TRAPPED IN "BLACK RUSSIA"

 _Letters_

 JUNE-NOVEMBER 1915

 BY RUTH PIERCE

 BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY The Riverside Press Cambridge 1918

 COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY COMPANY

 COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY RUTH PHINNEY PIERCE

 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

 _Published February 1918_

TRAPPED IN "BLACK RUSSIA"

CONTENTS

 PAGE

 I. JUNE-JULY, 1915 1 II. JULY-AUGUST, 1915 42 III. AUGUST-SEPTEMBER, 1915 66 IV. SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER, 1915 93 V. OCTOBER, 1915 122 VI. OCTOBER-NOVEMBER, 1915 130

"BLACK RUSSIA"

I

 _June 30, 1915. _

_Dearest Mother and Dad:--_

There is no reason why this letter should ever reach you if you considerthat it's war-time and that I am in Russia. Still, the censor may besleeping when it comes along, or I may find a way to slip it over theborder under his very nose. I always have a blind faith that my wordswill reach you somehow. 

I am in Russia--without Peter. Don't be frightened, dearests. I camewith Marie, and we will go back to Bucharest together in a week. Only aweek in Russia. Oh, if the top of my head could be lifted off and letout everything I want to tell you. 

We had no difficulty in crossing the frontier. The little Roumaniantrain took us over a river, and all at once we were out of themake-believe country where the stage always seems set for _opéra-bouffe_There were no more pretty Tziganes, with disheveled hair and dirty, bare breasts, to offer you baskets of roses and white lilies. There wereno Turks in red fezes squatting in the dust, hunting among their ragsfor fleas, and there were no more slender peasants in tight white-wooltrousers and beautiful embroidered shirts. Everything, just by crossinga river, had grown more serious and sober-colored and several sizeslarger. Pale-blue uniforms gave place to dingy olive-brown ones. 

A porter took care of our luggage. He was exactly what I expected. Hewore a white smock with red and blue embroidery at the neck and wrists. His reddish beard was long and Tolstoyan. We followed him into the big, empty railway station, and there a soldier took away our passports andwe were left waiting in the _douane_, behind locked and guarded doors, together with a crowd of bewildered Jews and Roumanians. 

"It isn't much like the Roumanian frontier, is it?--where thedreamy-eyed official visés your passport without looking at it--he's sobusy looking at you, " Marie observed. 

"No, " I replied. "This is Russia. I am in Russia, " kept going throughmy head, and I felt like Alice in Wonderland, trying to adjust myself tonew perspectives. 

"I hate getting back here, " Marie went on. "It was too good to be in acountry, if only for a little while, where they took things easily. IfI'd stayed a little longer, I believe I could have laughed myself andfelt in a personal relationship toward life again. "

That's what I was glad to get away from. You get too personal if youstay in Roumania long. Roumania gets to mean Bucharest, and Bucharestthe universe. As I sat waiting in the _douane_, I felt like puffing outand growing to make room for Russia inside me. 

We waited hours. 

"Can't you hurry our passports?" Marie asked an official. "We want toleave on this train. "

The official raised his shoulders helplessly. 

"_Seichas_, " he replied. 

"What does that mean?"

"Presently--immediately--never, " Marie replied in exasperation. 

The train we were to have taken for Kiev left without us, on trackstwice as wide as those of the Roumanian toy railroad. Only a courierwith a diplomatic pouch got on. 

"It's like that here, always, " Marie said. "No system, no economy oftime, or anything else. " Suddenly she began to laugh. "Everything getson my nerves as soon as I get into Russia. "

We left late in the afternoon. The air in our compartment was hot andstale. When we opened the window, the wind blew in on our faces inparching gusts. But it was grateful after the smells of cabbage, soup, tobacco, and dirty Jews that we had been breathing for five hours in the_douane_. 

We sat by the window, cracking dried sunflower seeds, and looking out atthe steppes of Little Russia. The evening shadows were already lying inthe hollows of the fields of ripening wheat, but the late sun stillreddened the crests and the column of smoke from our engine. Frightenedlarks rose from the tall grain. We passed patches of dark woods, scattered thatched huts. Along a road came a man and a woman in peasantdress. The train seemed to slow up on purpose to let us have a glimpseof them through a thin, fine powder of golden dust, in their darkhomespuns, with patches of red embroidery on the white sleeves andnecks of their blouses. They carried a green box between them. Once wepassed through a wood of pale-green birches with thin silver stems. Itwas a relief to see lines going up and down after the wide, level linesof the steppes. 

And then it grew dark. A sense of sadness filled me, and I was glad whenthe conductor lighted the lamp and made up my berth. We lay down as wewere, all dressed, and the train rushing and swinging along deadened mymind and feelings. 

I was wakened by the conductor's twitching the covering back from thelight. Our carriage had broken down and was going to be side-tracked. 

Then began the most restless night I ever spent. We bumped along in athird-class carriage, and descended to wait for an hour or more on theplatform of some little crossroad station. We sat on our bags till ourspines cracked with fatigue. The men smoked one cigarette after another. As far as I could see stretched dark fields lighted dimly by thickstars, with a wind blowing out of the darkness into our faces. No onespoke. Down the tracks a round white headlight grew bigger and bigger. The noise of the approaching train filled the night. We scrambled intoanother third-class carriage and sat on some more hard, narrow seats foran hour or so. 

At last the dawn came--a square of gray light through the train window. Almost every one had fallen asleep. How pallid and ugly they looked withtheir mouths open and their heads lolling forward!

At ten we changed for the last time before Kiev. The carriage was notdivided up into compartments, but was open, with rows of seats and anaisle down the center, like our trains in America, --only there was anupper story of seats, too. I stretched out and went to sleep. When Iwoke the carriage was filled. Marie and I occupied one seat together. 

Opposite us sat a fat, red-nosed man, with a fur cap, though it wassummer. Between his legs was a huge, bulky bag. When the train stopped, he put a pinch of tea in his little blue enameled teapot, which hefilled at the hot-water tank that is at every Russian station just forthat purpose. He pulled out of his bag numberless newspaper packages andspread them out on the newspaper across his knees--big fat sausages andthin fried ones, a chunk of ham, a boiled chicken, dried pressed meat, alump of melting butter, some huge cucumber pickles, and cheese. With amurderous-looking knife he cut thick slices from a big round loaf ofbread that he held against his breast. He sweetened his tea with somesugar from another package, and sliced a lemon into it. When he hadfinished eating, he carefully rolled up the food again and put it away, and settled back in his chair. With great deliberation he took out ofhis vest pocket a little black box with bright flowers painted on thelid. He fingered it lovingly for a moment, then he took a pinch ofsnuff, closing his eyes in ecstasy and inhaling deeply. He did thisthree times and blew his nose vigorously. Then he put the box away, brushing off the gray grains of powder that had fallen down his vestfront. All day long, every time the train stopped, he refilled hislittle blue enameled teapot and repeated the ceremony, even to the lastgrain of snuff. 

Across the aisle sat two priests, unshaven and unshorn, in wide blackhats, their long, greasy black hair falling over the shoulders of theirdirty gray gowns. They spent the day in prayer and eating and drinking. They were evidently bound for Kiev on a holy pilgrimage to the Lavra. 

In the seat above the old man who took snuff lay a young woman, proppedon her elbow. Every time I looked at her she was laughing, pressing apomegranate seed between her lips. Her hands were very thin and white. Her face was long and thin and framed by short, clipped hair. Every nowand then a young officer came up to her and took her hand, and asked ifshe wanted anything. She answered him indifferently, but when he wentback to his seat, her eyes followed him and rested on him with the long, narrow look of a watchful cat. 

At noon and night we stopped at railway stations for our meals. AfterBulgaria and Roumania it was bewildering to see the counters laden withhot and cold meats and vegetables and appetizing _zakouskas_, and thick_ztchee_ soup, and steaming samovars for tea. Through the open windowscame refreshing puffs of wind. At the restaurant tables sat officers, rich Jews, and traveling business men--nothing much in it all to suggestwar. Always, on the station walls were bright-colored portraits, inheavy gilt frames, of the Czar and Czarina and the royal family. Andalways in the corners of the room were ikons with candles lighted beforethem at night. The train always started before people had finishedeating. At supper, one of the priests almost got left and had to run forit, a piece of meat-pie in one hand, the other holding up his flappinggray gown. 

After sunset, more and more officers and soldiers about. At stations, orderlies elbowing their way through the crowd to secure seats for theirofficers; officers shouting to their orderlies; officers alone or withtheir families, arriving with valises and bundles and pillows--enoughequipment to meet any eventuality. 

Another night to get through somehow, sitting bolt upright in a carthick with tobacco smoke and smelling of stale food and soldiers' boots. 

Once we stopped for an hour out in the fields. Marie and I opened ourwindow and stuck our heads out of doors to breathe the cool air. Extracars had been put on during the day, and we could see the long curve ofthe train behind us, with the red squares of the lighted windows. Therewas a movement of troops, and soldiers occupied every inch of space. Wecould hear them singing soldier songs in parts, with pronounced rhythmand unutterably sad cadences. Some one played their accompaniment on a_balalaika_. Back and forth under our train window a woman pacedrestlessly. Never shall I forget the soldiers' singing to the_balalaika_, and the woman with her white face in the darkness, and themillions of stars so very far away. 

The second morning, about eight, we pulled into Kiev. Our train was solong that we had some distance to walk before reaching the station. Aswe approached, I saw a crowd of people being driven into baggage cars. Iwas so tired and confused by the journey that I didn't distinguish whothey were at first. When I got close to them, I saw that they werethin-faced Jews in clothes too big for them. The men looked about themwith quick, furtive movements, a bewildered, frightened look in theirdark eyes. The women held their shawls over their faces, and pressedagainst their skirts were little children. A stale, dirty smell camefrom them all. I overcame my disgust and looked more closely. How whitethe faces were, with purple sockets for the eyes, and dried, crackedlips! No one seemed to have any personality. One pallid face was likeanother under the stamp of suffering. Gendarmes with whips kept them onthe move, and struck the leader when there was any mix-up that haltedthe procession for a moment. The Jews seemed to shrink into themselvesunder the lash, sinking their heads between their thin, narrowshoulders, then pressed forward again with frantic haste. 

I heard the clanking of iron, and into a separate baggage car I noticedthe gendarmes were driving a group linked together with heavy ironchains. I was horrified! I had the persistent impression of passingthrough an experience already known--"Where have I seen this before?"went over and over in my mind, and I felt a dread that seemed theforewarning of some personal danger to myself. I was so very near suchterrible and hopeless suffering. What kept me from stepping into thatstream of whip-driven, helpless people?

"Who are they?" I asked Marie. 

"They are Galician Jews whom the Government is transporting intoSiberia. "

"But why?"

"Because the Russians don't trust Jews. Whole villages and towns inGalicia are emptied and taken to Siberia by _étapes_--part of the wayby marches, part in baggage cars. "

"In this heat?" I exclaimed. "But hundreds must die!"

"Not hundreds--thousands, " Marie replied. 

"Does it do any good?"

"No. But this present Government is very reactionary and the persecutionof the Jews is part of its programme. You know, it is always under thereactionary Government, which is pro-German, that the pogroms takeplace. "

We had got into a droshky and were driving through city streets. Womenfrom the country were bringing in milk. People seemed to be walkingabout freely enough. 

The Jews with their bowed necks seemed far away--as though, after all, Ihad read about them in a book. Could I have elbowed them and smelt themonly a few minutes ago?

I was in Russia. How sweet the morning air was! We were climbing acobble-stoned hill. Institutska Oulitza. Here we are! And we stopped atthe Tchedesky Pension. 

Good-bye for now. Armfuls of love from

 RUTH. 

 _July 5, 1915. _

_Darlingest Mother and Dad:--_

We have been in Kiev several days. Our passports have been handed in tothe police station to be viséed and put in order for our return trip toBucharest. They say a human being in Russia is made of body andpassport. 

Kiev is full of color. It is framed in green trees that hide theugliness of modern buildings and seem to lift the gold and silver domesof the churches up into the air. And how many churches there are! Kievis in truth a holy city. Late afternoon, when the sun shines through thedust of the day and envelops the city in golden powder; when the goldand silver domes of the churches float up over the tree-tops likeunsubstantial, gleaming bubbles, and the bells fill the air with lovely, mellow sounds, --then I can truly say I have felt more deeply religiousthan ever before in my life. Yet, suddenly, I see the woman who climbsInstitutska 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 thehill, 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 thinkof the Russian peasants with their foreheads in the dust, and thegreasy, 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--afaith in God that keeps them loving Russia, dreaming for her, and ableto dream again after they've seen their dreams trampled on. No, thepriests and their autocracy don't matter. The people believe, and that'sthe important thing. 

We went out yesterday afternoon to the Lavra--the stronghold of BlackRussia. It is a monastery on the edge of the town, overlooking theDnieper and flanked with battlemented walls to withstand the attacks ofthe infidels in olden times. From all over Russia and the Balkanspilgrims go there to visit the catacombs, where many church saints areburied, their bodies miraculously preserved under red and goldclothes--so the priests say. 

The road leading to it passed the barracks, where we saw young recruitsdrilling. They were learning to walk, and their arms swung stiffly andself-consciously, and their legs bent at the knees and straightenedagain like the wooden legs of mechanical toys. As they marched, theysang wonderful Russian soldier songs. They appeared to be abouttwenty-three or twenty-four, as though they had got their growth, andwere tall and broad-shouldered--not at all like the batch of Austrianprisoners we passed a few minutes later, and who looked like pathetic, bewildered children, beardless for the most part, and in uniforms toolarge for them. They shuffled along in a cloud of gray dust under ametallic sun. Some were slightly wounded in the head or arm, and weresupported by their comrades. As I passed, I encountered certaineyes--frank, gray eyes that reminded me of Morris. The long, white, dusty road became tragic to me, with the prisoners in their worn blueuniforms, 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 ofmilitary age, yet not in the army. It isn't like other countries, whereevery one but the Jews is in uniform. Russia has so many men. They sayfive million more could easily be raised if they had the officers andammunition. 

We reached a high plaster wall, with little booths built under itsshadows, 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 samevillage, evidently, for the women's dresses resembled each other's incut and embroidery, and a few of the younger women's were even dyed thesame color, as often happens in wool of the same shearing. In spite ofthe heat, the men wore sheepskin coats and fur caps, and the women'sskirts were thick with petticoats. Some of the women led children by thehand; others carried babies in their arms, poor little mites, with facescovered with sores, and eyes red and blinking as though they were goingblind. They all bent and kissed the hand of the priest who sold candlesunder the covered arched gateway, and then they passed into the opensquare surrounded by the monastery walls. There was a sort of gardenhere; all the grass worn off by the countless pilgrims who had visitedthe shrine, but with trees in whose shade the peasants rested when theirsins had been forgiven. Some lay curled up on the ground, fast asleep;others sat with their legs spread comfortably apart, eating bread andmeat; and others drank thirstily from the well, or let the water runover their tired feet. 

Facing us was the church with its gold domes blindingly bright againstthe blue sky. We followed the pilgrims and entered the chapel, whereeverything suddenly grew hushed and dark, with a strange odor--a mixtureof thick, sweet incense and melting candle grease, and smelly, perspiring peasants. 

The pilgrims bought candles and lighted them, and knelt on the flaggingbefore the altar. Behind an elaborate railing the lustrous jewels andgold 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 awonderful gold cup encrusted with jewels. I leaned against a pillar, watching the kneeling peasants, and over their bent backs the mysteryand richness of the altar glowing with jewels and only half disclosed bythe tiny pointed candle flames flickering in the darkness. The Lavra isone of the two richest monasteries in Russia. Its wealth is fathomless. It has lent emperors treasure with which to fight the infidels, and onreturning from holy wars the emperors have brought it back to the churchincreased a hundred fold by royal gifts of jewels and loot. 

We went out into the blinding sunlight again, and down a long flight ofcloister 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 tookthe kopecks of an old peasant woman. "Rub it on your joints and it willcure their stiffness, " he said to her, with a cynical smile. 

