“It was at the time of your great war we came. My mother wore the dress of our peasant women, and I did the same.”
“And were you quite safe in this country?”
“For a long time we lived very quietly, and we thought we were. But after a time some one came, and father took him in, and then others came, and went away again, and came again––I don’t know why––they did not tell me,––but this I know. Some one had a great enmity against my father, and at last mother took me in the night to a strange place where we knew no one, and then we went to another place––and to still another. It was very wearisome.”
“What was your father’s business?”
“My father had no business. He was what you call a nobleman. He had very much land, but he was generous and gave it nearly all away to his poor people. My father was very learned and studied much. He made much music––very beautiful––not for money––never for that. Only after we came to this country did he so, to live. Once he played in a great orchestra. It was then those men found him and came so often that he had again to go away and hide. I think they brought him papers––very important––to be sacredly guarded until a right time should come to reveal them.”
“And you have no knowledge why he was followed and persecuted?”
“I was so little at the beginning I do not know. If it was that in his religion he was different,––or if he was trying 192 to change in the government the laws,––for we are not of Russia,––I know that when he gave away his land, the other noblemen were very angry with him, and at the court––where my father was sent by his people for reasons––there was a prince,––I think it was about my mother he hated my father so,––but for what––that I never heard. But he had my father imprisoned, and there in the prison they––What was that word,––hectored? Yes. In the prison they hectored him greatly––so greatly that never more was he straight. It was very sad.”
“I don’t think we would say hectored, for that. I think we would say tortured.”
“Oh, yes. I see. To hector is of the mind, but torture is of the body. It is that I mean––for they were very terrible to him. My mother was there, and they made her look at it to bring him the more quickly to tell for her sake what he would not for his own. I think when she looks long before her at nothing, she is seeing again the tortures of my father, and so she cries out in that terrible way. I think so.”
“What were they trying to get out of him?”