THE CAMPAIGN AT WARSAW
A few hours later we were on the road once more,--Anne and Natalya in a
travelling carriage, the rest of us mounted. The old servant was sobbing
hysterically as she followed her mistress down the steps, but Anne's
white face was tearless, though she turned it for a moment with a
yearning farewell glance towards the fresh-made mound in the courtyard,
the grave where we had laid the corpse of her mother, in the coffin
which Mishka and some of the men had made during the day.
That hurried funeral was as impressive as any I've ever been at, though
there was no service, for it would have been impossible to summon a
priest in time. Besides, I doubt if they'd have got an orthodox Russian
priest to come, for the Vassilitzis were Roman Catholics, as so many of
the old Polish nobility are.
In dead silence the four of us, Loris and Stepan, Mishka and I, carried
the coffin down, wrapped in an old curtain of rich brocade, and stood by
with bowed heads, while, still in silence, it was lowered down, pall and
all.
As we turned away, I saw a face at one of the windows and knew Anne had
watched us at our task. Her self-control, her powers of endurance, were
marvellous. I do not believe she had slept all that day, and yet when
the carriage was ready she came out with a steady step; and I heard her
speak soothingly to the weeping Natalya.
That was the last I saw or heard of her for several days, for it had
been arranged that she should drive to Pruschan, escorted only by Loris
and her cousin and a couple of our men, and travel thence by train to
Warsaw, while Mishka and I with the others would ride the whole way. It
meant a couple of days' delay in reaching Warsaw, but it seemed the
safest plan; and it worked without a hitch. By twos and threes we rode
into Warsaw in the early morning of the day that saw the beginning of
the great strike,--and of the revolution which will end only when the
Russian Empire becomes a Free Republic; and God only knows when that
will come to pass!
I have been through three regular campaigns in different parts of the
world during the last ten years, and had a good many thrilling
experiences, one way and another; but the weeks I spent in Warsaw in the
late fall of the year 1905 were the strangest and most eventful I've
ever gone through.
As I look back now, the whole thing seems like a long and vivid
nightmare, of which some few incidents stand out with dreadful
distinctness, and the rest is a mere blur, a confusion of shifting
figures and scenes; of noise and dust and bloodshed. Strenuous days of
street rioting and fighting, in which one and all of us did our share;
and when the row was over for the time being, turned our hands to
ambulance work. Nights that were even more strenuous than the days, for
in the night the next day's plan had to be decided on, funds and food
given out, the circulars (reporting progress and urging the people to
stand fast) to be drawn up, printed, and issued. Such publications were
prohibited, of course; but Warsaw, like most of the other cities, was
strewn with them. People read them, flaunting them openly before the
eyes of the authorities; and though the police and the soldiers tried
the plan of bayoneting or shooting at sight every one whom they saw with
a revolutionary print, they soon had to reserve it for any defenceless
woman or even child whom they might encounter. For the great majority of
the strikers were armed, and they showed themselves even quicker with
their revolvers and "killers" than the soldiers were with their rifles;
while every soldier killed represented one more rifle seized.
We reported ourselves on arrival, as arranged, at a spacious old house
in a narrow street near the University, which thenceforth became our
headquarters; and, within a few hours, a kind of hospital, also, for
there were soon many wounded to be cared for.
Anne organized a band of women as amateur nurses, with Natalya at
the head of them, in our house, while others were on duty elsewhere.
This quarter, as I found, was a stronghold of the League; and many
houses were, like ours, turned into temporary hospitals. But I gathered
that comparatively few of Anne's most influential colleagues were in
sympathy with her efforts to mitigate the horrors that surrounded us.
In that way, we, her own chosen band, worked almost alone. Most
of the revolutionists were as callous, as brutal, as the Cossacks
themselves,--women as well as men. They would march in procession,
waving banners and singing patriotic songs, and, when the inevitable
collision with the soldiers came, they would fight like furies, and die
with a laugh of defiance on their lips. But those who came through,
unscathed, had neither care nor sympathy to bestow on the fallen.
"I join your band of nurses?" a handsome vivacious little
woman--evidently one of her own rank--said to Anne one day, with a
scornful laugh. "I am no good at such work. Give me real work to do, a
bomb to throw, a revolver to fire; I have that at least"--she touched
her fur blouse significantly. "I want to fight--to kill--and if I am
killed instead, well, it is but the fortune of war! But nursing--bah--I
have not the patience! You are far too tender-hearted, Anna Petrovna;
you ought to have been a nun; but what would our handsome Loris have
done then? Oh, it is all right, _ma chere_; I am quite discreet. But do
you suppose I have not recognized him?"
