Chapter IX: 229 (5)

Our carriage stopped in front of a sumptuous residence, which was shaded by a row of trees. I jumped out and rang the bell. An old lackey opened the door. To my question, “Is so-and-so at home?” he replied that all had departed and would not be back before evening. My carriage was gone, and I knew that I could not lose a moment’s time, because the soldiers who were pursuing me would find me there. I did not know the city, and besides I could not appear in the streets in my attire without arousing suspicion. “I _must_ enter this house,” I thought, “otherwise I am lost.” I looked at the lifeless face of the old lackey who stood before me at the door and kept on repeating that nobody was at home.

“Listen,” I began in a feminine voice, “I _must_ get in here, I _cannot_ go away from this house in this attire. And you _must_ help me.”

I stepped into the hall, closed the door, and took his hands. “We must hurry, because the police and the soldiers may come here at any minute.”

The old lackey stared at me in utter bewilderment and did not say a word. I thought that he had lost his power of speech from fright. He led me through the rooms, opened the bureaus and closets, and burned my masculine garb. Suddenly the door-bell rang. I understood that the police must have come after me.

“Dear, good man,” I said to the lackey, “you must take me out by the back door, and not say a word about what has taken place here, otherwise it will be all over with you.” And I ran in the direction he pointed without breaking his silence.

Here I was in the street, walking with none too firm steps and trying to remember the plan of the city. After about an hour’s search I found a house the address of which I had with me. I was admitted by a man of thirty or thirty-five. I told him my name. He grasped my hands, squeezed them hard, and kept on repeating like a madman: “Oh, what a miracle! what a miracle! In the middle of the day, before the very eyes of all the guards!” I had never seen this man, but his voice was firm, and I was beginning to hope that he would help me.

It was twelve o’clock then, only two hours having passed from the moment of my escape. Mr. N—— locked me in his cabinet and went out to see what was going on in the street. Only then I clearly saw what a problem I had before me. When I was in prison my only thought was, how to get out of it. I could not bring myself to think of the difficulties which would confront me when once out of it, and at liberty. “How shall I hide, where shall I go?” were questions that demanded immediate answer. I knew that all my comrades would be arrested immediately, and that to accept their aid would be giving myself into the hands of the gendarmes.

Mr. N—— came back and brought me new dresses.

“I think,” he said, “that it is best for you to leave this house. The house in which you have just been hiding is surrounded by the police, and we cannot depend upon the lackey. He may tell everything. I have a very good plan, but the road over which we shall have to go leads past the prison. Can you make up your mind to pass there?”

“And you,” I asked,—“Do you know what awaits you if you should be arrested with me?”

I knew that N—— sympathized with the revolution, but I also knew that he had never taken an active part in it, and besides he had a wife and two children.

“Don’t think of that,” he answered.

“All right, we will go.”

I dressed all in white, and put on a blond wig. The day was fine, and the sun again smiled to me. We neared the prison, and I could see the hospital, the cot on which I had lain eight months. There was the operating table. I recalled the faces of the doctors, who were the only people dear to me, _dear_ because they were from the outside world, were free men. Even the prison guards then looked at me with a soft expression in their eyes, because they were sure that I would not survive the operation. I recalled the hard labor-prison where I had spent five years, five terrible years. My friends were still there, in that living grave. And I swore by all that was sacred to me that I would not forget them, and would devote my life to them. The carriage passed the prison, and in a minute left it far behind. But I could not free myself from the thought of that prison. I felt that all that I had lived through in those six years had tied me to that place where thousands of lives were chained. I was free, but it was only an external freedom, for I never could free myself from the thought of those people who were left within those dark walls.

We arrived at the house. It stood on the outskirts of the city and was surrounded by a large park. The family that occupied it was of very noble descent and immensely rich. With the revolutionary movement they had no connection whatever, but the mother of the family was a highly intelligent and progressive woman, and always regarded with extreme disapproval the treatment which the government accorded its political prisoners. My identity was to be kept secret from all the members of the family, except the lady of the house, who alone knew who I was. I was to be hired as a chambermaid, and thus allay all suspicion and avoid any possible questions. I hoped that the rôle of a chambermaid would render it possible for me to remain in that house for a time. I put on a servant’s dress and assumed the duties of my position.

The sun sank below the horizon, and it grew dark. The skies were wrapped in the mysterious covers of night. Stars began to twinkle here and there. I stood absorbed in the sight of the approaching night. Six years I had not been under the open sky in the evening. But there was no joy in my heart, only fear. I was afraid to move. Something unknown was in the darkness of the night, and it threatened me on all sides. Suddenly soft arms embraced me and some one began to kiss me. I felt hot tears falling on my hands. It was the lady of the house. This woman, a total stranger to me, tried to comfort me like my own mother, and relieve the burning anguish of my heart.

