The Red Symbol

CHAPTER XXXIII

THE ROAD TO ZOSTROV

Even before we left Riga, – where we were delayed for a couple of days getting our goods through the Customs and on to the train, – I realized somewhat at least of the meaning of Mishka’s enigmatic utterance. Not that we experienced any adventures. I suppose I played my part all right as the American mechanic whose one idea was safeguarding the machinery he was in charge of. Anyhow we got through the necessary interviews with truculent officials without much difficulty. Most of them were unable to understand the sort of German I chose to fire off at them, and had to rely on Mishka’s services as interpreter. The remarks they passed upon me were not exactly complimentary, – low-grade Russian officials are foul-mouthed enough at the best of times, and now, imagining that I did not know what they were saying, they let loose their whole vocabulary, – while I blinked blandly through the glasses I had assumed, and, in reply to a string of filthy abuse, mildly suggested that they should get a hustle on, and pass the things promptly.

I quite appreciated the humor of the situation, and I guess Mishka did so, too, for more than once I saw his deep-set eyes twinkle just for a moment, as he discreetly translated my remarks, and, at the same time, cordially endorsed our tyrants’ freely expressed opinions concerning myself.

“You have done well, ‘Herr Gould,’ yes, very well,” he condescended to say, when we were at last through with the troublesome business. “We are safe enough so far, though for my part I shall be glad to turn my back on this hole, where the trouble may begin at any moment.”

“What trouble?” I asked.

“God knows,” he answered evasively, with a characteristic movement of his broad shoulders. “Can you not see for yourself that there is trouble brewing?”

I had seen as much. The whole moral atmosphere seemed surcharged with electricity; and although as yet there was no actual disturbance, beyond the individual acts of ruffianism that are everyday incidents in all Russian towns, the populace, the sailors, and the soldiery eyed each other with sullen menace, like so many dogs, implacably hostile, but not yet worked up to fighting pitch. A few weeks later the storm burst, and Riga reeked with fire and carnage, as did many another city, town, and village, from Petersburg to Odessa.

I discerned the same ominous state of things – the calm before the storm – at Dunaburg and Wilna, but it was not until we had left the railroad and were well on our two days’ cross-country ride to Zostrov that I became acquainted with two important ingredients in that “seething pot” of Russian affairs, – to use Mishka’s apt simile. Those two ingredients were the peasantry and the Jews.

Hitherto I had imagined, as do most foreigners, whose knowledge of Russia is purely superficial, and does not extend beyond the principal cities, that what is termed the revolutionary movement was a conflict between the governing class, – the bureaucracy which dominates every one from the Tzar himself, an autocrat in name only, downwards, – and the democracy. The latter once was actively represented only by the various Nihilist organizations, but now includes the majority of the urban population, together with many of the nobles who, like Anne’s kindred, have suffered, and still suffer so sorely under the iron rule of cruelty, rapacity, and oppression that has made Russia a byword among civilized nations since the days of Ivan the Terrible. But now I realized that the movement is rendered infinitely complex by the existence of two other conflicting forces, – the moujiks and the Jews. The bureaucracy indiscriminately oppresses and seeks to crush all three sections; the democracy despairs of the moujiks and hates the Jews, though it accepts their financial help; while the moujiks distrust every one, and also hate the Jews, whom they murder whenever they get the chance.

That’s how the situation appeared to me even then, before the curtain went up on the final act of the tragedy in which I and the girl I loved were involved; and the fact that all these complex elements were present in that tragedy must be my excuse for trying to sum them up in a few words.

I’ve knocked around the world somewhat, and have had many a long and perilous ride through unknown country, but never one that interested me more than this. I’ve said before that Russia is still back in the Middle Ages, but now, with every verst we covered, it seemed to me we were getting farther back still, – to the Dark Ages themselves.

We passed through several villages on the first day, all looking exactly alike. A wide thoroughfare that could not by any stretch of courtesy be called a street or road, since it showed no attempt at paving or making and was ankle-deep in filthy mud, was flanked by irregular rows of low wooden huts, reeking with foulness, and more like the noisome lairs of wild beasts than human habitations. Their inhabitants looked more bestial than human, – huge, shaggy men who peered sullenly at us with swinish eyes, bleared and bloodshot with drunkenness; women with shapeless figures and blunt faces, stolid masks expressive only of dumb hopeless endurance of misery, – the abject misery that is the lot of the Russian peasant woman from birth to death. I was soon to learn that this centuries’ old habit of patient endurance was nearly at an end, and that when once the mask is thrown aside the fury of the women is more terrible, because more deliberate and merciless, than the brutality of the men.

At a little distance, perhaps, would be a small chapel with the priest’s house adjacent, and the somewhat more commodious houses of the tax-gatherer and starosta– the head man of the village, when he happened to be a farmer. Sometimes he was a kalak keeper, scarce one degree superior to his fellows. One could tell the tax-gatherer’s house a mile away by its prosperous appearance, and the kind of courtyard round it, closed in with a solid breast-high log fence; for in these days the hated official may at any moment find his house besieged by a mob of vodka-maddened moujiks and implacable women. If he and his guard of one or two armed stragniki (rural police) are unable to hold out till help comes, – well, there is red murder, another house in flames, a vodka orgy in the frenzied village, and retribution next day or the day after, when the Cossacks arrive, and there is more red murder. Then every man, woman, and child left in the place is slaughtered; and the agglomeration of miserable huts that form the village is burned to the ground.

