Finally, they found somebody who could translate, and discovered that the American had not asked for a “gasteenitsah,” or hotel, but had told the driver that he wished some mustard, the Russian word for mustard being quite similar to the Russian word for hotel. The driver had been trying to find a grocery store open at that early hour.
This inability to grasp the meaning of a sentence from the circumstances despite a slight mispronunciation of the vital word in the sentence, I found to be typical among most Russians. Every word must be pronounced accurately, or the Russian is completely at sea for your meaning.
For several weeks I shocked waiters and waitresses in restaurants by asking for cakes with my tea. They regarded me with distrustful eyes, and plainly disapproved of me. I could not understand why when I asked for a provodnik with my tea, I never got one, but did get a frightened look.
The explanation is that the attendants were taken aback at the discovery that Americans are cannibals, despite all reports to the contrary. For a provodnik is not a cake, but the man who looks after the fires in a passenger car, and pretends to sweep the floor when you want to sleep. Naturally, they did not serve me a provodnik—neither did they give me a cake. I got my cake by going to the counter and pointing it out. Yet provodnik strikes me as a far better name for cake in Russian, than the word they use, which is proven by the fact that I can remember provodnik now, but forget entirely the word for cake.
I found that the British were not nearly so dependent upon interpreters as we were. They had officers who spoke Russian perfectly, some of them being Russian-born. This expert knowledge of the language may be due in part to the fact that England for a long time feared Russia. Some of Kipling’s early stories of garrison life in India express this mistrust for “the man who walks like a bear.” And, in fact, the Siberian peasant does walk like a bear, for his shambling gait, a great body slightly stooped, with long powerful arms at his side, he suggests Bruin amazingly.
Captain B—— was commandant of the Hotel Select, used as quarters by Semenoff’s officers and their families. His own room was down the hall from mine, past the dining-room being used as an officers’ mess, with German war-prisoners as waiters.
I returned to my room late one afternoon, and met Captain B—— going out. I spoke to him, and he scarcely replied. He had on his sheepskin coat and Cossack cap, and I noted at once that he was not wearing his saber. It was the first time I had seen him without it. He looked pale. There was another Cossack officer with him. I sensed something wrong at once. Nicholas Romanoff, the agent referred to before, was with me, and Captain B—— stepped aside and said something to Romanoff in Russian in a guarded tone, and then marched down the hall with the Cossack.
Romanoff’s manner was troubled. We went into my room without saying a word, and locked the door.
“What is up?” I demanded.
“Captain B—— has been arrested,” he said, sadly. “Arrested on order of the Ataman, who is down the railroad toward Harbin.”