, there
is much talk now of the Germans working through this disreputable
creature.