Three fat priests sat at the entrance of the catacombs, sellingdifferent-sized candles. The very poor peasants, who came barefooted, could only afford the very thin tapers, while the rich villagers, withheavy, well-made boots and much embroidery on their clothes, boughtcandles 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 throughthe catacombs. He would wipe the sweat out of his eyes with the sleeveof his dirty gown, and point to the saints' tombs with the big iron keyhe 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 longhair on the shoulders of his gown, the malicious way he looked at me asthough to say, "You and I know that what I'm saying is rot, but it mustbe said to them"--it was indescribably disgusting. 

We wound through narrow, dungeon-like passages with the cold, damp smellof an unused cellar. Now and then, through barred windows in the stonewalls, I caught glimpses of tall forms lying in a row, covered withdingy red and gold cloths. 

"Here lie nine brothers who lived for twenty years in this cell. Theironly food was bread and water three times a week. As you see, they hadno room to stand upright in, and were always pressed close to eachother. "

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-songvoice. "He lived in a cell too small to lie down in. For twenty-twoyears he never opened his mouth. His body, like the bodies of all theholy saints in these catacombs, is preserved without a sign of decayunder this cloth. " A peasant woman lifted her little boy up to kiss theedge of the dirty red pall. The pale flame of her candle flickered andthe 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 awayindifferently and went on. 

We saw the bust of a man buried to his arm-pits in the floor. I wouldhave 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 atebread and water twice a week. "

I looked at the peasants. Their faces were scared and white. A few hungback with a morbid curiosity. 

"Come, come, " the priest called impatiently. "Keep together. Some getlost here and never get out again. "

I had heard of three pretty peasant girls who had mysteriouslydisappeared in the catacombs. 

"Ouf!" The priest unlocked an iron door and we came squinting out intothe daylight again. He held the door open and mopped his face as wefiled past him, snuffing our candles. The pilgrims kept theirs. 

Outside, some of the peasants clustered about the priest and asked himquestions. As I glanced back over my shoulder, I saw the circle ofround, inquiring faces with their look of unbounded confidence. 

We went around back of the monastery to an open plateau overlooking theDnieper. The river curved like a blue ribbon, and we could see the threepontoon bridges for "military reasons. " On the low bank opposite werethe soldiers' white tents laid out in regular squares. A ferry-boat wascarrying some soldiers across the river. The sun flashed on thesentries' bayonets along the bank. 

I heard the whine of a hand-organ. An armless beggar was turning thecrank of an organ with his bare feet. The plateau was fairly alive withbeggars, hopping about in the dust like fleas. Some were armless; otherslegless. They swung along at our heels on long, muscular arms, withleather on the palms of their hands, or dragged distorted, paralyzedbodies that tried to stand upright by our sides. 

In the white, hot sunlight squatted an old man with a white, pointedbeard so long that it lay out on the dust in front of him. In his armshe held a book done up in red cloth. He was blind. If you put a coin ina 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 ofhim. 

A row of seven blind women lined the exit. They began to whine as weapproached, and stretched out their hands gropingly. The eyes of onewoman had completely disappeared as though they had been knotted up andpulled back into her head. Another's bulged like a dead fish's, withthat dull, bluish look in them. Another's lids were closed and crustedwith sores, flies continuously creeping over them, but apparently shewas indifferent. The seven blind women sat in rags and filth. Shall Iever forget them in the burning sunlight, with their terrible eyes andgreedy fingers and the whine of their voices merging into the tune ofthe hand-organ?

When we left the monastery, a group of wounded soldiers were justentering. With them was a woman in a man's uniform. Her hair was curlyand short, and her chin pointed. Her feet looked ridiculously small inthe heavy, high, soldier's boots, and in spite of a strut her kneesknocked together in an unmistakably feminine manner. But the men treatedher quite as one of themselves. One soldier, who had had his leg cut offup to the thigh, supported himself by her shoulder. I have seen severalwomen 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 toBucharest with Marie and Janchu within a week. There Peter will meetus. I wish he were here now. 

So much love, my dearests, every day and every night from

 RUTH. 

 _July 20, 1915. _

_Darlingest Mother and Dad:--_

Before dawn this morning I was wakened by a shuffling noise from thestreet. It was not soldiers marching. There was no rhythm to it. Marieand I went to the window and looked out. 

Behind the dark points of the poplars, in the convent garden across thestreet, the sky was growing light. The birds were beginning to sing. Theair was sweet and cool after the night. And down the hill was passing astream of people, guarded on either side by soldiers with bayonets. Irubbed the sleep from my eyes to look more closely, for there wassomething ominous in the snail's pace of the procession. 

They were Jews, waxen-faced, their thin bodies bent with fatigue. Somehad taken their shoes off, and limped along barefooted over thecobble-stones. Others would have fallen if their comrades had not heldthem up. Once or twice a man lurched out of the procession as though hewas drunk or had suddenly gone blind, and a soldier cuffed him back intoline again. Some of the women carried babies wrapped in their shawls. There were older children dragging at the women's skirts. The mencarried bundles knotted up in their clothes. They stumbled and pitchedalong, as if they had no control over their skinny bodies; as if afteranother step they would all suddenly collapse and fall down on theirfaces like a crowd of scarecrows with a strong wind behind them. Somehad their eyes closed; others stared ahead with their faces like dirtygray masks, with huge bony noses and sunken eyes. The procession showedno sign of coming to an end. It crawled on and on, and a stench rosefrom it that poisoned the morning air. The sound of the shuffling feetseemed to fill the universe. 

"Where are they going?"--I whispered to Marie. 

"To the Detention Camp here. They come from Galicia, and Kiev is one ofthe stopping-places on their way to Siberia. "

"Do they walk all the way here?"

"Usually. Let's shut the window and keep out the smell. "

I went back to bed. I felt so safe, with Janchu sleeping in his crib inthe corner. The creeping, submissive procession seemed a dream. It wasincredible to think of only the wall of a house separating our securityfrom those hundreds of fainting, persecuted Jews!

We are still here--waiting for our passports to be returned. Of courseno mail from you has been forwarded to me here, as Peter is hourlyexpecting me back. I am cut off from all I love most in the world. TheRussian frontier takes on a new significance once you're inside it. Ihope you don't forget me. Sometimes you seem millions of miles away--andthen I look in my heart and find you there. I love you. 

 RUTH. 

 _July 25, 1915. _

The Tchedesky Pension is full of Poles--refugees from Poland and thewooded Russian provinces. 

Pan Tchedesky himself was formerly an enormously wealthy landowner nearKiev. He loves to tell how he drove through town behind six whitehorses. Gambling ruined him, and to pay his debts he sold one acre afteranother to the Jews, who cut down the timber and ruined the land. Ofcourse, where there are no trees the rainfall is scarce. The crops driedup, and finally Pan Tchedesky and his wife and children were forced intothe city. There remained enough of his former property to start a_pension_. The rooms are full of the remains of his splendor--heavy giltmirrors, thick, flowered carpets, a Louis XVI set in the drawing-room, upholstered in faded blue brocade. 

Pan Tchedesky is a memorial of his own life; a relic suggesting anearlier opulence. He is big-framed, but his flesh is shrunken, as thoughthe wind of conceit were oozing out of him day by day. His cheeks andstomach hang flabbily. His blond mustache is getting thin and discloseshis full, sensual lips. His hands are thick and soft, always stainedwith nicotine. He lives in constant terror of his wife, and all thepockets of his coats are burned full of holes from his hiding hiscigarettes in them when he thinks he hears his wife coming. I have neverseen her, but she is the invisible force that keeps the _pension_running, and controls her husband by her knowledge of his past failures. 

"My wife is an executive woman--very executive, " he says, shaking hishead sorrowfully. 

The bills are made out by her. Occasionally he intercepts the maidcarrying her back the money, and extracts enough to pay a small per centof his I O U's, which allows him to continue gambling with his guests. His moist, soft fingers tremble as he holds the cards, and he infuriatesevery one by his erratic bidding. 

A guest slams his hand down on the table and calls Tchedesky a name. 

Tchedesky's whitish, livid cheeks shake, and his lips open uncertainly. But he must be discreet. He does not dare offend his guests, for hewants to play with them again, and he must not let his wife know that heis gambling. So he begs pardon in a whisper. 

There is a pretty maid in the _pension_ called Antosha. She has light, frowzy hair, and a round, full figure. The other maids are jealous ofher. When she dresses up to wait on the table at dinner at threeo'clock, she wears a cheap pink silk waist and long gilt earrings, andtwo or three little rings with blue and red stones. Her wages arefifteen roubles a month. One day I saw Tchedesky kissing her on theneck. Very white and shaken, he came to me afterwards and begged me tosay nothing about it to any one. 

He has terrible scenes with his wife, who is hysterical and grows rigid. He stays up with her all night and uses it as an excuse to get amorphine injection for his own nervousness next day. He is quitecourteous and frankly loves women and food and money. I feel as though, if I poked my finger into him, he would burst like a rotten potato. 

There is the Morowski family from near Cracow. Pan Morowski's brother isin the Austrian Chamber of Deputies, but he and his family are Russiansubjects. They have been here in Kiev for some months now. For sevendays he and his eldest daughter remained while the Russians andAustrians fought for their farm. The rest of the family had been sentinto Kiev, but these two had hoped that by staying they might preservetheir farm from being plundered and burned. The Austrians had sackedtheir neighbors' houses. The Austrian officers' wives had followed inthe wake of the army and had taken the linen from the closets, and theball-gowns, and the silver--even the pictures off the walls. 

Lovely weather it was. The girl said you would hardly realize there waswar, sometimes. The gardener would go out and straighten the trampledflowers. The carts of wounded would pass regularly, stoppingoccasionally for water or tea. They would say the fighting had passedon. And then, suddenly, the crack and boom would approach again, shakingthe house walls--the little uncurling puffs of smoke against the bluesky--the gray-blue uniformed Austrians hurrying past in retreat. Nocarts of wounded any more. There was too much hurry to bother about thewounded. 

Russians in possession again, and Russian instead of Austrian officersquartered at their house. How much more polite the Russians were--somuch more gallant and kind-hearted! They didn't treat you as though youwere a servant--"Do this. Do that. " They brought some of their woundedto the farm, and Miss Morowski helped nurse them. 

But at last the father and daughter had been obliged to leave with theRussians. How furious the Russians had been--so depressed anddiscouraged when the order came to retreat. There had been no fightinground there for several days, and suddenly the news came that the wholearmy was retreating. Why? They said there was no ammunition. So thefather and daughter left their property in the care of the gardener andhis wife, who were too old to move. How terrible it had been to abandonthis ground that so many Russians had died to win! No ammunition. Waste--mismanagement--graft. 

Those in Petrograd should think more of their country and less of theirown pockets. The unquestioning courage of the simple Russian soldiers!Every one ready to die--and yet nothing to back them up. It wasdisheartening. 

"The Russians gave us a place in a cart, and we left in utterconfusion--soldiers, motor-cars, cattle, wounded, with the Austriancannon rumbling behind us. "

"Were you frightened?" I asked. We were speaking French together. 

"Not so frightened as sad. I was leaving my home. All my life I hadspent there excepting for a few weeks in the winter when mother used totake us to Cracow for the balls. I hated to leave my beautiful partydresses hanging up in the closets. I know some Austrian woman will wearthem. And I can't bear to think of our house burned! We have had suchjolly times there, hunting and riding and visiting the neighbors. Youdon't know life on a Polish estate, do you? I can tell you there isnothing so charming in the world. "

Pan Morowski is a handsome, full-blooded man, and plays bridge all dayeither in the _pension_ drawing-room or at the club. 

His wife is small and nervous, and you can see that her main object inlife is to marry off her daughters well. She has three daughters, pretty, fresh girls, who are fond of reading, and perfectly willing toread only what their brothers permit them. Every day I run across one ortwo of them in the circulating library in the town, and always try toget them to take out a forbidden book. They are convinced that Bourgethas sounded the depths of feminine psychology. "Isn't it mean!" theycry. "If only our brothers would let us read more of his wonderfulbooks!"

Sometimes, in the evening, we sit out on the balcony, and the Morowskiboys come in to talk to us. 

"Aren't you ashamed to treat your sisters in this Oriental way?" I ask. 

"The less they know till after they've married, the better for them. Ayoung girl should be pure in every thought. " And then they begin to makelove to us. 

There are two brothers who have taken refuge in the Tchedesky _pension_, with a collection of servants. Their house was burned under their eyes, and their property is now in the Austrians' hands. The eldest brother, Count S----, is very handsome and aristocratic, with a cherished graymustache carefully twisted upward, and soft, brown eyes, which he useswith advantage. Evidently the Romantic poets influenced his youth, andhe has found the melancholy Byronic traditions the most effective forhis ends, since he continues the attitude. 

"He is very sad, " his brother whispers a dozen times a day. "Of coursehis experiences these past months have been frightful for one of hisnature. I am not so sensitive. But _he_ has always been this way. Sometimes I'm afraid. Our other brother died insane. "

Count S---- affects to believe that the Germans can do anything. 

"They are devils! What can we do against them?" he cries at dinner, combing his mustache with the little tortoise-shell comb he carries inhis vest. 

He never forgets his soda tablets after eating. 

His younger brother is round and red-faced, with twinkly blue eyes. Helimps, and follows his elder brother round like a faithful dog. Theslightest thing amuses him. Indeed, he laughs at nothing at all. He keptthe books on his brother's estates and he brought them with him in hisflight. They are his pride and joy. Sometimes he brings them into thedrawing-room after supper, with photographs of the property. There arepictures of boar hunts, and huntsmen on horseback, with wolf-hounds inthe snow, and the tenants merry-making and the house and differentsections of the property, and the horses and dogs and cattle. I look atthem night after night. They love to live over again their life intelling me about it. 

Among the servants with the S---- brothers is an old woman, a kindly, slack one, who rarely goes out, but observes the passing life from herwindows. She wears a short, loose wrapper and petticoat, and scuffsabout in list slippers. 

Then there is a young girl with shy eyes and quiet, womanlike actions. We often see her peeking through a crack in the door when Janchu isnaughty. 

And then there is Sigmund, a sly, goody-goody child of six or seven, whom the old woman treats like a son, and whom the eldest S---- brotherhas adopted as his heir. He plays with Janchu. The brothers adore himand take him to Koupietsky Park, and watch him when he plays in the_pension_ garden. We have heard that he is Count S----'s illegitimatechild, and that the old woman is his mother. It seems quite probablewhen you think of the life on a big Polish estate--the loneliness, etc. These three people live together in one room. The samovar is alwaysboiling and some one is always drinking tea there. The brothers share anadjoining room, but they are usually with those in there, who constituteall that remains of their former habits. 

Pan A---- lives in the _pension_, too. I am told that he is typical of acertain kind of Pole. He is a turfman, with carefully brushedside-whiskers dyed coal-black, and hawk-like eyes. He wears check suits, and cravats with a little diamond horse-pin. His legs are bowed like ajockey's. He was the overseer of a big Polish estate and has made afortune by cards and horses. His stable is famous. He has raced fromPetrograd to London. Now, of course, his horses have been requisitioned, and he lives by his cards. Cards are a serious business to him. He willnot play in a room where he is apt to be interrupted. Occasionally, hiswife, a hard-faced woman with tight lips, comes to the _pension_, between the visits she makes to friends in the country. Pan A---- paysno attention to her except to treat her with an exaggerated politenessat table; and she, on her side, concentrates on the young men in the_pension_. After dinner he always hands her a cigarette first, out ofhis massive gold case, encrusted with arms and monograms and jewels. 

"It's curious, is it not?" he says, handing me the case. "My friendshave put on their arms and monograms and mounted the jewels assouvenirs. "

Generally, he goes to the Café François with a tall blonde woman, thewife of an Austrian. Her husband and son are fighting in the Austrianarmy, but she came to Kiev with the Russian General who occupied hertown. Now her protector is at the front, and she goes about with A----. 

A---- is cynical. Women and horses and cards make up his life. In aconversation he feels his audience as if it were a new horse he islearning to ride. He goes as near the danger line as he dares. He has nobreeding, and spends his money extravagantly. 

K----, the last comer at the _pension_, is a journalist. He has no raceor polish, and the rest rather despise him for having none of theirlanded traditions. He is lean and brown, with a razor-like jaw and atwisted, sardonic expression to his lips. His face is cruel. At Warsaw, where he was working, he was thrown into prison time after time onaccount of the radical, revolutionary character of his articles. He iswell known for the strong, intellectual quality of his work. Thereactionaries fear him. The slipshod Russian way of handling things getson his nerves. His eyes get like steel when he talks about it. Russia'scorruption and the German advance--ammunition willfully miscarried--gunssent to the front without ammunition, and ammunition sent that doesn'tfit; and the soldiers obliged to fight with their naked fists!