At eight o’clock in the evening the whole family and a number of guests, most of whom were high government officials, went into the dining-room and took their seats. I brought the soup. The son of my hostess, a student at St. Petersburg University, who was home on his vacation, was reading an evening newspaper. When I handed him his plate he looked at me and exclaimed, “Mama! Mama! Our maid resembles—” He did not finish the sentence, for he noticed that his mother had turned ghastly pale. All the guests began to examine the picture reproduced in the newspaper and compare it with me. There could be no doubt of my identity as there were several photographs of me printed in different positions. Besides my features were described in detail, and there was even a photographic reproduction of my hands. I, without showing the least concern, continued to serve the soup, which the hostess passed to me with trembling hands. Her eyes looked at me with maternal tenderness, but she was helpless to defend me. I was recognized. Nobody asked me any questions. But a dead silence reigned in the room during the whole dinner. At last the torture ended, and I, thoroughly exhausted, went to my room.

It was twelve o’clock. The guests had departed. I was sitting in my room with my hostess and awaiting the return of her son, who had gone to town to look for a place for me to hide. He came and brought terrible news; the neighboring house was surrounded by the police, who had a bloodhound with them. He had found a room, but if we should leave the house right then we would surely be stopped by the police. It was necessary to act quickly, for I did not want those good, innocent people to suffer with me. I decided to leave the house. It was one o’clock at night. I dressed myself in black, and wanted to go to a near-by wood which was at a distance of about two miles from Irkutsk. It could be reached by walking over a field and thus avoiding the streets.

“But, mama,” said the student, “can a man, no matter what his political opinions are, turn a woman out into the street at night? _I_ cannot do that! _I_ will go with her.”

It was futile to argue with this man the risk he took in accompanying me, for he was firm in his determination to share my fate with me. We started out, walked a great distance over fields, and entered the city from the opposite side. I was so exhausted that I could not walk any more, and he carried me in his arms into a house where we were expected. Two days I lay in a semi-conscious condition. I remember only one thing: whenever I opened my eyes, I saw the face of a student. I tried to recall who he was, but in vain. His face would grow bigger and bigger and resolve itself into many faces of the prison doctors and guards, and I would again fall into a stupor. The people at that house did not know who I was; they only knew that I had to be in hiding. They were plain townspeople, greedy for money, and knowing that the man who brought me to their house was of a rich family, expected to get a large sum for keeping me.

On the third day I felt much better, and got out of bed. My hosts were still ignorant of my identity. I was beginning to hope that all had quieted down. But at noon my aristocratic friend came to see me. She was greatly excited. She told me that the city was in a state of terror; that the police had searched all the houses in some streets and had arrested absolutely innocent people; that the authorities had released a number of criminals who knew my face—some of them had yet to serve eight months of their sentences—and sent all over town to look for me; that the government had announced a large reward for my capture, and even the prison administration offered 1,000 rubles for any information that would lead to my arrest. She was not sure that she was not being shadowed by the secret police and therefore thought that the best thing for her to do was to leave town for some time. She gave me money and bade me good-by with tears in her eyes.

On the fourth day of my stay with those people, I noticed that they looked worried. They began to suspect that I was the woman about whom the newspapers printed all sorts of sensational stories. Those miserable newspapers almost led to my being discovered again. Without saying anything to me, my landlord, in the simplicity of his heart, solved the matter in a very simple and rather unexpected way. He invented a fictitious name, and, having entered it in his housebook as that of his boarder, went to the police station to register me. By this means he hoped to avert all suspicion from himself. I was sitting in my room and did not suspect anything. Suddenly my landlady rushed in and told me in very excited tones what her husband had done. My first impulse was to flee. But where? There was no time to deliberate, because I did not at all know what sort of man my landlord was, and the landlady was in such great trepidation that she could not be depended upon. I dressed myself, and was going down the stairs when I met the landlord.

“Where are you going?” he asked in a very calm voice.

“Well, did you register me?” I inquired.

“No, there wasn’t anybody in the station. It is a holiday.”

That was great luck. I went back into my room. But scarcely half an hour passed when the door-bell rang and my landlady, pale as a ghost, ran in to me, shouting: “Police, police, flee!” I ran to the kitchen and into the back yard and hid in the building where firewood was kept. I stood breathless in a corner, with my revolver ready in my hand. A feeling of shame and humiliation filled my heart in that filthy place. A voice within me whispered: “Ah, you wanted freedom! You wanted to escape from life-imprisonment! But have you the strength to do it? Why don’t you shoot yourself?” And my long-formed resolution to die rather than fall into the hands of the gendarmes came to me. I nervously clutched the pistol in my hand and opened the trigger guard. Many times during my revolutionary life have I experienced the proximity of death, and every time, at those moments, pictures of my whole life flashed through my mind like lightning. And what I can’t understand is, that those pictures always looked so attractive and so cheerful! There was no trace of sufferings and persecution, no memory of the terrible years of my imprisonment.

