CHAPTER XXII
THROUGH the winter and spring of 1918 I continued to receive letters and parcels, mostly contraband, from my friends in Siberia. I wish I dared to tell how and through whom these precious messages reached me, for it all belongs in the story of Revolutionary Russia. It illustrates the truth, often demonstrated, that tyranny and oppression can never kill the spirit of freedom in human beings. There are always a minority of people who hold their lives cheap by comparison with liberty, and in such people lives deathlessly the inspiration of fidelity to those they love, no matter how relentlessly the loved ones are persecuted. Poor as I was, poor as was the small group of friends who worked with me to communicate with the Imperial Family, we managed to get to them the necessities they lacked. Dangerous and difficult as travel was in those days, every traveler being almost certain to be searched several times along the way, there were three, two officers and a young girl, who at the risk of imprisonment and death by the most unspeakable tortures, calmly and fearlessly acted as emmissaries back and forth between Petrograd and remote Tobolsk. They had friends along the way, of course, but how they managed, through months of constant peril, to carry on their work is one of those mysteries which, to my mind, are not wholly earthly.
On January 9, 1918, I received the following Christmas letter from the Empress.
Thank you, darling, for all your letters which were a great joy to me and to us all. On Christmas Eve I received the letter and the perfume, then more scent by little ——. I regret not having seen her. Did you receive the parcels sent through the several friends, flour, coffee, tea, and lapscha (a kind of macaroni)? The letters and the snapshots sent through ——, did you get them? I am worried as I hear that all parcels containing food are opened. I begin today to number my letters, and you must keep account of them. Your cards, the small silver dish, and Lili’s tiny silver bell I have not yet been able to receive.
We all congratulate you on your name day. May God bless, comfort, strengthen you, and give you joy. Believe, dear, that God will yet save our beloved country. He will not be unforgiving. Think of the Old Testament and the sufferings of the Children of Israel for their sins. And now it is we who have forgotten God, and that is why they[17] cannot bring any happiness. How I prayed on the 6th that God would send the spirit of good judgment and the fear of the Lord. Everyone apparently have lost their heads. The reign of terror is not yet over, and it is the sufferings of the innocent which nearly kills us. What do people live on now that everything is taken from them, their homes, their incomes, their money? We must have sinned terribly for our Father in Heaven to punish so frightfully. But I firmly and unfalteringly believe that in the end He will save us. The strange thing about the Russian character is that it can so suddenly change to evil, cruelty, and unreason, and can as suddenly change back again. This is in fact simply want of character. Russians are in reality big, ignorant children. However it is well known that during long wars all bad passions flame up. What is happening is awful, the murders, the persecutions, the imprisonments, but all of it must be suffered if we are to be cleansed, new born.
Forgive me, darling, that I write to you so sadly. I often wear your jackets, the blue and the mauve, as it is fearfully cold in the house. Outside the frosts are not often severe, and sometimes I go out and even sit on the balcony. The children are just recovering from scarletina, except Anastasie, who did not catch it. The elder ones began the new year by being in bed, Marie, of course, having a temperature of 39.5. Their hair is growing well. Lessons have begun again. Yesterday I gave three. Today I am free, and am therefore writing. On the 2nd of January I thought of you and sent a candle to be set before the Holy Seraphim. I have asked that prayers may be said in the cathedral where the relics lie, for all our dear ones. You remember the old pilgrim who came to Tsarskoe Selo. Fancy that he has been here. He wandered in with his big staff, and sent me a prosvera (holy bread).
I have begun your books. The style is quite different from the others. I have got myself some good books, too, but have not much time for reading. I embroider, knit, draw, and give lessons, but my eyes are getting weaker so that I can no longer work without glasses. You will see me quite an old woman! Did you know that the marine officer Nicolai Demenkoff has appendicitis? He is in Odessa. One of our wounded, Oroborjarsky, was operated on there a month ago. He is so sad and homesick, so far away. I correspond with his mother, a gentle, good, and really Christian soul. Lili Dehn went to see her.
I trust you received the painted cards that I put in the parcel of provisions. Not all were successful. If you receive my letters just write, thanks for No. I, etc. My three maids and Isa are still not allowed to come to us, and they are very much distressed, just sitting idle. But —— is of better use on the outside. Little one, where are your brother Serge and his wife? I know nothing of them. Your poor sister Alya, I hope she is not too sad; she has friends, but her husband, has he not become too sad away from her? How are the sweet children? Miss Ida is with her still, I hope. Did you know that sister Grekova is to be married soon to Baron Taube? How glad I am that you have seen A. P. Did he not seem strange out of uniform, and what did he say about his brother? Ah, all is past, and will never return. We must begin a new life and forget self. I must finish, my dear little soul. Christ be with you. Greetings to all. I kiss your mother. I congratulate you again. I want quickly to finish the small painting, and get it to you. I fear you are again passing through fearful days. Reports filter through of murders of officers in Sevastopol. Rodionoff and his brother are there.
Your own, A.
On the 16th of January the Empress wrote me a letter in Old Slavonic style to congratulate me on my name day. In this she addresses me as “Sister Seraphine.” I should explain that my hospital in Tsarskoe Selo bore the name of that saint, because it was on her day that I suffered the terrible railway accident which left me lamed for life, but which gave me, in damages, the funds for founding the hospital.