That, at least, is the explanation Mishka gave me when we rode through a heap of still smouldering and indescribably evil-smelling ruins, where there was no sign of life, beyond a few disreputable-looking pigs and fowls grubbing about in what should have been the cultivated ground. The peasant’s holdings are inconceivably neglected, for the moujik is the laziest creature on God’s earth. In the days of his serfdom he worked under the whip, but as a freeman he has reduced his labor to a minimum, especially since the revolutionary propagandists have told him that he is the true lord of the soil, who should pay no taxes, and should live at ease, – and in sloth.

The sight and stench of that holocaust sickened me, but Mishka rode forward stolidly, unmoved either physically or mentally.

“They bring it on themselves,” he said philosophically. “If they would work more and drink less they could live and pay their taxes well enough and there would be no trouble.”

“But why on earth didn’t they make themselves scarce after they’d settled scores with the tax collector, instead of waiting to be massacred?” I mused.

“God knows,” said Mishka. “The moujik is a beast that goes mad at the sight and smell of blood, and one that takes no thought for the morrow. Also, where would they run to? They would soon be hunted down. Now they have had their taste of blood, and paid for it in full, that is all. There were no Jews there,” he jerked his head backwards, “otherwise they might have had their taste without payment.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

He shrugged his broad shoulders.

“Wait, and perhaps you will see. Have you never heard of a pogrom?”

And that was all I could get out of him at the time.

CHAPTER XXXIV

THE OLD JEW

We halted for the night at a small town, with some five or six thousand inhabitants as I judged, of whom three-fourths appeared to be Jews. Compared with the villages we had passed, the place was a flourishing one; and seemed quiet enough, though here again, as at Wilna and Riga, there was something ominous in the air. Nearly all the business was in the hands of the Jews; and their shops and houses, poor enough, according to civilized notions, were far and away more prosperous looking than those of their Russian neighbors; while their synagogue was the most imposing block in the town, which is not saying much, perhaps.

We put up at the best inn in the place, where we found fresh horses waiting us, as we had done at a village half-way on our day’s march, under the care of a couple of men in uniform. There was a telegraph wire to Zostrov, and Mishka had sent word of our coming. I learned later that, when the Grand Duke was in residence, a constant line of communication was maintained with relays of horses for carriages or riders between the Castle and the railroad.

I had wondered, when Mishka told me the arrangements for the journey, why on earth motor cars weren’t used over this last stage, but when I found what the roads were like, when there were any roads at all, I guessed it was wise to rely on horses, and on the light and strong Russian travelling carriages that go gayly over the roughest track, rather than on the best built motor procurable.

The landlord of the inn was a Jew, of course, – a lean old man with greasy ear locks and a long beard, above which his hooked nose looked like the beak of a dejected eagle. He welcomed us with cringing effusion, and gave us of his best. I’d have thought the place filthy, if I hadn’t seen and smelt those Russian villages; but it was well appointed in a way. The dinner-table, set in the one bedroom which we were to share, so that we might dine privately and in state, was spread with a cloth, which, though grimy to a degree, was of fine damask, and displayed forks, spoons, and candlesticks of solid silver. The frowsy sheets and coverlids on the three beds were of linen and silk. Evidently Moses Barzinsky was a wealthy man; and his wife, – a fat dame, with beady eyes and a preposterous black wig, – served us up as good a meal as I’ve ever tasted. I complimented her on it when she brought in the samovar; for here, in the wilds, it didn’t seem to matter about keeping up my pretended ignorance of the language. She was flattered, and assumed quite a motherly air towards me; she didn’t cringe like her husband. As I sat there, sipping my tea, and chatting with her, I little guessed what would befall the comfortable, homely, good-tempered old lady a very few days hence. Mishka listened in disapproving silence to our interchange of badinage, and, when our hostess retreated, he entered on a grumbling protest.

“You are very indiscreet,” he grunted. “Why do you want to chatter with a thing like that?”

He jerked his pipe towards the doorway; Mishka despised the cigarette which, to every other Russian I have met, seems as necessary to life as the air he breathes; and when he hadn’t a cigar fell back on a distinctly malodorous briar.

“Why in thunder shouldn’t I talk to her?” I demanded. “She’s the only creature I’ve heard laugh since I got back into Holy Russia; it cheers one up a bit, even to look at her!”

“You are a fool,” was his complimentary retort. “And she is another – like all women – or she would know these are no days for laughter. But, I tell you once more, you cannot be too cautious. You must remember that you know no Russian. You are only an American who has come to help the prince while away his time of exile by trying to turn the Zostrov moujiks into good farmers. That, in itself, is a form of madness, of course, but doubtless they think it may keep him out of more dangerous mischief.”