The door of the building opened and my landlord’s aged mother entered.

“The gorodovoi[35] is gone, thank the Lord. He came to find out what my son wanted in the police station and we didn’t tell him anything about you.”

It was plain to me that I could not remain any longer with these people. They could betray my presence in their house through sheer stupidity and fear. But where was I to go?

In an apartment at the same house several men were playing cards at that time. My landlord, in the excitement caused by the visit of the policemen, told those people that, to his mind, the woman who had escaped from prison was hiding in his house. His story excited the curiosity of the company, and they came down to have a look at me. One of them, a man of about forty, expressed his willingness to help me.

“Don’t worry,” he said; “I am an honest man, although I lead a disreputable life. Nobody will ever suspect that you are hiding in my home. I live with my boy, and often bring women to my house.”

I told this man frankly what awaited him if I was arrested in his house. But he insisted that there was no danger. When it grew dark I went with this man, who was a total stranger to me. We climbed up several flights of filthy, slippery, and badly lighted stairs and knocked. The door was opened by a boy of about 15, who had a very pleasant face.

“Make yourself at home,” said my host. “You see, the rooms here have not been cleaned these last four months. There was a woman here last week, but she only brought more filth.”

He slept with his boy in one room, and gave me his bedroom, in which the whole furniture consisted of a broken couch. In the morning he told me to be quiet, so that my footsteps should not be heard by the tenants of the apartment below. I could stay there three or four days, and no one would know that there was a woman in the house. He went away, having locked the door of my room from the outside, and I was left alone. In the evening he came back drunk, but he talked sensibly, and did not forget his rôle. He began to tell me about himself:

“I am a civil engineer and a good mechanic, and have ‘golden hands,’ but one must bow one’s head and obey superiors, and I just can’t do that. It is already a year since I have been out of a job. I have sold everything there was in the house. The rent has not been paid, and my boy wears tatters and cannot go to school. I have two more children in the village, and the old woman who boards them threatens to send them back because I have long stopped paying their board-bill.”

While telling me his story, he kept on drinking, now beer, now vódka from a large glass, and at about twelve o’clock became violent, and began to hit the boy. He ordered him to say some nonsensical words, and when the boy hesitated, he beat him mercilessly. I was in agony, and tried to shield the unfortunate child with my own body. Suddenly the thought of the drunken man turned on me.

“Do you see,” he cried to his son, “this woman is a saint; she is not like those you have seen here before. And if you will ever think of betraying her, you will answer me with your own head.” And he made the boy swear to something.

At two o’clock I succeeded in putting him to sleep. I lay awake the whole night. On the following morning he apologized to me, and in the evening the same story was repeated. I knew I had to leave that house, that I could not remain under such conditions; but I knew of no place where I could go.

On the third day my host went away and locked me in as usual. At twelve o’clock I got up from the couch, intending to make some tea. I moved about the room with great caution, as I was afraid the neighbors might hear there was somebody in the locked apartment. On the floor near the window, over which a curtain hung, stood a spirit-lamp and a bottle of alcohol. While striking a match, I overturned the bottle with my elbow, and the alcohol momentarily flamed up. I hardly had time to jump aside. The curtain caught fire, and the red flames could be seen from the street. The room filled with smoke, and the door of my room was locked. For a moment it seemed to me that my end was near; for I thought that if people came before I was burned to death, I should be recognized, and in that case I was going to die by my own hand. But suddenly remembering, I began to throw on the fire everything I could get in my room, and by a supreme effort I managed to extinguish the flames. My fear that the people down-stairs may have heard the noise of my struggle was great, and I waited in extreme suspense. At last the boy came, and I decided to send him with a message to my friends. The idea to enlist his services had long occurred to me; but it was a terrible risk to intrust my life into the hands of a child. Besides, it was imperative that I should leave the house without his father knowing my destination, as I felt I could no more rely upon the drunkard. But before I had time to despatch the boy, his father came. He was so drunk that he could scarcely stand on his feet. He did not even notice the traces of the fire. He went to the window, opened it, and began to shout to the people in the street, accompanying his words with most dreadful oaths: “I know who you are. You are spies—spies, all of you.”

