SIAIN1916 
 
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 THE LIBEIARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 ROOK DUE LAST DATE 
 S'^WTPED BEIiOW
 
 RUSSIA IN 1916
 
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 RUSSIA IN 1916 
 
 BY 
 
 STEPHEN GRAHAM 
 
 Author of "The Way of Martha and the Way 
 of Mary," "Russia and the World,'' etc 
 
 7HE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 1917
 
 COPYBIGHT, 1917, 
 
 By the MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 Set up and electrotyped. Published, February, 1917.
 
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 PREFACE 
 
 I RETURNED to Russia last summer, visited 
 as many of my old friends there as I could, 
 arranged for the publication of some of my 
 books in the Russian language, and inci- 
 dentally travelled a great deal and saw a 
 great many sides of Russian contemporary 
 life, talked also with all manner of Russians. 
 I travelled to Bergen in Norway, from 
 Bergen obtained a passage round the North 
 Cape to Vardo, the last port of Norway, 
 transhipped there to a Russian boat and 
 sailed for Ekaterina, the first port in Rus- 
 sia in the North, the new Russian harbour 
 which never freezes. From Ekaterina I 
 went on to Archangel, where I stayed a 
 week, and from Archangel went to Moscow. 
 I visited some estates in Central Russia 
 and stayed with various acquaintances and 
 friends, visited Rostof-on-the-Don, the Cau- 
 casus, Orel, Petrograd, and finally came 
 back to England on a returning ammunition 
 ship. 
 
 . &-
 
 PREFACE 
 
 In going to Russia I certainly did not in- 
 tend to publish my impressions in book 
 form, but I have been asked to do so, and 
 I recognise the value of keeping in contact 
 w^ith our Ally from day to day. The re- 
 quirement of the moment seems to be not so 
 much books on Russia, of which there are 
 now a great mnry, but diaries or volumes 
 of impressions, keeping the peoples of the 
 two countries in touch during the war. I 
 returned to London at the beginning of Oc- 
 tober, 1916, and I should be glad to think 
 that some one returning at the beginning of 
 January, 1917, would follow on with another 
 small volume of this type. Again for 
 April, 1917. We need such volumes of per- 
 sonal impressions, and there would not be 
 the need to apologise for them. They are 
 letters between friends both engaged in the 
 same vital task. It is extremely difficult to 
 keep in touch with Russia by reading news- 
 papers only. The newspapers are, on the 
 whole, difficult to follow. They are con- 
 cerned with the news-aspect of events and 
 the scope for sensational appeals. Good 
 quiet correspondence tends to be lost in 
 them. Hence my little book of the hour.
 
 PREFACE 
 
 I was in Russia when the war broke out 
 in 19 14. I spent 191 5 in Egypt, the Bal- 
 kans, Russia and England, and again I spent 
 the summer of 1916 in Russia. I have, 
 therefore, been in touch with the Russians 
 all the time of the war. I hope, therefore, 
 that in this time when deeds rather than 
 words are necessary, my report of the condi- 
 tions prevailing in the land of our ally Rus- 
 sia may be considered serviceable. 
 
 Stephen Graham. 
 
 London, 
 
 15 January 191 7.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I A Journey to Ekaterina .... i 
 
 II The Dark Haven ii 
 
 III The New Archangel 25 
 
 IV The Cost of Living 36 
 
 V Life in the Country 49 
 
 VI Father Yevgeny 60 
 
 VII A Russian Countess 72 
 
 VIII Russian Literature in 1916 . . . 81 
 
 IX Russia in 1916 loi 
 
 X Russian Money no 
 
 XI Without Vodka, Beer, or Wine . 118 
 
 XII Gay Life 133 
 
 XIII Old Friends 143 
 
 XIV Russia's New War Picture . . .152 
 XV In the Hospital i57 
 
 XVI The Prospects for Peace . . . 166 
 
 XVII Home 181
 
 RUSSIA IN 1916 
 
 A JOURNEY TO EKATERINA 
 
 I PROPOSED to go from Newcastle to Bergen, 
 to go by Norwegian steamer from Bergen 
 to Vardo or Kirkenaes on the far north- 
 eastern limits of Norway, and then wait for 
 some sort of boat to take me to Ekaterina. 
 In this I was successful, though it was not 
 possible to book any passage beforehand in 
 England. 
 
 I left the night the first misleading news 
 of the North Sea battle was received. If 
 that news had been correct it would have 
 meant that the German Fleet had broken 
 through and w^as at large, and that each 
 
 ^
 
 2 Russia in 1916 
 
 war vessel had become a commerce trader. 
 We stood a chance of being revised by Ger- 
 mans and perhaps of all English of age 
 being taken away. A British captain said 
 to me afterwards, "We received that first 
 news as we were leaving a South American 
 port with a cargo of nitre. We realised at 
 once that the chances must now be consid- 
 ered against our arriving safely at a home 
 port." 
 
 Because of the battle the mail boat which 
 had been due in at Newcastle in the morn- 
 ing, arrived only at nightfall, the revising 
 officers were late in coming from the ex- 
 amination of the one to the examination of 
 the other — the Rhanvald Jarl, due to go 
 out from Newcastle that night. I did not 
 get to my cabin till half-past-one in the 
 morning, and had spent some hours among 
 drunken sailors, one of whom was sick on 
 the stairs of the Aliens Officer's room.
 
 A Journey to Ekaterina 3 
 
 The journey to Bergen was not pleasant. 
 
 No one to breakfast, no one to lunch, no 
 one to dinner. I doubt if any one felt in 
 the least anxious about German cruisers or 
 stray mines. There was other preoccupa- 
 tion. 
 
 At Bergen I stayed three days in a hotel. 
 The news in the Norwegian papers did not 
 flatter the efforts of the Allies. Explana- 
 tions of the real significance of the North 
 Sea battle began to appear, but they had 
 the suggestion of merely trying to give a 
 better face to what was in reality a very un- 
 pleasant happening. For the rest the Ger- 
 mans seemed to be going ahead, and had 
 captured the fort of Vaux. The only set- 
 off against these things was the first intelli- 
 gence of the Russian advance in Galicia. 
 
 I sailed northward in the Vesteraalen, 
 the Norwegian mail boat going to far 
 Kirkenaes. Boats go four or five times a
 
 4 Russia in 1916 
 
 week the whole distance of the Norwegian 
 coast. They are slow, but, if time is no 
 object, it is a most interesting journey — 
 the placid fiords and jolly channels between 
 mountains, the veritable gates in the rocks 
 which upon occasion you pass through, the 
 many fishing villages and the trawlers 
 weighed down with herrings, the busy 
 women with their knives cleaning the fish 
 and emptying barrelful after barrelful of 
 entrails into the sea, the thousands of gulls 
 ever calling, dipping, screeching, chasing 
 one another, and then the Lofoten Islands 
 with their mighty heights, the increasingly 
 stern more northern aspect of Nature, and 
 the dwellings of man, the passing of the 
 Arctic line, the brilliant nights with the sun 
 still on the shoulder of the sky at midnight. 
 I fell in with an English Consul, a young 
 man going to Vardo to do special work in 
 connection with the war. He was accom-
 
 A Journey to Ekaterina 5 
 
 panied by his wife, and she, for her part, 
 had never been out of England before. At 
 every place the steamer stopped we got out 
 and went for a walk — sometimes for ten 
 minutes, sometimes for an hour or so, ac- 
 cording to the extent of the cargo that had to 
 be discharged or taken on. 
 
 At Hammerfest, the most northern town 
 in Europe, dirty snow still lay on the edges 
 of the streets. A wild place this Hammer- 
 fest, apparently all men and no women, the 
 roadway thronged with hardy sailors. A 
 whole forest of masts in the harbour, an all- 
 pervading smell of cod liver oil in the town, 
 a grey and ugly port in June, whatever it 
 may be later on. 
 
 Many Norwegians spoke English, though 
 with an American accent, and they were 
 very friendly to us. I was interested, too, 
 to observe their love of their own land, a 
 real attachment to the rocks of Norway.
 
 6 Russia in 1916 
 
 It is majestic scenery all the way from 
 Bergen to the North Cape, and it has some- 
 what of the characteristic melancholy of the 
 North. If Russians lived in this land they 
 would love it for its sadness. But the 
 Norwegians love its ruggedness, and they 
 say that the wild and rugged nature of their 
 land has made them what they are. And 
 I suppose Scots would find there grandeur 
 and the sublimity of Nature. 
 
 After the North Cape we entered a re- 
 gion of utter desolation, the coast a line of 
 snow, the sea grey and dead with the occa- 
 sional black back of a porpoise showing. 
 The wind was cold and wintry. We knew 
 that at Vardo we should find no flowers, no 
 vegetation. 
 
 At Vardo I left the boat as I had discov- 
 ered that boats went to and fro to Russia 
 therefrom. An important place this Vardo, 
 and a sharp look-out on Germans should al-
 
 A Journey to Ekaterina 7 
 
 ways be kept here. If a submarine cam- 
 paign against the shipping of Archangel 
 broke out, there would probably be some 
 connivance on the part of Germans or neu- 
 trals resident hereabout, and possible bases 
 on this desolate coast. 
 
 A most forlorn region subject to terrific 
 gales, cold and snowy. It has a great num- 
 ber of grey wooden docks with grey fish- 
 ing-boats ; almost all the houses are of wood, 
 and are of the same grey complexion as boats 
 and quays, they are low and squat, and the 
 dirty streets are wide. Innumerable gulls 
 are diving and dipping and fluttering — and 
 shrieking in chorus. 
 
 There are two hotels. One is called ap- 
 propriately "The North Pole," the other is 
 "Vinnans Hotel." I stayed at the latter, 
 and this, astonishing to relate, is a first- 
 class hotel with electric light and a tele- 
 phone in every room, though there is no one
 
 8 Russia in 1916 
 
 in the town with whom you can communi- 
 cate. There is an electric arrangement on 
 the wall for lighting your cigarette — you 
 press a button and a disc becomes red-hot, 
 and at that you light up. I suppose some 
 Christiania contractor had put this up, faith- 
 ful to the specification quoted in his tender. 
 My windows had scarlet blinds, and all 
 night long the midnight sun poured crimson 
 light on my white bed, the huge wind 
 howled and bellowed, and innumerable 
 gulls cried up and down, now this side, now 
 that. 
 
 In the bleak and lonely cemetery are Rus- 
 sian graves with naive carvings of the Vir- 
 gin and Child on the orthodox wooden 
 crosses. Many a Russian sailor and fisher- 
 man has perished on this side of his father- 
 land. 
 
 There are amusements in the town, two 
 cinema shows packed every night, a shoot-
 
 A Journey to Ekaterina 9 
 
 ing saloon, an Aunt Sallie shy called 
 ''Amerikanske Sport." I hit down one 
 ugly face and received as a reward a post- 
 card picture of a pretty Norwegian girl 
 about to give a kiss to her beau; there are 
 band-of-hope meetings with the most excru- 
 ciating music, and you see advertised — raf- 
 fles. 
 
 One day fifteen negroes arrived on a boat 
 from Russia. They were the crew of the 
 
 American ship R which had brought 
 
 ammunition to Archangel, but was in such 
 a bad condition that the negroes refused to 
 take it back, got their money and cleared 
 off. At Vardo one of them had quarrelled 
 with the rest and was now said to be mad. 
 No one would take him in, all the girls be- 
 ing frightened, and the children aiming 
 stones at him. He was accommodated in 
 the gaol. 
 
 At Vardo there is a most able Russian
 
 lo Russia in 1916 
 
 Consul who is not only most useful to his 
 own Government, but also to ours, affording 
 him all the help he can. And a Russian 
 knows more of this neighbourhood and its 
 phenomena than an Englishman brought 
 from Christiania or London. Through 
 him I learned that a boat- would soon be 
 sailing for Alexandrovsk, the harbour of 
 Ekaterina, and after a five-days' stay at 
 Vardo I got away. 
 
 Over the sea once more! In twelve 
 hours I was at the Russian Monastery of 
 Petschenga, and next day in a big snow- 
 storm I came to the new harbour.
 