“Who are ‘they’? I wish you’d be a bit more explicit,” I remonstrated. He did make me angry sometimes.

“That is not my business,” he answered stolidly. “My business is to obey orders, and one of those is to bring you safely to Zostrov.”

I could not see how my innocent conversation with the fat Jewish housewife could endanger the safety of either of us; but I had already learned that it was quite useless to argue with Mishka; so, adopting Brer Fox’s tactics, “I lay low and said nuffin.” We smoked in silence for some minutes, while I mused over the strangeness of my position. I had determined to return to Russia in search of Anne; had hailed Mishka’s intervention, seized on the opportunity provided by the Grand Duke’s invitation, as if they were God-sent. And yet here I was, seemingly even farther from news of her than I had been in England, playing my part as a helpless pawn in a game that I did not understand in the least.

The landlord entered presently, and obsequiously beckoned Mishka to the far end of the room, where they held a whispered conversation, which I tried not to listen to, though I could not help overhearing frequent references to the starosta (mayor), an important functionary in a town of this size, and the commandant of the garrison. From my post of observation by the window I had already noticed a great number of soldiers about; though whether there was anything unusual in the presence of such a strong military force I, of course, did not know.

Mishka crossed over to me.

“I am going out for a time. You will remain here?”

“I’ll see. Perhaps I’ll go for a stroll later,” I replied. It had occurred to me that he regarded me almost as a prisoner, and I wanted to make sure on that point.

“Please yourself,” he returned in his sullen manner. “But if you go, remember my warning, and observe caution. If there should be any disturbance in the streets, keep out of it; or, if you should be within here, close the shutters and put the lights out.”

“All right. I guess I’m fairly well able to take care of myself,” I said imperturbably; though I thought he might have given me credit for the possession of average common sense, anyhow!

I went out soon after he did, more as a kind of assertion of my independence than because I was inclined for a walk. It was some time since I’d been so many hours in the saddle as I had that day, and I was dead tired.

It was a glorious autumn evening, clear and still, with the glow of the sunset still lingering in the western sky, though the moon was rising, and putting to shame the squalid lights of the streets and shops. The sidewalks – a trifle cleaner and more level than the rutted roadway between them – were thronged with passers; many of them were soldiers swaggering in their disreputably slovenly uniforms, and leering at every heavy-visaged Russian woman they met. I did not see one woman abroad that evening who looked like a Jewess; though there were Jews in plenty, slinking along unobtrusively, and eying the Russian soldiers and townsmen askance, with glances compounded of fear and hatred.

I attracted a good deal of attention; a foreigner was evidently an unusual object in that town. But I was not really molested; and, acting on Mishka’s advice, I affected ignorance of the many and free remarks passed on my personal appearance.

I walked on, almost to the outskirts of the little town, and turned to retrace my steps, when I was waylaid by a pedler, who had passed me a minute or so before. He looked just like scores of others I had seen within the last few minutes, except that he carried a small but heavy pack, and walked heavily, leaning on his thick staff like a man wearied with a long day’s tramp.

Now I found he had halted, and as I came abreast with him, he held out one skinny hand with an arresting gesture. For a moment I thought he was merely begging, but his first words dispelled that notion.

“Is it wise of the English excellency to walk abroad alone, – here?” he asked earnestly, in a voice and patois that sounded queerly familiar. I stopped short and stared at him, and then, in a flash, I knew him, though as yet he had not recognized me, save as a foreigner.

He was the old Jew who had come to my flat on the night of Cassavetti’s murder!

CHAPTER XXXV

A BAFFLING INTERVIEW

“It is less safe than the streets of London, perhaps,” I said quietly, in Russian. “But what of that? And how long is it since you left there, my friend?”

He peered at me suspiciously, and spread his free hand with the quaint, graceful gesture he had used before. I’d have known the man anywhere by that alone; though in some ways he looked different now, less frail and emaciated than he had been, with a wiry vigor about him that made him seem younger than I had thought him.

“The excellency mistakes!” he said. “How should such an one as I get to London?”

“That is for you to say. I know only that you are the man who wanted to see Vladimir Selinski. And now you’ve got to come and see me, at once, at the inn kept by Moses Barzinsky.”

“Speak lower, Excellency,” he stammered, glancing nervously around. “In God’s name, go back to your inn. You are in danger, as all strangers are here; yea, and all others! That is why I warned you. But you mistake. I am not the man you think, so why should I come to you? Permit me to go on my way.”

He made as if to move on, and I couldn’t detain him forcibly and insist on his accompanying me, for that would have drawn attention to us. Fortunately there were few people hereabouts, but those few were already looking askance at us.

An inspiration came to me. I thought of the red symbol that had dangled from the key of Cassavetti’s flat that night, and of the signal and password Mishka had taught me in Petersburg.

In two strides I caught up with him, touched his shoulder with the five rapid little taps, thumb and fingers in succession, and said in his ear: “You will come to Barzinsky’s within the hour, – ‘For Freedom.’ You understand?”