GENERAL VIEW OF THE MALTZEV HARD-LABOR PRISON
]

I dragged him away from the window. Then he sat down close to me, and I felt his hot breath on my cheek. His eyes were bloodshot. I saw that the man was quite out of his senses. I got up, he seized my hands, and began to kiss them. I tried to free myself, and there began a struggle with a drunken man. I was not afraid. I knew that I had only to free one hand for a second, and pick up my revolver, which lay right near under the touch. The noise of the scuffle was heard in the other room, and the boy ran in. His sudden appearance surprised the drunkard, who released his hold upon me and began to beat the boy. It was a horrible spectacle, and all my efforts to tear the boy away from his father’s grasp were in vain. At last, exhausted by his exertion, the drunkard fell to the floor and was soon asleep, to the great relief of myself and the poor boy. I did not sleep the whole night, and at sunrise I awakened the boy. He looked at me with an expression of childish pride in his eyes. He understood the seriousness of the mission he was to take upon himself. Before departing on his errand, he looked at his sleeping father, and with downcast eyes asked me, “Are you not afraid to remain here alone?”

After a few hours of anxious waiting I received word that an officer would come to fetch me. Soon a colonel of the Russian army arrived. I thought it was one of my friends dressed up like an officer, but he turned out to be a real colonel, of the local garrison.

“You see,” he tried to explain, noticing my look of astonishment, “I do not agree with your ideas, but as a man I highly value heroism in people, particularly in women. I am an army officer, and I was in the Japanese War. I saw and took part in most bloody battles. But we are men and soldiers, and you!”

I considered it unnecessary to argue with him that I did not at all think my act was heroic.

“Your bold escape has excited my warmest admiration,” he continued, “and I, as an officer, appreciate it, and wish to help you slip out of this city. I and my comrades found out by chance where you were, and we will all be awfully glad to meet you. You know the police are searching for you very energetically and bending every effort to find you. They even imported the famous bloodhound ‘Rex’ from Kief. In general, there are all sorts of interesting rumors about you in town. They say that on the first day of your escape you were hiding in the governor-general’s house.”

He spoke with great enthusiasm, evidently forgetting what awaited him in case I was found in his company. I went with him, and after several minutes’ walk was at his house. He lived with his man-servant, a soldier of his regiment, who managed all his household affairs. A little later three more officers of his regiment came. Among them I felt like a prisoner; their epaulets, sabers, and clicking spurs reminded me of the gendarmes and the prison officials in whose power I had been for so many years. They joked, laughed, and their manner was free and careless. But I was grieved at the thought that perhaps on the morrow these servants of the czar would blindly obey the command of some half-witted general and shoot down innocent people. It was hard to reconcile what they were doing in my case with their every-day mission. But they were far from having any principles. To them I was only a young woman who was being persecuted, and they did not associate the fact that they were hiding me, a political offender for whose head a large reward had been offered by the Government, with the general conditions of life in Russia. At twelve o’clock at night all went away, leaving the whole house to me.

I spent six uncomfortable days in the society of these officers, stopping now with one, now with another. It was not safe to remain longer with them, because each had a servant, a soldier. These soldiers apparently obeyed their masters, but in reality they did as they pleased. Despite the strict orders not to speak to anybody about the “lady from Vienna” who was stopping at their houses, despite their ever-ready reply, “Yes, sir,” they were not to be trusted; the temptation to share the interesting news with their fellow-soldiers was too great. So the colonel arranged with some musicians from St. Petersburg to give me shelter for two days.

The risk of hiding in Irkutsk was becoming greater and greater. The police and gendarmes kept up the search untiringly. The railway station was watched by dozens of spies. According to rumors, people who knew my face were sent to the Manchurian and Chinese borders. It was necessary to leave the city, but it was impossible to find a free exit.

On the second day of my stay with the musicians the colonel came to see me.

“Did you hear?” said he. “They say that you have already gone to Switzerland.”

He related to me that after I had left his house he had paid a visit to the colonel of gendarmes on the pretext of some fictitious case, and had started a conversation about me.

“How do you explain the fact,” he asked the colonel of gendarmes, “that Miss Sukloff has not been apprehended?”

“For a very simple reason,” replied the colonel of gendarmes. “She is long in Switzerland, and we expect to receive a report about her from our agents abroad.”

Thus the time was ripe for me to leave the city. The colonel found a room for me with an old woman, to whom I was introduced as a university student. At last, by the tenth of September, everything was ready for my departure. Money was collected, a man was found who undertook to accompany me to Manchuria and China, and passports in the name of a “Sister of Mercy” were procured.

I was to go on the eight o’clock train. I dressed like a “Sister of Mercy,” dyed my black hair a golden brown, and from a slim young girl was converted into a stout, middle-aged woman. I arrived at the station a few seconds before the train started, and went straight to my car without looking at the people. The few seconds seemed eternities to me. At last the signal to start was given, and the train rolled past the platform, past the gendarmes and spies who scanned the faces in the car windows, and was soon in the open field. With a sigh of relief I sat down at a window and looked in the direction of the city, which I would see no more.