 II 
 
 THE DARK HAVEN 
 
 From the end of November to the middle 
 of January the sun does not rise in Russia's 
 new haven. All would be dark even at 
 mid-day were it not for the snow. The 
 stars never set. The lights in the little 
 wooden dwellings are never put out. Great 
 gales blow, rolling up mountainous waves 
 on the Arctic. Or Polar mists swallow up 
 everything. Snowstorms go on indefinitely 
 and the frost may be forty degrees, fifty 
 degrees. Here is no town, no civilisation. 
 Alexandrovsk has no pavement, no high 
 street, no cinema theatre, no hotel, not even 
 a tavern. Its population is hard, gloomy, 
 northern. No one has any intelligence of 
 
 11
 
 12 Russia in 1916 
 
 the great world far away to the south — the 
 gaze is toward the North Pole. 
 
 They say it has a great future. 'Twill 
 be a mighty city with roaring traffic and 
 skyscrapers, theatres, cafes, passion, and 
 sin. It will be the Odessa of the North. 
 Valery Brussof anticipates such a city in 
 one of his fantastic stories — Zvezdny, the 
 capital of the Southern Cross Republic, 
 and as we read we ask — "Could it be? 
 Could such a place ever come to be?" 
 
 In any case, in the midst of this great de- 
 structive war one piece of constructive work 
 is in hand, the fashioning of a new port 
 for Russia far within the Arctic circle. We 
 hear little of the work in England, or we 
 hear laconic accounts, such as: "A branch 
 of railways has been built on from Archan- 
 gel to an ice-free port farther north, kept 
 open by the Gulf Stream," which is inac- 
 curate as regards the route of the railway
 
 The Dark Haven 13 
 
 and, moreover, gives the impression that 
 such a railway is easily built, might, in 
 fact, be improvised. But in truth it is not 
 so trivial a matter. The nearer you get to 
 the actual place the more astonished you are 
 to recollect the airy opinions you heard ex- 
 pressed in Fleet Street at home. 
 
 The harbour of Ekaterina, on which stand 
 the town of Alexandrovsk and the barracks 
 of Semionova, is a queen of harbours, a mar- 
 vellous natural refuge, certainly no make- 
 shift place. And then, as a glance at the 
 map will convince, it is not near Archangel, 
 least of all by land. No railway could ever 
 go direct from Alexandrovsk to Archangel, 
 and no railway of any kind could easily or 
 rapidly be built over a thousand miles of 
 tundra. 
 
 Those Russians who live in the north are 
 in raptures over their new port. Russia 
 shall face north, the whole of North Russia
 
 14 Russia in 1916 
 
 shall be functionised in Alexandrovsk and 
 Archangel. And, indeed, the longer the 
 war lasts the better for this northern region 
 materially. If the war lasts three years 
 longer Russia will certainly finish up in 
 possession of a new port and a valuable 
 railway. 
 
 An enormous undertaking this, of trying 
 to plant a railway on the tundra. Many 
 have died at work on it; hundreds must 
 inevitably die before it is a success. It 
 was difficult to engineer. Russians say 
 now that it was badly surveyed to start with 
 and needs re-planning, but in any case it 
 was extremely difficult to find a way over 
 the mosses and morasses and along the shores 
 of the almost continuous lakes that lie be- 
 tween Kola and Kandalaksha. The map of 
 the railway is now published in Norway 
 and Sweden. It might just as well be made 
 accessible to the English Press. When Lord
 
 The Dark Haven 15 
 
 Kitchener died, maps showing his route 
 were printed in our papers as if he had been 
 going to Alexandrovsk (which was not the 
 case) to travel on a railway which was not 
 in existence to Archangel! This caused 
 much amusement in Russia. 
 
 As a matter of fact, the railway runs from 
 Semionova across the Kola peninsula to the 
 White Sea at Kandalaksha, and then be- 
 comes practically a coast railway to the 
 little port of Kem. Thence there is a good 
 railway to Petrozavodsk and Petrograd. 
 It does not come near Archangel. Indeed, 
 if the formation of this new harbour and 
 railway should be a practical success. 
 Archangel is almost bound to suffer and to 
 relapse from its present state of prosperity 
 to its former somnolence. 
 
 The railway when completed will be a 
 memorable and valuable achievement. It 
 has taken an enormous amount of labour to
 
 i6 Russia in 1916 
 
 construct. First, Russian gangs were set 
 to work and then they were called to fight 
 for their country. A Canadian contractor 
 or contracting company was then success- 
 ful in obtaining the work. But the work- 
 men sent over found themselves confronted 
 by conditions that were necessarily difficult 
 to have realised in advance. They faced 
 the problem in a commercial rather than in 
 a military spirit. And when they had gone 
 there was almost as much work in prospect 
 as when they came. 
 
 Their place was largely taken by Austrian 
 prisoners who had volunteered from their 
 internment camps to come out and work 
 for a wage. The estimate of the numbers 
 thus employed ranges from 10,000 to 20,000 
 men. They were guarded by Cherkesses, 
 troops from the Caucasus who presumably 
 had also volunteered, since military service 
 was not obligatory for them. The Austri-
 
 The Dark Haven 17 
 
 ans worked well and did some of the best 
 work on the railway. But there was con- 
 siderable suffering. Now 10,000 China- 
 men, Kirghiz, and Mongols of various kinds 
 are at work. 
 
 In the summer, except for water under 
 foot and mosquitoes in the air, the condi- 
 tions are good, but in the winter all the 
 men are working with torches in the dark- 
 ness. Despite much forethought on the 
 part of the Government many of the men 
 have proved to be yet too thinly clad to 
 withstand the great frosts. The food from 
 a European point of view is coarse. Yet 
 the work must go on, must be done. This 
 year, before the spring, one engine covered 
 the whole of the course of the railway — 
 one only — and then the thaw came and 
 enormous stretches of the track fell away, 
 were washed off, disappeared. 
 
 The Austrians were reported to have laid
 
 1 8 Russia in 1916 
 
 the sleepers purposely on lumps of ice. 
 When the thaw came they floated ofif. But 
 in truth there was nothing much but ice 
 to lay them on. The Canadians, working 
 with torches in the darkness, were said to 
 have failed to fix the rails with the right 
 balance on the sleepers and the first engine 
 that passed over worked havoc with the 
 embankment. So they say in Alexan- 
 drovsk, but, probably, neither Austrians nor 
 Canadians were to blame — but Nature 
 simply had not yet been conquered, though 
 there was a semblance of conquest at the end 
 of the winter. 
 
 In the autumn of 191 5 Archangel froze 
 unexpectedly early, and vessels that could 
 not discharge there went to Alexandrovsk 
 to wait for the railway. Ekaterina was 
 packed with ships — you could almost step 
 from one ship to another and thus get across 
 from one side of the harbour to another.
 
 The Dark Haven 19 
 
 And as there were no rings for the moorings 
 of the ships there was a certain amount of 
 fear that a storm might arise and the ships 
 dash themselves to bits against one another. 
 But, as it proved, no matter how fierce the 
 tempest raged outside, this virginal harbour 
 was always placid. 
 
 Towards Christmas (one party on Christ- 
 mas Eve) arrived our armoured-car men, 
 now fighting so gallantly with the Grand 
 Duke in Transcaucasia, telegraphists who 
 erected the wireless stations, naval airmen, 
 troops. Men-of-war guarded the harbour. 
 In that strange Arctic refuge, what an as- 
 sembly of British! They remained all the 
 winter and thought this Russia they had 
 come to the most God-forsaken place in the 
 world. Nevertheless, they named the only 
 street of Alexandrovsk 'Tall Mall" and at 
 their concerts they sang incessantly some 
 song about "Leicester Square, Leicester
 
 20 Russia in 1916 
 
 Square." One might think Leicester 
 Square was really an important place in the 
 minds of Englishmen. 
 
 One obtains the idea that it is perhaps the 
 Mecca to which the British soldier turns, 
 and some of the Russian soldiers who are 
 fighting "to put the Cross on Sancta Sophia" 
 have a vague idea, hearing our armoured- 
 car men singing, that perhaps we are fight- 
 ing to get back to Leicester Square. Their 
 marching songs are folk-lore airs with na- 
 tional words. A contrast to our music-hall 
 songs imported from America. 
 
 On English Old-Year's night, which is a 
 fortnight before the same date in Russia, 
 the men on the ships decided to celebrate 
 the coming of the New Year with festivity. 
 The Russians ashore peacefully slept and 
 the great gloomy clififs that close the har- 
 bour in were silent as the grave. Suddenly 
 from all the ships burst forth cries and fire-
 
 The Dark Haven 21 
 
 works and rockets, songs, shoutings. The 
 Russians ashore all wakened up and thought 
 the Germans had come. 
 
 This Ekaterina is a great sight, a most 
 beautiful place, though forbidding and au- 
 stere, a symmetrical, flask-shaped exit from 
 the Arctic. In the storm of driving mist 
 and snow it was difficult enough finding the 
 neck of the flask, the way in; but once in, 
 all was peace, though the storm raged in the 
 heavens and in the air. There were no 
 ships to speak of in the harbour then, but a 
 -%God deal of life on the shore, especially at 
 Semionova. 
 
 A tatterdemalion Russian population, 
 some in sheepskins, some in Caucasian 
 bourkas, some in bowler hats, some in old 
 khaki overcoats, and smoking pipes — evi- 
 dence of English influence. There were 
 engineers in leather jackets and with flannel 
 bashleeks over their heads, workmen in felt
 
 22 
 
 Russia in 1916 
 
 boots, many Circassian troops with their 
 rifles and in ragged uniforms, men with 
 pale, severe faces — they make probably the 
 most terrible type of Russian troops, silent, 
 faithful, relentlessly severe and very power- 
 ful, speaking little or no Russian, Moham- 
 medan by religion — the guards of the Aus- 
 trian prisoners. 
 
 When the railway is finished its terminus 
 will be at Semionova, and that will prob- 
 ably be the name of the new port. Semio- 
 nova is all new, unpainted wood. Here 
 are hundreds of shanties and barracks, and 
 an indescribable chaos of workmen, ma- 
 terials, and mud. Engines puff along the 
 shore on the bit of railway which is in work- 
 ing order, and on these engines the various 
 agents and engineers clamber to go to the 
 place of action where the gangs are at work. 
 
 I fell in with various queer people; a 
 speculator buying up land, a one-eyed man
 
 The Dark Haven 23 
 
 with smoky glasses seeking a site on which 
 to build a cinema. Eight thousand roubles, 
 would buy a cinema with all fixtures, in- 
 cluding an electric piano. It was bound to 
 be a success, he argued, for there would be 
 no other place to go to in the long black 
 winter. Land has been bought up all 
 round the harbour, and by people who have 
 never seen it — just for speculation, the curse 
 of modern life in Russia. And all the time 
 whilst Russian peasants and workmen are 
 slaving and dying, comfortable commercial 
 folk in the south are buying and selling the 
 prospective fruits of their labour and suf- 
 ferings. 
 
 Still, that is the way of the world, and 
 these people pass, whereas the work re- 
 mains. All the autumn and possibly 
 through the winter the work goes on again 
 in the continuous darkness, with torches, 
 under the supervision of fur-clad engineers
 
 24 Russia in 1916 
 
 and grim Cherkesses. Many will be the 
 sufferings, though not greater than the suf- 
 ferings on the field of battle. Many have 
 died and will die in the building and con- 
 summating of the Murman railway. Still 
 the railway will remain as a peaceful me- 
 morial, the great new railway from Petro- 
 grad to the dark haven.
 
 Ill 
 
 THE NEW ARCHANGEL 
 
 When I last visited Archangel, six years 
 ago, it was a dreamy, lifeless, melancholy 
 port. One felt that, like its sister city, 
 Kholmagora, it had once been great, but 
 its greatness had finally set. You could feel 
 the melancholy of Russia there, the sadness 
 of material failure so characteristic of the 
 Russian soul. But to-day! To-day the 
 vision has fled, the tempo has changed. All 
 the ships of the world find anchorage in 
 her harbour, and motley crowds throng her 
 streets. That the war has brought about. 
 A year before the war fifty vessels entered 
 Archangel port. During the last twelve 
 months something like 5000 have entered. 
 Great liners and transports and weather- 
 
 25
 
 26 Russia in 1916 
 
 beaten tramps and three-deck river boats 
 stand in majestic pride. Their smoke and 
 steam make a dome over the city of Arch- 
 angel when you approach it from the north. 
 There are Norwegians and Yankees, with 
 their colours flamboyantly painted on their 
 bows to warn the submarine off; Russians 
 and French, with their tricolours stream- 
 ing; but most of all English ships, with 
 their proud rain-washed Union Jacks lol- 
 ling in the wind. I was taken through the 
 whole harbour in a little, arrow-like steam 
 launch — from the Thames! How often it 
 had shot under the arches of our little 
 bridges, and now it was puffing and panting 
 on the vast brown Dvina, be-du^arfed by 
 huge ships, driven by a Lett from Riga, and 
 constantly going short of steam and getting 
 becalmed far from either shore. ^ Besides 
 
 1 Thirteen lines excluded by British Censor. Not to be 
 published.
 
 The New Archangel 27 
 
 troops, the French are taking great quanti- 
 ties of alcohol used in the manufacture of 
 high explosives, and I saw many barges 
 heaped up with barrels of spirit and won- 
 dered if there were many leaks. The Rus- 
 sian manufacture of alcohol has probably 
 not diminished as a result of the prohibition 
 of the sale of intoxicating liquors in Russia, 
 but has proved to be a valuable war export. 
 This fact is especially important to take into 
 consideration with regard to Russian tem- 
 perance reform. When the war is over 
 and the market for this alcohol is partially 
 lost, will there not be another movement of 
 resistance on the part of the manufacturers? 
 