He has sent me Chamberlin's "Genesis of the Fourteenth Century. " Wediscuss it after dinner. It's interesting, though Chamberlin sets forthan idea he tries to prove at all costs. Read it, if you haven't already. 

How terribly I miss you. Why do I write of Pan Tchedesky and theMorowskis when I only want to be telling you how I love you and missyou? But it is almost unbearable to write you a love-letter. So manymiles are between us and so many months still separate us. Over a yearmore to be lived through. No. I must keep to decaying Polish gentlemenand exiled noblemen and trust you to know that every word in this letteris a love-word to you, telling you I hold you so close to me that youare one with me in everything I think or do. 

 _July 27, 1915. _

_Darlingest Mother and Dad:--_

It is very hot, and food is unappetizing. The drinking-water must beboiled, and inevitably we drink it lukewarm. It never has time to cool. There is fruit sold on the street, but we are warned against it onaccount of cholera. There is already cholera and typhus reported in thecity. So we thick vegetable soup with sour cream, fried bread withchopped meat inside, cheese noodles with sour cream, etc. , all Polishcooking. And we drink _kvass_. 

"What do you think of Bulgaria, now?" Count S---- asks me gloomily, after dinner. 

"I still think she will go with Russia, " I reply. "In every Bulgarianhouse I've ever been in there is the picture of the Czar liberator. ABulgarian regards a Russian as of his own blood. Bulgaria gave Russiaher alphabet, and the languages are much the same: only the Russian isricher in words and expressions. Why, there is a Bulgarian, GeneralDimitrief, holding a high command in the Russian army. When I leftBulgaria there was no talk of her going with Germany. 'We will never gowith Germany, ' I've heard over and over. "

"But there is a strong German party?"

"Yes, and they're being paid well. If England and the Entente only tookthe trouble to understand the Balkans. Germany has sent her ablest mento Sofia with unlimited credit. The English representatives offend bytheir snobbery. "

"Do you think they'll go in at all?" S---- persists. 

"Probably they'll be forced in, in the end. But the people don't want toabandon their neutrality. They're making money. They're recouping afterthe Balkan wars. Bulgaria has had nothing but wars and crises for thelast five years. "

"They say there are already German officers in the Bulgarian army. "

"I don't believe it's so. The Bulgarians are very independent. If theywent in I think they would command their own army. "

"But this war is not conducted along Balkan war lines, " K---- saidamusedly. 

"No, " I agreed. "You know more about the situation now than I do. Ican't even read a newspaper. All I know is the spirit of Bulgaria when Ileft. "

"Isn't Bulgaria's Government autocratic enough to declare war withoutconsulting the people?" K---- continued. 

"Perhaps--unfortunately. The Bulgarians say, 'We have a wonderfulconstitution, if the Czar would only use it. '"

"The papers to-day already speak of Bulgaria's treason and ingratitude, "K---- observed. 

I was angry. "In Bulgaria, some think Russia doesn't want them to go inon the Entente side. They think Russia wants to make a Russian lake outof the Black Sea, and a Russian province out of Bulgaria. They sayRussia is the obstacle to their having joined the Entente months ago. "

"She will go with Germany, " Count S---- insisted fatalistically. "Everything is going Germany's way. "

"No--no--no!" I cried. 

"Of course she will go where she sees her advantage, " said K----. 

"All she wants is to fight for Macedonia before the close of the war. Certainly, it isn't too much to ask if she allows the English andRussians to cross her territory to get at Turkey. The war will beshortened by months if she goes in with the Entente, and Turkey inEurope will be finished. "

I know you'll laugh, Dad, and think my pretentions to a politicalopinion presumptuous. My hope is that I'll know more when I'm older!

Love to you all. Think of me, won't you? Don't let _miles_ make anydifference. 

 RUTH. 

II

 _July 30. _

It is confirmed that Warsaw has fallen! Every one is very muchdepressed. What can stop the Germans? Some one speaks of the forts ofVilna and Grodno, which are supposed to be impregnable. But what aboutthe forts on the Western front? What do forts amount to nowadays? Thestrongest walls are razed by the Germans' big guns!

"The Germans do just as they like--nothing can stop them. In thebeginning the Kaiser said he would sleep at Warsaw, " Count S---- saysgloomily. 

"And he said he would dine in Paris, " some one else remarks. 

It is funny how much pleasure Count S---- takes in every foot of landthe Germans capture. When he talks about the war, he seems to take aperverse pleasure in accenting their inexhaustible munitions and men andthe perfection of their whole military organization. "We have men, butwe are children. " At every German victory he shakes his head. "I toldyou so. " "I've said from the first--" "There is no limit to what these_cochons_ can do. " He seems glad to see his prophecies come true;probably, because he has seen his own security destroyed, he feels thesafety of the whole world shaken. A hundred times he has said: "Thereisn't a foot of ground that belongs to me any more. For a man of my ageit is a terrible thing to see your life-work wiped out all of a sudden. "Only a world destruction could come up to his expectations now. 

After dinner, in the drawing-room, we spoke about the fall of Warsaw. What would the Germans do to the city? Some spoke of Germanfrightfulness in Belgium. Pan K---- thinks Warsaw will be treatedleniently, as Germany wishes to enlist the German sympathizers. Still, most of the Poles in the _pension_ are horrorstricken. They see theGermans marching through the streets, and they see the flames andshuddering civilians. I can see the Germans' spiked helmets in the room. 

"The English must start an offensive. England lets France and Russiableed to death before she sheds her own blood. " There is much talk ofEngland's selfishness. 

Something is wrong somewhere. Every one seems skeptical about the Duma. 

I wish I could read the Russian newspapers. 

I feel as though I were watching a fire--a neighbor's house burningdown. I am excited and curious. Suddenly, I wonder how far the flamesare going to spread, and I feel panicstricken. Good-night, dear ones. You in New England seem so far away from this European fire. 

 RUTH. 

 _July 30, 1915. _

_Darlingest Mother and Dad:--_

To-day I went to the Jewish detention camp with the wife of the FrenchConsul here. She called for me in her limousine. As I think of it now, it was all so strange--the smooth-running car with two men on the box, and ourselves in immaculate white summer dresses. The heat was intense, but we were well protected. Through the windows we saw others sweatingand choking in the dust of the hot streets. 

"I'm afraid I've brought you here on a very hot morning, " said Mme. C---- apologetically. 

In spite of my curiosity I believe I felt a distaste of the detentioncamp on such a day. A crowd is always depressing, and doubly so in theheat. But we stopped at a door cut in a high board fence, and passed bythe sentinel into the enclosure where the Jews were penned in awaitingthe next stage of their journey. 

Hundreds of faces turned toward us; hundreds of eyes watched ourapproach. There were old men with long, white, patriarchal beardsflowing over their dirty black gowns; there were younger men with peakedblack caps and long black beards; and there were women who had pushedback their black shawls for air, and who held sore-eyed, whining babieslistlessly on their knees. Bits of old cloth stretched over polesafforded shade to some. Others tried to get out of the burning sun byhuddling against the walls of the tenements that enclosed the yard onthree sides. The ground was baked hard as iron and rubbed smooth by theshuffle of numberless feet. 

As we approached, the Jews rose and bowed low. Then they settled backinto their former immobility. Some stared at us vacantly; others loweredtheir eyelids and rubbed their hands together softly, with a terriblesubservience. If we brushed close to one, he cringed like a dog whofears a kick. Yellow, parchment-like faces, all with the high-bridged, curving noses, and the black, animal-like eyes. I was as definitelyseparated from them as though tangible iron bars were between us. Weseemed to be looking at each other across a great gulf. "They are humanbeings, " I said to myself. "I am one with them. " But their isolation wascomplete. I could not even begin to conceive the persecution andsuffering of ages that separated us. "All people are born free andequal, " indeed! I turned away. 

"This camp is run on communistic principles, " Mme. C---- was explaining. "The Jewish Ladies' Benevolent Society provides a certain amount of meatand vegetables and bread, which is cooked and served by the Jewsthemselves. Here is the kitchen. " We spoke French among ourselves, whichseemed to put us farther away from the dumb, watchful Jews behind us. "If it wasn't for us, they would starve. The Government allows themeight kopecks a day. But who could live on that? Besides, most of theJews here pay the eight kopecks to the overseer to avoid hisdispleasure. He makes a good revenue out of the blood money. "

Two rooms in one of the houses had been converted into a kitchen. Adozen or so Jewish women were paring and cutting up potatoes andcabbages and meat into huge soup-boilers. They were stripped to theirshirts, and their bodies were drenched with sweat. They curtsied to usand went on preparing dinner. 

A blast of scorching heat puffed out from an open oven. Two women, withlong wooden handles pulled out big round loaves of black bread and laidthem on a shelf to cool. 

The warm fragrance of cooking attracted some white-faced Jewishchildren. They edged into the kitchen and looked up at the food, theireyes impenetrable and glittering like mica. A woman cut up some breadand gave them each a piece, and they slunk outdoors again, sucking theirbread. 

"The food is scientifically proportioned to give the greatest possiblenutriment, " Mme. C---- said. 

We went out. After the kitchen heat the air of the courtyard was cool. 

"This is the laundry. A certain number of the Jews here wash and ironthe others' clothes. They are kept as clean as possible. "

The laundry was gray with steam. A dozen or so women were bending overwash tubs. Like the women in the kitchen, they were stripped to theirshirts. The wet cloth stuck to their sweating bodies and outlined theirribs and the stretch of muscles as they scrubbed and wrung out theclothes. When the water became too black, some young boys threw it outof doors, and the women waited for the tubs to be filled again, theirred parboiled hands resting on their hips, in the way of washerwomen theworld over. 

We crossed the mud before the wash-house, on planks, and went into ahouse across the courtyard. 

"This is the tailoring establishment, " Mme. C---- continued. "Thetailors among them mend and cut over old clothes which we collect forthem, so that every Jew may start on the next stage of his journey inperfectly clean and whole clothes. My husband and son complain that theywill have to stay in bed, soon, I have taken so many of their suits ofclothes. --And here are the shoemakers. "

We looked into the adjoining room, where the cobblers sat cross-legged, sewing and patching and pegging shoes. 

"It's very hard to find the leather. But it is so important. If youcould see how they come here--their feet bleeding and swollen and theirshoes in tatters. And many of them were rich bankers and professors inGalicia and Poland, used to their own automobiles like the rest of us. Ithink I would steal leather for them. "

The workers were different from the waiting Jews in the courtyard. Perhaps it was work that gave them importance in their own eyes, andtook away that dreadful degrading subserviency--degrading to us as muchas to themselves. The whirring noise of the sewing-machines, the clickof shears, the bent backs of the workers, and the big capable hands, formed by the accustomed work! The trade of every man could have beenknown by his hands! My heart was warm toward them. 

"It's splendid, I think, " I said to Mme. C----. 

As though she guessed my thoughts, she replied, "They are grateful forbeing allowed to work. "

"For being allowed to work. " Those words damn much in the world. Whathindrances we erect in the way of life!

And I looked out into the courtyard again, at the apathetic faces ofthe waiting Jews. Waiting for what? The white, dead faces, with thecurved noses and hard, bright eyes, all turned toward us. Were theysubmissive or expectant, or simply hating us? They say the Galician Jewsturn traitors and act as spies for the Austrians. But surely not these. What could these broken creatures do? How near death they seemed!

The courtyard burned like a furnace. The shade was shrinking from momentto moment. The heat rose in blinding waves. I was sickened. Thecourtyard smelled of dirt and waste and sickness. It was unreal--thewhole thing unreal: those working at usual, necessary tasks as well asthose furtive, watchful ones in the burning sunlight. Death was in themall. 

I went out into the courtyard, walking slowly in the scorching heat. There was no shade or coolness anywhere. My attention was drawn to apregnant woman who had evidently been sitting in a thin strip of shadeby the fence; but now the sun was beating down on her bare head. She satwith her arms hanging along her sides, the palms of her hands turnedupwards. A baby hardly a year old twisted fretfully on her lap, fumbling at her breast with a little red hand. But she looked steadilyover the baby's round head, a curiously intent expression in her darkeyes, as though she were looking at something so far away that she mustconcentrate all herself on it so as not to lose it from view. 

Near her a man leaned against the fence. He was red-headed, and hisunkempt hair and ragged beard flamed in the sun. A rope tied round hiswaist kept up his loose trousers, and his shirt was open, disclosing ahairy chest. Where his skin showed, it was unexpectedly white. He keptplucking at his chest, smiling idiotically. 

"Is he insane?" I asked Mme. C----. 

"Yes. He's that woman's husband. He went out of his head on the road. They say he was raging that his wife was obliged to walk in hercondition. Well, he's happier than she is, now. "

Under a canopy made from an old blue skirt lay a sick boy. His face waslike a death-mask already, the yellow skin stretched tightly over thebones of his face, and his mouth unnaturally wide, with parched, swollenlips. From his hollow eye-sockets his eyes looked out unwinking, asthough his lids had been cut off. He held himself halfway between areclining and an upright position. No normal person could hold himselfthat way for long, but the sick boy kept himself motionless withmaniacal strength. The flies hung over him like a cloud of blackcinders. One of his friends attempted to keep them away with a leafybranch which he had found, Heaven knows where! I could see no other signof green in the place. As we passed, I noticed the branch sweep back andforth over the sick boy's face, touching the skin. And still the fixedstare continued, uninterrupted--that blind gaze straight out intoemptiness. 

At the farther end, an opening between two of the tenements led into agarden. This space, too, was crowded with waiting Jews. 

"But where do they sleep?" I asked. "Is there room for all those peoplein the houses?"

"No, " Mme. C---- replied; "not when so many come through as came thislast time. But fortunately, these summer nights are fine; earlier, wehad much rain, and you can picture the suffering. Then there was noshelter for them at all. They were simply herded into a pen, and manydied from the exposure. Now, however, we have made conditions betterfor them. "

There was more reality here in the garden, where there was a suggestionof growing grass and a thin leaf shade. The Jews lay on the ground asthough trying to get some coolness out of the earth. Up and down thepaths walked several spectacled men, who were brought up to me andintroduced as Professor So-and-So, and Doctor So-and-So. They wereconstantly trying to get in touch with friends in Kiev or Moscow orPetrograd, or colleagues in medicine or other sciences, or relatives whocould help them. They worked through the society. By the payment ofcertain amounts they could bribe the overseers to let them stay on inthe Kiev detention camp, or even have the liberty of the city. One man, a rich banker from Lvov, had been officially "sick" for several months, but as his money had almost given out he was in danger of being sent onto Tomsk in the near future. He lived in the hospital, where he hadbetter quarters and food. These professors and doctors, men of widelearning and reputation, who are recognized as leaders in theirprofessions, and are constructive, valuable forces in society, wereherded together with the others, and will be allowed to disappear intoSiberia, where their minds and bodies will be wasted, their possiblefuture activity to count as nothing. 

A man in a soiled white coat came up, looked us over with littleblinking pig eyes, and addressed a few words to Mme. C---- in Polish. 

"That is the overseer, " Professor A---- said to me in English. "He takesevery kopeck away from us. But he is no worse than the rest. All alongthe way it is the same thing. One is bled to death. " He shruggedindifferently. "We most of us could have gathered together a littlemoney. But what will you? It was all so sudden. We had no time. Here weare, _en tout cas_. And after all, in the end--"

I might have been talking with the professors on the campus of their ownuniversity. They exerted themselves to be attentive and entertaining, asthough they were our hosts. 

One doctor said to me in French, "I have seen your wonderful country. Itis amazing. I would like to see it again. I have been asked to lecture. Perhaps, after the war--"

He broke off abruptly. In a flash the end of his life came up to me. His work and ambitions, and then the cleavage in his career; the sharpdivision in his life; the preparation of years, and then, instead offulfillment, an exile to a country where life was a struggle for thebare necessities of the body--food and shelter. I looked at hishands--thin and white and nervous. What hideous, despairing moments hemust know!

I asked him a question. His eyes blazed suddenly. 