-----

Footnote 34:

A gate in Russia does not reach to the very ground, and the narrow
space left is covered with a board.

Footnote 35:

Policeman.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

IX

A FEW moments after the train left Irkutsk I began to feel sick. I lay helpless on my cot, and melancholy thoughts passed through my mind. “O God! O God! when will all this come to end?” I asked aloud. When I heard my own voice it seemed to me that I was going mad. The pain I felt was so severe that I bit my lips in order not to cry aloud.

Suddenly my eyes fell on my traveling bag. I remembered that it contained drugs and other things which I, as a “Sister,” had to carry with me. With unsteady hands I opened the bag, and found a bottle of opium. I took several drops and lay down again. I must have fallen asleep soon after. When I opened my eyes the train guard was standing near my cot.

“Miss,” he said, “there is something the matter with a woman in the next car. Won’t you be so kind and take a look at her?”

Day was beginning to dawn, and sky and earth were shrouded in a bluish mist. At first I did not know where I was, but gradually my thoughts cleared. I felt my head, my hands, as I did not believe that I, the being who was to be immured in a remote Siberian prison for life, was now actually riding in this train, and absolutely free.

Springing up from my cot, I put my burning forehead to the wet window-pane. The thought came to me: I can open the window! And I repeated aloud: “I can open the window!” Rejoicing like a child, I hastily pulled up the window and thrust out my head. The cool morning air blew in my face.

The train was moving at great speed, and the very wheels seemed to grind out the words: “You-are-free! You-are-free!”

Peering into the bluish mist I saw a wide field covered with drops of golden dew. From afar came the singing of peasant women on their way to work in the field. All at once I recalled the words of the train guard. What about the woman? Picking up several drugs, such as peppermint drops and bromide, I went into the next car, which was of the third class.

The sight that greeted my eye there made me forget all the wonderful beauties of nature. Amid a multitude of dirty bundles of all sizes and descriptions, there sat and lay Russian peasants, men and women together. They had emigrated from European Russia and were going to their new homes, somewhere near Vladivostok. Most of them were fast asleep. In a corner a woman sat. She was swaying to and fro and moaning in a subdued voice.

“What is the matter with you, my dear?” I asked.

The woman stared at me with a far-away look and said nothing. Her expression frightened me.

“What _is_ the matter with you?” I repeated. But she was silent, and only looked at me with dull eyes. Then, upon observing her figure closely, I understood, and everything grew cold within me. Cold drops of perspiration stood out on my forehead. What shall I do? I asked myself. I went back into my car and examined the time-table. It was still about six hours to the nearest town. There was nothing for me to do but to take the woman to my compartment. I hastened back to her.

“Can you come with me?” I asked her.

She got up and leaned heavily on my arm. Then we slowly moved into my car. Before I left the Irkutsk prison, I had learned to assist women in child-birth. The prison nurse lived far away in the city and as the women-prisoners in most cases gave birth to their children at night, the child was generally born before the nurse could be summoned. Willy-nilly, we had to become practical midwives. There I was not alone; there were other women there who knew far more about it than I did, but here all the responsibility for the life of the unfortunate woman and her unborn child rested on me.

The groans of the woman made my heart bleed, and I felt as if I were committing some heinous crime. I tried my utmost to remain outwardly calm, to encourage the patient. I undressed her and, in the absence of warm water, washed her with alcohol and put her on the cot.

“Have you had any children?” I asked her, when the paroxysm of pain subsided.

“Four,” she replied. I felt relieved, as I knew it would then be easier for her.

“And who attended you in all those cases?”

She smiled feebly and answered:

“Dear Miss, it is very simple with us peasants. We give birth whichever way it pleases God.”

In my bag I found cotton, gauze, obstetric scissors and thread. I knew theoretically all that had to be done in such cases, but would I be able to apply my knowledge satisfactorily? And what if everything might not go well? These questions greatly worried me. I kissed the woman and patted her, but she shrieked more and more frequently. Suddenly she uttered a terrible cry. If I could only pray, I thought. If I had only believed, as in my childhood, that God would hear me, I would have fallen on my knees and implored Him to help me now.

The cries of the woman continued to grow louder and louder, and her voice did not seem human. And then something happened. I don’t know how it came about. My brain began to think clearly only when I heard the feeble squeak of the infant. The mother quieted down, and began to cross herself.

Soon we arrived at the station, and summoned a cab. I held the newly-born baby, wrapped in my underclothing. It was suddenly hard for me to part with that child. An unfamiliar feeling had awakened in my heart. Never before had I thought of a mother’s feelings. I hardly slept the following night, and whenever I dozed off, I heard the cries of the woman and the whole picture of the birth passed through my memory. It made me forget my position for awhile.