 I saw :?11 manner of crates with ma- 
 chinery, parts of aeroplanes, and the like, 
 and British vessels discharging these things, 
 and I saw grain and flax and timber going 
 on for us from Russia. 
 
 Go into the chief restaurant of Arch-
 
 28 Russia in 1916 
 
 angel, and as like as not all the customers 
 are English captains, and they are reading 
 back numbers of the Daily Mail and talk- 
 ing "ship." At the Cafe Paris there is a 
 ''skippers' table," where they are also cap- 
 tains all, and the waitresses quarrel as to 
 who shall serve there, though none of them 
 knows two words of English. In the Alex- 
 androvsky Gardens you see English sailors 
 with Russian girls, and neither can say a 
 word to the other. Their only language is 
 that of looks. One of our men showed me 
 a card with poetry written and violets 
 painted and asked me to translate the words 
 for him and write an answer. It ran some- 
 thing like this — 
 
 What need for words when without them you are so 
 eloquent ? 
 
 Why should the lips move 
 When the eyes speak so well? 
 
 Sailors tell wonderful stories of feminine
 
 The New Archangel 29 
 
 conquests, and it is evident the Russian 
 girls are partial to them. Even at the 
 theatre, in front of you are sitting such un- 
 likely persons as a fireman and a stoker, 
 and one says to the other w^ith disgust, "I 
 can't understand a blooming word. Can 
 you?" Some Englishmen have exercise 
 books with Russian words and phrases 
 laboriously copied out — an impossible lan- 
 guage! 
 
 All is going well in Archangel. The 
 Russians, in spite of their inexperience, are 
 handling the immense quantities of mate- 
 rials well, and the "stuff" is all steadily 
 proceeding to the places where it is most 
 needed. New quays have been built, and 
 loops of railway run along them, and some 
 ships, carrying nothing weighing less than 
 three tons, yet discharge all their immense 
 articles of cargo in considerably less time 
 than it took to put them on at Liverpool
 
 30 Russia in 1916 
 
 or Dundee or Newcastle as the case may be. 
 
 The Russians earn unheard-of wages in 
 the docks, and the rumour attracts thou- 
 sands of workers from all parts of Russia. 
 A journalist writing in the Russkoe Slovo 
 in July called it the Russian Klondike. 
 All Russians who go there are pleased with 
 it. The port in its present grandeur is a 
 sort of promise for Russia, and it flatters 
 her commercial future. 
 
 I was warned I should not find a room 
 anywhere in the city, and that people paid 
 five roubles a night for the privilege of 
 sleeping in a passage. But I obtained a 
 clean room at the Troitsky Hotel for 2 
 roubles 75 copecks, which was not dear. 
 Notices in the room were printed both 
 in English and Russian, indicating how 
 many English visitors they have now. 
 
 I called on my friend Alexander Alex- 
 androvitch Beekof, the hunter and draper
 
 The New Archangel 31 
 
 whom I described in ''Undiscovered Rus- 
 sia." He had now opened a boot shop and 
 was rich, selling his wares at three or four 
 pounds the pair. He was proud of his 
 business success and rejoiced in the inde- 
 pendence which it gave him. He is now a 
 member of the Gorodskaya Duma, and 
 when a representative of the city was 
 wanted to carry an emblem to the Arch- 
 angel troops at the front, Beekof was 
 thought to be the best.^ He shared the 
 hardships of the common soldiers, and was 
 fain to stay at the front, but was mixed up 
 in the great retreat from Austria and felt 
 very sick of everything before he got back 
 to his native city and the bootshop. 
 
 Since I was in Archangel last the young 
 revolutionary exile Alexey Sergeitch, now 
 pardoned and married and teaching history 
 in Moscow, has brought out a little book on 
 
 1 Four lines excluded by Censor.
 
 32 ^ Russia in 1916 
 
 the Monastery of Ci. I saw him later 
 when I got to Moscow. 
 
 r was invited by the town council to par- 
 take of a glass of tea on the occasion of the 
 opening of the electric tramway. All the 
 notables of the town were accommodated 
 on board a special steamer, and went slowly 
 along the Cathedral pier a mile or so to the 
 new electric power station. Here priests 
 met us with banners and ikons and holy 
 water. A service was held in the power 
 station, and the smell of burning incense 
 mingled strangely with the smell of new 
 paint and oil and machinery. Holy water 
 was flung in all corners and over our heads, 
 and then the dynamos were set in motion 
 and the whole place buzzed and groaned. 
 I think Repin, the engineer, proud of hav- 
 ing constructed the most northern tramway 
 in the world, was a little anxious lest the 
 holy water should spoil his engines.
 
 The New Archangel 33 
 
 But all went well, and we took our seats 
 in the virgin trams to make the first jour- 
 ney, all the notables of the town and with 
 them every beggar and labourer and tatter- 
 demalion dock-hand that could get a foot- 
 ing. In Germany I can imagine how 
 swiftly these gentlemen would have been 
 dealt with. But in Russia "all is permit- 
 ted" and we had a joy-ride. We went 
 cheerfully along on our parade journey. 
 The conductresses in brand new uniforms 
 and shining metal clips and punches stood 
 with their money bags and their full rolls 
 of tickets. Directly following our trip to 
 the Town Hall the cars were open to the 
 public, and fares would be collected. Car 
 after car drew up and we stepped out and 
 walked up the stone stairs to the long tables 
 and the glasses of tea and the proud speeches 
 of the great men of Archangel. 
 
 Now the trams are in full operation, and
 
 34 Russia In J 916 
 
 bring in about £i,ooo a week. Archangel 
 is united, and friends within the city have 
 become nearer. All day the trams carry 
 passengers, and all night they carry goods, 
 so I am told. 
 
 As I write of this now in the winter after 
 I have come back to London, I imagine that 
 probably now all is frozen over again. 
 The brown river became white, and within 
 twenty-four hours you could drive a horse 
 and cart over it. It did not melt again till 
 the spring. Captains and their crews 
 thinking of leaving in a few days and grum- 
 bling because of small delays as they always 
 do grumble, were suddenly condemned to 
 remain idle for months; their ships, dotted 
 here, there, and everywhere in the ice, had a 
 processional aspect, and looked as if they 
 were sailing out and yet never getting for- 
 ward. The men cut pine branches and 
 made avenues from their ships to the shores,
 
 The New Archangel 35 
 
 well-trodden roads with names. There 
 was "Broadway" leading to a big American 
 
 ship, and K Avenue leading to the 
 
 K , and R Avenue leading to the 
 
 R . I may not mention the name of 
 
 any British ship, but the detail has a pic- 
 turesqueness which is worth noting. The 
 Russian Government paid the owners of 
 these boats hundreds of thousands of roubles 
 damages for this unexpected incursion of 
 Jack Frost. It was highly unprofitable to 
 Russia, but every one made the best of it 
 and no one grumbled. 
 
 The happy co-operation of the Russians 
 and the English shows to advantage in 
 Archangel. Russians and English like one 
 another and get on well together there, 
 though the souls of the common people are 
 so different and Russian ways so different 
 from our own.
 
 IV 
 
 THE COST OF LIVING 
 
 Each time returning to Moscow I notice 
 change. Last year after the riots it was a 
 city of broken windows and more or less 
 empty streets. This summer I found the 
 life patched up and the windows more or 
 less repaired. There were more people; 
 there was an obvious prosperity of a kind, 
 among the shopkeeping class. Every one 
 talked of the dearness of living and yet 
 every one had more money wherewith to 
 buy. And all shops were thriving. Many 
 shops with German names have now put 
 up a notice to the effect that the owners 
 are Russian. Not that the German shops 
 which were sacked in July, 1914 have re- 
 
 36
 
 The Cost of Living 37 
 
 covered. Einem, the great confectioner, 
 with all his branches seems to have sold his 
 retail business. The first-rate art shop and 
 publishing house of Knebel & Grossman has 
 had to obtain a Government loan in order 
 to make a start again and supply the schools, 
 but most precious negatives and blocks and 
 originals perished, and it will be a long 
 time before the firm can make up for what 
 was lost. Many new cafes and places of 
 amusement have been opened, testifying to 
 the money in people's pockets. Rich fugi- 
 tives from the districts conquered by the 
 Germans and Austrians seem to have 
 started businesses in Moscow and have im- 
 parted to it a tinge of the complexion of 
 Warsaw — part of the extra gaiety of War- 
 saw seems to have arrived one notices such 
 new names as that of the Piccadilly Cafe 
 opposite Phillipofs. 
 
 Apart from that street gaiety, however.
 
 38 Russia in 1916 
 
 there is sufficient sadness and anxiety in the 
 background. As in England and France, 
 every family has its personal stake in the 
 war, and for many that stake has become the 
 wooden cross over a grave. Young and 
 splendid regiments are still to be seen 
 marching, however, and to look at them in 
 their new uniforms one might think for a 
 moment that it was only the beginning, 
 Russia was entering the war, and no one had 
 yet been lost. 
 
 There is engaging enthusiasm still, and 
 withal the noted Slav patience that does not 
 ask for things to be done quickly. A slow 
 war in many respects suits the Russian tem- 
 perament. The most characteristic thing 
 in Russia is the waiting: waiting hours for 
 your ticket at the booking-office, waiting 
 hours for Chinovniks, waiting for one's 
 money at the bank, waiting for a turn to buy 
 a seat for next week's performance at the
 
 The Cost of Living 39 
 
 theatre, whole days if Shaliapin be going 
 to sing. And now they are waiting with 
 their accustomed cheeriness and patience. 
 
 Certainly they have their hardships, those 
 who dwell in the background. They have 
 plenty of subjects for grumbling and com- 
 plaints. Their talk is all of the terrible 
 dorogovizna. The pretty word dorogov- 
 izna means dearness of living, and it is the 
 commonest in the townsman's vocabulary 
 this season of the war. The price of nearly 
 every commodity in Russia has doubled or 
 trebled since the outbreak of war. One 
 would expect the price of manufactured 
 goods to rise there; but the surprising 
 phenomenon is that, despite the overwhelm- 
 ing abundance of foodstuffs in Russia and 
 Russia's inability to export any • of that 
 abundance, food has become, on the whole, 
 dearer than in Berlin. The Russian Word 
 has a long list of comparative prices, show-
 
 40 Russia in 1916 
 
 ing that out of sixteen common articles of 
 food ten have increased more in price in 
 Moscow than in Germany. The price of 
 mutton has increased i8o per cent, in Ber- 
 lin, but it has increased 281 per cent, in 
 Moscow; pork 114 per cent, in Berlin, 142 
 per cent, in Moscow; white bread 27 per 
 cent, in Berlin, 45 per cent, in Moscow; 
 sugar, 27 per cent, in Berlin, 57 per cent, in 
 Moscow, and so forth. Sugar has in many 
 districts disappeared entirely, and shop 
 windows exhibit the notice "No sugar what- 
 ever," which means not even the dirty 
 brown soft sugar which has displaced the 
 rajinade. At Archangel there is a fixed 
 allowance of i lb. of sugar per person 
 per month, and that is only accessible for 
 settled inhabitants. As a visitor I was 
 lucky to purchase twenty-four lumps at a 
 halfpenny a lump. At the railway stations 
 at many bufifets you are ofifered sugar candy
 
 The Cost of Living 41 
 
 or raspberry drops with your tea, or a 
 wrapped caramel with your coffee. In 
 cases where they have sugar the waiters 
 have the audacity to put it in for you, lest 
 you should secrete what you did not want. 
 Now cards have been introduced for sugar 
 almost everywhere, even in the villages. 
 The possession of a card entitles you to pur- 
 chase the article specified on it. At first 
 receiving the food card the heart rejoices. 
 But it is one thing to possess a card and an- 
 other to find a grocer who has anything to 
 sell. If we introduce cards in England we 
 shall probably experience the same anom- 
 aly, though we have certainly more gift for 
 organisation than the Russians. For food 
 tickets to be a success an extraordinary thor- 
 oughness in administration is necessary and 
 also a good social conscientiousness on the 
 part of individuals. 
 When the blue food cards were dis-
 
 42 Russia in 1916 
 
 tributed in one village a rumour spread that 
 the Anti-Christ had arrived in Russia and 
 v^as giving these out. It is said that one in- 
 habitant of foreign origin bought up all the 
 cards from the peasants at a low price, and 
 they now contentedly buy their provisions 
 from him when he has them. 
 