Anne looked troubled.
"And others,--do they recognize him?" she asked quietly.
"Who knows? We are too busy these days to think or care who any one is
or is not. Besides, he is supposed to be dead; it was cleverly planned,
that bomb affair! Was it your doing, Anna? He is too stupidly honest to
have thought of it himself. There! Do not look so vexed, and have no
fear that I shall denounce him. He is far too good-looking! You have a
_penchant_ for good-looking men," she added, with an audacious glance in
my direction.
It happened for once that Anne and I were alone together, until Madame
Levinska turned up, in the room that was used as an office, and where
between-whiles I did a good bit of secretarial work. That small untidy
room represented the bureau from which the whole of this section of the
League was controlled, practically by that slender, pale-faced girl in
the black gown, who sat gravely regarding her frivolous acquaintance.
Her grasp of affairs was as marvellous as her personal courage in time
of need; she was at once the head and the heart of the whole
organization.
I felt angry with the Levinska woman for her taunt. She, and such as
she, who were like so many undisciplined children, and whose ideas of
revolution were practically limited to acts of violence committed in
defiance or reprisal, could not even begin to understand the ideals not
merely held, but maintained, by Anne and Loris, and the few others who,
with them, knew that permanent good could never be accomplished by evil
means. Those two were dreamers, dreaming greatly; theirs was the vision
splendid, though they saw it only from far off, and strove courageously
but unavailingly to draw near to it. That vision will some day become a
reality; and then,--I wonder if any remembrance of those who saw it
first and paved the way to its realization, will linger, save in the
minds of the few who knew, and loved, and worked beside them, but who
were not permitted to share their fate? I doubt it, for the world at
large has a short memory!
Anne made no comment on Madame Levinska's last remark, while I kept on
with my work. I wished the woman would go, for we had much to get
through this afternoon, and at any moment some serious interruption
might occur; or the news we were awaiting might come.
The streets were unusually quiet to-day, hereabouts at any rate, and a
few timid folk who had kept within doors of late had again ventured out.
On the previous day several big meetings had been held, almost without
opposition, for, although martial law was proclaimed, and thousands of
soldiers had entered the city, "to repress disturbances" many of the
troops, including a whole regiment of hussars from Grodno, had refused
to fire on the people. Since then there was a decided abatement of
hostilities; though one dared not hope that it meant more than a mere
lull in the storm.
The railway and telegraph strikes were maintained, but plenty of news
got through,--news that the revolution was general; that Kronstadt and
Riga were in flames; Petersburg and Moscow in a state of anarchy; that
many of the troops had mutinied and were fighting on the side of the
revolutionists, while the rest were disheartened and tired out. During
the last few hours persistent rumors had reached us that the Tzar was on
the point of issuing a manifesto granting civil and political liberty to
the people; a capitulation on all important points in fact. If the news
were true it was magnificent. Such of us as were optimists believed it
would be the beginning of a new and glorious era. Already we had
disseminated such information as had reached us, by issuing broadcast
small news-sheets damp from the secret printing-press in the cellar of
the old house. A week or two ago that press would have had to be shifted
to a fresh hiding-place every night; but in these days the police had no
time for making systematic inquisitions; it was all they could do to
hold their own openly against the mob.
And now we were waiting for fresh and more definite tidings, and I know
Anne's heart beat high with hope, though we had not exchanged a dozen
words before Madame Levinska made her unwelcome appearance; and Anne,
who had but just returned to the room after going the round of our
amateur hospital, tackled her about the nursing.
She stayed for a few minutes longer, continuing her irresponsible
chatter and then, to my relief, anyhow, took herself off, announcing
airily that she was going to see if there was any fun stirring.
"Do not be reckless, Marie," Anne called after her. "You do no good by
that, and may do much harm."
"Have no fear for me, little nun," she retorted gaily, over her
shoulder. "I can take care of myself."
"She sees only,--cares only for the excitement, the poor Marie!" I heard
Anne murmur with a sigh, as she crossed to the window and watched her
friend's retreating figure; a jaunty audacious little figure it was!
There was a clatter and jingle below, and three or four Cossacks
cantered along. One of them called out something to Madame Levinska, and
she turned and shrilled back an answer, her black eyes flashing.
He reined up and slashed at her with his _nagaika_.
Even before the jagged lead caught her face, ripping it from brow to
chin, she drew her revolver and fired pointblank at him, missed him, and
fell, as he spurred his horse on to her and struck again and again with
his terrible whip.
In an instant the street was in an uproar.