On the next day at four o’clock we arrived at the station Manchuria, on the Manchurian frontier. I went to the appointed place and met there my friend, a young woman. She had come earlier and was waiting for me. I returned to her the passport, which she was to deliver to its owner, and narrated all that had happened to me on the road. She was greatly amused and laughed heartily.

We bade each other good-by, and I went to the lodging which had been prepared for me. In that little town I had to wait for my comrade who was to help me cross the border into Manchuria. He had to get a passport and money. I stopped at the house of a Polish woman, who knew nothing about me. My friends had invented a very romantic story for her benefit, telling her I had run away because I wanted to marry a man of whom my parents did not approve. She sympathized with all such cases, because she herself had run away from home and secretly married her present husband. She held whispered conversations with me, offering advice as to how best to have the ceremony performed and where to go afterwards.

“Are you quite sure that your fiancé will come?” she asked me on the second day.

“Oh, yes,” I assured her.

At last my comrade came, and we began to lay our plans. It is very difficult to get across the border, and our task was not a light one. When a train arrives at the frontier station the gendarmes lock all the cars and examine the passports. I had reason to fear such an examination, as among the gendarmes there might be disguised spies who knew me. Moreover, the passport procured by my comrade was a forged one. He had not succeeded in getting a suitable document.

It was necessary to invent some scheme whereby we could lessen the risk of being recognized. The Polish woman with whom we were stopping helped us. She went to the railroad station and reserved for us a first-class coupé. I and my comrade dressed up as though for a wedding. My face was covered with a white veil which reached far down my back, and my dress had a long train. This costume made me look much taller and slimmer than I really was. Two splendid carriages came to take us to the station. In one I sat with my comrade, and in the other the Polish woman with her husband.

At the station the porters cleared the way for us with a show of great respect, and in a few seconds we were seated in our coupé. But the main difficulty was yet to be overcome. There remained about fifteen minutes before starting. We heard the noise of closing doors and the clinking of spurs. My heart began to beat violently, and I thought: What if I should be recognized! My comrade would pay dearly for his effort to help me. He, too, had run away from his place of exile, and for his escape he would have been sentenced to four years of hard labor. The fact that he would have been caught in my company would aggravate his offense. This man had known me in Odessa, when I was only seventeen. He, as is not unusual among revolutionists in Russia, sacrificed a great deal for me. He gave up a lucrative position with a gold-mining concern in Siberia, which he did not expect to get back, and left his wife whom he dearly loved. She, too, had known me in Odessa, and gladly consented to let her husband accompany me on this dangerous journey.

My comrade held in his hand the necessary documents—the passport, certificates of birth, and the certificate of marriage, all forged by himself a few hours before. I stood with my face to the window and my back to the door. There came a knock, and the door opened. An officer of the frontier guards entered, accompanied by several gendarmes. My comrade answered in a calm voice all the questions put to him by the officer.

“We are on our honeymoon trip to Japan, and expect to be back in three months,” I heard him say.

The officer turned the bundle of documents in his hands, evidently not knowing what to examine first. The time was limited. Casting a hasty glance around our coupé they went out, without having examined a single document. When the door closed after them, I looked gratefully at my comrade, and he shook my hands with great feeling. A few minutes later the train started.

After thirty-six hours of travel we arrived at Kharbin. I was not well enough to continue our journey without a rest. My health was growing worse and worse, as the result of my early start after the operation. Having rested two days in that city, we went to Dairen, formerly the Russian city of Dalny. I did not have sufficient funds to go on to Europe, and we waited three weeks in Dairen, until we received money from Russia.

In those three weeks my health improved remarkably. Manchurian scenery greatly impressed me with the splendor of its wonderful colors. For days I sat on the shore of the Yellow Sea enjoying the sight of the sparkling waters. When the air was hot I bathed in the sea, and every touch of the mighty waves added vigor to my regenerated body. In those wonderful days, when the sun of the Orient warmed me with its soft rays, I thought there could not be a being happier than myself. I was free, free from so many chains. And it seemed to me that the stormy sea alone had it in its power to penetrate into the depths of my soul and heal all my bleeding wounds. Only at the sea I found absolute peace. Never before had I felt so much love. There was no hatred in my heart: I loved each and all. The feeling of love was stronger than myself. I couldn’t understand what was going on within me. In sheer paroxysms of delight I would throw myself on the ground, which was covered with soft grass. My body trembled from the contact with the soil. In those moments I forgot everything, and through my memory passed the pictures of my native hills and fields, in the midst of which I was born and raised.