"Do not speak of these things! They are not to be spoken of, much lessto _you_. " He looked as though he hated me. "I beg your pardon, I amnervous. 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 thecenter, and stood in the shade, a long sheet of paper in his hand. Therewas a stir among the Jews. Those lying down got up and approached him. The women, with their children, dragged themselves nearer. Every onestopped talking. The apathy and indifference gave place to a strainedattention. There was a kind of dreadful anxiety on every face--atightening of the muscles round the eyes and mouths, as though the samehorrible fear fixed the same mark there. I have never seen a crowd wherepersonality was so stamped out by a single overmastering emotion. Thegendarme 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 thebreathing of the crowd. Oh, yes, and the flies. It was not that I forgotthe flies, only their buzzing was the ceaseless accompaniment toeverything that happened in the camp. 

"How horrible this is!" Mme. C---- observed. "They all know it mustcome, but when it does, it is almost unbearable. It is truly a list ofdeath. Many of them here cannot survive another stage of the journey inthis heat. And yet they must be moved on to make place for those who arepressing on from behind. In this very crowd were five old men who werekilled on the way here, by the soldiers, because they couldn't keep upwith the procession. How could these civilians be expected to enduresuch hardships? They are townspeople, most of them having lived indoorsall their lives, like you or me. "

"Like you or me. " No, no. It was unbelievable. I could not put myself intheir place. I could not imagine such insecurity--that lives could bebroken 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 thatwhole Galician towns have been moved into Siberia this summer? Part ofthe way on foot, part in baggage cars, where they stifled to death inthe heat and for lack of water and food. One carload wasn't listed, orwas forgotten by some careless official, and when it was finally openedit was a carload of rotting flesh. The bodies were thrown into the riverby the frightened official, but a soldier reported him and he wascourt-martialed. One crowd of several thousand was taken to Siberia. They reached Tomsk. Then the Government changed. What was the need totransport these Galician Jews? the new Minister argued: a uselessexpense to the Government: a waste of money and time. Let them go backto their homes. So the Jews were taken back over the same route, manymore dying on the return journey, in the jails, and camps, and baggagecars, or by the roadsides. They found themselves once more back in theirpillaged towns, with nothing to work with, and yet with their livelihoodto be earned somehow. They began to dig and plant and take up theroutine of their lives again. They began to look on themselves as humanagain. The grind of suffering and hopelessness began to let up and theyhad moments of hope. And then the reactionaries came into power withtheir systematic oppression of the Jews. Back to Siberia with them! Thisin midsummer heat. I saw them as they passed through Kiev for the thirdtime, a few weeks ago. Never shall I forget them as I saw them last. Themark of the beast was on them. You couldn't call them living orsuffering or martyrs any more. They were beyond the point where theyprayed to die. "

The gendarme had finished his list. The tension relaxed. Some of theJews settled back into their former apathy; others gathered in excitedgroups, pulling their beards and scratching their heads; still otherswalked up and down the paths, restless, like so many caged animals. 

A man and a woman with two children approached the gendarmedeprecatingly. The man asked a question, indicating the woman andchildren. The gendarme shook his head. The man persisted. The gendarmerefused again, and started to move away. The man detained him with ahand on his arm. Another man approached. He spread out both hands, hisshoulders up to his ears. All three men spoke Polish in loud, excitedvoices. 

"What are they saying?" I asked. 

"The gendarme has just read the names of the woman and children who areto leave this afternoon. The father's name is not with theirs. Naturally, he wants to be with his wife and children to protect and carefor them as best he can. If they are separated now, they can never findeach other again in Siberia--if they live till they get there. The thirdman is alone. He is willing to give up his place to the father. But thegendarme 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'sarms. He was patting her hair. The children hung at their mother'sskirt, crying and sucking their fingers. 

 _August 12, 1915. _

_Dearest Mother and Dad:--_

They say there was no ammunition at the front. No shells for thesoldiers. They had nothing to do but retreat. And now? They are stillretreating, fighting with empty guns and clubs and even their nakedhands. And still, trainloads of soldiers go out of Kiev every daywithout a gun in their hands. What a butchery! Can you imagine howhorrible it is to see them march through the streets, swinging theirarms and singing their stirring songs, --tall, able-bodied men, --whilethe beggars, cripples from the Russo-Japanese War, stand whining at thestreet corners. 

There seems to be no doubt about the enemy within the gates. How can thesoldiers give their lives so patiently and bravely for a Governmentwhose villainy and corruption take no account of the significance oftheir sacrifices. The German influence is still strong. They say Germanmoney bribes the Ministers at home and the generals at the front. 

There is great distrust of the Czarina and the Monk Rasputin. The latterwas a serf in Siberia, and now has a malignant, hypnotic influence inthe Russian Court. If he is refused anything, he falls on the floor in afit and froths at the mouth until he gets what he wants. The Courtladies have to lick his dirty fingers clean, for he refuses to use afinger-bowl at table. Take this for what it's worth. At any rate, thereis much talk now of the Germans working through this disreputablecreature. 

I asked a Russian if there could be a revolution. 

There seems to be no hope. Russia, apparently, lacks the coördinationand singleness of purpose necessary for one. And so many unseeninfluences are at work. There is no agreement among the people as towhat they want. Each faction is secretly encouraged to war against theother in order to weaken each other and blur the reason and end in thepeople's minds. Besides, of course, nothing can be done as long as thearmy can be used to crush any demonstration against the Government. Butif I were a Russian, all my hate would be directed against the traitorsof my country, rather than at the Germans, who, after all, arepolitical enemies. I would carry a gun against those who sell my countryand make capital out of her suffering. 

In every newspaper there are accounts of enormous graft by Ministers andcompanies under contract to the Government for military supplies. Onecase was translated to me the other day. Some men high up in theGovernment took over a contract for a certain number of cavalry saddlesand bridles. They sold it to the Jews, making a tremendous rake-off. TheJews, to get any profit, were obliged to furnish poor material. At thetrial, where some officers were testing them, the bridles broke in theirhands like paper and the saddles split into ribbons. 

Then there was a sugar factory in Kiev, whose owner wrote to theMinister of the Interior, I think it was, and offered his factory, onlyasking an estimate of the approximate amount of sugar the Governmentwould need turned out each day. No answer was made. The owner wroteagain. Still no answer. He went to Petrograd himself to find out why theDepartment paid no attention to his letters. The Minister informed himhis letters had lacked the required war-tax stamps and had been turnedover to the proper authorities, who would speedily proceed to fine himfor his evasion of the law. 

I went up to a military hospital to-day. I wonder how I can write youabout it. The insignificance of personalities--whether any one lives ordies seems to have no importance. Just life seems to matter any more, and the forward movement of humanity--at least, you must believe themovement is forward in spite of the horror of mangled bodies anddestroyed minds; otherwise, you would go mad, though you are outside ofit all. How the proportions of things are twisted after going through ahospital. Things that counted before don't seem to count any more. Youtake refuge in generalities to get out of your mind a look you have seenin a soldier's eyes. 

It was an improvised hospital, --some building or other turned into aplace to receive the hundreds of wounded that are pouring into Kievevery day. It was a big room, with rows and rows of beds, and in everybed a man. One man was wounded in the back, and his breath whistledthrough the open hole like steam through an escape valve. His face waswound in white bandages. Others were there, dying from terrible stomachwounds. One man's head moved from side to side incessantly, as though hecould never again find comfort on earth. Some moan. Others layabsolutely motionless, their faces terrible dead-white masks. Theirbodies looked so long and thin under the sheets, with their toes turnedup. It was indescribably terrifying to think that human beings could gothrough so much and continue to live. I was more frightened than everbefore in my life. The smell of blood--the closeness of the hotsick-room--flies buzzing about. I saw brown varnish-like stains on someof the white bandages. The indifferent, business-like attitude of thenurses infuriated me. But, of course, they can't be any other way anddeal with it all. 

I can't write any more. But is there any excuse for this?

 RUTH. 

 _August 10, 1915. _

Lately, our conversation at table has been suppressed by the appearanceof a young woman whom the rest suspect of being a spy. She is dark, andnever utters a word. All through dinner she keeps her eyes on herplate. I said something in French to her the other day, but, apparently, she did not understand. Across the table, the Morowski boys laughed atme. I suspect that they, too, had tried to speak to her, for she ispretty, and had been snubbed like me. I don't know how the idea of herbeing a spy got round. She may have been sent here to keep her eyes onthe Polish refugees in the _pension_. Her room is in our corridor, andthis morning Marie saw, through the open door, Panna Lolla and Janchutalking to her. It appears that Janchu had been inveigled in by bonbons, and Panna Lolla had gone in after him. Panna Lolla said the young womanwas so lonely. She is a Pole and wants to leave Russia. She hates ithere. But she has no passport. She showed Panna Lolla an old one thatshe wants to fix up for the police authorities. But she can't speakRussian, and is very frightened. She asked Panna Lolla if she knew anyone who could write Russian. Marie forbade Panna Lolla to go near thewoman again. It is just as well, for Panna Lolla likes excitement, andis capable of saying anything to keep it going. 

III

 _August. _

_Darlingest Mother and Dad:--_

We were arrested four days ago--and you will wonder why I keep onwriting. It relieves my nerves. Ever since the _revision_ Marie and Ihave gone over and over the same reasoning, trying to get at why we werearrested. To write it all out may help the restlessness and anxietyand--yes--the panicky fear that rises in my throat like nausea. Life isso terribly insecure. I feel as though I had been stripped naked andturned out into the streets, with no person or place to go to. 

It was four o'clock, and we had just finished dinner. In an hour and ahalf we were leaving for Odessa. All our trunks and bags were packed, and our traveling suits brushed and pressed. Panna Lolla was crying athaving to part from Janchu, and mending some stockings for him. He wasasleep. Marie and I were sitting in our little salon, rejoicing that weshould be in Bucharest in a few days where there was no war and we couldspeak French again. War--blood-tracks on the snow, and cholera andtyphus camps under a burning sun. To shut it out for one instant andpretend that the world was the way it used to be. What a heavenBucharest seemed!

And suddenly the door of our apartment opened. Six men came into theroom, two in uniform, the other four in plain clothes. It never occurredto me that they had anything to do with me. I thought they had mistakenthe door. I looked at Marie questioningly. There was something peculiarabout her face. 

The four plain-clothes men stood awkwardly about the door which they hadclosed softly behind them. The two men with white cord loops across thebreast of their uniforms went over to the table on the right and putdown their black leather portfolios. They seemed to make themselves athome, and it angered me. 

"What are these people doing here?" I asked Marie sharply. 

She addressed the officer in Polish, and he answered curtly. 

"It's a _revision_, " she replied. 

"A what?"

"A _revision_, " she repeated. 

I remember that I consciously kept my body motionless, and said tomyself, "There is nothing surprising in this. There is nothingsurprising in this. " Everything had gone dark before my eyes. My heartseemed to stop beating. 

Marie laughed and the sound of her cracking, high-pitched laugh came tome from far off. 

The officer said something to her, and she stopped abruptly as thoughsome one had clapped a hand over her mouth. 

"What did he say?" I managed to articulate. My own language seemed tohave deserted me. 

"He says it is a matter for tears, not laughter. "

Her voice was sharp and anxious. I was relieved at the spite and vanityin his words. They made the situation more normal. I felt myselfbreathing again, and my stomach began to tremble uncontrollably. 

I kept my eyes where they were, fighting for my self-control. So manyterrifying thoughts were trying to penetrate my consciousness. I triedto shut out everything but my realization of what I was looking at. Ikept my eyes glued on the officer's boots; shiny black boots they were, that fitted him without a crease, with spurs fastened to the heels. Ishall never forget the stiff, red striped trouser-legs and those shinyblack boots that didn't seem to belong on the body of a living man, buton the wooden form of some dummy. 

Janchu began to cry from the bedroom, and Marie got up to go to him. Quickly a plain-clothes man with horn-rimmed spectacles slipped inbetween her and the door. The officer, who had now seated himself behindthe table, raised his hand. 

"Let no one leave the room, " he said in German. 

"But my baby is crying, " Marie began. 

"Let him cry!" And he busied himself pulling papers out of hisportfolio. 

Soon Janchu, seeing that no one paid any attention to him, toddled inand climbed into Marie's lap. He sat there sucking his fingers andlooking out at the roomful of strange men. 

An army officer entered and spoke to the head of the secret service. Hewore a dazzling, gold-braided uniform, and preened himself before us, looking at us curiously over his shoulder. When he had gone, the headtold us that we were to have a personal examination in the salon of the_pension_. 

A secret-service man escorted each of us, and we walked down thecorridor, past the squad of soldiers with their bayonets, and into thesalon, where we were delivered into the hands of two women spies. Theyundressed us, and we waited while our clothes were passed out to thesecret-service men outside. Panna Lolla tried to twist herself up in thewindow curtains. Marie and I grew hysterical at her modesty, looking ather big, knobby feet and her fiery face, with her top-knot of disheveledred hair. We were given our clothes again, and went back to ourapartment. 

The rooms were in confusion. All our trunks and bags were emptied, oneend of the carpet rolled back, the mattresses torn from the beds. Thesecret-service men were down on their knees before piles of clothes, going over the seams, emptying the pockets, unfolding handkerchiefs, tapping the heels of shoes; every scrap of paper was passed over to thechief, who tucked it into his portfolio. I watched him, hating hissquare, stolid body that filled out his uniform smoothly. His eyes werelong and watchful like a cat's, and his fair mustache was turned up atthe ends, German fashion; in fact, there was something very Germanabout his thick thighs and shaved head and official importance. As Ihave learned since, he _is_ a German and the most hated man in Kiev forhis pitiless persecution of all political offenders. They say he hassent more people to Siberia than any six of his predecessors. They alsosay every hand is against him, even to the spies' in his own force. 

I trembled to spring at him and claw him and ruffle his composure someway. Instead, I sat quietly, my hands folded, and watched the spiesransacking our clothes. I began to feel a sharp anxiety as to what theywould find. It was all so mysterious. What were they looking for? At onemoment it was ridiculous, and I felt like laughing at the whole affair;and then the next, the silence in which the search was conducted, theapparent dead-seriousness of the spies' faces, the deliberation withwhich the chief turned the bits of paper over in his hands andscrutinized them and put them carefully away, struck me with a cold, sharp apprehension. I had the sensation of being on the very edge of aprecipice. I felt as though the world were upside down and the mostinnocent thing could be turned against us. Every card and photograph Itried to catch a glimpse of before it went into the black portfolio. Andsuddenly I saw the letter about the Jewish detention camp, which I hadforgotten all about. I saw the close lines of my writing, and it seemedas though the edge of the precipice crumbled and I went shooting down. Acold sweat broke out over me. 

"But why are we arrested?" I heard Marie ask in German. 

"Espionage, " the chief answered shortly. 

"But that is ridiculous. We're American citizens. "

No reply. 

"Can we leave for Odessa to-night?"

No reply. 

Marie stopped her questions. 

"What money have you? Come here while I count it, " one of the spies saidto me. He slipped me one hundred roubles on the sly, before turning therest over to the chief. I held it openly in my hand, too dazed to knowwhat to do with it, till he whispered to me to hide it. "You may wantit, later, " he said. 

"Frau Pierce will go with us, " the chief said, closing his portfolio;and I understood that the _revision_ was finished. "Frau G---- can stayhere under room-arrest, with her little boy. "

He spoke to no one in particular, but addressed the room at large, hisface impassive, and his voice without an intonation. The spies stood inthe midst of the tumbled clothes, watching us silently, ominously. Janchu now crept up into Marie's lap again. As a matter of course, Iwent into the other room and changed into my traveling suit. 

"May I take my toilet things?" I asked the chief. 

"Ja. "

"You'd better make a bundle of bedclothes, " the spy who had given me themoney whispered to me. 

I rolled up two blankets and a pillow with his help. 

"I'm ready, " I said. "May I send a few telegrams?"

"Certainly, certainly. " The chief's manner suddenly became extremelycourteous. 

I wrote one to our Ambassador in Petrograd, one to Mr. Vopicka inBucharest, one to the State Department in Washington, and one to Peter. I wrote Peter that I was delayed a few days. I was afraid that he mightcome on and be arrested, too. My hand did not tremble, though it struckme as very queer to see the words traced out on the paper--almostmagical. My imagination was racing, and I could see myself already beingdriven into one of those baggage cars bound for Tomsk. 

