_October._
_Darlingest Mother and Dad:--_
This afternoon I went up to the English Consulate with Sasha. As we
turned the corner we saw a long gray procession of carts crawling down
the hill toward us. I stopped and watched them pass me, one after the
other, crowded over to the side of the road by the usual traffic of a
busy street. Peasants walked by the horses' heads, men in dusty
sheepskin coats, or women muffled up somehow, their hands hidden in the
bosoms of their waists for warmth. They stared ahead with a curious,
blind look in their eyes, as though they did not realize the noise and
movement of the city life about them. How strange it was, the passing of
this silent peasant procession by the side of the clanging trains and
gray war automobiles!
"Who are these people?" I asked Sasha.
"They must be the fugitives," she replied. "Every day they come in
increasing numbers. I have heard the Kiev authorities are trying to turn
them aside and make them go round the outskirts; for what can a city do
with whole provinces of homeless and hungry peasants?"
"You mean they are the refugees who have been driven out of their homes
by the enemy?" I asked.
"Yes. By the Germans and Austrians."
The carts jolted slowly down the hill, the brakes grinding against the
wheels, the little rough-coated horses holding back in the shafts.
Sometimes, where there should have been two horses, there was only one.
The others evidently had been sold or else died on the way. Only one
small horse to drag a heavy double cart crowded with people and
furnishings. One little horse looked about to drop. His sides were
heaving painfully and his eyes were glazed. "Why don't they stop and
rest," I thought. "Why does that man keep on? His horse will die, and
then what will he do?"
"What do they do when their horses give out?" I asked Sasha.
"What can they do?" she replied. "What did they do when they were forced
to leave their farms and lands? They bear it. The Russian people have a
great capacity for suffering. Think of it--what this means
now--hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people made homeless and sent
wandering over the face of the earth. Think of the separations--the
families broken up--the bewilderment. A month ago, perhaps, they had
their houses and lands and food to eat. They were muzhiks. And now they
are wandering, homeless, like Tziganes. Ah, the Russian people were born
into a heritage of suffering, and to us all the future is hidden."
I kept my eyes on the endless procession. Some of the carts were open
farm wagons, piled with hay, and hung with strange assortments of
household utensils. Frying-pans and kettles were strung along the sides,
enameled ones, sometimes, that showed a former prosperity. Inside were
piles of mattresses and chairs; perhaps a black stovepipe stuck out
through the slatted sides of the cart. The women and children huddled
together in the midst of their household goods, wrapped up in the extra
petticoats and waists and shawls they had brought along--anything for
warmth. The children were pale and pinched, and some of them had their
eyes closed as though they were sick. If they looked at you, it was
without any curiosity or eagerness. How pitiful the indifference of the
children was!
Sometimes the carts were covered with faded cloth stretched over rounded
frameworks like gypsy-wagons. There, the old _babas_ sat on the front
seats, eyes like black shoe-buttons, with their lives almost finished.
They seemed the least affected by the misery and change. They occupied
the most comfortable places, and held the bright-colored ikons in their
arms--the most precious possession of a Russian home. Perhaps a dog was
tied under the wagon, or a young colt trotted along by its mother's
side.
It was as though there had been a great fire, and every one had caught
up what he could to save from destruction: homes broken into little bits
to be put together again in a strange land.
An open cart broke down in front of us. The woman got out to help her
husband. She had a round, pock-marked face, as expressionless as wood.
She wore a bright shawl over her hair, and a long sheepskin coat, with
the sleeves and pockets beautifully embroidered in colors. It was dirty,
now, but indicated she had been well-to-do once. She limped badly.
"Good-evening," I said.
"Good-evening, excellency," she replied civilly.
"Are you hurt?" I asked.
"My feet are blistered from the walking," she replied. "I take turns
with my husband."
"Where are you from?"
"Rovno."
"How long have you been on the way?"
"Many weeks. Who knows how long?"
"And where are you going?"
"Where the others go. Somewhere into the interior."
The procession had not halted, but, turning out for the broken-down
cart, continued uninterruptedly down the hill. Every now and then the
peasant looked up anxiously.
"We must hurry. We mustn't be left behind," he muttered.
"What do you eat?" I asked the woman.
"What we can find. Sometimes we get food at the relief stations, or we
get it along the way."
"Do the villages you pass through help you?" I persisted.
"They do what they can. But there are so many of us."
"Can't you find cabbages and potatoes in the fields?" I asked.
The woman looked at me suspiciously for a moment, and did not reply.
"Why do you want to know these things?" she asked, after a silence.
"What business is it of yours?"
"I want to help you."
"Help us." She shook her head. "But I'll tell you," she said. "I did
take some potatoes once. It was before the cold weather. I dug them out
of a field we passed through after dark. No one saw me. My children were
crying with hunger and I had nothing to give them. So I dug up a handful
of potatoes in the dark. But God saw me and punished me. I cooked the
potatoes over a fire by the roadside, but He kept the heat from reaching
the inside of the potatoes. Two of my children sickened and died from
eating them. It was God's punishment. We buried them along the road. My
husband made the crosses out of wood and carved their names on them.
They lie way behind us now--unsung. But perhaps those who pass along the
road and see the crosses will offer up a prayer."
"I will burn candles for them," I said. "What were their names?"
"Sonia and Peter Kolpakova, your excellency. You are good. God bless
you!" And she kissed my hands.
I looked at the three children who were left. They sat in the cart
silently, surrounded by the incongruous collection of pots and pans, and
leaning against a painted chest. The chest was covered with dust, but
you could still see a bunch of bright-painted flowers behind the
children's heads.
"Poor little things," I said. "Are they cold?"
"It's hard on the children," the mother replied stolidly. "They can't
stand it as we can. We are used to trouble. We know what life is. But
the children--they are sick most of the time. They have no strength
left. What can we do for them? We have no medicines. Have you any
medicines?" she asked, with a sudden, hopeful glint in her dull,
wide-set eyes. "No?" Her face regained its impassivity.
Her husband straightened himself, grunting. He had finished tying the
broken wheel together with rope.
"Come, we must be moving. Hurry, or we'll be left behind," he said,
going to the little horse's head.
The woman climbed back into the cart and took the youngest child in her
arms. A feeble wail came from the dull-colored bundle. Her husband
turned the horse into the procession again.
Still the carts were coming over the hill, gray and dusty, with the
peasants and their wives walking beside the horses' heads. What a river
of suffering! What a smell came from it! And automobiles and tramways
rushed by.
Is this the twentieth century?
_October._
I delayed mailing my last letter, so I shall tell you about another
glimpse I've had of the refugees. Yesterday, as we sat drinking tea, we
heard the rumble and creak of heavy wagons outside the _pension_. The
noise reached us distinctly in spite of the windows being hermetically
sealed with putty for the winter. At first we thought it was the regular
train of carts that climb Institutska Oulitza every evening at six
o'clock carrying provisions to the barracks. But the rumble and creak
persisted so long that I went to the window at last to see why there
were so many more carts than usual.
There was a procession of carts, but instead of going up the hill in the
direction of the barracks, it was descending the hill, and instead of
soldiers in clumsy uniforms, peasants in bell-shaped sheepskin coats
walked by their horses' heads, snapping the long lash whips they carried
in their hands. I recognized the covered gypsy wagons and the open carts
with their bulky loads. It was too dark to see distinctly, but I knew
they were refugees by the strings of kettles along the sides of the
carts, which caught the electric light in coppery flashes. And in the
open wagons I could see the pale disks of faces. As I watched, the
procession came to a stand-still and the drivers collected in little
groups under the white globes of the street lamps. I went outdoors and
crossed the street to them.