Clumsily, the tallow from the candles dripping on our hands, we climbed the dingy stairway to the men's quarters. A dismal lamp burned in the center of the room, throwing a weird light over the awakened lodgers. What a medley of humanity that vile-smelling room contained! Old men barely able to climb out of their bunks; rough middle-aged ruffians, cowed for the moment, but plainly full of vindictiveness and crime; youngsters just beginning the city life and quaking with fear at the unannounced visitation—never before have I seen human bodies and rags so miserably entangled.
The method of the raid was simple enough. Each inmate was made to show his passport. If it was in order, well and good; he could go to sleep again. But if his papers were irregular, or, still worse, if he hadn't any at all, below he went to join the others who were guarded by the policemen. The worst that was found that night I fancy were some hiding peasants, who had run away from their villages and were loafing around begging in the city. One poor old man took me for an officer. I was passing around between the beds, holding my candle high so that I could see the faces of the lodgers. The old man—he must have been eighty—held out a greasy scrap of paper, doubtless his passport, and tried to tell me how little he had done in the world that was wrong. There was an appealing look in his faded, ancient eyes, like that in those of a mongrel who would fain beg your mercy. I was glad to learn that his papers were all right.
Later, the women's ward was also inspected. Here was practically the same bundle of human flesh and rags. Like the men, the women had to identify themselves or go to the station house. One young peasant girl lost her head, or perhaps she could not read. She handed the detective her pass confidently enough, but when he asked her her name she gave a different one from that on the passport.
"Go below, you little ignoramus," ordered the officer, and below she went, obviously wondering why all names were not alike—at least when it came to identification.
The inspection over, we returned to the room below to count the "catch." Over a score had been drawn into the net. They were lined up outside between two rows of policemen, the candles were put out, and the inspector gave the order to march. The weird, gloomy picture they made in the dark, as they trudged forward in their rags, is one that I do not care to see again. It seemed to me then, and it seems to me now, that the scene told the sad, sad truth about Russia.
"A nation on tramp," I murmured, as my friend and I went on alone down the Nevsky.
An actual arrest is perhaps the most exciting adventure I have to relate about my tramp experience in Russia. By rights the arrest should never have taken place, but what do rights count for in Russia? It came about in this fashion.
General Kleigels, at that time (1897) prefect of St. Petersburg, had given me a general letter to the police of that city, reading about like this: "The bearer of this is Josiah Flynt, an American citizen. He is here, in St. Petersburg, studying local conditions. Under no circumstances is he to be arrested for vagabondish conduct." The word "vagabondish" was the nearest English equivalent my friends could find for the Russian word used; it was underscored by the general himself. I was told by an American resident in Russia that with such a letter in my possession I could almost commit murder with impunity, but I succeeded in getting arrested for a much less grave offense.
The actual tramping in the city was over, and I was back in my own quarters again, cleaned up and respectable. One night, three of us, an Englishman, myself and another American, started out to see the city on conventional lines. My tramp experience had not revealed much to me about the local night life, and I boldly took advantage of the opportunity offered by the American's invitation to see the town as he knew it. In the end, there was not much to see that I had not looked at time and again in other cities, but before the end came there was a little adventure that proved very amusing. During our stroll together the Englishman, a diminutive little chap who had just bought a new pot hat and wanted everybody to know it, got separated from us. We looked high and low up and down the street where we had missed him, but he could not be found. We were about to go to the police station and give an alarm, when, as we were passing a rather dark stairway, who should come shooting down it but the Briton, his hat all battered in and his face bleeding.
"Look at my new Lincoln and Bennett, will you?" he snarled, on reaching the street, "Sixteen bob gone to the devil!"