"Keep your mind away from what is going to happen, " I said to myself. "You will have time enough to think in prison. Things are as they are. You are going to walk out of this room, just the way you've done ahundred times. Are you different now from what you've always been? Keepyour mind on things you know are real. "

I tried to move accurately, as though a false move would disturb thebalance of things so that I would walk out of the room on my hands likean acrobat. 

Suddenly, the chief, who had been talking in a corner with the other manin uniform, wheeled about. 

"Frau Pierce may stay here under room-arrest. Good-day. "

He clicked his heels together and bowed slightly. His spies clusteredabout him, and they left the room. 

All at once my bones seemed to crumble and my flesh dissolve. I fellinto a chair. Marie and I looked at each other. We began to laugh. "Wemustn't get hysterical, " we said, and kept on laughing. 

The room was so dark that we looked like two shadows. Panna Lolla hadcome after Janchu and taken him into Count S----'s room. We imagined theexcited curiosity of the rest of the _pension_. 

"I'll wager that woman was a spy, after all. "

"But why--why should _we_ have a _revision_?"

"Anyway, they couldn't have found much. We'll be set free in a fewdays, " Marie said. 

"They found my letter about the Jews, " I replied. 

"What letter? Oh, my dear, what did you say?"

"I forget. But everything I saw or heard, I think. "

We began to laugh again. 

"Will they send our telegrams?"--"Will Peter come on?"--"What shall wedo for money?"

The room was pitch-dark except for the electric light from the street. We heard the creak and rattle of the empty commissariat wagons returningfrom the barracks. We fell silent, feeling suddenly very tired andlethargic. 

"Where is Janchu? It's time for his supper, " Marie said, without moving. 

I started out of the room to call him, and fell across a dark figuresitting in front of the door. He grunted and pushed me back into theroom. 

"I want Janchu, " I said in perfectly good English, while he closed thedoor in my face. 

"There's a spy outside our door, " I whispered to Marie. 

Panna Lolla came in with Janchu and turned on the light. 

"There's a man outside our door, and two secret-service men at the_pension_ door and two soldiers downstairs, " she whispered excitedly inone breath. "No one can leave the _pension_, and they take the name andaddress of every one who comes here. And that woman _was_ a spy. Antoshasaw the chief go into her room and heard them talking together. And sheleft when they did. "

I lay all night, half asleep, half awake, hearing the street noisesclearly through the open windows. I cried a little from exhaustion andnerves, and then controlled myself, for my head began to ache, and whoknew what would happen the next day? I had to keep strength to meetsomething that was coming. I had no idea what it was, but theuncertainty of the future only made it more ominous and threatening. That letter--In the darkness I saw the chief's watchful, narrow eyes, and the horn-rimmed spectacles of the friendly spy, and the stuffedportfolio. 

 _Later. _

Nothing has happened yet. We have our meals brought to us by Antosha, who tries to comfort us with extra large pickled cucumbers and portionsof sour cream. We are allowed to send Panna Lolla downtown forcigarettes and books from the circulating library. Thank Heaven forbooks! With our nerves stretched to the snapping-point and a pinwheel ofthoughts everlastingly spinning round in our heads, I think we should gomad except for books. It is very hot, but my body is always cool anddamp, because I can't eat much, I suppose, and lie on a _chaise longue_motionless all day long. I can feel myself growing weak, and there isnothing to do but sit and wait. 

Marie and I go over and over the whole thing, and finish at the pointwhere we began. "But why?" We think it may be because Marie came toBulgaria to visit me and brought me back here, and now we want to leaveRussia together. The papers say that Bulgaria already has Germanofficers over her troops. But I can't believe it. She is tooindependent. They say that she will certainly go with the CentralPowers. That, too, is inconceivable. Perhaps, however, if it is true, and already known by the Russian authorities, the secret service issuspicious of our going back there, and of Marie's intention of sailinghome from Dedeagatch, via Greece. What else could it be? How thisuncertainty maddens us! Yet we are thankful for every day that passesand leaves us together. What will happen when they translate my letter?_Bojé moy!_ I hear a step outside the door, and my heart simply ceasesto beat. 

Pan Tchedesky to-day tiptoed into our room when the spy was having hislunch. He whispered to us that he had seen the English Consul, Mr. Douglas, and told him about our case. He begged us not to bediscouraged, and to eat. He said that he almost wept when he saw ourplates come back to the kitchen, untouched. How flabby and livid helooked, his vague, blurred eyes watery with tears! Yet we could haveembraced him. He is the only person who has spoken to us. 

The sun is golden on the old convent wall across the street. The conventis empty during the summer. Only the richest Court ladies send theirdaughters there to be educated, and the Dowager Empress visits them whenshe passes through Kiev. The trees in the garden are gold and green inthe late afternoon sun. A little bell tinkles musically. 

Below in the street some passing soldiers are singing. How fresh andstrong and beautiful their untrained voices are. I wonder if they areoff to the front, for each one carries a pack and a little tea-kettleswung on his back and a wooden spoon stuck along the side of his leg inhis boot. Where will they be sent? Up north, to try and stem the Germanadvance? To Riga? Where? The Germans are still advancing. Something iswrong somewhere. And still soldiers go to the front, singing. They arethrown into the breach. I can't help but think of the fields of Russiandead, unburied. Who has a chance to bury the dead on a retreat? Thereis nothing "decent" in it. Yet they say the retreat is "orderly. " Iwonder what that means?

At night when I try to sleep, I see the map of Russia as if it wasprinted on my eyeballs. It is so big and black with a thin red line offire eating into it. America seems millions of miles away. I wish Icould touch you just for a minute. If I could only feel your arms aboutme for one moment. The only way is not to think beyond this room andthis minute. 

 RUTH. 

 _August. _

_Dearests:--_

Peter is here. Last night, about nine o'clock the door opened and herushed into the room. I got to my feet on impulse, and then tried tobrace myself and control my disordered reason, for, of course, Ibelieved myself delirious. He stopped by the door long enough to throwdown his suitcase, and in that instant I struggled fiercely todisbelieve my eyes. I was fighting myself. My legs trembled. But when Ifell, his arms were around me, supporting me. 

"Is it you? Is it you?" I don't know whether I said the words out loudor not, but I remember feeling the muscle in Peter's shoulder andwondering if I could have gone out of my head as much as _that_. 

"What on earth has happened to you two?" he said at last. 

"Let me sit down, " I said, feeling suddenly very sick and faint, and ablack spot in front of my eyes expanded all at once and shut out theswaying room. 

"Why didn't you come to Bucharest?" he asked again. 

"How white and thin you are. Isn't he, Marie?" I observed, the blacknessgone from my eyes. 

"Please answer me. What is the matter? You both look sick. "

"We are under arrest for espionage, " Marie and I suddenly burst out inchorus, and we both began talking as fast and as loud as we could. 

"That's all right. I'll fix things for you, " Peter reassured us when westopped at last, out of breath. I suddenly wanted to hide him so theywouldn't get him as well as ourselves. He was so self-confident. Whatdid _he_ know of how things happened over here? He was talking andacting like a rational human being, which was sure proof he was in noposition to cope with the Russian Secret Service. I felt a franticdesire to get him out of the room and make him promise that on noaccount would he admit he knew us. 

"You must go at once, " I whispered. "There's a spy at the door. If hesees you, they'll arrest you, too. Please go, go at once. " And I triedto push him away. 

"You poor things, " he said, laughing. "There's no need to be frightenedlike this. Of course I won't go. Why should they arrest me?"

"Why should they have arrested us? Oh, you _don't_ know. " My teeth werechattering. 

"Now, look here, " he said seriously. "You've been alone and scared, andI'm sure you haven't eaten anything for days. Now, don't think aboutthis any more. I'll get you out in no time. Have you a cigarette, anybody?"

I sat back, and my body stopped shaking. Everything seemed very still. Ihad the distinct thought, "What is to come, will come, " and I drew adeep breath that seemed to come from my toes. It was enough Peter washere, after all. 

We talked till three in the morning. Peter had gone to Bucharest to meetus, and when we didn't arrive, he took the first train to Kiev. I beganto believe in his bodily presence. Before he left to go back to hishotel, I had regained my conviction he was a match for even the RussianSecret Service. 

Can you imagine how we feel to-day? We go tottering round the room, taking things up and putting them down again, in a nervous anxiety to_do_ something. We chirp the rag-times popular in America two years ago. We feel as though we were just recovering from a sickness, with apleasant bodily weakness like a convalescent's in the springtime. Peterbrought me a bunch of red roses when he came over this morning. I amwriting this while he is seeing Mr. Douglas, the English Consul. 

So much love to you from

 RUTH. 

 _September. _

_Darlingest ones:--_

It has been three weeks since our arrest, and to-day is the first timewe have been allowed to leave the room and go outdoors. We are stillunder house-arrest, but we can go out in the garden, while two soldiersguard the entrance. Isn't it ludicrous? A gendarme came last night andannounced with ponderous importance that we were to be permitted theliberty of the garden if we gave our word of honor not to try to escape. We signed two red-sealed documents, and so we can go into the gardenwhile two soldiers with bayonets look to it that we don't go anyfarther. 

Peter had to bully me into leaving my room this afternoon. I didn't wantto get healthy. I had grown so used to the proportions of our rooms Ihated to make the effort to adjust myself to any others. But Peter cameback from his daily round of visits to the English Consul, and the ArmyHeadquarters, and the office of Kiev's civil governor, and produced fromhis coat-pocket a rubber ball. We were to play ball out in the garden, he said. So, after some persuasion Marie and I went out into the gardenwith him. How weak I was. My legs trembled going downstairs, and I wasexhausted when I reached the benches in the garden. 

Janchu, seeing us, ran up joyfully and took his mother by the hand. "This is my mother, " he said in Polish, looking around proudly at theother children who were playing there. 

Every one looked at us curiously. A head appeared at every window in thebig stone apartment house. I saw the two women spies who had undressedus. They were evidently employed as servants in some family, for one wasironing and the other fixing a roast for the oven. They, too, looked outat us. I felt hot and indignant and, yes, ashamed as though I had beenguilty. I wanted to hide. I felt inadequate to life. People were toomuch for me. People--people, the living and the dead. What a weight oflife! I could hardly control my tears. Weakness, I suppose, for thesoles of my feet and my fingertips hurt me as though my nerves werebared to the touch. 

I looked up over the garden-wall. The tree-tops were yellow. While wehad been locked in our room, the season had changed. Autumn was upon us. I shivered. There was a lavender mist over the city dimming the radianceof the gold and silver church domes. How beautiful Kiev was! Thechurch-bells were so mellow-toned; and the children's shrill laughterand cries as they played in the garden. But it tired me. Everyimpression seemed to bruise me. 

Peter bought some little Polish cakes, and we had hot tea to cheer usup--three and four glasses of tea. 

Good-night. Sometimes, when I think of you, I don't see all of you, butinstead a particular gesture, or I hear an inflection of voice that istoo familiar to be borne. Now I see mother's hands and they arebeautiful. 

 RUTH. 

 _September. _

_Dearests:--_

Every day now we go out into the garden. We play ball and play tag inthe wind to get warm. 

There is a private hospital at one end of our apartment house, supportedby a wealthy Polish woman. Two or three times a week she visits thepatients, young officers who go out into the garden with her and kissher hand and talk and flirt. She sits on a garden-bench surrounded byher young men, a big woman in black, with a long black veil, talkingvivaciously, using her hands in quick, expressive gestures, pattingtheir cheeks, leaning forward to give their hands an impulsive squeeze. When she laughs, which is often, the black line of a mustache on herupper lip makes the white of her teeth whiter still. The days when sheisn't there, the convalescents flirt with the nurses. There is nothinghorrible about this hospital. The patients are only slightly wounded, and wear becoming bathrobes when they lounge round. 

The window-ledges of the rooms are gay with flowers. Almost always aphonograph is going, "Carmen, " or "Onégin, " or "Pagliacci. " Sometimes, Peter and I one-step to the music on the pavement outside, and theofficers and nurses crowd to the windows and clap and cry, "Encore!"Often, after sundown, when the children have gone indoors, and we go outfor a walk before dinner, we see a patient with a bandage around hishead, perhaps, but both arms well enough to be clasping a pretty nursein them. They laugh and we laugh. There is no cynicism about it. It'sbigger than that, it seems to me. 

Into the garden come many street musicians. They play and sing, andshowers of kopecks rain down from the windows. Two little girls came afew days ago. They were Tziganes, barefooted, with gay petticoats andflowered shawls and dangling earrings. Their dark hair was short andcurly. One of the children played a _balalaika_ and sang in a broken, mournful voice that did not at all belong to her age. The other--whowore the prettiest dress, yellow, with a green and purple shawl--dancedlike a little marionette on a string, not an expression in her pointed, brown face, but every now and then accelerating the pace of her dance, and giving sharp, high cries. Then, suddenly, they stopped in the middleof a measure, and held out their aprons for money. A window on theground floor opened and a very pretty woman leaned out. I have seen hermany times. She is Polish, the daughter of a concierge, and now themistress of a young Cossack, who is leaving shortly for the front. Shehas heavy, pale-yellow hair, wound around her head in thick braids, andshe wears pearls, opaque like her skin. She beckoned the little girlsinto her room. They went eagerly. Soon I heard them singing there. 

When we were with Dr. ----, from the Red Cross hospital this afternoon, a soldier came up to us and saluted. He was a miserable-lookingcreature, in a uniform too big for him. His face was unshaven, his beardgray and sparse, and his eyes red and blinking and full of pain. Heslouched away again in a moment, his eyes staring down at the sidewalkunder his feet. 

"What did he want?" I asked. 

"He wants brandy. He's leaving for the front to-morrow, and he asked meto write out a doctor's prescription so he could get a little brandy. Poor fellow. It was impossible, of course, but I'd have done it gladly. He said he'd been wounded and discharged, and had to go back to thefront and leave his family, helpless, again. The second time must be somuch worse than the first. You know what it's like out there. "

 RUTH. 

 _September. _

_Darlingest ones:--_

At last I have heard from the letter about the Jewish detention camp. The English Consul came to our rooms yesterday afternoon and said he wasto act as interpreter for the head of the secret police. I was to beready to answer his questions about eight o'clock that night. He told meto keep my temper and say as little as possible. 

Shortly before eight the Consul and the chief came round together. Weall sat down. I was quite calm. So often I had created my own terror ofthis moment that when it came I met it with relief. I even felt a senseof superiority over the chief of the secret service. I don't know why, I'm sure. Perhaps because I was no longer afraid of him. It was asthough I had stuck my head under a pump of ice-cold water. I felt veryclear-headed. I had a curious feeling that things were as they were andnothing I could say could change them. 

"Are you a Jew?" he asked me first. 

"No. "

"Is your mother or father Jewish?"

"No. There is no Jewish blood in our family. " I thought of Dad'sQuakerism and smiled. I wondered what he would have said if he had beenthere. 

"Then why have you such sympathy for them?" He looked at me narrowly, asthough he had me _there_. 

"Because they are suffering. "

"Tck. " He clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth in the mostskeptical fashion. 

He took up my letter, translated into Russian, and went through it. Thewhole thing was a farce. I answered the questions he asked me, but theydidn't get us anywhere. Of course, everything I knew about the Jewishdetention camp I had written in my letter. All I could do was to repeatwhat I had said there. And when he asked questions like, "Who said fiveold men had been killed along the way?" or, "How did you know throwingthe bodies into the Dnieper had brought cholera into Kiev this summer?"I could only reply, "I was told it. " "Who told you?" "I forget. "

When he got up to go he said:--

"This letter makes your case a very serious one. Of course, we can'thave such things as that published about us. Have you ever writtenbefore?"

I said, "No. "

"You aren't reporting for any journal?"

I assured him it was only a letter I had written my mother and father. 

"It goes out of my hands to-night. I shall hand it with a report to theChief of the General Staff. "

"When shall I hear from them?"

"They will let you know as soon as possible. It's unfortunate you shouldhave written it. Otherwise, I could have settled the matter myself. Asit is, it is a matter for the military authorities. Of course, such aletter written in the war zone, at a time like this--" He stoppedhimself. "Good-night. Good-night. " He clicked his heels and bowedhimself out of the room. 

"Ouf!" we all said. 

"Mrs. Pierce, promise me you won't put your pen to paper again while youare in Russia, " the English Consul said, smiling. 

