The Samovar Girl

by Frederick Ferdinand Moore

That could be done only after a period of slowly acquiring the confidence of Michael. Peter would have to build up a pretended sympathy with the old régime and its adherents, and show a willingness to aid Zorogoff and Kirsakoff in gaining the friendship of the American forces—even plan to aid in betraying the people of Russia in their aspirations for freedom.

Peter saw himself dining with Kirsakoff as a guest of the general; he built in his imagination a succession of secret conferences with Kirsakoff, and then, perhaps during an evening over wine and cigarettes, a whisper to Michael, “Do you know who I am in truth? Peter Petrovitch, son of Gorekin the bootmaker——!” and then the bullet and the escape.

Peter could see Michael turn his horrified eyes upon the smiling American officer who was really the son of an exile. Gorekin the bootmaker! Michael might not remember at first. How could a Governor be expected to carry in his memory a poor unfortunate, and a boy of twenty years before? But Peter would make Michael remember. There must be time for that so that Michael should know by whose hand he died. That would be necessary if Peter was to have his complete joy in his vengeance.

When the sun had dropped over the crest of the hills, and the frost was gradually creeping upward on the panes, etching a thick tropical foliage upon the glass, Peter went to the window and looked out over the Valley of Despair. The little hut of his boyhood was merging slowly into the shadows of the taller buildings about it. Tiny sparks appeared in the white smoke rising from the hut’s stone chimney—Rimsky was evidently feeding the fire-pit for the night.

Peter stood by the window musing on the bitter days and nights of the exiles long dead and forgotten—on the staggering columns coming in afoot over the Czar’s road to a living death, on the clanking of chains and fetters, on the screams in the nights as some cabal of exiles “roofed” one who had betrayed some breaking of the rules to the guards, on the barking of rifles as fugitives were hunted out of the hills.

Chita had become a city. It was built of the tears and anguish, of bodies destroyed and minds wrecked, of hates and cruelties, all mixed with the bricks and logs of its walls. And limitless legions of human beings had been poured into the wilderness and their bodies used as fertilizer to build up a new empire for the rulers of Russia.

“Oh, you cry for justice!” he said to the spirits of those who had suffered. “The time has come for justice—you have waited long, but to-morrow will not be as yesterday!”

He turned from the window and took his belt and pistol from the writing table and strapped them about him. Then he turned on the shaded droplight. It threw down upon the cloth of the writing table a yellow cone of radiance. It was now five by his watch. He rang the bell thrice—the signal for Vashka, as Katerin called herself.

He sat down by the table and waited. The sound of people walking about in the hall furtively, came to his ears, with the careful opening and closing of doors and snatches of conversation. He heard the strains of an old Russian air played on a violin by some one on the floor above, and the regular pounding of feet as if the steps of a Cossack dance were being tried intermittently.

It was the hour of the evening when the people in the hotel began to bestir themselves for the gay times of the night. They kept hidden during the day, and went abroad under cover of darkness to the restaurants of the city, to return to their rooms in the early morning.