 Meat has so risen in price that through- 
 out all Russia four meatless days have been 
 proclaimed, and on Tuesday, Wednesday, 
 Thursday, and Friday you must keep to 
 vegetables, fish, or fowls. On these days 
 no meat may be sold and no cattle may be 
 slaughtered. The meat may not be sold in 
 a smoked state nor as sausage. When this 
 measure was introduced the butchers 
 wailed, if the cows and the calves rejoiced. 
 The chickens suffered for it. But ask a 
 Russian, and he will tell you all suffer for 
 it. The price of vegetables has risen, the 
 price of meat on the days when you buy it
 
 The Cost of Living 43 
 
 has risen, the price of fish and fowl has 
 risen. One day at the National Hotel in 
 Moscow I noticed cauliflowers standing at 
 the superb price of 3 roubles, 50 copecks, 
 about 5j. 
 
 From scores of districts in Russia peti- 
 tions have been sent to Petrograd — Cancel 
 the regulations as to meatless days. But 
 the regulations are not likely to be can- 
 celled. At the restaurants such small por- 
 tions are given that it is difficult to make a 
 good meal even at large expense. And the 
 soups which are made without meat are the 
 same price as they used to be when meat was 
 allowed. It seems that if meatless days are 
 to be introduced in Britain it will not be 
 merely one a week for it is always possible 
 to buy meat for two days. They should be 
 for three or four days a week as in Russia. 
 But phenomena similar to those I noted will 
 be repeated with us. Vegetables will rise
 
 44 Russia in 1916 
 
 rapidly in price as a result of meatless days. 
 Sugar has disappeared because the Ger- 
 mans and Austrians are in possession of 
 some of the richest beetroot country of Rus- 
 sia, and also of several sugar factories. 
 Coffee is scarce because there is war with 
 Turkey; butter and eggs because the pea- 
 sants, being unable to obtain vodka, have 
 no particular use for extra cash, and won't 
 sell their products. Speculators are hold- 
 ing large quantities of provisions in ice- 
 houses and waiting till the prices are pushed 
 higher and higher. The banks are holding 
 quantities of sugar. There are many ex- 
 planations. 
 
 In one window in Moscow is exhibited 
 a notice, "Soap is received daily and is sold 
 in lumps of not less than lo lb. up to lo 
 A. M."; in other windows is the notice, "No 
 soap," and one involuntarily recalls that 
 piece of nonsense —
 
 The Cost of Living 4^ 
 
 A great she-bear passing down the street. What, no 
 soap; and so she married the barber, 
 
 in which some Mrs. Gallop might read an 
 occult reference to the Russia of these days. 
 Boots have become difficult to buy. Ex- 
 isting supplies are nearly exhausted. In 
 a boot-shop window in Moscow one pair of 
 boots exhibited — the last. Second-hand 
 boots are valuable. Boot thieves have ap- 
 peared in the hotels, and a new notice has 
 appeared in your room, ''You are requested 
 not to put your boots out at night." My 
 friend Beekof, of Archangel, made a huge 
 pile of money selling boots. I met him 
 lately in Moscow where he has been pur- 
 chasing expensive works of art, and even 
 thinks of buying an original Levitan. 
 Boots are too expensive to buy. They say 
 plaited birchbark or lime-bark boots, which 
 used to be sold for 2d. a pair in the coun- 
 try, now fetch 5^. Peasants are sitting
 
 46 Russia in 1916 
 
 plaiting boots on suburban stations and sell- 
 ing them as fast as they make them. Re- 
 pairs are so expensive that a parlourmaid 
 spent a month's wages on having her boots 
 mended. Happily the town councils have 
 fixed a tariff in Moscow and Petrograd at 
 last, both for boots and for repairs. 
 
 Russian houses are heated with wood, and 
 strange to say, in the midst of her enor- 
 mous forests she is short of wood. Wood 
 has doubled and trebled in price. The 
 poor people must freeze. There are not 
 working hands to cut wood — so many hav- 
 ing been taken for more profitable occupa- 
 tions. I have been asked a shilling for a 
 packet of rubbishy envelopes. Paper is 
 very dear — some of the best Russian paper 
 mills are in the hands of the enemy. All 
 metal articles are expensive. A decent 
 samovar costs 50 to 60 roubles. There is 
 said to be famine in medicine, and the chem-
 
 The Cost of Living 47 
 
 ists' supplies are short. Certainly the Rus- 
 sians seem to be enjoying better health on 
 the whole. 
 
 They say all is going to be regulated. 
 The Government is going to take charge 
 of the whole business of supply and there 
 will be cards for everything, and you must 
 call at the grocer and present your card. 
 Once more calls and cards, and cards and 
 calls. But our Russian friends are the most 
 unpractical people. You see every day in 
 Moscow queues a street long, waiting hours 
 with cards in their hands, waiting for a 
 pound or so of sugar. Such queues turned 
 up at the butchers' shops on the mornings of 
 the meat days that the butchers decided to 
 issue tickets the day beforehand — on each 
 ticket a number designating your turn to buy 
 meat on the morrow. Thus recently 2,000 
 waited on Arbat from 4 P. M. to midnight 
 for a ticket for a turn next day. The vege-
 
 48 Russia in 1916 
 
 tarian propagandist turns up to look at their 
 solemn faces. "Is it worth it?" he asks. 
 Happy vegetarians! 
 
 "But you know if I don't get meat my 
 stomach will go wrong," says a Russian 
 plaintively. 
 
 "What is tea without sugar?" says an- 
 other. "And what is life without tea?" 
 
 Another comes to the doctor and says, 
 "Prescribe, if you please. I've lost my 
 appetite. I can't eat." 
 
 And the doctor replies, like that friend of 
 Carlyle— 
 
 "My dear fellow, it isn't of the slightest 
 consequence." 
 
 "The Army has meat, tea, sugar, white 
 bread?" 
 
 "Yes, the Army has all these in plenty." 
 
 "Slava Tebye Gospody! That's all 
 right"
 
 V 
 
 LIFE IN THE COUNTRY 
 
 From Moscow I journeyed to see some 
 friends of the artist Pereplotchikof, the E. 
 family, on a small estate in the Government 
 of Voronezh. At the small wayside sta- 
 tion an unfamiliar figure greeted me — this 
 was an Austrian prisoner, a Hungarian 
 who could not speak a word of Russian. 
 He was the new coachman, and would drive 
 me the ten miles to the farm. The former 
 coachman has gone to the war, and so now 
 an Austrian prisoner, in the same uniform 
 in which he surrendered and wearing the 
 familiar high military hat, is doing his 
 work. He carried my bags from the sta- 
 tion, for there was no porter, and put them 
 
 49
 
 50 Russia in 1916 
 
 in the carriage, and then drove me on 
 through verdant forest and along the ter- 
 rible road deep in liquid mud and water. 
 
 A great feature of the new country life in 
 Russia is the Austrian prisoners at work. 
 One seldom comes across any Germans. 
 But of Austrians there are great numhers. 
 They volunteer to go out to work, rather 
 than remain in the internment camps. In 
 order to obtain Austrian prisoners to work 
 on an estate you apply to the government 
 town, and they are hired out to you at eight 
 roubles a month, four roubles of which are 
 allowed to be deducted for keep. It turns 
 out that on the whole the prisoners work 
 merely for board and lodging and what 
 would keep an ordinary smoker in tobacco. 
 Prisoner labour is altogether cheaper than 
 that of ordinary Russian labourers. So if 
 you can get a strong detachment of prisoners 
 on your estate you are somewhat advan-
 
 Life in the Country <^1 
 
 tageously circumstanced. No guards, how- 
 ever, are supplied with the prisoners, and 
 you are held responsible for them in case 
 they attempt to escape. The prisoners 
 on the land are generally those who were 
 agriculturists in their native Austria and 
 they are highly serviceable. They do not 
 take their new duties too seriously, but all 
 the same do more work than the average 
 hired Russian labourer would do. To 
 work is more pleasant to them than to sit 
 together and talk or sing, and their indus- 
 trious habits are a matter of pleasant sur- 
 prise for their employers. 
 
 On Mme. E.'s estate the prisoners were 
 Hungarians. She knew no Hungarian, 
 they no Russian, and no grammars or dic- 
 tionaries of the Hungarian language were 
 obtainable in Moscow or Petrograd — the 
 only aid to learning the language which 
 Mme. E. was able to obtain was an officer's
 
 52 Russia in 1916 
 
 war guide containing maps, geographical 
 details, and five or six pages of military 
 phrases with translations. Even so, good 
 progress was being rapidly made in mutual 
 understanding. These Hungarians will 
 carry back to their own country many 
 funny-sounding Russian words, and on the 
 other hand some Hungarian expressions 
 may remain locally. 
 
 Certainly the prisoners are of great eco- 
 nomic aid to Russia. Each Austrian 
 captured is not only one Austrian less in the 
 enemy ranks, but one harvester more to take 
 in the precious grain. The Russian women, 
 the old men and the children, seem to be ifl? 
 sufliuient to keep up the present extent of 
 cultivation and to reap the harvest — the la- 
 bour of the prisoners makes up the de- 
 ficiency. 
 
 In many respects the prisoner of this 
 foreign element in the midst of Russian
 
 Life in the Country ^3 
 
 country life is sufficiently objectionable 
 from the Russian point of view. There 
 are said to have been a jidHfecr of mar- 
 riages, though the difference in religion 
 must have precluded the possibility of legal 
 marriage in most cases where it may have 
 been desired. 
 
 There is a cloud over the village, and it 
 cannot be said that the war is popular 
 among the women. They want the men 
 back; the wives want their husbands, the 
 girls want their sweethearts. Girls of six- 
 teen, seventeen, eighteen, and nineteen are 
 persistently gloomy. They feel that time is 
 slipping past without bringing the neces- 
 sary bridegroom. They should have been 
 betrothed and married by now. Nine- 
 teen is a dreadful age for an unmarried 
 girl — she feels herself already an old maid, 
 and is disinclined to tell her age. Pretty 
 Tania the serving-maid does not look so
 
 54 Russia in 1916 
 
 pretty this year; she has let the fact that she 
 is eighteen prey upon her mind. She 
 knows that when the boys come back they 
 will not look at any one so old as she, and 
 she will be left. 
 
 On festival nights there is the same sing- 
 ing in the village street, the parade of vil- 
 lage fashions, but somehow it is rather 
 meaningless since there are no male partners 
 and no weddings can be arranged. Letters 
 of course go to and fro between the Army 
 and the village, but the soldier does not 
 write to *'his sweetheart," or if he does it is 
 because his sweetheart is his wife. For 
 long engagements do not take place in the 
 country. Queer letters the soldiers send 
 back, full of greetings to neighbours and 
 relatives, and containing little or nothing 
 about the war. There is never any need to 
 censor them. The peasant wives bring 
 their letters to Mme. E. and she reads them
 
 Life in the Country 55 
 
 aloud. Or they come to her when they 
 want to write their letters, for though most 
 of the men can read and write, the women 
 seldom are able. 
 
 My hostess was delightful with the peas- 
 ants. She has taught among them, nursed 
 them, cared for them, and understands their 
 souls. She sits with pen and paper on the 
 sunny verandah of the big sunny house and 
 writes at dictation whilst the peasant wife, 
 with her hands dangling at her side, maun- 
 ders on about the cow, the hole in the roof 
 which needs mending, the state of the crops, 
 little Willie's health, the amount of work 
 these Austrian prisoners do, and so on. 
 She puts down literally what the baba 
 says, as if she were doing an exercise in 
 phonetics, and never corrects a word or a 
 wrong expression or a grammatical error. 
 The consequence is that the soldiers at the 
 other end actually hear their wives speak-
 
 ^6 Russia in 1916 
 
 ing to them, and highly appreciate it. The 
 letters which Mme. E. writes for the wives 
 are the best. 
 
