Lucy Harding

by Mary Jane Holmes

Of all our party, next to myself, Mary was the fondest of walking, and went with me oftenest on long excursions. We had driven up and down the Nevsky two or three times, but had never walked its entire length, as I proposed doing a few days before our intended departure from the city. It was one of those bright, sunshiny afternoons, which almost make amends for the ice and snow in which the city is wrapped a great portion of the year. There were very few in the street, either in the fashionable or common part of the Nevsky, and the air was so invigorating that we felt no fatigue, but walked on and on, past the Patoff house, which showed some signs of life.

A door and windows were open, and we saw a lackey or two dodging in and out. Probably the master had returned, and I felt a little thrill of pleasure at the thought of meeting him again. It was impossible not to like him for his great friendliness and the many times he had made it easy for us in a city hedged round with rules and spies and officials ready to take advantage of us.

For a long time after passing the Patoff house we went on, until at last we turned into quarters where I had never been. A glance told me that it was peopled by the poorest class; still, I kept on, noticing how hard were the faces of the women, and how squalid and dirty were the children playing by the doors of the houses. I had been anxious to talk with this class of people, and hear from their own lips a history of their lives and their much-vaunted adoration of the czar, who could do no wrong!

Here was my opportunity, and I was about to accost a tired-faced woman, and had bowed to her smilingly, when suddenly I was confronted by a shabbily dressed young man, whose cringing manner bespoke the professional beggar. Not knowing that I could understand him, he held out his hand, and then put it to his mouth, in token of hunger, a trick I had seen many times in Italy.

“What do you want?” I asked, drawing back from him, as he came so near to me that I smelled his breath of bad tobacco and vodka.

At the sound of his own language, his face brightened, and he exclaimed: “God be praised, madame speaks Russian! She is kind, I know, and was sent to help me, and will give me a few kopecks for my sick wife and two starving children. I came from Moscow a few weeks ago to get work, but can find none, with everybody out of the city. Fifty kopecks are all I ask.”

He was still holding his hand very close to me, and once touched my arm, while I was thinking what to do, and doubting the propriety of giving the man the fifty kopecks asked for. It was not a large sum—about twenty-five cents—for a sick wife and two starving children. In my weakness—for I am weak where poverty is concerned—I might have yielded if Mary had not pulled my sleeve, and whispered, frantically: “Come away, Miss Lucy! The man is an impostor! I believe we are among thieves!”

He could not have understood her words, but he divined their import, and instantly his manner changed, from a hungry beggar to that of a resolute bandit, sure of his prey. Snatching with one hand at the bag at my side, in which I was supposed to carry money, with the other he clutched at the ring on my ungloved hand, trying to wrench it from my finger. It was not a large stone, but a fine one, and its brilliancy in the sunlight had attracted his notice.

I held to my bag with one hand, but with the other I was powerless, for he held it as in a vise. I felt there was no use appealing to the women near us for help. They were looking on stolidly, as if a theft in open day was nothing new to them. One, however—the tired-faced woman to whom I had bowed—seemed agitated, and suggested that I call the police.

But there were none in sight. The street seemed deserted. Even the butki, or box, on the far corner of the street, or square, where three men are always supposed to be stationed, to keep order, seemed also deserted, and I was left to fight my antagonist alone, with the probable result of being defeated. Suddenly, like an inspiration, Chance came into my mind. If he were there, I was safe. I did not know that he was home, but in my desperation I called, with all my might: “Chance, Chance, I want you!”