THE PRISON YARD AND GATE
]

We received the money we were expecting, and decided to go to Shanghai, China, where I could get a steamer direct to Europe. At eleven o’clock in the morning of a sunny day we sailed from Dairen on a Japanese steamer. Soon the strains of a march reached our ears. It was the call for lunch. When I, with my companion, came to the dining-room all the passengers already were at the table. Directly opposite me sat an old woman who tried to explain something in German to a Chinese waiter. I do not know until now in what way she resembled my mother, but as soon as my eyes fell on her gray hair I had a vivid recollection of my mother. I felt happy when, during the meal, I could guess her wishes and satisfy them. “My mother is just as old and just as gray, perhaps,” I thought, looking at the old woman, and my heart filled with love for the stranger.

Without finishing her lunch she retired to her cabin, as the steamer was beginning to rock quite perceptibly and she felt sick. In the afternoon the sea became stormy. Big waves rolled so high that our little steamer at times disappeared in the foam. It grew dark, and almost all the passengers went to their cabins. I was not sea-sick, and seeing the sufferings of my comrade and others I greatly pitied them. I remembered the old woman, and asked a Chinese steward to take me to her. She was in bed and suffering intensely. She wept like a child and prayed to God to take her to Heaven. I knelt near her bed and held her head in my hands. I don’t know how long I remained in that posture. The voice of my comrade roused me from my stupor.

“Where in Heaven are you, Marie?” he called to me in dissatisfied tones. “Go to your room. You will fall ill yourself. Don’t forget your own situation.”

I obeyed, but returned in ten minutes and directed them to put a cot for me in the woman’s room. I stayed with her the whole night. In the morning the sea quieted down and she felt better. She looked at me with a very grateful expression in her eyes, and asked who I was and where I was going. I told her that I was traveling with my husband after our marriage.

When the steamer neared Shanghai, the woman found me and said:

“You have been like a daughter to me, and I want to be of service to you. I live in a fine, large house, and would be very glad to have you and your husband stop with me.”

I mentioned something about a hotel.

“Why go to a hotel?” she interrupted. “That will cost you a lot of money. If you don’t want to stop with me because I will not accept money from you, you may pay me.”

I agreed, disregarding the protests of my comrade. I could see nothing suspicious in her inviting me to her house. On the way there we found that a German steamer would be in Shanghai two weeks later, and we really could not spare much money for hotel accommodations.

The room in which we were put up was on the same floor with the woman’s own apartment. Only a small hall-room separated us. To one side of the door stood a bed and to the other a table. A couch, on which my noble and unselfish companion was to spend the night, stood in a corner. We hung up our things on the door, and on the table we put my hand-bag containing my diary and some money, my comrade’s watch and some other articles. The door was locked.

In the morning when my comrade got up he found that all our things had disappeared. The door as well as the window remained locked. How was the theft to be explained? There could be no doubt that our things were stolen by some one of the household. I was in great fear lest my identity should be discovered from my diary. We knew that while in Shanghai we were not safe, as the Chinese police could deliver us into the hands of the Russian Consul the moment our presence in Shanghai was discovered.

I dressed immediately and summoned the woman to my room. My comrade questioned her about the mysterious theft in her house.

“You are inventing it!” she fairly shouted at him. “There could be no such thing as a theft in my house. I know who you are and what your business is,” she shrieked in angry tones.

My comrade grew pale. Before I could realize it, he had grabbed her by the shoulders and threw her out of the room. She fell heavily on the threshold. I placed myself between them and begged my comrade to calm himself. The woman lay on the floor yelling and cursing him in most violent language. She threatened to go to the Russian Consul and denounce him as a “white slaver.” My comrade was a powerful man and of a very excitable temper, and I saw that if the woman did not leave immediately, he could choke her to death. I dragged her away from the threshold and closed the door.

“I shall come to you presently,” I tried to quiet her. “For God’s sake, don’t go to the Consul.”

“Well, we got in here mighty bad,” remarked my comrade to me when I returned to our room. “And we must get out of this hole without losing a moment’s time.”

“What if the woman should report us to the Consul and we should be arrested?” I asked myself. I had not the slightest idea what she meant when she shouted to my comrade that he was a “white slaver.” My mind was busy with the thought of how to regain possession of my diary which was a direct proof of my identity. I decided to talk it over with the woman myself.

Without saying anything to my comrade of my intention I went to her. She evidently was waiting for me. She led me through many rooms, and finally we came to a luxuriously furnished drawing-room. She locked the door and put the key in her pocket.

“Well, dearie,” she began in a very soft voice, “you must remain with me. You needn’t go where he sends you. You will be getting much more money here.”

These dreadful words frightened me.

“You are greatly mistaken in what you think of me,” I said. “I am an honest girl, and nobody sends me anywhere.”