 Still, letters are makeshift ways of talk- 
 ing to one's nearest, and it is a great day 
 in the village when a soldier actually re- 
 turns, a wounded man invalided back or a 
 man with some sort of message. Alas, Rus- 
 sian troops get very little "leave" whilst 
 they are well. It often happens that from 
 the day of mobilisation to the peace day 
 when the men come home, nothing is seen 
 or heard of the common soldier — especially 
 when he cannot write. Lists of casualties 
 in the ranks are not published, and the vil- 
 lage has to wait patiently to know whom it 
 has lost and who are saved. More atten- 
 tion is paid to officers, even to ensigns, and 
 I met down here in Voronezh Province a 
 private who had been sent from the front 
 to convey to the home people the decora-
 
 Life in the Country 57 
 
 tions and last tidings of a young ensign who 
 had perished leading his men. This officer 
 had been greatly beloved by the soldiers — 
 they rushed to him when he fell, and he 
 seemed merely to be asleep. But one bul- 
 let had gone through his mouth and two 
 through his skull. He was given the Cross 
 of St. George after his death, and a soldier 
 was detached to carry the last honours home 
 and tell the tale of his death. Incidentally 
 the soldier brought to the village his story 
 of the war. 
 
 A rainy summer in the village. In many 
 places the priests prayed for the rain to 
 stop. The hay rotted where it lay, and 
 could not be taken in, but the wheat and the 
 rye were good everjrvvhere. And the fruit 
 harvest was good. Some one made a hand- 
 some profit on apples, since the common 
 price in Moscow was threepence or four- 
 pence apiece. Despite the dearth of sugar,
 
 58 Russia in 1916 
 
 jam-making was carried on in the country 
 to an even greater extent than usual. Peo- 
 ple felt that it was a good way to save sugar 
 for the winter, to put it into jam. Russian 
 jam is much sweeter than ours, and is often 
 put in tea as a syrup. It is never spread 
 on bread and butter. Mme. E. obtained 
 several sacks of soft sugar, about three hun- 
 dredweight in all, and the half of that she 
 used for making jam. 
 
 The orchard's fruit, however, had been 
 sold in advance in the spring. An Ar- 
 menian had come, considered the blossom, 
 and offered a price which was accepted. 
 He had made a good speculation as it 
 turned out, and he put a watchman in 
 among the trees with a dog to see that 
 nothing was stolen. The watchman was 
 one of the unfortunate refugees from the 
 territory now occupied by the Germans. 
 Two years ago he had been a prosperous
 
 Life in the Country 59 
 
 farmer with his own land and horses and 
 cows and what not, now he is a miserable 
 half-savage in sheepskins lying in a rain- 
 soaked straw shelter in the orchard — sans 
 land, sans wife, sans everything. A Roman 
 Catholic he, but he went to the Orthodox 
 Church on Sunday, as did also the Hun- 
 garian prisoners, for they said in their halt- 
 ing way what it is difficult for the more 
 prosperous to understand, that Bog odin, 
 God is One, and that if there be no Catholic 
 church by, it is as easy to pray to God in 
 the church that there is.
 
 vr 
 
 FATHER YEVGENY 
 
 The faces in the passing crowd are always 
 somewhat of an enigma. There are so 
 many that we do not know, each with his 
 own wide story, which, however, does not 
 touch our story. One is tempted to go up 
 and place the hand in the slight!) unwilling 
 and doubtful hand of the stranger and say, 
 "I know you, do I not?" And it is always 
 somewhat of a miracle if in the midst of the 
 sea of faces there suddenly turns up the fa- 
 miliar face. There happened to me when 
 I returned to Moscow after my stay at 
 Mme. E.'s a miracle of this kind. I met 
 one of my pilgrims again, one of those I ac- 
 companied to Jerusalem five years ago, 
 
 60
 
 Father Yevgeny 6i 
 
 whom I did not expect to see again — the 
 aged hermit Yevgeny. 
 
 I passed and repassed him twice, and he 
 for his part stopped and seemed to be 
 vaguely wondering what he should do next. 
 'Twas outside the Yaroslavsky station, and 
 I was hurrying to catch a suburban train to 
 visit some friends. There was a great swirl 
 of traffic, and many trams were circling and 
 groaning, emptying and receiving passen- 
 gers. 
 
 "Father Yevgeny," said I. "Do you not 
 recognise me?" 
 
 He seemed taken aback, and shrank rather 
 giif the devil had taken a new form to tempt 
 him. I recalled that he was considerably 
 troubled by the devil. 
 
 "We met at Jerusalem, did we not?" said 
 I. "Don't you remember, we used to read 
 the Bible together in the mornings?" 
 
 Then he recognised me, and a bright and
 
 62 Russia in 1916 
 
 happy smile transfigured his pallid, wrin- 
 kled cheeks and sunken eyes. 
 
 He lifted up his bent shoulders and kissed 
 me, first on one cheek, then on the other, 
 and proclaimed in a loud voice, "God has 
 done this. It is a miracle. He meant that 
 we should meet again. But how changed 
 you are! You have grown taller. Yes, it is 
 you. But it is a miracle. God has done 
 it." 
 
 We were a strange contrast. I in a light 
 summer suit and wearing a straw hat; he, 
 in any case a remarkable figure, tall though 
 drooping, with yellowish-white ancient 
 locks and toothless gums. Several people 
 stopped to look at us, and some approached 
 more closely to hear what we were talking 
 about. The representatives of two con- 
 trary worlds seemed to have met, for I 
 clearly belonged to that gay, worldly, com- 
 mercial Moscow which is so out of touch
 
 Father Yevgeny 63 
 
 with Holy Russia, and the monk was one of 
 those forbidding figures one would not ex- 
 pect to smile and be demonstrative in the 
 public street. 
 
 I wrote him my address, and he promised 
 to come to me on the morrow. I then sped 
 on to catch the train, my heart full of de- 
 light at this surprising meeting, this true 
 miracle to which the bright Sunday had 
 given birth. 
 
 Next day Yevgeny came to the hotel at 
 which I was staying and asked for me. He 
 had put on for the occasion an old straw 
 hat and over it a surprisingly old and dirty 
 Egyptian sun-helmet. In his hand he bore 
 a tall cypress stafif with a cross on the top, a 
 true palmer's stafif, but a rare enough sight 
 in Moscow. 
 
 The porter of the hotel is artificially made 
 fat like a swell coachman, and he wears 
 in his hat a circle of tips of peacock-feathers
 
 64 Russia in 1916 
 
 which make him look very grand. It is his 
 business to know every one who goes in and 
 out of the great hotel. Probably for the 
 first time in his experience a monk made to 
 enter the establishment. Father Yevgeny 
 and he — again two worlds confronting one 
 another. 
 
 "No. 214 on the second floor," said the re- 
 spectful man in charge of keys and corre- 
 spondence. 
 
 ''This way!" said a small boy, pointing to 
 the lift. 
 
 But old Yevgeny had never been on a lift 
 in his life. 
 
 ''My sinful old legs will carry me up," 
 said he — he mounted the many stretches of 
 broad carpeted stairway to the second floor, 
 which is really the third. There was a 
 timid knock at my door, and my visitor had 
 arrived. 
 
 "Father Yevgeny!" I cried.
 
 Father Yevgeny 65 
 
 I showed him his portrait in my book, 
 and translated aloud the chapter written 
 there about him. He seemed to be ex- 
 tremely pleased. We considered the por- 
 traits of the other pilgrims in turn. 
 Abraham, who had been twenty times to 
 Jerusalem, was of a Cossack family. The 
 man carrying the lantern designed for the 
 holy fire was now dead. The priest stand- 
 ing beside the dead pilgrim in the picture 
 was now at Troitskaya Lavra. I made Fa- 
 ther Yevgeny a present of the volume, and 
 he bade me write in it in Russian, ''To the 
 hermit Yevgeny of Mount Athos." 
 
 "How is it you come to be in Moscow and 
 not at Mount Athos?" I asked. 
 
 "The war prevented me. I had come 
 back to Russia to visit my native village be- 
 fore I died, and wbils?t I v/as here the war 
 broke out. I was hastening back, but our 
 Moscow Metropolite put his hand on my
 
 66 Russia in 1916 
 
 head one Sunday after morning service and 
 said, 'Thou art thinking of going to Afon — 
 wait, do not go.' Then war with Turkey 
 commenced, and the way was stopped. 
 Good Father Philaret of the Bogoyavlen- 
 sky Monastery gave me shelter, and that is 
 where I am living now." 
 
 He recounted how, when the war broke 
 out, he had a vision. He looked up into 
 the sky, and it was filled with little white 
 clouds hurrying southward. He was mis- 
 taken in thinking them clouds; he saw later 
 that they were in fact the hosts of the an- 
 gels ranging themselves on the side of Ser- 
 bia to save her from the Austrians. 
 
 Yevgeny and I spent the whole day to- 
 gether. In the evening I had to leave Mos- 
 cow, and he saw me ofif at the station. He 
 talked a great deal about his visions. For 
 instance, he had seen the Kingdom of 
 Heaven. One sunny afternoon in the mon-
 
 Father Yevgeny 67 
 
 astery yard he fell into a trance, and in the 
 trance he saw what he had wanted to see all 
 his life — a vision of the Kingdom. "There 
 are really four heavens," said he. "The 
 first is so splendid, so full of light, that it is 
 almost impossible to look at it; and in the 
 midst of the light sit the Holy Trinity. 
 Round and round them all the while and 
 for ever the cherubs keep moving and they 
 sing oi-oi-oi-ei-ei-ei-ai-ai-ai . . . and never 
 cease for a moment. In the second heaven 
 I saw the apostles and the prophets. In the 
 third heaven w^re the holy ugodniki, and 
 in the fourth were a great crowd of all sorts 
 and conditions of men and women all in 
 white. There were many, many of our 
 Russians there — I was so glad, so full of 
 joy that I went. And then suddenly it all 
 vanished, and I found myself in the monas- 
 tery yard and on my knees, and my hands 
 were on the white head of an old, old pil-
 
 68 Russia in 1916 
 
 grim woman. I asked her if she had seen 
 anything, but she had seen nothing." 
 
 I asked Father Yevgeny about the Mount 
 Athos heresy, and the Name-of-Godites, as 
 the heretics were irreverently called. I 
 had a faint suspicion that Yevgeny might 
 be one of them. But he was very robustly 
 against them. ''It all sprang from one 
 man who was himself illiterate," said he. 
 "He held that as the Three were.One, there- 
 fore Jesus and God were one and the same, 
 and that in the beginning Jesus made the 
 heavens and the earth. And he got a great 
 following among the Russian monks. But 
 he was altogether in the wrong, and if he 
 had read he would have understood that 
 Jesus the Son of God was born in the ful- 
 ness of time, and the Name of God must 
 therefore have priority. Ah! now they 
 have all confessed they were wrong, and 
 have been pardoned."
 
 Father Yevgeny 69 
 
 We walked out into the Moscow streets, 
 and all the while the old monk talked most 
 energetically, and made astonishing ges- 
 tures. One moment he saw a large trian- 
 gle on a poster and spat to one side as he 
 passed. "The symbol of the masons," said 
 he. "To-day the Cross is fighting the tri- 
 angle, that is one meaning of the war. Do 
 you know, many of the stewards of the old 
 vodka shops were secretly masons, and it 
 was found that they cut out on the floor un- 
 derneath the shop counters, a cross — so that 
 the drunkards might trample it under foot." 
 Yevgeny's large intellectual face with 
 wizened white eyebrows, and fine eyes at the 
 bottom of caverns of wrinkled flesh, was 
 full of animation, his gap-toothed mouth 
 blurted the long torrent of words which it 
 could hardly control, his long black gown 
 from neck to ankles flapped in the wind. 
 
 I was sorry to have to part with him
 
 yo Russia in 1916 
 
 again so soon. But I promised to re-find 
 him when I returned to Moscow. He came 
 with me to the Kursky station. "God 
 meant that we should meet again," said he. 
 "It was a miracle. All my life is full of 
 miracles." He told me the miracles of his 
 birth. His mother was one of the serfs. 
 She married, but was eight years childless. 
 This caused her great grief, and she did not 
 cease to pray to God that she might bear a 
 child. "If it be a boy, he shall be either 
 a soldier or a monk," she promised God. 
 Interesting that she should feel that to be a 
 soldier was also to be consecrated to God. 
 Yevgeny was born, and when he grew up he 
 volunteered to be a soldier, and went to 
 fight the Turks. He was wounded, and as 
 he lay on the battlefield in great pain, and 
 facing death, he promised his life to God. 
 He then rapidly recovered, and, fulfilling 
 his promise, entered a monastery. Since
 
 Father Yevgeny 71 
 
 then all his life he has allowed himself to 
 be guided by visions and inspirations rather 
 than by reason. 
 
