Thus far the workmen have not been allowed to consider themselves as a class—any form of organization is prohibited by the government. Any effort toward “industrial betterment,” improved conditions, or any of the reforms which are common movements in England and America, are unheard of and unknown in Russia. The wonder is that the Russian workman is as good as he is under existing conditions. Given freedom of belief, freedom from ecclesiastic superstition, freedom from civil slavery—freedom of organization, and the Russian workman will develop a vista leading to his own better day.
The tenth day of my stay in Yusofka I was called back to Moscow by telegram. The call was urgent so I determined to catch a train from a station some fourteen miles away, which left just at dawn. Hughes himself put me into the same barouche that had brought Mr. Medhurst and me to the home I now left with genuine regret, and drawn by the same black Orloffs.
“I’m sending two trusted men with you,” Hughes said, as I gripped his hand in farewell; “both are well armed.” And we rolled out of the gate and into the cool night where furnace fires belched flaring flames above near and far horizons, and where the rattle of mineshaft wheels and cars intruded upon the stillness which properly is the birthright of night, but here is unknown.
CHAPTER XXI
TOLSTOI—ODESSA—CONSTANTINOPLE
A visit to Russia’s grand old man—An interesting yamschik—Tolstoi’s views on the present struggle—His world-wide interests—The varied and interesting Tolstoi household—On to the Crimea—Odessa—The Black Hundred organization—Promoting massacres—Quitting Odessa during a dock strike—A Black Hundred crew—Difficulties at sea—Back to Odessa—A fresh start—A motley cargo of passengers—Bokhara pilgrims bound for Mecca, Central Asia Jews journeying to Jerusalem, German Lutherans—Crossing the Black Sea—Arrival in Constantinople.
A sojourn in Russia seemed incomplete without a pilgrimage to Tolstoi. Russia’s grand old man attracts travelers from all corners of the earth, and though it seemed an unpardonable intrusion for an unheard-of citizen of a distant country to call upon the seer in his own home, to draw upon his strength and time, I was deeply grateful to receive an invitation to visit a dear friend and disciple of his who lives on the estate of the count’s eldest daughter; for I knew that this would mean a happy meeting with the one man in all Russia I desired most to see.
The year had turned November when this invitation came, and I was already looking forward to quitting the land of struggle and chaos. Tula, the town of Tolstoi’s home is almost the exact center of European Russia, and is reached from Moscow. “Yasnaya Poliana,” Tolstoi’s house, is located something over two hours’ drive from Tula station. Yasnaya Poliana, that is to say, “Pleasant Clearing in the Woods,” and never did the home of the prophet seem more fittingly named than now, when confusion and chaos roll unchanneled from the Baltic eastward, from European frontiers northward, covering an empire. Tolstoi looks across the seas of tumult, his hoary head towering above the wreckage, his superbly discerning vision penetrating a beyond still hid from the masses of his countrymen. And it is also true that the elements of to-day are as clear before him as before other men. He sees them all: an incompetent government, a struggling but thus far incapable revolution, twenty-seven millions of starving peasants, a disloyal navy, an untrustworthy army, a paper constitution and a reactionary régime. All these things he sees, views them calmly, and picks out a clear line of progress that leads to a goal where all of the black road will be justified. Of him, surely, is it true, “he has a faith that meets a thousand cheats, yet drops no jot of faith.” Tolstoi alone among Russians to-day is able to see his country’s plight in perspective.
Snow softly blanketed the earth and coated the bare trees of Great Russia when I said farewell to St. Petersburg and Moscow and made toward the center of the country to the station called Tula. A simple muzhik with a hand-made sledge, scarcely higher off the ground than a sled, offered to drive me out to the home where I was to be a guest, adjoining the count’s place. The horse did not look any too robust for the trip but the yamschik [peasant driver] assured me that the horse was the best to be had, and strong enough to accomplish the distance. As soon as we had left the streets of the town and struck the open country the man opened a friendly conversation. He began by telling me he had only recently come back from Manchuria, where he had served all through the war. It was evident that he had not enjoyed the service particularly and when I sympathized with him he told me how, after the first battle, he and seven of his companions held a secret council. They were all agreed that war was a bad job. In the first place not one of them knew just why they were fighting, and the idea of shooting at people whom they did not know, and in return being shot at, appeared to them as wrong. At the same time the government and their officers made them do these things. One soldier, from Tula, suggested writing to Tolstoi. A letter was indited and sent to Yasnaya Poliana. In the course of time these soldiers received their answer, in which Tolstoi told them that he believed all war was wrong, that the army had no business in Manchuria, and that if the consciences of the soldiers troubled them they should not shoot. “After that,” continued my driver, “we always knew what to do. We knew in our hearts that it was wrong to fight under such circumstances. We marched into battle because we had to, but after a few minutes our officers would all disappear, then we all ran away. We ran every time afterward.”
I told this story to a Red Cross nurse later for the humor of it. She laughingly said she was sure it was literally true, because one night after the battle of Mukden, a young captain was brought into her ward with an injured head. His wounds were not serious and shortly after they had been bandaged the officer began to laugh loudly. She went over to him and asked what amused him so greatly.
“The way I was wounded,” he replied. “Our regiment had not been long exposed to the fire when I decided it was too hot for comfort. I looked all about for some place of shelter. At last I espied a small gully or ravine, so suddenly running toward it I leaped in—only to find my general and my colonel there before me! Well—there wasn’t room for all three of us, so we began to nudge and push each other, for none wanted to get into the open again. Finally the general said to me: ‘Captain, you are not showing becoming deference to your superior officers, sir.’ At that I had to crawl out. As I did so a shell exploded near by and a piece of it hit me in the forehead causing my wound!”