“And if you do not get it?”
The men stirred uneasily, then: “The soldiers have robbed us of our guns,” said one at last, “but we have left to us our wood-axes and our scythes. We cannot endure starvation any longer.”
This is the spirit that led to something over sixteen hundred “agrarian disturbances” during the year 1906—incipient jacquerie, foreshadowing, I believe, greater uprisings soon to overtake Russia.
That night about ten o’clock as we sat in the house of our friends we heard the soft tinkling of a ballilika outside the windows, and presently the sound of many voices singing. They were low and restrained, but the words were clear. The music fairly thrilled us as we sat round the oil-lamp and our last samovar. It was the stirring Marche Funebre with words by Gorky.
At midnight we left Pesky. Our friends feared that perhaps they had been indiscreet in allowing the discussion in the little Duma building to continue so long. Free speech is a dangerous thing in Russia, even under the constitution. My companion and I, in our eagerness to grasp the actual state of mind of the peasants, had encouraged plain speaking. We had even spoken with more frankness than discretion ourselves. There had been forty or more men in the room when we began our “interview” and the number had soon swelled. We were hopeful that all were friendly, but in Russia one never knows.
The night was wonderful, moonless but starried. As we drove out of the yard our friends, the four who were feeding, tending, and revolutionizing Pesky, took up the refrain the peasants had sung in serenade two hours before. The last sounds we heard were the voices of this brave little band singing ever so softly, but with, oh, so much feeling, the refrain of the peasants’ Marseillaise.
Our road turned out to be terribly rough. In places it ran to a mere trail which more than once we lost. Then we had to retrace our way, or circle about till we found it again. The wagon in which we rode was springless and every jolt became painful. A little after three o’clock the larks began to sing. With the earliest light in the east we could see them quivering high in air, joyously hailing the day. The dawn wind came up chill and struck us to the marrow. We shivered and drew our blankets closer around us. Five o’clock had sounded when we drove into a post-station village where we were to change horses. We told the men to make ready the fresh troika quickly; in the meantime we would order a samovar and eggs at the post-house. The aged mistress of the place was already stirring when we entered and she promised us the tea and eggs “directly.” But before the water had come to the boil we were placed under arrest and our plans for the remainder of our trip altered “in the name of the Czar.”
CHAPTER VII
IN PRISON
“Cossacks”—Questioned—Taken—Five charges to account for—Accused of being an agitator—Eighteen versts to the gendarmerie—A tedious night—Back to Saratoff—“Take the dogs away”—Prison—Clamoring for freedom—Discouragement—Parole—Release.