"But isn't it ridiculous--absurd--disgusting!" I said. 

"People are sent to Siberia for less, " the Consul said. "But don't befrightened, Mrs. Pierce. It will come out all right. "

"Of course. But when?"

"_Seichas_, " he replied, smiling. 

"_Seichas. _" How I hate the expression. "Peter, you'd better cable forsome more money. Heaven knows when we'll get out now, " I said. 

Peter sends love too. We are hungry for news from you, and we picturegreedily the piles of letters we shall find waiting for us in Bulgaria. I try not to be anxious about you--But I wake up at night and thissilence of months is like a dead weight on my heart. 

 RUTH. 

IV

 _September. _

_Dear ones:--_

The Germans are advancing. Nothing seems able to stop them. And everyday brings new refugees from the country. They come in bewildered, frightened hordes and pass through the city streets, directed bygendarmes. They do as they are told. There is something dreadful intheir submission and in the gentle alacrity with which they obey orders. 

The other day we were waiting on a street corner for a line of therefugees' covered carts to pass. Suddenly, a woman, walking by a horse'shead, collapsed. She sank on to the paving-stones like a bundle of dustyrags. People stopped to look, but no one touched her. The refugeesbehind left their carts and came up to see what had halted theprocession. They, too, stood without touching her--peasants in dustysheepskins, leaning on their staffs, looking down at the woman who hadfallen out of their ranks. A gendarme elbowed his way through the crowd. He began to wave his arms and strike his boot with his whip, and shoutat the weary-eyed, uncomprehending peasants. At last, two of them tuckedtheir staffs under their arms and, leaning down, picked up the faintingwoman. They carried her round to her cart and laid her down on thestraw, her head on the lap of one of her children. For a moment thechild looked down at her mother's white face, so strangely still, andthen, terrified, suddenly jumped to her feet and her mother's head fellback against the boards with a dull thud. The children huddled together, crying. A peasant whipped up the little horse, and the procession beganto move on. 

There seems to be a horrible fear behind them that never lets them haltfor long. The Germans--After all, they are human beings like theRussians. They, too, have their wounded and dying. People here speak ofspecial red trains that leave the front continuously for Germany. Thesered trains are full of human beings whose brains have been smashed bythe horrors of war. The German soldier is not supernatural. Then I thinkof those terrible red trains rushing through the dark, filled withraving maniacs, of men who have become like little children again. Andyet when you hear, "The Germans are advancing! They are coming!" theGerman army seems to take on a supernatural aspect, to become a ruthlessmachine that drives everything before it in its advance, and in its wakeleaves a country stripped of life--all the people and cottages rubbedoff the face of the earth. 

People here in Kiev feel the same terror of the German advance. Cannothing stop it? A panic has swept over the city that makes every onewant to run away and hide. They crowd the square before the railwaystation and camp there for days, waiting to secure a place on the trainsthat leave for Petrograd or Odessa. For three weeks Peter has beenwaiting for his reservation to get to Petrograd. Our case drags on so. He wants to see the Ambassador personally. But the trains are packedwith terrified people. Men leave their affairs and go down to the squarewith their families and baggage. They sleep on the cobble-stones, wrapped up in blankets, their heads on their bags. It is autumn, and thenights are cold and rainy, and the children cry in discomfort. I haveseen the square packed with motionless, sleeping people, and in themorning I have seen them fight for places in the train, transformed bythis unbearable terror of the Germans into beasts that trample eachother to death. And when the train goes off, they settle back, waitingfor their next chance. Perhaps some are so much nearer the station, butothers are carried away wounded or dead. Who knows what they are capableof till they are so afraid?

My dressmaker's sister was a cripple. Fear had crept even into hersick-room. When Olga came to try on my dress, she fumbled and pinnedthings all wrong in her haste. I spoke to her sharply and asked her tobe more careful. Then she burst into tears and told me about her sister. It appeared her sister was afraid to be left alone. Every time Olga leftthe room, her sister caught at her dress and made her promise not todesert her. She thought of the Germans day and night. She cursed Olga ifshe should ever run away and leave her to them. A few days later, Olgacame again. She was so pale and thin it frightened me, and she didn'thurry nervously any more when she fitted me. 

"What is it, Olga? You are sick, " I said. 

"My sister is dead. Last Saturday, it was late when I left you, and Istopped on the way home to get some herring for supper. I was later thanusual, and when I got home I found my sister dead. She had died fromfear. She thought I had deserted her. She had half fallen out of herchair as though she had tried to move. How could she think I woulddesert her ever? Haven't I taken care of her for fifteen years? But itwas fear. She has been like one out of her mind since they have been sonear Kiev. What will they do in Kiev? They say the Germans are only twodays' march away!"

All day the church-bells have been ringing for special prayers. I wentinto one of the churches in the late afternoon. It was dark and filledwith people who had come to pray for help to stop the Germans. Therewere soldiers and peasants and townspeople, all with their thoughtsfixed on God. I cannot tell you how solemn it was. All the people unitedin thought against the common menace. Women in black, soldiers andofficers with bands of black crêpe round their sleeves, square, stolid-looking peasants, with tears running down their cheeks. Theyknelt on the stone flagging, their eyes turned toward the altar withits gold crucifix and jeweled ikons. The candle-flames only seemed tomake the dimness more obscure. And the deep voice of the priest chantingin the darkness: all Russia seemed to be on its knees offering its faithas a bulwark against the Germans. When I turned to leave, I came face toface with an old woman. The tears were still wet on her cheeks, but shewas smiling. 

"Kiev is a holy city, " she said. "God will protect the tombs of his holySaints. " And she brushed by, paying no more attention to me. 

There are placards in all the banks, offering to give people the valueof their jewels and silverware. 

Extra pontoon bridges are thrown across the Dnieper, ready for theretreat of the Russian troops. Though there are lines of trenches andbarbed-wire entanglements before the city, no effort will be made todefend it, as it would probably mean its destruction. I wonder what theGermans will do when they get here? They are human beings, but I can'thelp but think of Belgium, and then I am sick with fear. At other times, it seems the one way to bring our affair with the Secret Service to afinish. How strange it will be to have no longer a Russian army betweenthe Germans and Kiev. No more a wall of flesh to protect us. Poorsoldiers, without a round of ammunition, fighting with naked hands. Theywill cross the Dnieper to one side of the city, crowding, fighting, falling together. And the German cannon driving them on, and crashinginto the city, sometimes, wiping out whole streets of townspeople. Andthen, the gray lines of the Germans running into Kiev. The thousands ofblue-eyed Germans and their pointed helmets and guttural speech takingpossession of everything. 

As we came down the hill to-day, we saw great vans drawn up before theGovernor's mansion. Soldiers were loading them with the rich furnishingsof the house. Evidently, the Governor had no intention of letting _his_things fall into the Germans' hands. How strange it looked--the feverishhaste with which the house was being emptied!

At the station a special train was waiting to take the Governor's thingsto a place of safety--and the crowds were waiting to escape with theirlives! Now every one with any sort of a boat that will float is makinga fortune taking the terrified townspeople down the river. There are, ofcourse, horrible accidents, for the boats are overcrowded. Onecompletely turned turtle with its load of men and women and children. And yet the Governor's things must be removed to a place of safety. 

Aeroplanes scout over the city every day, and at night you can see theirlights moving overhead in the darkness. Sometimes they fly so low thatyou can hear the whir of their engines. For the moment you don't know ifthey're Russian or enemy ones. 

And all night long high-powered automobiles rush up the hill to theGeneral Headquarters, bearing dispatches from the front. 

I lie in bed, and it is impossible for me to sleep. It is as if I wereup over Kiev in an aeroplane, myself. I can see millions of Germansmarching along the roads from Warsaw, dragging their cannon through themud, fording streams, with their field kitchens and ambulances, movingonward irresistibly toward the golden domes of Kiev. 

You seem far away to-night. Only I love you. I can't love you enough. 

 RUTH. 

 _October. _

_Darlingest Mother and Dad:--_

This afternoon I went up to the English Consulate with Sasha. As weturned the corner we saw a long gray procession of carts crawling downthe hill toward us. I stopped and watched them pass me, one after theother, crowded over to the side of the road by the usual traffic of abusy street. Peasants walked by the horses' heads, men in dustysheepskin coats, or women muffled up somehow, their hands hidden in thebosoms of their waists for warmth. They stared ahead with a curious, blind look in their eyes, as though they did not realize the noise andmovement of the city life about them. How strange it was, the passing ofthis silent peasant procession by the side of the clanging trains andgray war automobiles!

"Who are these people?" I asked Sasha. 

"They must be the fugitives, " she replied. "Every day they come inincreasing numbers. I have heard the Kiev authorities are trying to turnthem aside and make them go round the outskirts; for what can a city dowith whole provinces of homeless and hungry peasants?"

"You mean they are the refugees who have been driven out of their homesby the enemy?" I asked. 

"Yes. By the Germans and Austrians. "

The carts jolted slowly down the hill, the brakes grinding against thewheels, 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 onesmall horse to drag a heavy double cart crowded with people andfurnishings. One little horse looked about to drop. His sides wereheaving painfully and his eyes were glazed. "Why don't they stop andrest, " I thought. "Why does that man keep on? His horse will die, andthen 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 forcedto leave their farms and lands? They bear it. The Russian people have agreat capacity for suffering. Think of it--what this meansnow--hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people made homeless and sentwandering over the face of the earth. Think of the separations--thefamilies broken up--the bewilderment. A month ago, perhaps, they hadtheir houses and lands and food to eat. They were muzhiks. And now theyare wandering, homeless, like Tziganes. Ah, the Russian people were borninto 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 openfarm wagons, piled with hay, and hung with strange assortments ofhousehold utensils. Frying-pans and kettles were strung along the sides, enameled ones, sometimes, that showed a former prosperity. Inside werepiles of mattresses and chairs; perhaps a black stovepipe stuck outthrough the slatted sides of the cart. The women and children huddledtogether in the midst of their household goods, wrapped up in the extrapetticoats and waists and shawls they had brought along--anything forwarmth. The children were pale and pinched, and some of them had theireyes closed as though they were sick. If they looked at you, it waswithout any curiosity or eagerness. How pitiful the indifference of thechildren was!

Sometimes the carts were covered with faded cloth stretched over roundedframeworks like gypsy-wagons. There, the old _babas_ sat on the frontseats, eyes like black shoe-buttons, with their lives almost finished. They seemed the least affected by the misery and change. They occupiedthe most comfortable places, and held the bright-colored ikons in theirarms--the most precious possession of a Russian home. Perhaps a dog wastied under the wagon, or a young colt trotted along by its mother'sside. 

It was as though there had been a great fire, and every one had caughtup what he could to save from destruction: homes broken into little bitsto be put together again in a strange land. 

An open cart broke down in front of us. The woman got out to help herhusband. She had a round, pock-marked face, as expressionless as wood. She wore a bright shawl over her hair, and a long sheepskin coat, withthe 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 turnswith 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-downcart, continued uninterruptedly down the hill. Every now and then thepeasant 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 weget 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 didtake some potatoes once. It was before the cold weather. I dug them outof a field we passed through after dark. No one saw me. My children werecrying with hunger and I had nothing to give them. So I dug up a handfulof potatoes in the dark. But God saw me and punished me. I cooked thepotatoes over a fire by the roadside, but He kept the heat from reachingthe inside of the potatoes. Two of my children sickened and died fromeating them. It was God's punishment. We buried them along the road. Myhusband 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 theroad 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 blessyou!" And she kissed my hands. 

I looked at the three children who were left. They sat in the cartsilently, surrounded by the incongruous collection of pots and pans, andleaning against a painted chest. The chest was covered with dust, butyou could still see a bunch of bright-painted flowers behind thechildren's heads. 

"Poor little things, " I said. "Are they cold?"

"It's hard on the children, " the mother replied stolidly. "They can'tstand it as we can. We are used to trouble. We know what life is. Butthe children--they are sick most of the time. They have no strengthleft. What can we do for them? We have no medicines. Have you anymedicines?" 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 thebroken 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 herarms. A feeble wail came from the dull-colored bundle. Her husbandturned the horse into the procession again. 

Still the carts were coming over the hill, gray and dusty, with thepeasants and their wives walking beside the horses' heads. What a riverof suffering! What a smell came from it! And automobiles and tramwaysrushed by. 

Is this the twentieth century?

 _October. _

I delayed mailing my last letter, so I shall tell you about anotherglimpse I've had of the refugees. Yesterday, as we sat drinking tea, weheard the rumble and creak of heavy wagons outside the _pension_. Thenoise reached us distinctly in spite of the windows being hermeticallysealed with putty for the winter. At first we thought it was the regulartrain of carts that climb Institutska Oulitza every evening at sixo'clock carrying provisions to the barracks. But the rumble and creakpersisted so long that I went to the window at last to see why therewere so many more carts than usual. 

There was a procession of carts, but instead of going up the hill in thedirection of the barracks, it was descending the hill, and instead ofsoldiers in clumsy uniforms, peasants in bell-shaped sheepskin coatswalked by their horses' heads, snapping the long lash whips they carriedin their hands. I recognized the covered gypsy wagons and the open cartswith their bulky loads. It was too dark to see distinctly, but I knewthey were refugees by the strings of kettles along the sides of thecarts, which caught the electric light in coppery flashes. And in theopen wagons I could see the pale disks of faces. As I watched, theprocession came to a stand-still and the drivers collected in littlegroups under the white globes of the street lamps. I went outdoors andcrossed the street to them. 

I approached a group of three men. 

"Good-evening, " I said. 

"Good-evening, Panna, " they replied. 

"Have you come far?"

"Far? I should say we've been two months on the road, " replied thebest-dressed man of the three. He had fur cuffs and collar on his longsheepskin coat, and his boots were strong and well made. 

"Can you tell me where we can get some tobacco?" he asked. 

I directed him down the street a little way. He took a piece of silverfrom a leather purse he wore round his neck, and gave it to one of hiscompanions, who left on the errand. The other man went round to the tailof the cart and took down two bags of grain for the horses' supper. 

"Good horses you have there, " I said, to say something. 

"Yes, indeed; the best horses a man ever had; less good ones would havedied on the road long ago. I bought them for fifty roubles apiece, and Iwouldn't take two hundred and fifty for them to-day. But, then, they'reall I have left of back there. " He spoke in a quiet voice, scratchinghis stubby, unshaven face, absent-mindedly. 

"Is he traveling with you?" I asked, pointing to the man who wasslinging the grain-bags round the horses' necks. 

"Yes. I picked him up along the road. His horse had died under him andhe counted himself no longer a human being. What was he, indeed, withnothing he could call his own in the world any more? I let him comealong with me. I had extra room. So I let him come along with me. " Hisvoice had no expression in it. 

"But haven't you a family?" I asked. 

"I have three children, " he replied. 

"It must be hard to take care of children at such a time as this. "

"God knows it is, " he replied. There was a sudden desperate note in hisvoice. "It's a woman's business. But my wife died on the way. A monthand a half ago--soon after we started. It seems soon, now, but we'd beenlong enough on the road to kill her with the jolting and misery of it. "

"Was she sick?"

"She died in childbirth. There was no one to take care of her, andnothing for her to eat. I made a fire, and she lay on the ground. Allnight she moaned. She died toward morning. The baby only lived a fewhours. It was better it should die. What was ahead of it but suffering?It was a boy, and my wife and I had always wanted a boy. But I wouldn'thave minded so much if the little wife had lived. It's hard withouther. "

The man returned with the tobacco and the three peasants lightedcigarettes. All was quiet. I heard nothing but the champing of thehorses as they munched the grain and the whistling of the wind throughthe poplars in the convent garden. 

"Kiev is a big city--a holy city, I've heard. Many from our town havemade a pilgrimage here, " the rich peasant observed. 

For the moment I'd forgotten where I was. Now I heard the city noises;the footsteps grinding on pavements; the whistle and grinding of trains. And the lights from the city reddened the mists that rose from theDnieper. 

The carts in front began to move on. 

"Where are we going?"--"What are the orders?"--"Is there a reliefstation here?" every one cried at once. 

"Good-bye. A good journey, " I cried. 

"Thank you. Good-bye. "

The men stepped out into the road again. I watched cart after cart passme. The women looked straight out between the horses' ears, and showedno curiosity or wonderment at being in a big city for the first time intheir lives. Strange sights and faces had no significance for them anymore. 