 In the vague light in the train, all the 
 passengers were quarrelling over places, 
 and the porters were struggling with bas- 
 kets and bundles. The old monk stood on 
 the grey platform and embraced me very 
 warmly, and then I stepped up, and the 
 third bell tinkled and the whistle blew, and 
 the train slowly ran out — leaving Yevgeny 
 at the far end of the platform and the space 
 of unoccupied rails behind the train, mo- 
 mentarily increasing.
 
 VII 
 
 A RUSSIAN COUNTESS 
 
 I MADE a journey into the depths of 
 one of the* central provinces and visited 
 Countess X. She had been in England 
 when the war broke out, and before she 
 could get back to Russia her husband had 
 volunteered and had already been taken 
 prisoner by the Germans. In her it was 
 possible to visualise something of the per- 
 sonal tragedy of the war. A charming and 
 rather beautiful woman, the war com- 
 menced when she was on the threshold of 
 life, when, as she said, life seemed to prom- 
 ise so much. She is only thirty-four, and is 
 yet white-haired and deaf and feels herself 
 
 becoming older every month. "When my 
 
 72
 
 A Russian Countess 73 
 
 husband comes back he will find me an old 
 woman." 
 
 Both she and her husband belong to the 
 old nobility of Russia; in the library face 
 themselves old paintings of her ancestor and 
 his, both conspirators in the plot to murder 
 Paul I, both expelled from St. Petersburg 
 of that day and ordered to live on their 
 estates, where it is said they did not behave 
 too sweetly to their serfs. The present 
 Count is an idealist, an admirer of the great 
 idealistic classics of Russian literature, a 
 man who loves the peasants, and ordinarily 
 spends most of his time on his estates. The 
 Countess deplored the sort of men he would 
 bring into dinner, knowing not the usage 
 of the knife, drinking the water of the fin- 
 ger-bowls, and what-not, but country man- 
 ners never touched him — he simply did not 
 see what was being done. 
 
 When war broke out he was in such a
 
 74 Russia in 1916 
 
 hurry to get to the front that he accepted a 
 commission in some town regiment where, 
 as a rule, the nobility do not figure, and he 
 went forward on the great wave of Rus- 
 sian enthusiasm which led to Tannenberg. 
 There he was taken prisoner with many 
 thousand others, and was removed into the 
 depths of Germany. As a prisoner he 
 made an attempt to escape, but was arrested 
 before he reached the frontier. For this 
 ofifence he was put in a fortress in Saxony 
 and confined for a long time solitarily. 
 But he was not treated too badly by the 
 Germans and was given pens and paper and 
 books. He wrote to the Countess for one of 
 my books, of which there had been consid- 
 erable talk before the war. That was my 
 ''Russian Pilgrims." The Countess had 
 bought a copy, lent it to Mme. S., who had 
 passed it on to the Grand Duchess Eliza- 
 beth, and they had all found it interesting.
 
 A Russian Countess 75 
 
 It was sent to Count X. in Germany and he 
 translated it. It was rather touching from 
 my point of view to know that a Russian 
 prisoner had spent so many solitary hours 
 with me, working at a book I wrote. 
 When my "Martha and Mary" was pub- 
 lished he had that book also sent to him and 
 he translated it, and wrote so much about 
 the consolation that the Countess averred 
 she felt jealous of my name occurring 
 so often in his letters. Unfortunately, 
 "Martha and Mary" had already been 
 translated. 
 
 The Countess disapproved of her hus- 
 band's idealism and would rather have had 
 him of a more careless worldly type. She 
 craved life, not merely ideas, and was afraid 
 that the sedentary life of her husband in the 
 fortress would so tell on his mind that when 
 he came back he would be less practical than 
 ever.
 
 76 Russia in 1916 
 
 "Life is going to be good," he wrote. "I 
 have not known till now what possibilities 
 it held, what wisdom there was in men, what 
 beauty. All will begin again when I come 
 back to Mother-of-God village" (the place 
 where his land is situated). "I want to re- 
 read all our poets. Their voices are going 
 to sound again. Do you know Solovyof? 
 He is wise and tender and beautiful. When 
 I come back I will not stray from Mother- 
 of-God village, not to Petrograd or to Mos- 
 cow. But we will sit together and read 
 Solovyof; you shall read him aloud to me 
 and I will be content . . ." 
 
 "Ah, but I dread that," said the Coun- 
 tess. "I should not want to sit and read 
 Solovyof. I want to live for my boy at 
 least. We cannot go on living here if my 
 boy is to be educated properly. But then 
 — you know what Tolstoy said to women, 
 'Never use your influence with your hus-
 
 A Russian Countess 77 
 
 bands to make them act contrary to their 
 convictions.' Do you agree to that? I do 
 not. I use all the influence I have. 
 
 "Life has been a great disillusion for me. 
 It promised so much. Once I used to think 
 there was nothing more wonderful than 
 what life was going to bring. Now I see it 
 is empty. There is nothing coming. Then 
 the war goes on from week to week and 
 month to month, interminably and without 
 any gleam of hope of an end. It is very 
 well to say the war will end by Christmas, 
 next Christmas next again. I do not be- 
 lieve it. My boy is thirteen, delicate, en- 
 thusiastic, excitable, and already he is ex- 
 periencing the emotion of love. He lost 
 his heart lately to one of his cousins. She 
 is twenty and is somewhat amused. The 
 other day he picked up my hand and kissed 
 it, which was somewhat unusual, and I 
 turned to him, There were tears in his
 
 yS Russia in 1916 
 
 eyes and he looked up at me and said, 'Ah, 
 mother, how sorry I am it is not Vera's 
 hand.' Galling, was it not?" 
 
 The Countess, for all her inward sadness 
 and her deafness, was extremely vivacious, 
 and when she did not hear she imagined 
 what you said and was very often right. 
 '*I am sorry if sometimes I do not hear," she 
 said. "Teach me to speak to you so that 
 you will hear," said I, which is a simple sen- 
 tence but a suggestive thought. 
 
 An interesting and sad time I spent with 
 the Countess. Her quiet tragedy, that of 
 being robbed of a husband and robbed of 
 precious time, is part of the great universal 
 tragedy of war, which touches rich and poor 
 alike, simple and noble. The war has come 
 athwart many promising lives in this gene- 
 ration and robbed the whole of the past and 
 of the future of all mortal significance. 
 Still, it has also given spiritual treasure in
 
 A Russian Countess 79 
 
 the heart, in the soul, hidden treasure — that 
 is what we must not overlook. 
 
 A letter which I have just received from 
 the poor prisoner gives the following 
 thoughts: 
 
 "Your book has changed much in my 
 conception of life. I was too Martha. 
 These last two years of captivity have been 
 a pilgrimage for me though I have stayed 
 in one place. Still I console myself by 
 thinking that if I am suffering others also 
 are, when I should, on the contrary, remem- 
 ber that what happens to me happens to 
 no one else. 
 
 "I have just been told that my transla- 
 tions may not be sent out of Germany, but 
 I hear that one book will soon appear in 
 Russia. It will be good for Russians to 
 read it now. 
 
 "You are right saying that we shall be 
 mad with joy at our relief. I cannot yet
 
 8o Russia in 1916 
 
 feel myself free spiritually in prison, and 
 for me the body's freedom is still the great- 
 est thing on earth, but I think of the day of 
 deliverance as something so remote and so 
 beautiful that I compare it with our resur- 
 rection from death."
 
 VIII 
 
 RUSSIAN LITERATURE IN 1916 
 
 I READ, as ever, a great number of contem- 
 porary Russian books, spent many hours in 
 bookshops, and it may not be out of place 
 to give my impression of the literature of 
 the hour. 
 
 Undoubtedly the great emotional impulse 
 of the opening of the war in Russia has 
 passed. This is reflected very clearly in 
 current literature. The flood of printed 
 lectures, war-pamphlets, and poems has 
 ceased. Volumes of war stories are no 
 longer printed, and indeed the war as a lit- 
 erary topic has become of minor interest. 
 In the clearance it is now possible to observe 
 the great desolation which the war has
 
 82 Russia in 19 J G 
 
 wrought. There is a strange silence in Rus- 
 sia. What was before the war has passed ; 
 what shall be after has not begun to be. 
 There is as yet no promise of the future any- 
 where. 
 
 Not that books have not been published 
 in 1916. They have been published thickly, 
 despite the absence of genius, the scarcity of 
 paper, and the supposed dearth of readers. 
 Fonvisin gets into her eighteenth thousand 
 with "Innocent and Yet to Blame," and 
 "The Keys of Happiness" goes into the sixth 
 sequel. "The End of the War," a novel by 
 Lef Zhdanof, runs through several editions. 
 "Russian Master," an enthralling yellow- 
 back of 470 pages by Lappo-Danilevsky, is 
 reprinted many times. The translation of 
 the novels of W. J. Locke flood over every 
 bookseller's counter and railway station 
 book-stall. New books are certainly as 
 plentiful as ever. But they are mostly in-
 
 Russian Literature in 1916 83 
 
 terim volumes whose object is to pass the 
 time away till the clamour of the war be 
 over. 
 
 Gorky, who appears more and more as 
 an editor and essayist, has issued a volume 
 of translated Armenian literature, but he 
 is putting forth no creative artistic work, 
 and perhaps finds little time for it. As a 
 reward, however, politically-minded Radi_- 
 cal R ussia certainly looks to him for light 
 and leading. Andreef goes on writing, but 
 seems to have fallen into minor importance. 
 Viacheslaf Ivanof has just written an ex- 
 cellent book of essays on Dostoevsky, So- 
 lovyof, Tolstoy, etc., which ought to be 
 translated into English together with his 
 former book "From Star to Star." Artsi- 
 bashef continues to write salacious stories 
 for the Russian middle-class, and seems to 
 reflect their life and mind. Igor Severanin 
 is quiescent, but his latest volume of poems,
 
 84 Russia in 1916 
 
 printed on bad paper, is dedicated to his 
 "Thirteenth," by which he apparently 
 means his thirteenth "lady friend." A 
 curious volume lately confiscated by the 
 police is "Father Leontius and his Lady 
 Admirers," an account of Rasputin, written 
 in the form of a fictitious narrative by a 
 serious student of sectarianism 
 and religious phenomena — Prugavin. The 
 society ladies circle round Leontius and cry 
 out "Alleluia!" "Sabaoth!" "Three in 
 One and One in Three!" which seems very 
 shocking and novel to Russians, though it 
 only reminds the English reader of the 
 Agapemonites at Clapton and similar phe- 
 nomena. Greater than the problem of the 
 psychology of Leontius seems to be the 
 problem of the psychology of the refined 
 and normal women who can hail him as 
 God. Lef Zhdanof's popular novel on the 
 war is very friendly to the German people
 
 Russian Literature in 1916 85 
 
 and gives them a new chance after a polit- 
 ical revolution. Balmont, the popular poet, 
 has written an essay in one volume entitled 
 "Poetry as Magic," and parts are highly 
 reminiscent of Stevenson's "Art of Writ- 
 ing." He analyses the functions of the let- 
 ters of the alphabet: L is a caress; is space 
 triumphant; u is the music of noise, the 
 cry of terror; m is man shutting his lips, it 
 is all the dumb can say in their anguish, 
 etc. 
 
 Walter Pater is being translated, and 
 seems to be appreciated by cultured Rus- 
 sians, though it is a pity that only frag- 
 ments and not the whole of his masterpiece 
 "Marius the Epicurean" are appearing in 
 the collection of his works. There is cer- 
 tainly a great demand for English books, 
 and our literature remains in vogue. And 
 books about England have been appearing, 
 the latest being Nabokof's account of his
 
 86 Russia in 1916 
 
 visit with the journalists. It is somewhat 
 inadequate as an account of England, but 
 then it pretends to reflect only the impres- 
 sions of this officially guided tour. Nabo- 
 kof seems to have been greatly impressed by 
 Sir Edward Grey as a new type of diploma- 
 tist, a man whose strength lies in the fact 
 that he is always a gentleman and tells the 
 simple truth. Chukovsky's book, "The Si- 
 lent Ones have Spoken," on the British 
 Tommy is popular. Incidentally it may be 
 remarked that Chukovsky, who made such 
 an impression in England, is a journalistic 
 critic of a penetrative quality. His 'Trom 
 Chekhof to our Days," though containing 
 some things impossible to print in English, 
 is yet a very clever book. A new cor- 
 respondent of some ability is now represent- 
 ing the Russkoe Slovo in England and giv- 
 ing a more representative account of our 
 life than the old school of academic Rad-
 
 Russian Literature in 1916 87 
 
 ic^ls who usually represent Russian news- 
 papers abroad. 
 
