THE ROAD TO ZOSTROV
Even before we left Riga,--where we were delayed for a couple of days
getting our goods through the Customs and on to the train,--I realized
somewhat at least of the meaning of Mishka's enigmatic utterance. Not
that we experienced any adventures. I suppose I played my part all right
as the American mechanic whose one idea was safeguarding the machinery
he was in charge of. Anyhow we got through the necessary interviews with
truculent officials without much difficulty. Most of them were unable to
understand the sort of German I chose to fire off at them, and had to
rely on Mishka's services as interpreter. The remarks they passed upon
me were not exactly complimentary,--low-grade Russian officials are
foul-mouthed enough at the best of times, and now, imagining that
I did not know what they were saying, they let loose their whole
vocabulary,--while I blinked blandly through the glasses I had assumed,
and, in reply to a string of filthy abuse, mildly suggested that they
should get a hustle on, and pass the things promptly.
I quite appreciated the humor of the situation, and I guess Mishka did
so, too, for more than once I saw his deep-set eyes twinkle just for a
moment, as he discreetly translated my remarks, and, at the same time,
cordially endorsed our tyrants' freely expressed opinions concerning
myself.
"You have done well, 'Herr Gould,' yes, very well," he condescended to
say, when we were at last through with the troublesome business. "We are
safe enough so far, though for my part I shall be glad to turn my back
on this hole, where the trouble may begin at any moment."
"What trouble?" I asked.
"God knows," he answered evasively, with a characteristic movement of
his broad shoulders. "Can you not see for yourself that there is trouble
brewing?"
I had seen as much. The whole moral atmosphere seemed surcharged with
electricity; and although as yet there was no actual disturbance, beyond
the individual acts of ruffianism that are everyday incidents in all
Russian towns, the populace, the sailors, and the soldiery eyed each
other with sullen menace, like so many dogs, implacably hostile, but not
yet worked up to fighting pitch. A few weeks later the storm burst, and
Riga reeked with fire and carnage, as did many another city, town, and
village, from Petersburg to Odessa.
I discerned the same ominous state of things--the calm before the
storm--at Dunaburg and Wilna, but it was not until we had left the
railroad and were well on our two days' cross-country ride to Zostrov
that I became acquainted with two important ingredients in that
"seething pot" of Russian affairs,--to use Mishka's apt simile. Those
two ingredients were the peasantry and the Jews.
Hitherto I had imagined, as do most foreigners, whose knowledge of
Russia is purely superficial, and does not extend beyond the principal
cities, that what is termed the revolutionary movement was a conflict
between the governing class,--the bureaucracy which dominates every one
from the Tzar himself, an autocrat in name only, downwards,--and the
democracy. The latter once was actively represented only by the various
Nihilist organizations, but now includes the majority of the urban
population, together with many of the nobles who, like Anne's kindred,
have suffered, and still suffer so sorely under the iron rule of
cruelty, rapacity, and oppression that has made Russia a byword among
civilized nations since the days of Ivan the Terrible. But now I
realized that the movement is rendered infinitely complex by the
existence of two other conflicting forces,--the _moujiks_ and the Jews.
The bureaucracy indiscriminately oppresses and seeks to crush all three
sections; the democracy despairs of the _moujiks_ and hates the Jews,
though it accepts their financial help; while the _moujiks_ distrust
every one, and also hate the Jews, whom they murder whenever they get
the chance.
That's how the situation appeared to me even then, before the curtain
went up on the final act of the tragedy in which I and the girl I loved
were involved; and the fact that all these complex elements were present
in that tragedy must be my excuse for trying to sum them up in a few
words.
I've knocked around the world somewhat, and have had many a long and
perilous ride through unknown country, but never one that interested me
more than this. I've said before that Russia is still back in the Middle
Ages, but now, with every verst we covered, it seemed to me we were
getting farther back still,--to the Dark Ages themselves.
We passed through several villages on the first day, all looking
exactly alike. A wide thoroughfare that could not by any stretch of
courtesy be called a street or road, since it showed no attempt at
paving or making and was ankle-deep in filthy mud, was flanked by
irregular rows of low wooden huts, reeking with foulness, and more like
the noisome lairs of wild beasts than human habitations. Their
inhabitants looked more bestial than human,--huge, shaggy men who peered
sullenly at us with swinish eyes, bleared and bloodshot with
drunkenness; women with shapeless figures and blunt faces, stolid masks
expressive only of dumb hopeless endurance of misery,--the abject misery
that is the lot of the Russian peasant woman from birth to death. I was
soon to learn that this centuries' old habit of patient endurance was
nearly at an end, and that when once the mask is thrown aside the fury
of the women is more terrible, because more deliberate and merciless,
than the brutality of the men.
At a little distance, perhaps, would be a small chapel with the priest's
house adjacent, and the somewhat more commodious houses of the
tax-gatherer and _starosta_--the head man of the village, when he
happened to be a farmer. Sometimes he was a kalak keeper, scarce one
degree superior to his fellows. One could tell the tax-gatherer's house
a mile away by its prosperous appearance, and the kind of courtyard
round it, closed in with a solid breast-high log fence; for in these
days the hated official may at any moment find his house besieged by a
mob of vodka-maddened _moujiks_ and implacable women. If he and his
guard of one or two armed _stragniki_ (rural police) are unable to hold
out till help comes,--well, there is red murder, another house in
flames, a vodka orgy in the frenzied village, and retribution next day
or the day after, when the Cossacks arrive, and there is more red
murder. Then every man, woman, and child left in the place is
slaughtered; and the agglomeration of miserable huts that form the
village is burned to the ground.
That, at least, is the explanation Mishka gave me when we rode through a
heap of still smouldering and indescribably evil-smelling ruins, where
there was no sign of life, beyond a few disreputable-looking pigs and
fowls grubbing about in what should have been the cultivated ground. The
peasant's holdings are inconceivably neglected, for the _moujik_ is the
laziest creature on God's earth. In the days of his serfdom he worked
under the whip, but as a freeman he has reduced his labor to a minimum,
especially since the revolutionary propagandists have told him that he
is the true lord of the soil, who should pay no taxes, and should live
at ease,--and in sloth.
The sight and stench of that holocaust sickened me, but Mishka rode
forward stolidly, unmoved either physically or mentally.
"They bring it on themselves," he said philosophically. "If they would
work more and drink less they could live and pay their taxes well enough
and there would be no trouble."
"But why on earth didn't they make themselves scarce after they'd
settled scores with the tax collector, instead of waiting to be
massacred?" I mused.
"God knows," said Mishka. "The _moujik_ is a beast that goes mad at the
sight and smell of blood, and one that takes no thought for the morrow.
Also, where would they run to? They would soon be hunted down. Now they
have had their taste of blood, and paid for it in full, that is all.
There were no Jews there," he jerked his head backwards, "otherwise they
might have had their taste without payment."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
He shrugged his broad shoulders.
"Wait, and perhaps you will see. Have you never heard of a _pogrom_?"
And that was all I could get out of him at the time.