Trapped in 'Black Russia' Part 9

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

Extra pontoon bridges are thrown across the Dnieper, ready for the retreat of the Russian troops. Though there are lines of trenches and barbed-wire entanglements before the city, no effort will be made to defend it, as it would probably mean its destruction. I wonder what the Germans will do when they get here? They are human beings, but I can't help 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 a finish. How strange it will be to have no longer a Russian army between the Germans and Kiev. No more a wall of flesh to protect us. Poor soldiers, without a round of ammunition, fighting with naked hands. They will cross the Dnieper to one side of the city, crowding, fighting, falling together. And the German cannon driving them on, and cras.h.i.+ng into the city, sometimes, wiping out whole streets of townspeople. And then, the gray lines of the Germans running into Kiev. The thousands of blue-eyed Germans and their pointed helmets and guttural speech taking possession of everything.

As we came down the hill to-day, we saw great vans drawn up before the Governor's mansion. Soldiers were loading them with the rich furnis.h.i.+ngs of the house. Evidently, the Governor had no intention of letting _his_ things fall into the Germans' hands. How strange it looked--the feverish haste with which the house was being emptied!

At the station a special train was waiting to take the Governor's things to a place of safety--and the crowds were waiting to escape with their lives! Now every one with any sort of a boat that will float is making a fortune taking the terrified townspeople down the river. There are, of course, horrible accidents, for the boats are overcrowded. One completely 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 their lights moving overhead in the darkness. Sometimes they fly so low that you can hear the whir of their engines. For the moment you don't know if they're Russian or enemy ones.

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

I lie in bed, and it is impossible for me to sleep. It is as if I were up over Kiev in an aeroplane, myself. I can see millions of Germans marching along the roads from Warsaw, dragging their cannon through the mud, fording streams, with their field kitchens and ambulances, moving onward 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 we turned the corner we saw a long gray procession of carts crawling down the hill toward us. I stopped and watched them pa.s.s me, one after the other, crowded over to the side of the road by the usual traffic of a busy street. Peasants walked by the horses' heads, men in dusty sheepskin coats, or women m.u.f.fled up somehow, their hands hidden in the bosoms of their waists for warmth. They stared ahead with a curious, blind look in their eyes, as though they did not realize the noise and movement of the city life about them. How strange it was, the pa.s.sing of this silent peasant procession by the side of the clanging trains and gray war automobiles!

"Who are these people?" I asked Sasha.

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

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

"Yes. By the Germans and Austrians."

The carts jolted slowly down the hill, the brakes grinding against the wheels, the little rough-coated horses holding back in the shafts.

Sometimes, where there should have been two horses, there was only one.

The others evidently had been sold or else died on the way. Only one small horse to drag a heavy double cart crowded with people and furnis.h.i.+ngs. One little horse looked about to drop. His sides were heaving painfully and his eyes were glazed. "Why don't they stop and rest," I thought. "Why does that man keep on? His horse will die, and then what will he do?"

"What do they do when their horses give out?" I asked Sasha.

"What can they do?" she replied. "What did they do when they were forced to leave their farms and lands? They bear it. The Russian people have a great capacity for suffering. Think of it--what this means now--hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people made homeless and sent wandering over the face of the earth. Think of the separations--the families broken up--the bewilderment. A month ago, perhaps, they had their houses and lands and food to eat. They were muzhiks. And now they are wandering, homeless, like Tziganes. Ah, the Russian people were born into a heritage of suffering, and to us all the future is hidden."

I kept my eyes on the endless procession. Some of the carts were open farm wagons, piled with hay, and hung with strange a.s.sortments of household utensils. Frying-pans and kettles were strung along the sides, enameled ones, sometimes, that showed a former prosperity. Inside were piles of mattresses and chairs; perhaps a black stovepipe stuck out through the slatted sides of the cart. The women and children huddled together in the midst of their household goods, wrapped up in the extra petticoats and waists and shawls they had brought along--anything for warmth. The children were pale and pinched, and some of them had their eyes closed as though they were sick. If they looked at you, it was without any curiosity or eagerness. How pitiful the indifference of the children was!

Sometimes the carts were covered with faded cloth stretched over rounded frameworks like gypsy-wagons. There, the old _babas_ sat on the front seats, eyes like black shoe-b.u.t.tons, with their lives almost finished.

They seemed the least affected by the misery and change. They occupied the most comfortable places, and held the bright-colored ikons in their arms--the most precious possession of a Russian home. Perhaps a dog was tied under the wagon, or a young colt trotted along by its mother's side.

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

An open cart broke down in front of us. The woman got out to help her husband. She had a round, pock-marked face, as expressionless as wood.

She wore a bright shawl over her hair, and a long sheepskin coat, with the sleeves and pockets beautifully embroidered in colors. It was dirty, now, but indicated she had been well-to-do once. She limped badly.

"Good-evening," I said.

"Good-evening, excellency," she replied civilly.

"Are you hurt?" I asked.

"My feet are blistered from the walking," she replied. "I take turns with my husband."

"Where are you from?"

"Rovno."

"How long have you been on the way?"

"Many weeks. Who knows how long?"

"And where are you going?"

"Where the others go. Somewhere into the interior."

The procession had not halted, but, turning out for the broken-down cart, continued uninterruptedly down the hill. Every now and then the peasant looked up anxiously.

"We must hurry. We mustn't be left behind," he muttered.

"What do you eat?" I asked the woman.

"What we can find. Sometimes we get food at the relief stations, or we get it along the way."

"Do the villages you pa.s.s through help you?" I persisted.

"They do what they can. But there are so many of us."

"Can't you find cabbages and potatoes in the fields?" I asked.

The woman looked at me suspiciously for a moment, and did not reply.

"Why do you want to know these things?" she asked, after a silence.

"What business is it of yours?"

"I want to help you."

"Help us." She shook her head. "But I'll tell you," she said. "I did take some potatoes once. It was before the cold weather. I dug them out of a field we pa.s.sed through after dark. No one saw me. My children were crying with hunger and I had nothing to give them. So I dug up a handful of potatoes in the dark. But G.o.d saw me and punished me. I cooked the potatoes over a fire by the roadside, but He kept the heat from reaching the inside of the potatoes. Two of my children sickened and died from eating them. It was G.o.d's punishment. We buried them along the road. My husband made the crosses out of wood and carved their names on them.

They lie way behind us now--unsung. But perhaps those who pa.s.s along the road and see the crosses will offer up a prayer."

"I will burn candles for them," I said. "What were their names?"

"Sonia and Peter Kolpakova, your excellency. You are good. G.o.d bless you!" And she kissed my hands.