 Rozanof s book on the war, "The War 
 and the Popular Awakening," has been out 
 of print for some time, and presumably his 
 publisher has no paper. Novikof s popular 
 novel on the present point of view with 
 regard to the Revolution is also unobtain- 
 able. Many good books of previous years 
 have not been reprinted through the dear- 
 ness or scarcity of paper. On the other 
 hand, certain more obscure publishers who 
 have managed to hoard up paper can carry 
 on their business in full swing. The chief 
 commercial event of the year in the literary 
 w^orld has been the purchase by Seetin of 
 the Niva, the extremely popular weekly. 
 As Seetin already owns the Russkoe Slovo 
 and several other papers and literary enter- 
 prises, he is becoming somewhat of a lit- 
 erary king, an interesting figure in modern
 
 88 Russia in 1916 
 
 Russia, for he started life as a peasant, be- 
 came an itinerant hawker of penny books 
 for the people, and is now a man of great 
 power in Russia. 
 
 M. Protopopof, now Minister of the In- 
 terior, a man of large commercial interests, 
 is now, backed by certain banks (previously 
 of a strong German complexion but now 
 said to be decently metamorphosed), start- 
 ing a large new Petrograd newspaper (name 
 not yet decided) . There were many blun- 
 ders in the advertisement of this news- 
 paper enterprise. It was stated that Koro- 
 linko would be editor and that Leonid 
 Andreef and many other popular writers 
 would contribute. But Korolenko fought 
 shy of it and the other writers one by one 
 disclaimed interest in the publication. 
 Maxim Gorky was asked to edit it but 
 found out apparently that it was not revo- 
 lutionary in tendency, was capitalist rather
 
 Russian Literature in 1916 89 
 
 than labour, and that the object was inter- 
 national trade prosperity, and he withdrew 
 entirely. Now A. V. Amphiteatrof, the 
 Italian correspondent of the Russkoe Slovo 
 and author of a great number of curiously 
 interesting historical studies, is to be the 
 editor. He is an Italophile and favours 
 much more friendly relationship between 
 Italy and Russia; in politics he may be said 
 to be Radical and has got into trouble with 
 the Government upon occasion. It will be 
 interesting to see whether the enormous cap- 
 ital behind this paper will give it the chance 
 of success that the same amount of capital 
 behind a new paper in England would give. 
 In Russia large capital is considered fair 
 prey by all who can get itching fingers near 
 it 
 
 These notes give an indication of literary 
 currents and tendencies in the autumn of 
 1 91 6, in the midst of the war. It should
 
 90 Russia in 1916 
 
 be added that, despite the great rise in prices 
 of all things in Russia, the price of books 
 remains almost as cheap as ever. Reading 
 certainly increases, and consequently makes 
 the general cost of publication less. The 
 most characteristic of the new war phe- 
 nomena of Russia is still the cry '^Gazette, 
 Gazette!" flung up at the trains from the 
 fields wherever you travel. You are asked 
 to throw your old newspapers out of the 
 train window, that the people in the vil- 
 lages may read them. This cry will hardly 
 die down when the war is over. But will 
 the gazette satisfy? Will not books have 
 to follow, and more substantial, better books, 
 because of what the peasants have learned 
 from reality? Russia is waiting for new 
 national writers. 
 
 An interesting phenomenon in the life of 
 contemporary Russia is the position taken
 
 Russian Literature in 1916 91 
 
 up by Maxim Gorky as a challenger of the 
 national and traditional ideas in Russian 
 life and literature. He has become the 
 spokesman of a considerable number of 
 working men and middle-class Russians, 
 but has at the same time brought upon his 
 head the wrath not only of old-fashioned 
 people but of a great nun^bflfr of liberal and 
 progressive thinkers. His campaign began 
 when he returned to Russia at the begin- 
 ning of 1914 and launched his attack on 
 Dostoevsky. The war seemed to cause a 
 lull in his activities, but last winter he re- 
 sumed his verbal warfare with more energy 
 than ever. His point of view is, that 
 Dostoevsky is bad for Russia, because his 
 outlook was concentrated on suffering and 
 death. Russia must turn her back reso- 
 lutely on Dostoevsky and seek life. Russia 
 must cease to be mystical, suffering, melan- 
 choly, and must become clear-minded and
 
 92 Russia in 1916 
 
 mistress of her soul. The challenge raised 
 a great clamour. At first not many sided 
 with him; but since the appearance of 
 "Two Souls"' and "A Letter to the 
 Reader" ~ in the journal Lietopis it be- 
 comes evident that he has some follow- 
 ing. He has raised a question, and many 
 Russians are considering it for the first 
 time. 
 
 The Russian which Gorky attacks is just 
 that which is spiritually interesting to us 
 in England — the mystical and unpractical 
 Russia. Russia on pilgrimage, artistic Rus- 
 sia; and that which he wants Russia to be 
 is just what would have least spiritual inter- 
 est for us — Russia optimistic, cocksure, 
 businesslike, well-dressed, smart, and West- 
 ern. He writes: 
 
 i"Two Souls," by Maxim Gorky. {Lietopis, December 
 
 1915-) 
 
 2" A Letter to the Reader," by Maxim Gorky. {Lietopis, 
 
 March 1916.)
 
 Russian Literature in 1916 93 
 
 "The Russian seeking-after-God comes 
 from an insufficiency of conviction in the 
 force of reason — from the need of a weak 
 man to find some guiding will outside him- 
 self. 
 
 "The turning to mysticism and romantic 
 fantasies is a turning towards stagnation, 
 and is contrary to the interests of a young 
 democracy, poisoning and enfeebling it, 
 giving it a passive attitude towards reality, 
 and suggesting doubt in the force of rea- 
 son. . . . 
 
 "The mind of the ancient East weighs 
 most heavily and murderously on our Rus- 
 sian life, and has an influence immeasurably 
 deeper on our psychology than on that of 
 Western Europe. . . . 
 
 "We Russians have two souls; one, de- 
 rived from the wandering Mongol, is that of 
 the dreamer, mystic, idler, believer in fate; 
 the other is the soul of the Slav, which
 
 94 Russia in 1916 
 
 could burn up bravely and clearly, but can- 
 not because of the other." 
 
 One may reasonably question the cor- 
 rectness of this differentiation, seeing that 
 when we scratch a Russian we do not find 
 a dreamer. We should be inclined to say 
 exactly the reverse ; that the gentle, dream- 
 ing, poetic soul was that of the Slav — and 
 that Gorky would find the educated Tartar 
 considerably nearer his ideal than any char- 
 acteristic Slav. 
 
 The article entitled "Two Souls" made 
 a considerable stir, the magazine went 
 quickly out of print, and a great number 
 of criticisms were made in the Press and 
 on the platform. Their general tone was 
 that Gorky was out of his true medium and 
 had better go back to his art. As a result 
 Gorky wrote "A Letter to the Reader" as 
 a sort of collective answer to "the more
 
 Russian Literature in 1916 95 
 
 or less ironical or angry comments of my 
 colleagues of the pen," and sarcastically 
 quoted Lescov: '^On the Russian people 
 it is good to look from afar, especially when 
 he prays and believes"; and he went on 
 to excuse his being "a bad publicist" and 
 to plead that his words should have weight 
 as being those of one who had lived through 
 a great deal and knew Russian life at least 
 as well as any of his opponents. 
 
 In this reply he exhibited a rather curi- 
 ous attitude towards Anglo-Russian friend- 
 ship which it would be well for English 
 people to note — a belief that we seek friend- 
 ship with Russia merely to exploit her ma- 
 terially and to keep her in a commercial 
 bondage similar to that which she has suf- 
 fered from the Germans. 
 
 "Our Russian philosophers argue in this 
 w^ay (says Gorky) . The alliance with Eng-
 
 96 Russia in 1916 
 
 land is worthy of the greatness of the Rus- 
 sian people because it will lead to the union 
 of the nations under the standard of the 
 true spiritual culture of the mystical East. 
 There are only two world Powers — Russia 
 and England. And these two States have, 
 as the foundation of their power, the lands 
 and peoples of the religious East, rather 
 than of the materialistic West. To these 
 two is the problem of uniting culturally In- 
 dia, China, Japan. And when this union 
 of the peoples of the mystic East takes place, 
 the earth will be given ultimate liberty in 
 peace. But for that end it is necessary that 
 Russia keep true to her mission and estab- 
 lish her culture upon the mystical revela- 
 tions leading to peace and love." 
 
 But Gorky bids these philosophers be 
 undeceived. It is no use, he says, their 
 getting rid of German capitalists simply to
 
 Russian Literature in 1916 97 
 
 make way for English ones. That was what 
 English friendship meant. Such a book, 
 for instance, as "The Way of Martha and 
 the Way of Mary" met with so much ap- 
 proval because in picturing us as holy lazy- 
 bones and unpractical persons it allowed the 
 English capitalist to rub his hands with 
 glee, seeing in Russia a future British col- 
 ony such as Africa or India. Whilst Rus- 
 sia is in her present state, friendship with 
 any European Power must be the friendship 
 of the earthenware pot and the iron kettle. 
 Russia has to fight not for ''ultimate lib- 
 erty," but for the simplest civil rights as 
 citizens. We must try to give the people 
 education and try to train their will to- 
 ward life. 
 
 No doubt Gorky makes an appeal in 
 these words; and if the average Russian 
 were asked what were the foundations of 
 Anglo-Russian friendship apart from the
 
 98 Russia in 1916 
 
 needs of the war, he would answer, Com- 
 mercial exploitation. Trade, it is true, is 
 put jealously forward as something to be 
 captured after the war; but it seems a pity 
 that Russians should not realise the depth, 
 the sincerity of our interest in their char- 
 acteristic religion, literature, and life. 
 Whatever political tendency our interest 
 may help, it is nevertheless true that Eng- 
 land obtains from Russia spiritual help ; and 
 a great deal of that which Gorky condemns 
 in his own nation is coming to our help to 
 redeem us from commercialism and mate- 
 rialism. It is something of a paradox that 
 the bright spirits of Russia should hate the 
 melancholy vistas of Tambof and Kaluga 
 and that the bright spirits of England should 
 hate the gloom of Newcastle and Leeds, 
 that one should look with love from Eng- 
 land to the wandering pilgrims of Tambof 
 and the other should sigh for the clamour
 
 Russian Literature in 1916 99 
 
 of wheels where "man at least is master." 
 But paradox is tolerable where misunder- 
 standing is not. For paradoxes abound in 
 truth, and truth is made up of such para- 
 doxes. 
 
 Later on in his essay Gorky remarks that 
 stormy and revolutionary eras have pro- 
 duced great men, and his first example is 
 Shakespeare, who flourished "in the stormy 
 time of Queen Elizabeth." But rather, 
 they were "spacious days"; and great men, 
 great thoughts are almost always born in 
 spacious days, halcyon days, when the dove 
 broods on waters. Strength is with calm- 
 ness, not with noise and quarrellings and 
 revolutions. The critics are probably right 
 when they say, "Return to Art." Art is 
 creative, whereas argument is generally de- 
 structive. And Maxim Gorky evidently 
 wishes to create. 
 
 Maxim Gorky may be called the leader
 
 loo Russia in 1916 
 
 of the porazhentsi, the people who believe 
 in defeat. He has lately added to "Two 
 Souls" and "A Letter to the Reader"— the 
 "Letters of William Simpleton, a Know- 
 ing Stranger." * But it is what we call 
 "half-baked." Gorky has read an enormous 
 number of books since he tucked his blouse 
 inside and became respectable, but it is diffi- 
 cult to see where he, or the reader, has 
 profited. He does not know where he is. 
 
 ' Published in Lietopls anonymously but generally ascribed 
 to Gorky.
 
