Trapped in 'Black Russia' Part 3

Generally, he goes to the Cafe Francois with a tall blonde woman, the wife of an Austrian. Her husband and son are fighting in the Austrian army, but she came to Kiev with the Russian General who occupied her town. 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 a conversation he feels his audience as if it were a new horse he is learning to ride. He goes as near the danger line as he dares. He has no breeding, and spends his money extravagantly.

K----, the last comer at the _pension_, is a journalist. He has no race or polish, and the rest rather despise him for having none of their landed traditions. He is lean and brown, with a razor-like jaw and a twisted, sardonic expression to his lips. His face is cruel. At Warsaw, where he was working, he was thrown into prison time after time on account of the radical, revolutionary character of his articles. He is well known for the strong, intellectual quality of his work. The reactionaries fear him. The slipshod Russian way of handling things gets on his nerves. His eyes get like steel when he talks about it. Russia's corruption and the German advance--ammunition willfully miscarried--guns sent to the front without ammunition, and ammunition sent that doesn't fit; and the soldiers obliged to fight with their naked fists!

He has sent me Chamberlin's "Genesis of the Fourteenth Century." We discuss it after dinner. It's interesting, though Chamberlin sets forth an 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 the Morowskis when I only want to be telling you how I love you and miss you? But it is almost unbearable to write you a love-letter. So many miles are between us and so many months still separate us. Over a year more to be lived through. No. I must keep to decaying Polish gentlemen and exiled n.o.blemen and trust you to know that every word in this letter is a love-word to you, telling you I hold you so close to me that you are 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 be boiled, 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 on account of cholera. There is already cholera and typhus reported in the city. So we thick vegetable soup with sour cream, fried bread with chopped meat inside, cheese noodles with sour cream, etc., all Polish cooking. And we drink _kva.s.s_.

"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 Bulgarian house I've ever been in there is the picture of the Czar liberator. A Bulgarian regards a Russian as of his own blood. Bulgaria gave Russia her alphabet, and the languages are much the same: only the Russian is richer in words and expressions. Why, there is a Bulgarian, General Dimitrief, holding a high command in the Russian army. When I left Bulgaria there was no talk of her going with Germany. 'We will never go with 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 took the trouble to understand the Balkans. Germany has sent her ablest men to Sofia with unlimited credit. The English representatives offend by their sn.o.bbery."

"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 to abandon their neutrality. They're making money. They're recouping after the Balkan wars. Bulgaria has had nothing but wars and crises for the last 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 they went in I think they would command their own army."

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

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

"Isn't Bulgaria's Government autocratic enough to declare war without consulting the people?" K---- continued.

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

"The papers to-day already speak of Bulgaria's treason and ingrat.i.tude,"

K---- observed.

I was angry. "In Bulgaria, some think Russia doesn't want them to go in on the Entente side. They think Russia wants to make a Russian lake out of the Black Sea, and a Russian province out of Bulgaria. They say Russia 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 and Russians to cross her territory to get at Turkey. The war will be shortened by months if she goes in with the Entente, and Turkey in Europe will be finished."

I know you'll laugh, Dad, and think my pretentions to a political opinion 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 any difference.

RUTH.

II

_July 30._

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

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

"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 land the Germans capture. When he talks about the war, he seems to take a perverse pleasure in accenting their inexhaustible munitions and men and the perfection of their whole military organization. "We have men, but we are children." At every German victory he shakes his head. "I told you 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 the safety of the whole world shaken. A hundred times he has said: "There isn't a foot of ground that belongs to me any more. For a man of my age it 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 German frightfulness in Belgium. Pan K---- thinks Warsaw will be treated leniently, as Germany wishes to enlist the German sympathizers. Still, most of the Poles in the _pension_ are horrorstricken. They see the Germans marching through the streets, and they see the flames and shuddering civilians. I can see the Germans' spiked helmets in the room.

"The English must start an offensive. England lets France and Russia bleed to death before she sheds her own blood." There is much talk of England'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 burning down. I am excited and curious. Suddenly, I wonder how far the flames are 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 French Consul 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 sweating and choking in the dust of the hot streets.