I ducked under a horse's nose and went indoors again. 

There is something shameful in our security. We have shelter and bread. We can only feel life indirectly, after all. We are always muffled up bythings. And America. A pathologic fear clutches me, for how will it allend?

My love to you every minute. 

 RUTH. 

 _October. _

_Dearests:--_

There seems no beginning or end to my stay here. How strange it is tolook back to July and remember the long, hot days and the languorousnights when, in spite of the war, people walked in the gardens andlistened to the music and drank punch out of tea-cups, pretending it wastea. The still, starlit nights of July. 

I remember a dinner Princess P---- gave at Koupietsky Park a few nightsafter my arrival in Russia. Everything was so new to me. Our table wasset out on the terrace, overlooking the Dnieper, with the music and stirof people in the distance. An irresponsible joy filled my heart as Ilooked down at the black, winding river with its shadowy banks and thefantastic shimmer of lights on the water. The city lights crowded downto the very water's edge; then the drifting red and green lights ofsteamers and ferry-boats moving on the black, magic stream, and beyond, the flat plain, silent and mysterious, with, over the horizon rim, thethunder and clang of war. But war was far away those first days I was inRussia. I hardly thought of it. 

The dome and square walls of a monastery were momentarily whitened by awheeling searchlight, and high up against the dusky, starlit sky wasprinted a shining gold cross. Women's dresses glimmered in the darknesslike gray, widespread wings of moths, and laughter came from the curveof the terrace overlooking the monastery garden. 

"My child, there are tears in your eyes; how pretty!" the Princesscried, taking my hand in hers and stroking it with her small, coldfingers. 

There were other Americans present beside myself, and I knew thePrincess loved one of them. It was to make him jealous, I knew, that sheheld my hand in hers throughout dinner. She, herself, hardly ateanything, only smoked one cigarette after another. There were all sortsof _zakouski_, stuffed tomatoes and cucumbers and queer little fishes inoil, and pickled sturgeon and mushrooms, and salads and caviar, andthere was _kvass_ to drink, --deep red, --and a champagne cup served in ateapot, and cigarettes all through the meal. 

The Princess was middle-aged and wanted to appear youthful; so she dyedher hair blue-black which was harsh for her pointed face, and worecostly, too elaborate clothes from Paris. But her body showed delicatelyround under the laces and chiffons, and she was quick and light in hergestures like a bird. Her husband, who had been twice her age, had died, leaving her large estates and much money. Now she moved about Russiawith a maid and a wee little dog and numberless trunks, frivolouslyseeking her pleasure. Her eyes were black and glittering, and her mouthred and thin and flexible. She had caressing, spoiled ways with everyone from the American whom she called "Meester" to her chow dog, and allshe asked from any one was amusement. 

"I like Americans, " she said with shameless flattery. "So much I likethem. The women--_and_ the men. I shall go to New York after the war, and you will show me your famous cabarets, and--what do you call it?"She appealed to "Meester. "

"Broadway--good old Broadway, " he replied indulgently. 

"Ah, yes. B-r-r-oadway. And I will dance all night. I dancemagnificently. Is it not so, Meester? Yes, I will go to New York andbecome just like an American. "

After dinner we went to a wrestling-match, and "Meester" took thePrincess, radiant and vivacious and paying all the bills, back to theContinental. 

Since July war has come nearer Kiev. The hospitals are full of maimedand wounded soldiers who fought to defend Russia. They made a bulwark oftheir breasts. It was as though one single giant breast, hundreds ofversts broad, thrust itself between the Germans and home. 

And it is winter now. The days are short with an icy, gray mist from theDnieper, and flurries of snow. There is a shortage of coal, and we sitshivering in our apartment. We drag the covers off the beds and wrapourselves up in them while we read books from the circulating library orplay three-handed bridge. The wind rattles the windows and streaks thepanes with snow and rain. But however dirty they get, they must remainunwashed till spring; for they are sealed for the winter with putty, andyou can open only one small pane at the top. The apartment is darkerthan ever. Not once does the sun shine into our rooms. We see thesunlight in the street, but the dark shadow of the building lengthensminute by minute, stretching itself across the street and reaching upover the convent wall like the smothering black hand of a giant, tillonly the tips of the cypresses and poplars in the gardens are red in thelate sunlight. 

At tea-time we go to "François's" or to some other little sweet-shop, inorder to get warm. There, we drink glass after glass of weak tea and eatlittle Polish cakes, and look over the English and French periodicals. 

It is dark when we go out into the street again, and the air is frosty. The officers wear short gray coats, braided and lined with fur, and furcaps. The women are muffled in seal and sable, which make the skin lookclear and white and their eyes brilliant. Even the peasants wearsheepskin coats, bell-shaped and richly embroidered. Marie has winterclothes, but the warmest thing I possess is my traveling suit I worehere in June, which has been getting thinner and thinner ever since. Myfeet, in low summer pumps, are swollen and burning with chilblains. Imust get some high shoes when our next money comes. You see, that is thetrouble. We are promised our passports from day to day, and, expectingto go at any time, we try to get along with what money we have, and waitto buy clothes till we get back to Bucharest. But our passports are notgiven us and our money gets low. We are waiting for money now, and, ofcourse, a cold snap has set in just when we can't possibly buy anything. Peter's summer suit hangs on him in folds. The heaviest iron couldn'tcrease it into even temporary shape. When we went to the cinematographlast night he wore Marie's black fur coat to keep from freezing. 

"Look at that man, " we heard a woman say in the street. "He's wearing awoman's coat!"

Yes, we go from café to cinematograph and try and keep warm. 

I've never liked moving pictures before. Here they are presenteddifferently than in America. Some of the plays I've seen have thenaïveté and simplicity of a confession. Others interpret abnormal, psychopathic characters whose feelings and thoughts are expressed by theactors with a fine and vivid realism. There is the exultation of life, and the despair, the aggression and apathy, the frivolity and therevolt. The action is taken slowly. There are no stars. You look at thescreen as though you were looking at life itself. And the films don'talways have happy endings, because life isn't always kind. It oftenseems senseless and cruel and crushes men's spirits. I wish we couldhave these films in America instead of the jig-saw puzzles I've seen. 

 _October. _

There is a gypsy who sells fruit at the corner of Institutska Oulitza, awoman so enormous that she resembles a towering mountain, and hercustomers look, beside her, like tiny Russian toys. Every one looks ather curiously, and I have seen several gentlemen in fur pelisses, withgold-headed canes, stop and speak to her. In the morning she wheels upher cart by the curbing and polishes the pears and apples with the endof her shawl till they shine. Then she piles them up in red and yellowpyramids and waits for customers, her hands on her hips. Everythingabout her is crude and flaming and inextinguishable like life itself. Her scarlet skirt lights up the whole street. It floats about her, andwhen she bends over to serve a customer, you can see the edges of greenand yellow and pink and brown petticoats underneath as her overskirttilts up. The lines of her body are brutal and compact. Her dark, mulberry-colored shawl is stretched tightly across her full bosom. Hereyebrows meet over her nose in a heavy, broad line like a smudge ofcharcoal, and her nose is spongy, and her lips swollen and red fromtaking snuff. She holds her black and silver snuff-box in her hand orhides it away in a pocket in her voluminous skirt when she serves someone. Her fingers are covered with rings and she wears yellow hoops inher ears. I am repulsed as well as attracted. She is like a bold, upright stroke of life, and then I see her crafty eyes and notice how, in spite of her size, when she moves it is with the softness andflexibility of a huge cat. 

Peter went to Petrograd to-day and he will stay there till he gets ourpassports. He would have gone a month ago, but first came the panicfrom the German advance, and then the railways were used only formilitary purposes. Now, Marie and I are alone, waiting for a telegramfrom him. 

V

 _October. _

To-day, the chief of the secret service came and told us all politicalprisoners were to be sent on to Siberia. He told us to make a smallbundle of necessary things and be ready to leave at any time. With Peterin Petrograd! I asked him where we were going and he shrugged hisshoulders. I went to Mr. Douglas, who has wired Peter. Also, he is goingto see the chief and try and keep in touch with us. We won't leave tillthe last moment. But already many of the hospitals have been moved, andcertain prisoners. I suppose I must destroy these letters to you. But Iwill wait till the last moment. I want so much for you to get them andknow what has happened, because I shan't see you, to tell you with myvoice, for over a year still. I have written so fully for that reason. 

 _A few days later. _

We are still here, and there is more hope in the situation. There is apersistent report in the papers, and it is repeated in the streets andhouses, that the Germans have been stopped by Riga and Dvinsk. Largebodies of troops are moved through Kiev, day and night, for the front. Regular train service is suspended by this movement of troops. 

Huge vans pass through the city, carrying aeroplanes to the aviationfield outside the barracks. Once we saw a wrecked one being sent to berepaired. A troop of small boys followed it, looking curiously at thebroad, broken wings and the tangle of steel framework. 

Guns are arriving, too. We see them being carted through the streets. And early this morning we heard cannon. Our first thought was of theGermans, and we lay in bed, stiff with fright. Later, we heard they werethe new cannon being tried out before being sent to the front. They saythat fresh ammunition has been received from Japan and America. Alltrains are held up to let these trainloads of guns and cannon andammunition go tearing over the rails to the front to save Russia. Andjust in time. I see the open cars packed and covered and guarded bysoldiers. I lie in bed and hear the whistle and shriek of the trains inthe night, and I imagine row upon row of long iron-throated cannonstaring up at the stars. 

The Czar has arrived in Kiev for a conference at Headquarters. He cameduring the night, and no one knows when he will leave. There was nodemonstration, and the police break up any groups of more than threepersons in the streets. 

A dozen or so Japanese officers passed through Kiev, too. They werebound for the front, escorting their guns and ammunition. How curiousthey looked beside the big, naïve Russians. They were like porcelainfigurines with impenetrable, yellow faces, mask-like, and tiny hands andfeet. What a finished product they appear, and yet they go to the frontand observe the latest methods of warfare and multiply their merchantmarine while the rest of the world is spending itself. 

 _October. _

I went to a military hospital to-day. It was up on a hill, a huge place, formerly a school, I think, with a broad piazza where the convalescentswalked in their gray bathrobes. Inside were rows and rows of cots, andon every cot a wounded man. It appeared that a fresh batch had arrivedfrom the front, and the doctors were just finishing with them. There wasa foul smell of blood and sweat and anæsthetics, and the light camedismally through the dirty window-panes, showing dimly the rows and rowsof pale, weary faces on the thin pillows. Sometimes the gray blanketscame up to the chin, and the man looked dead already, he was sodreadfully still, with his closed eyes and waxlike face. Another moanedcontinuously, moving his head from side to side--"Oh, oh--Oh, oh. " Hiseyes were open, and hard and bright with fever. Several had their headswound with strips of bandages. You would hardly have known they werehuman. Two or three were blind, with the bandage only round their eyes, and it was strange to see the expression their hands took on--workmen'shands with stubby fingers, now white and helpless-looking, and pickingat the cover aimlessly. 

A nurse told me how an officer who had been blinded and was about to bedischarged and sent home, had committed suicide the other day. In someway one of his men, who had been wounded in the arm, had been able tosmuggle in a revolver to him. The officer killed himself in the middleof the night. 

"I don't suppose he knew whether it was day or night, and took a chancethat no one was looking, " I said. 

"I think he knew it was night, " she replied. "He could tell by theothers' breathing. I was night nurse. He was dead before I reached him. The soldier gave himself up of his own accord. He will becourt-martialed, of course, though every one knows he did the bestthing. He said to us, 'He was my captain. He ordered me to get therevolver, and I only obeyed orders. I would do it again. ' We had a hardtime the rest of the night to quiet the men. "

In a small room to one side were six men gone mad. They were quiteharmless and lay quietly in bed. Besides having their reason smashed tobits by the horrors at the front, they were badly wounded. I was ashamedto stand there looking at them. What was I? Suddenly, one of them, ayoung boy surely not more than twenty-one or twenty-two, caught sight ofus, and he fixed his eyes upon us in a curious, concentrated way as ifto assure himself we were real. And then, all at once, abject terrorleapt into his eyes. His mouth opened and the cords of his neck stoodout. He threw both arms before his face as if to ward off somebody orsomething. He began to scream out quick, unintelligible words in ahigh-pitched, staccato voice. I looked fearfully at the others to see ifhis terror would be communicated to them. But they were apparentlyoblivious of each other, wrapped up in their separate lives andexperiences. One middle-aged man, with a rough, reddish beard, wassmiling mildly and smoothing the sheet as though it had been somebody'shair. We left the room, leaving the nurse to calm the screaming man. Ithought of the terrors and fears and memories in that room: the snatchesof memories pieced together that made up the actual lives, now, of thosebroken men in there. 

"Are they--do they suffer?" I asked the doctor. 

"No. They don't seem to realize that they are wounded and suffer the waynormal people would with their wounds. The only thing is, they all havemoments of terror, when it's all we can do to quiet them. They think thewall of the room is the enemy moving down on them. I guess they wentthrough hell all right, there at the front!"

"Will they get better?"

"We can't tell. We have a specialist studying just such cases. These menseem pretty well smashed, to me. "

In one corner lay a young man propped up with pillows. A nurse washolding his hand. His eyes were looking at her so trustfully. He hardlyseemed to be breathing and his face was bloodless--even his lips weredead white. And as I looked, he gave a little sigh, and his eyes closedand his body sagged among the pillows. The nurse bent over him and thenstraightened herself. Quickly she arranged a screen round the bed. Whenshe walked away, I could see she was crying uncontrollably. 

"Is he--?"

"Yes. He's dead, " the doctor replied. "He's been dying for a week. Hewas terribly wounded in the stomach, and there was nothing we could dofor him. It was a repulsive case to care for, but Sister Mary had fullcharge of it. She sat with him for hours at a time. In the beginning, toencourage him, she bought a pair of boots he was to wear when he gotwell. For days, now, he's been out of his head and fancied she was hismother. "

And life presses as close to death as that--while I was looking at him, he had died. I just managed to reach the door before I fainted. 

 _October. _

The Governor of Kiev has been removed. He was too cautious. It was a badexample!

VI

 _October. _

_Darling ones:--_

There is the most careful avoidance of any official responsibility herein trying to find out where our passports are, and who is to returnthem. We have already unraveled yards of red tape, and still there is noend. Of course, ever since Peter came he has followed a schedule ofvisits--one day to the English Consul; another day to the secret police, then to the Military Governor, the Civil Governor, the Chief of Staff, and back, in desperation, to the English Consul. There is an AmericanVice-Consul here, but he is wholly ineffectual, since he has not yetbeen officially received. His principal duty consists in distributingrelief to the Polish refugees. Mr. Douglas, the English Consul, is ourone hope, and he is untiring in his efforts to help us. If we ever getout, it will be due to him. The English Government is behind itsrepresentatives here in a way that the American State Department is not. Partly, I suppose, this is because America has no treaty with Russia, on account of the Jew clause. At any rate, you might just as well be aFiji Islander as an American, for all the consideration you get fromofficialdom. 

Did I write you about the naturalized American Jew in the detentioncamp? He had come back to Galicia in the summer of 1914 to see hissister married. After the outbreak of the war, he was refused permissionto leave the country, and when the wholesale clean-up started, he wasdeported with the others. The day I visited the detention camp he hadjust arrived, and, knowing we were Americans, he tried to secure ouraid. He had managed to keep his American passport, and brought it out tous to prove his naturalization and to strengthen his demand to be setfree as an American citizen. The overseer, hearing his excited voice andseeing us examine a large sheet of paper, came up. He looked like abutcher, in his dirty-white linen coat, his legs planted apart, hishands fingering his short whip. The way in which he joined our group andmade himself one with us, without so much as by your leave, wasdisturbing. The cool self-assurance of even a petty Russian official issinister. They are straw men to your reason, but hard facts if you bumpup against them. Our curiosity flagged, conscious as we were all thetime of his unblinking ferret-eyes on us, and we showed a certainalacrity to return the passport to its rightful owner. When we werehanding it back to the Jew, the overseer thrust out his hand and said, "Let me see it. "

There was nothing for the Jew to do but hand it over. The overseer couldnot read a word of English, of course, but from the big red Americanseal he could recognize it as an official document. 

Suddenly, he tore it in halves, and as the Jew tried to grab it out ofhis hands, he cuffed the Jew down, and continued deliberately to tear itinto tiny bits. 

