Part 3

"No. But this present Government is very reactionary and the persecution of the Jews is part of its programme. You know, it is always under the reactionary Government, which is pro-German, that the pogroms take place."

We had got into a droshky and were driving through city streets. Women from the country were bringing in milk. People seemed to be walking about freely enough.

The Jews with their bowed necks seemed far away--as though, after all, I had read about them in a book. Could I have elbowed them and smelt them only a few minutes ago?

I was in Russia. How sweet the morning air was! We were climbing a cobble-stoned hill. Institutska Oulitza. Here we are! And we stopped at the Tchedesky Pension.

Good-bye for now. Armfuls of love from

RUTH.

July 5, 1915.

Darlingest Mother and Dad:--

We have been in Kiev several days. Our passports have been handed in to the police station to be viséed and put in order for our return trip to Bucharest. They say a human being in Russia is made of body and passport.

Kiev is full of color. It is framed in green trees that hide the ugliness of modern buildings and seem to lift the gold and silver domes of the churches up into the air. And how many churches there are! Kiev is in truth a holy city. Late afternoon, when the sun shines through the dust of the day and envelops the city in golden powder; when the gold and silver domes of the churches float up over the tree-tops like unsubstantial, gleaming bubbles, and the bells fill the air with lovely, mellow sounds,--then I can truly say I have felt more deeply religious than ever before in my life. Yet, suddenly, I see the woman who climbs Institutska Oulitza every evening on her knees. She is dressed in black, and deeply veiled, and every evening she climbs the hill on her knees. At first I thought she was a cripple, but, on arriving at the top of the hill, she rose to her feet and walked away.

"What is she doing?" I asked Marie.

"Oh, a penance, probably, that the Church has imposed on her."

And then the churches and their domes grow almost hateful to me. I think of the Russian peasants with their foreheads in the dust, and the greasy, long-haired priests I see on the streets.

Yet I don't know--perhaps the priests don't really matter. After all, there must be something in the people's hearts--a belief--an idealism--a faith in God that keeps them loving Russia, dreaming for her, and able to dream again after they've seen their dreams trampled on. No, the priests and their autocracy don't matter. The people believe, and that's the important thing.

We went out yesterday afternoon to the Lavra--the stronghold of Black Russia. It is a monastery on the edge of the town, overlooking the Dnieper and flanked with battlemented walls to withstand the attacks of the infidels in olden times. From all over Russia and the Balkans pilgrims go there to visit the catacombs, where many church saints are buried, their bodies miraculously preserved under red and gold clothes--so the priests say.

The road leading to it passed the barracks, where we saw young recruits drilling. They were learning to walk, and their arms swung stiffly and self-consciously, and their legs bent at the knees and straightened again like the wooden legs of mechanical toys. As they marched, they sang wonderful Russian soldier songs. They appeared to be about twenty-three or twenty-four, as though they had got their growth, and were tall and broad-shouldered--not at all like the batch of Austrian prisoners we passed a few minutes later, and who looked like pathetic, bewildered children, beardless for the most part, and in uniforms too large for them. They shuffled along in a cloud of gray dust under a metallic sun. Some were slightly wounded in the head or arm, and were supported by their comrades. As I passed, I encountered certain eyes--frank, gray eyes that reminded me of Morris. The long, white, dusty road became tragic to me, with the prisoners in their worn blue uniforms, and those who were about to die, singing in the distance.

We met bullock-carts crawling into town, coming from distant villages, with fresh vegetables for the markets. The peasants walked by the oxen, prodding them with short sticks. There seem to be so many men here of military age, yet not in the army. It isn't like other countries, where every one but the Jews is in uniform. Russia has so many men. They say five million more could easily be raised if they had the officers and ammunition.

We reached a high plaster wall, with little booths built under its shadows, where pilgrims bought souvenirs of the Lavra--gaudy ikons, colored handkerchiefs and shawls, beads and baskets.

A group of pilgrims entered the gate in front of us, all from the same village, evidently, for the women's dresses resembled each other's in cut and embroidery, and a few of the younger women's were even dyed the same color, as often happens in wool of the same shearing. In spite of the heat, the men wore sheepskin coats and fur caps, and the women's skirts were thick with petticoats. Some of the women led children by the hand; others carried babies in their arms, poor little mites, with faces covered with sores, and eyes red and blinking as though they were going blind. They all bent and kissed the hand of the priest who sold candles under the covered arched gateway, and then they passed into the open square surrounded by the monastery walls. There was a sort of garden here; all the grass worn off by the countless pilgrims who had visited the shrine, but with trees in whose shade the peasants rested when their sins had been forgiven. Some lay curled up on the ground, fast asleep; others sat with their legs spread comfortably apart, eating bread and meat; and others drank thirstily from the well, or let the water run over their tired feet.

Facing us was the church with its gold domes blindingly bright against the blue sky. We followed the pilgrims and entered the chapel, where everything suddenly grew hushed and dark, with a strange odor--a mixture of thick, sweet incense and melting candle grease, and smelly, perspiring peasants.

The pilgrims bought candles and lighted them, and knelt on the flagging before the altar. Behind an elaborate railing the lustrous jewels and gold of the vessels and crucifixes glowed richly in the dim light. Priests in gorgeous vestments were going through some church ceremony. Their deep chanting filled the church. They knelt and rose, and finally, by a mechanical contrivance, something was raised in an inner shrine, and a priest took off a cloth of crimson and gold, and uncovered a wonderful gold cup encrusted with jewels. I leaned against a pillar, watching the kneeling peasants, and over their bent backs the mystery and richness of the altar glowing with jewels and only half disclosed by the tiny pointed candle flames flickering in the darkness. The Lavra is one of the two richest monasteries in Russia. Its wealth is fathomless. It has lent emperors treasure with which to fight the infidels, and on returning from holy wars the emperors have brought it back to the church increased a hundred fold by royal gifts of jewels and loot.

We went out into the blinding sunlight again, and down a long flight of cloister steps to the catacombs.

A priest was selling bottles of a white liquid.

"What is it?" Marie asked.

"Holy water," the priest replied. "It is not for your kind." But he took the kopecks of an old peasant woman. "Rub it on your joints and it will cure their stiffness," he said to her, with a cynical smile.

Three fat priests sat at the entrance of the catacombs, selling different-sized candles. The very poor peasants, who came barefooted, could only afford the very thin tapers, while the rich villagers, with heavy, well-made boots and much embroidery on their clothes, bought candles as thick as a man's thumb, and sometimes two or three at a time, which they held lighted between their fingers.

A short, fat priest, his face dripping with perspiration, led us through the catacombs. He would wipe the sweat out of his eyes with the sleeve of his dirty gown, and point to the saints' tombs with the big iron key he carried. I was pressed close to him by the crowd of peasants behind. The smell of his greasy body and the powder of dandruff from his long hair on the shoulders of his gown, the malicious way he looked at me as though to say, "You and I know that what I'm saying is rot, but it must be said to them"--it was indescribably disgusting.

We wound through narrow, dungeon-like passages with the cold, damp smell of an unused cellar. Now and then, through barred windows in the stone walls, I caught glimpses of tall forms lying in a row, covered with dingy red and gold cloths.