“Don’t deny it,” she insisted. “I can see that in your eyes. You —” she began to speak very warmly— “you yourself don’t understand your charms. You are a real treasure, and I will give you all the money you may wish. You will live here like a queen. You see, all this will be yours.”

She opened a wardrobe and began to pile on the floor expensive dresses of different colors and design. She looked at me so queerly that I began to tremble. I felt as if she were undressing me.

“Still better, if you are an honest girl. I watched you, and I know that you are honest, and the better it will be for you; the more money you will get.”

How shall I escape from here? I asked myself. Will I be able to take the key from her by force, or shall I break the window and jump from the second story? Or would it be better, perhaps, to cry out so that my comrade can hear me? I hesitated, not knowing what means of escape to choose.

At last a happy idea struck me. I took out all the money I kept in my corsage. There must have been about four hundred rubles. “Look here,” I said, “all this money will be yours.”

Her eyes began to sparkle.

“I swear to you,” I continued, “that before you will have a chance to sell my body, I shall kill myself. You are an old, gray-haired woman, and you have lived a great many years in this world. Is it possible that you can’t tell me from those unfortunate women with whom you have had to deal? Give me back my papers. I know that they are of no value to you, but to me they are everything. And let me out of your house.”

The woman stood silent, but her face showed signs of hesitation.

“I can’t report you to the Consul,” I went on, “because I am a ‘political’ and have no real passport. Consequently you do not risk anything by letting me go.”

“Give me the money,” said the woman without looking at me.

“Give me first my papers. I don’t trust you,” I ventured.

She unlocked the door, and we went into the same room where I had found her. She returned to me my bag with all the papers in it intact, and I gave her all the money I had with me.

My comrade was beginning to feel uneasy at my long absence. He was pacing up and down the room when I opened the door. I entered and, without saying a word, showed him my diary. He felt greatly relieved. We hastily packed our things and went to the railroad station. There we changed our cab and drove to a hotel in another part of the city.

After four weeks of anxious waiting we succeeded at last in getting some more money from Russia, but not sufficient to pay for second cabin passage, and I had to travel in the steerage.

The impressions of those four weeks in China are still fresh in my memory. I have seen and experienced all sorts of misery in my life, I have suffered much want and privation, but what I saw there was worse than anything I could imagine. It is not enough to say that the Chinese live in poverty. To understand the awful conditions of their life, one must see them with one’s own eyes. I used to go to the market and see what food a Chinese woman buys for a family of five or six for a whole day’s supply. A little rice, a few nuts, and a couple of tomatoes, that’s all. For all this she spends three cents.

Their houses are not any better than dog-kennels in Russia. There are hundreds of families who live on floats, where they work and sleep, and where their children are born and raised. Nowhere else have I seen so many beggars. On some streets they sit in companies of a dozen and more. Labor in China is terribly underpaid. For a whole day’s work a Chinese laborer sometimes receives four cents; a jinrikisha-man drives you the greatest distance for five cents; and he runs faster than a horse. The Chinese go about almost naked, and the only thing they work for all their lives is a piece of bread, of which they never have enough. And yet the load that a Chinaman can carry on his back is beyond description. The hotel in which I stopped was located near the port, and day and night I could hear the heart-rending groans, called singing, with which the “longshoremen” enliven their task. Prostitution is practised without restraint in China, and women are traded like horses.

I was glad to leave that country. Having bid good-by to my comrade, I sailed on a German steamer bound for Genoa. As I spoke nothing but Russian—but understood a little German—all the steerage passengers, most of whom were Germans, were greatly mystified by my silence. “Who is this girl with the pale face and sparkling eyes who looks all day at the sea?” they used to ask the stewards and one another. And every one of them stared insolently at me. Oh, how I hated them for their curious stares! But whenever they forgot about my presence, I remained alone with the sea and listened to the wonderful music of the waves. For days and days I sat looking on the water, and only then I realized that I was free, that my freedom was a living reality, not a dream.

But as soon as I _felt_ that I was free, the old wounds re-opened in my heart. Memories of the past, day after day and year after year, rose in my mind and whispered to me: “There can be no freedom for you after all that you have gone through, after all that you _know_. There can be no freedom for you when all your best and dearest friends have remained in the world of shadows and stone walls, in the world of torture and humiliation. There can be no freedom for you!”

A sudden change came over everything. The melodious music of the calm waves turned into a storm, it grew dark, and our gigantic steamer was thrown about like a shell by the storming seas.

“Go back, go back there whence you came!” roared the sea. “Your life no more belongs to you. You have saved yourself not for your own sake. You must either free them all, or be with them....”

I ran about the deck. My face burned. Where am I going, and why? I asked myself.