A brief consultation took place immediately between Captain Dementiev and General Polovtzev, who made the following suggestion:
“Why not start at the meeting to be held to-morrow night in the Mariynski Theatre for the benefit of the Home? Kerensky, Rodzianko, Tchkheidze, and others will speak there. Let us put Botchkareva between Rodzianko and Kerensky on the programme.”
I was seized with nervousness and objected strenuously that I could never appear in public and that I should not know what to talk about.
“You will tell them just what you told Rodzianko, Brusilov and Kerensky. Just tell them how you feel about the front and the country,” they said, making light of my objections.
Before I had time to realize it I was already in a photographer’s studio, and there had my portrait taken. The following day this picture appeared at the head of big posters pasted all over the city, announcing my appearance at the Mariynski Theatre for the purpose of organizing a Women’s Battalion of Death.
I did not close an eye during the entire night preceding the evening fixed for the meeting. It all seemed a fantastic dream. How could I take my place between two such great men as Rodzianko and Kerensky? How could I ever face an assembly of educated people, I, an illiterate peasant woman? And what could I say? My tongue had never been trained to elegant speech. My eyes had never beheld a place like the Mariynski Theatre, formerly frequented by the Tsar and the Imperial family. I tossed in bed in a state of fever.
“Holy Father,” I prayed, my eyes streaming with tears, “show Thy humble servant the path to truth. I am afraid; instil courage into my heart. I can feel my knees give way; steady them with Thy strength. My mind is groping in the dark; illumine it with Thy light. My speech is but the common talk of an ignorant baba; make it flow with Thy wisdom and penetrate the hearts of my hearers. Do all this, not for the sake of Thy humble Maria, but for the sake of Mother Russia, my unhappy country.”
My eyes were red with inflammation when I arose in the morning. I was nervous all day. Captain Dementiev suggested that I should commit my speech to memory. I refused his suggestion with the remark:
“I have placed my trust in God and rely on Him to put the right words into my mouth.”
It was the evening of May 21, 1917. I was driven to the Mariynski Theatre and escorted by Captain Dementiev and his wife into the former Imperial box. The house was packed, the receipts of the ticket office amounting to thirty thousand roubles. Everybody seemed to be pointing at me, and it was with great difficulty that I controlled my nerves.