"I am an American and that is my passport, " the Jew cried. 

"That's what I think of an American passport, " the overseer replied, looking us over with incredible impudence as he walked away. 

The rest of Russian officialdom must regard American rights in much thesame way, since it is four months now that we have been detained. 

I went to the headquarters of the secret police the other day with Mr. Douglas. It is located in the opposite end of the town, down a quietside street--an unobtrusive, one-storied brown house that gives theimpression of trying to hide itself from people's notice. It is reachedby a narrow, stone-flagged path, crowded in between two houses whichblock its view from the street. There are four windows in a row on thefront façade, all with the curtains drawn. These four blind windows addto the secretive appearance. Over the front steps the yellowing leavesof a lime tree rustled in the wind and detached themselves one by one. 

We rang the bell. While we waited, I was conscious of being watched, and, glancing up quickly, I saw the curtain at one of the windows fallback into place. The door opened a crack, and a white face with a long, thin nose, and horn-rimmed spectacles with smoky glass to hide the eyes, peered out at us furtively. Mr. Douglas handed the spy his card and thedoor was shut softly in our faces. 

In about three minutes the door was opened again, and a gendarme inuniform ushered us into a long room thick with stale tobacco-smoke. Hegave me a chair, and while we waited I looked about at the walls withthe brightly colored portraits of the Czar and the Czarina and the royalfamily, and the ikon in one corner. "Give up all hope all ye who enterhere. "

The room was silent except for the scratch of pens on paper. Thesecret-service spies sat at long tables, writing laboriously, andsmoking. They all wore civilian clothes, and I recognized most of them. I had passed them on the street or sat beside them in restaurants, andthree had come with the chief to arrest us. I wondered what they werewriting. Some one was being betrayed or ruined. That was how they lived. I looked for the mark of their calling on them, but at first theyappeared an ordinary crowd, pale, with a thick, unhealthy pallor, asthough from an indoor life. Their suits were poor enough, --wornthreadbare, --and their fingernails were dirty. Furtively they glanced upat me and examined me curiously, and then gave quick, frightened lookson either side to see if their comrades had observed their interest inme. What a mediocre, shabby crowd, with their low foreheads anddead-white skin and dirty linen, and, yes, the stamp on them that madethem infamous! It was as though their profession affected them the waythat living in a close, dark room would, stupefying and making thembestial. 

And then the chief came in, accompanied by two spies with blackportfolios under their arms. When he saw us, he grew white with anger. He looked like a German, spurred and booted, with square head and jawand steel-like eyes and compressed, cruel lips. He was the onlywell-dressed one in the crowd, but his livery was the same as theirs. Hewas their superior, that was all, and how I loathed him!

"He's angry because we were brought in here, " Douglas whispered underhis breath. 

The chief turned his back on us. 

The spies scribbled away furiously, their noses close to their paper, not daring to look up. 

We were taken into another room, a small back room, bare except for atable and sofa and a tawdry ikon in the farthest corner. And there wewaited fully fifteen minutes in absolute silence. How silent that housewas, full of invisible horrors! The headquarters of the secretpolice--why shouldn't it be terrifying when you think of the men andwomen who have been brought here in secret, and their existence suddenlysnapped off: secret arrest, secret trial, or no trial at all, and then asecret sending-off up north, out of the reach of the world! What strangeabortions of life this Government brings forth! Is it curious thatthinking men and women, who have lived apparently well-regulated lives, suddenly throw bombs at a minister in a railway station, or at anofficial as he drives to the palace in dress uniform, with jeweleddecorations on his breast? I ran my hand over the faded sofa-covering, wondering who had sat there before me. 

Suddenly the chief came into the room, closing the door carefully behindhim. He was quite calm again. 

"What do you want?" He looked at Douglas. 

Douglas explained how anxious we were to get out of Russia, how we hadinsufficient money for cold weather, how my husband's business calledfor his immediate presence, and so forth, all of which we had gone overat least three times a week since my arrest, and all of which was amatter of complete indifference to the secret police. They had failed tofind any proof of espionage, which was their charge against us, and myletter, their only evidence, had been passed on and was snarled upsomewhere in official red-tape. Now they washed their hands of me. 

"We can do nothing. It is out of our hands. " He was extremely courteous, speaking German for my benefit. "It is unfortunate that Frau Pierceshould have written the letter. I was obliged to send it on to theGeneral Staff. You should have a reply soon. "

There was nothing more to be said. Douglas was conciliatory, almostingratiating. My nerves gave way. 

"A reply soon!" I burst out. "I'm sick of waiting. If we have theliberty of the city, surely there can't be anything very serious againstus. It's an outrage keeping our passports. I'm an American and I demandthem. " I was almost crying. 

"You must demand them through your Ambassador, meine Frau. "

I knew that he knew we had been telegraphing him since our arrest and myimpotence made me speechless with rage. Douglas took advantage of mycondition to beat a hasty retreat. 

As we were going through the doorway, the chief said carelessly, "Bythe way, how did you happen to find this house?"

"I have been here before, " Douglas replied. 

"Thank you. I was only curious. "

I could feel the spies' eyes on my back as we went down the path. 

"Mrs. Pierce--Mrs. Pierce, you must not lose your temper that way. "

"I don't care!" I cried. "I had no way to express what I felt. "

"I know, " Douglas agreed thoughtfully. 

We hailed a droshky and got in. 

"I have a friend--a Pole, " said Douglas. "For no reason except that hewas a Pole, they made a _revision_ at his house, and among other thingstook away every calling card they found. They made a _revision_ then oneach one of those people whose names they found. Though they foundnothing incriminating in his possession, they make him report every dayat the police headquarters. A year ago he was a giant in strength. Nowhe is a sick man. The uselessness of it. Nothing was found against him, and yet he is followed and watched. What are they driving at? They arewearing him to the bone with their persecution. " He shrugged hisshoulders and laughed suddenly. "Come, Mrs. Pierce, you can do nothingagainst them. But let me tell you what I will give you. It is a Germanhelmet that a friend of mine brought from the Riga front. You can put itin your room and blow beans at it!"

 _October. _

"Passports--passports, who's got the passports?" It's like a game--or_la recherche de l'absolu_. And it isn't as though you could hop into acab and make the round of visits on the General Staff, Civil Governor, and the rest, all in one day, or even all in a week. Nothing soefficient and simple as that. What is an official without an anteroom?As well imagine a soldier without a uniform. And the importance of theofficial is instantly seen by the crowd waiting on him. Soldiers andJews and patient, unobtrusive women in black wait at policeheadquarters; generals and ladies of quality crowd the anteroom of theGeneral Staff. For days the faces vary only slightly when you enter andtake your accustomed place. Patient, dull faces that light withmomentary expectation on the opening of a door, and relapse intodepression and tragic immobility when the aide walks through theanteroom without admitting any one to the inner office. 

I gained admittance to the Military Governor the other day. He is thesuccessor of that over-cautious governor who moved all his householdgoods during the German advance, and was then relieved of office. Hispalace, set back from the street behind a tall iron fence, is guarded bysoldiers with bayonets, and secret-service men. I laughed, recognizingmy old friends the spies. 

Upstairs, the Governor was just saying good-bye to Bobrinsky, formerGovernor of Galicia, and we stood to one side as they came out of aninner office, bowing and making compliments to each other. Gold braidand decorations! These days the military have their innings, to be sure!I wonder how many stupid years of barrack-life go to make up one ofthese men? Or perhaps so much gold braid is paid for in other ways. 

The Governor was an old man, carefully preserved. His uniform waspadded, but his legs, thin and insecure, gave him away, and his standingcollar, though it came up to his ears, failed to hide his scrawny neckwhere the flesh was caving in. He wore his gray beard trimmed to apoint, and inside his beaklike nose was a quantity of grayish-yellowhair which made a very disagreeable impression on me. All the time I wasspeaking he examined his nails. When he raised his eyes finally, toreply, I noticed how lifeless and indifferent they were, and glazed byage. I could see the bones of his face move under the skin as he talked, especially two little round bones, like balls, close to his ears. 

"I have nothing to do with the case. It has been referred to the GeneralStaff, I believe. You will have to wait for the course of events. "

He turned his back, went over to the window, and began to play with acurtain-tassel. An aide bowed me to the door. 

Outside, the anteroom was crowded with supplicants. It was his receptionhour. The murmur of whispered conversations stopped when we appeared. Every one rose, pressing forward to reach the aide. Some held out soiledbits of paper; others talked in loud, explanatory voices, as thoughhoping by sheer noise to pierce the crust of official attention. But theaide took no more notice than if they had been crowding sheep. Hepushed through them and escorted me to the head of the staircase. Down Iwent, boiling with rage. 

_Dearest Mother and Dad:--_

I am just back from the General Staff, where the mysterious rotation ofthe official wheel landed me unexpectedly into the very sanctumsanctorum of the Chief of the Staff, and to see him I had to wait onlyfive hours with Mr. Douglas in the anteroom! Mr. Douglas has just leftme to go to his club, exhausted, ready to devour pounds of Moscowsausages, so he said. 

The anteroom of the General Staff was as Russian as Russian can be. Isuppose I shall never forget the dingy room, with its brown paintedwalls and the benches and chairs ranged along the four sides of theroom, and the orderlies bringing in glasses of tea, and the waitingpeople who were not ashamed to be unhappy. In the beginning Mr. Douglasand I tried to talk, but after an hour or so we relapsed into silence. Ilooked up at the large oil paintings of deceased generals which hungabout the room. At first, they all looked fat and stupid and alike inthe huge, ornate gilt frames. But after much study they began to takeon differences--slight differences which it seemed that the painters hadcaught in spite of themselves, but which made human beings of evengenerals. 

There was one portrait that I remember, in the corner, a general in theuniform of the Crimean War. He looked out at you with green eyes, like acat's. The more I looked at him, the more he resembled a cat, with hisflat, broad head and slightly almond eyes and long mustache. His cheekbones were high and his jaw square and cruel. He settled into hiscoat-collar the way a cat shortens its neck when it purrs. He, too, waspurring, from gratification, perhaps, at having his portrait painted;but, wholly untrustworthy himself, he distrusted the world and heldhimself ready to strike. 

Another portrait was of a man who might have been of peasant origin. Aninky black beard hid the lower part of his face, but his nose was bluntand pugnacious, and his eyes were like black shoe-buttons sewn closetogether. He stuck out his stomach importantly, and the care with whichhis uniform and decorations were painted strengthened the impressionthat he had made his career himself and set the highest value on theinsignia that stood for his accomplishment. 

Well, I made up characters to fit the portraits, and the time went on. There were three entrances to the room, through which aides andorderlies were constantly appearing and disappearing. The room filled upwith people and smelt of oiled leather and smoke. The women did not movefrom their chairs, but the men got up and stood about, talking ingroups. I began to feel that I had known these captains and majors andlieutenants all my life. They looked at me curiously, and if they knewMr. Douglas they asked to be presented to me. 

"How do you like Russia?"

They spoke French. I looked at Mr. Douglas and smiled. 

"Very much. "

They were pleased. 

"Ah, you do? That is good. Russia is a wonderful country and itsresources are endless. But it is war-time. You should see Russia inpeace-time. There is no country in the world where one amuses one's selfso well as in Russia. But first we must beat the Germans. "

They all begin that way, and then branch out into their particular lineof conversation. 

There was a woman near me, her mourning veil thrown back, disclosing adeath-like face. Her features were pinched, and her pale lips werepressed tightly together in suffering. She had been waiting surely threehours since sending in her card, and all that time she had scarcelymoved. Sometimes I forgot her, and then my eyes would fall on her and Iwondered how I could see anybody else in the room. In comparison to herall the others seemed fussy or melodramatic or false in some way. Suffering was condensed in her. It flowed through her body. It settledin the shadows of her face and clothed her in black. Her gloved handspressed each other. Her eyes stared in front of her, full of pain like ahurt beast's. She sat as though carved in stone, dark against thewindow, the lines of her body rigid and clear-cut like a statue's. 

At last an aide came toward her, spruce and alert, holding a paper inhis hand. She rose at his approach, leaning on the back of her chair, her body bent forward tensely. He spoke to her in a low voice, consulting the slip of paper in his hand. All at once she straightenedherself, and a burning expression came into her face. One hand went toher heart, exactly as though a bullet had pierced her breast. Then shegave a sharp cry, and hurling her pocketbook across the room with allher strength, she rushed outside. 

Every one dodged as though the pocketbook had been aimed at him. A youngsecond lieutenant picked it from the floor and stood twisting it in hishands, not knowing what to do with it. People looked uneasy and ashamedas though a door had been suddenly opened on a terrible secret thingthat was customarily locked up in a closet. But the uncomfortablefeeling soon passed, and they began to talk about the strange woman andto gossip and play and amuse themselves with her sorrow. A crowdcollected about the aide, who grew more and more voluble and importanteach time he repeated his explanation of the incident. 

Shortly afterward, Mr. Douglas and I were admitted to the Chief ofStaff. The walls of his office were covered with large maps, with tinyflags marking the battlefronts, and he sat at a large table occupyingthe center of the room. 

When we entered, he rose and bowed, and after waving me to a chair, reseated himself. He was rather like a university professor, courteous, with a slightly ironical twist to his very red lips. His pale face wasnarrow and long, with a pointed black beard, and a forehead broad andhigh and white. While he listened or talked, he nervously drewarabesques on a pad of paper on the table. 

"I have your petition, but since I have just been appointed here, I amnot very familiar with routine matters. " Here he smiled slightly. "Yoursis a routine matter, I should say. How long have you waited for ananswer--four months? We'll see what can be done. I have sent to thefiles and I should have a report in a few minutes. "

An aide brought in a collection of telegrams and papers, and the chiefglanced through them. Then he looked at me searchingly and suddenlysmiled again. 

"From your appearance I should never imagine you were as dangerous asthese papers state. Are you an American?"

"Yes, " I replied; "and I assure you that I am dangerous only in theofficial mind. I have no importance except what they give me. "

"Mrs. Pierce is an American and unused to Russian ways, " Mr. Douglassaid apologetically. 

"Well, your case has been referred to General Ivanoff, and I will wirehim again at once. If you come back next Thursday I will give you adefinite answer. "

We went out. It was a gray winter day, with a cold wind from the river, but I felt glowing and stimulated and alive, seeing the futurecrystallize and grow definite again. You can't imagine the wearingdepression of months of uncertainty. 

"That Chief of Staff is the first human official I've met, " I said toMr. Douglas. 

"Give him time, give him time, " Douglas replied. "Didn't you hear himsay he was new to the job?"

I write such long letters and all about _things_. But I want you to seewith me so we may share our lives in spite of distance. Armfuls of loveto you, my dearest ones, from

 RUTH. 

 _November. _

The Dowager Empress came to Kiev to-day to visit a convent that she hasunder her protection. The Christiatick was very animated, with curiouscrowds lining the sidewalks and fierce-looking gendarmes who snappedtheir whips and made a great fuss about keeping the people in order. Thetrams were stopped and officials rushed up and down the Christiatick inhuge gray automobiles. It was bitterly cold, and the waiting people grewrestless. At last a feeble cheer started up the street and swept downthe lines as a big car came tearing down the middle of the street. Icaught a glimpse of an elderly woman in black--that was all. 

I went home. All the way up the hill I walked beside a "crocodile. " Howpathetic those convent children are in their funny little round hats, all so much too small, and their maroon-colored dresses with theshoulder-capes to hide any suggestion of sex. Their noses were pinchedand their lips were blue from waiting in the cold to see their"protector. " They were at the age "between hay and grass, "narrow-chested, and long-legged like colts. They climbed the hillstiffly two by two, their eyes looking meekly at the ground. Threesisters kept them in line. 

At home I found a summons from the police to appear with Marie at thelocal police bureau to-morrow at nine, to receive our passports. Itelegraphed Peter through Mr. Douglas. Now that our affair is settled, Ifeel no emotion--neither relief nor joy. 

 THE END

 The Riverside Press

 CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS U. S. A. 

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES

1. Minor changes have been made to correct typesetter's errors and tomake the use of hyphenated words consistent; otherwise, the transcriberhas made a diligent effort to be true to the original text. 

2. For ease of navigation, the transcriber has added a Table of Contentsthat did not appear in the original book.