 IX 
 
 RUSSIA IN 1916 
 
 I WAS in Russia at the beginning of the war 
 and during the first months of conflict, and 
 I witnessed the superb enthusiasm with 
 which she rose to fight. Again I was in 
 Russia last year, when, owing to the gen- 
 eral shortage of shells west and east, Ger- 
 many was able to turn her superiority to 
 account by retaking Galicia and ravaging 
 Poland, and I saw the humiliation almost 
 amounting to despair of Russia then. And 
 therefore returning once more to Russia in 
 June, 1916, I could form a fairly just idea 
 of the spirit of Russia to-day. 
 
 Last autumn, returning from Russia, I 
 was bound to say I found Russia pessimistic, 
 
 lOI
 
 I02 Russia in 1916 
 
 and though it is really bad form to be pessi- 
 mistic, personally I certainly felt so my- 
 self. But all has gone well in the inter- 
 vening period, and when I reached Russia 
 this year I found her remarkably cheerful. 
 My impression is that the Russians have set- 
 tled down to a long war. It may last three 
 or four years more, but they do not intend 
 to worry. After the period of depression 
 they are brightly optimistic again. Perhaps 
 some are too optimistic and rely on mysteri- 
 ous prophecies as to the war finishing by 
 Christmas, or think that the German people 
 will revolt and give us an easy victory 
 against a divided kingdom. One thing may 
 be observed: the great work of French and 
 English on the western front Is now fully 
 reported in the Russian Press. There are 
 on an average two or three columns about 
 us in the Russian newspaper. The Havas 
 Agency is quoted, the Times, the Munches-
 
 Russia in 1916 1 03 
 
 ter Guardian, the Westminster Gazette, and 
 other papers, very fully. It is possible for 
 an Englishman in Russia to form a fair 
 idea of each day's news, so the Russian also 
 can grasp it. That is a splendid improve- 
 ment on last year when we got only those 
 laconic non-committal communiques which 
 our smart English journalists can cause to 
 blossom with occult significance for our 
 English newspapers, but which in very truth 
 translated into Russian merely gave the im- 
 pression that we were doing nothing. 
 
 Russia feels us closer. The distance 
 across is not so great. Day by day every 
 one feels that we are all working happily 
 together for one end and with one interest. 
 
 The visits of the journalists and the par- 
 liamentarians to the West have also helped 
 a great deal. The journalists wrote their 
 impressions very fully and expressed 
 themselves with great enthusiasm. Their
 
 104 Russia in 1916 
 
 contributions on the subject lingered on 
 throughout the summer. And now they are 
 collecting their articles and re-issuing them 
 in book form. Nabokof's "From Militant 
 England" has already had considerable suc- 
 cess. Lectures have also been given. The 
 members of the Duma and the Senate came 
 back imbued with our enthusiasm, Radical 
 and Conservative alike, and what they saw 
 of our work was luminous in debate. On 
 the whole the Russians have become much 
 more warm and friendly towards us. They 
 are obtaining a better understanding of our 
 ideals, our character and hational determi- 
 nation. 
 
 After the defeats of last autumn there 
 sprang up a sort of intellectual sect, the 
 porazhentsi, people who believe in defeat. 
 These held that Russia stood to gain more 
 by being beaten than by winning — a con- 
 clusion that the Russian soul is more ready
 
 Russia in 1916 105 
 
 to accept than we should be. Brusilof's 
 victories seem, however, to have dissipated 
 this doctrine for the time being, and the 
 porazhentsi are little heard of this autumn. 
 Allied to this, however, has been a more 
 important movement in favour of a self- 
 dependent Russia. Why should Russia 
 struggle out of German commercial bondage 
 merely to fall into British hands? Why 
 cannot she manufacture for herself, be 
 enough unto herself in all departments? 
 This sentiment has been very widespread. 
 Russia has obtained the impression that the 
 striving toward Russian friendship going on 
 for many years before the war has been 
 primarily with the idea of capturing Rus- 
 sian trade. Whereas as a matter of fact the 
 impulse for friendship came jfirst of all from 
 literary and artistic England, then from 
 England as a whole, and the business men 
 were the camp-followers.
 
 io6 Russia in 1916 
 
 The question of Russia and trade needs 
 very careful treatment in the Press. The 
 phrase "exploiting Russia after the war" is 
 obnoxious and almost devoid of real mean- 
 ing. Many small merchants will be led to 
 try and exploit Russia after the war and will 
 simply burn their fingers. All trade with 
 Russia must be carefully arranged on broad 
 principles to benefit both countries equally 
 as before the war. Russia is the great pro- 
 ducing Country of the world and she needs 
 a world market for her products — that Brit- 
 ain can obtain for her and that will be for 
 the health of Russia and of the world. In 
 return we shall send much to Russia, but not 
 haphazard, and not shoddy dump, I hope. 
 
 Russian trade of all kinds is in a bad way 
 just now and it is a trying time for Russian 
 merchants — especially when they read fre- 
 quently in their newspapers "Britain's Rec- 
 ord Month of Trade," and the like. I think
 
 Russia in 1916 107 
 
 these joyful telegrams about our trade 
 should be accompanied by an explanatory 
 note to the effect that the greater part of that 
 so-called trade is a matter of war materials 
 and necessities. The figures really repre- 
 sent our tremendous activity in the Allied 
 cause. War is a material waste, and every 
 moment it is prolonged we lose heavily ma- 
 terially. And in this material sense we lose 
 more than Russia loses. We have had more 
 to lose. Our trade figures represent the 
 height of our temperature in the war-fever. 
 Russia is suffering internally through the 
 fact that she has had only two open ports of 
 value — Archangel and Vladivostock — and 
 she cannot import the manufactures she 
 needs. The railways and the ships are 
 needed for the transport of munitions and 
 food for the Army. The Army comes first, 
 the war comes first, and everything else must 
 give way. The people in the background
 
 io8 Russia in 1916 
 
 have a real share in the privations of the 
 war. Disorganisation amounts at times to 
 dislocation, owing to war needs. But the 
 Russians bear things cheerily. All manner 
 of new economic phenomena appear, and the 
 Russians try measure after measure to rem- 
 edy the troubles. 
 
 Practically every man of military age 
 throughout the vast empire is either fight- 
 ing or training. Before the war many had 
 used influence to avoid military service, had 
 obtained medical exemption on the slight- 
 est grounds. But there has been a thorough 
 revision, and large numbers have been re- 
 covered. You see the new troops march- 
 ing and drilling on the open places of the 
 large towns, in camps on the steppes, and as 
 the train takes you through the country you 
 see boy-Cossacks prancing about on their 
 ponies and practising with their lances. 
 
 Russia is altogether in the war and for
 
 Russia in 1916 109 
 
 the war. She is doing her utmost. And 
 her spirit is good. It is well English peo- 
 ple should feel that to-day. And from us 
 should go out to this great people, suffer- 
 ing and struggling as we are, a great fellow- 
 feeling of gratitude and generous affection.
 
 RUSSIAN MONEY 
 
 Before the war for £io you received 94 
 roubles, but now you receive 150. Last 
 year after the great Russian retreat the ex- 
 change stood at over 160, but banks refused 
 to give more than a nominal exchange. 
 And in order to stop traffic abroad and for- 
 eign speculation in Russian money it was 
 forbidden by law for any one to take more 
 than 500 roubles out of the country. Now, 
 however, the new value of the rouble seems 
 to have been accepted, and banks generally 
 give the due exchange value. Although the 
 rouble has slightly improved it is not an- 
 ticipated that the paper money will ever re- 
 gain its guaranteed gold exchange. Each 
 
 no
 
 Russian Money ill 
 
 Russian note is in the form of a certificate 
 that the State Bank will pay in exchange for 
 it a certain quantity of gold. That certifi- 
 cate has little value to-day, and it is an open 
 secret that the Government buys gold at a 
 rate which assumes a lower value for the 
 rouble. People who have hoards of gold 
 coinage — and they are many in Russia, for 
 the people are disinclined to use banks — are 
 keeping their gold, and their action is jus- 
 tified by the privileges which are already 
 accorded those who can pay the Government 
 in coin. It is expected by many that at the 
 end of the war the rouble will be assigned 
 a lower gold value. 
 
 One obvious effect of the depreciation of 
 the rouble has been that all real estate and 
 material belongings have increased in money 
 value. If you have an estate worth 94,000 
 roubles before the war, it is now worth 150,- 
 000 roubles, and you are lucky if your for-
 
 112 Russia in 1916 
 
 tune was in this comparatively more real 
 form, of land. People, on the other hand, 
 who were in debt have found the actual 
 weight of the debt diminishing as money 
 lost value. This has been particularly no- 
 ticeable in the case of people who have mort- 
 gaged property. Suddenly it has been pos- 
 sible to sell the property at a high figure, 
 pay off the debt, and still retain an unex- 
 pectedly large margin. 
 
 My friends the M.s have long wished 
 to sell their large house in Vladikavkaz, 
 but have held its value at what was in the 
 old days an absurdly high figure. People 
 used to laugh when the price was mentioned. 
 But this year, "as if. by miracle," to use my 
 friends' phrase, a purchaser turned up, 
 agreed to their price and completed the 
 transaction in six hours. He was pleased 
 and they were pleased. "What sort of a 
 man was he?" I asked. "Oh, a sort of a
 
 Russian Money 113 
 
 Tartar," they replied. He made a long way 
 the better bargain, for he understood to what 
 extent the rouble had lost value. On the 
 other hand my friends paid off a big debt 
 with these depreciated roubles, and there 
 also they gained. 
 
 The people who have made money by 
 the war are busy buying land and houses. 
 This is reproachfully called land specula- 
 tion, but is in reality commonsense action on 
 the part of those who wish to make fast their 
 wealth. When I paid a visit to Kislovodsk 
 in the Caucasus, an extremely popular wa- 
 tering place in the mountains, I found a 
 perfect rage of buying and selling property, 
 brought about by this elementary change in 
 values. 
 
 The public are still exhorted to pay for 
 their railway tickets in gold, but are less 
 inclined to do so than ever. There is rea- 
 son to believe that there are a number of
 
 114 Russia in 1916 
 
 millions of gold coins being hoarded in the 
 country. Friends have shown me their pri- 
 vate supplies. When one reads of burgla- 
 ries, there is often a mention of several hun- 
 dreds of roubles in gold being stolen. 
 
 In the southern districts of the Empire 
 German agents have appeared, offering 15 
 roubles paper for 10 roubles gold. In this 
 way Germany is said to have collected a 
 considerable amount of Russian gold. The 
 traffic was discovered by the police in Rus- 
 sian Central Asia, where men were found 
 to be carrying this gold into Persia and 
 thence to Turkey and Germany in small 
 hand-bags. Many arrests were made, in- 
 cluding that of M. Poteliakhof, a rich Bok- 
 hara Jew and dealer in cotton, who was 
 found to be deep in this nefarious trade. 
 
 Russia has no gold in circulation, but also 
 she has no silver and no copper. Russian 
 silver coinage became last year, at least in
 
 Russian Money 115 
 
 popular estimation, worth its weight in sil- 
 ver, and people began hoarding it; copper 
 also was hoarded, and after the retreat from 
 the Carpathians there were a series of small- 
 change panics in the towns in the back- 
 ground. Many shops were sacked because 
 the shopkeepers refused to give change ; peo- 
 ple travelled free on the trams because the 
 conductors could not change their rouble 
 notes. On other occasions you were obliged 
 to accept sticky postage stamps as change. 
 Thorough Government action swiftly fol- 
 lowed, and paper tokens for all the small 
 coins were introduced. Postage stamps 
 without gummy backs were issued for 10, 
 15 and 20 copecks, a shilling note (50 co- 
 pecks) was issued, and slips were printed 
 for I, 2, 3 and 5 copecks. How filthy this 
 money became may be imagined. People 
 gave it to beggars saying, "I give you this 
 not because I pity your state, but because the
 
 ii6 Russia in 1916 
 
 money is so dirty." Still this new paper 
 was accepted without riots, and the people 
 soon realised that it was more convenient 
 than "sounding" money, and that five rou- 
 bles' worth of it could be put in a small 
 purse without adding a considerable weight 
 to one's pockets. Thoughtful people wel- 
 comed it as teaching the ignorant that money 
 had no value in itself, but only as a token of 
 exchange. To-day one never sees a silver 
 piece in Russia. All is being hoarded. 
 
 Perhaps, however, the war and the sub- 
 stitution of paper for coin has taught some 
 people to care less for money. The Russian 
 word is dengy, which is really a Tartar 
 word. Indeed, where money is concerned 
 the Russian is a bit of a Tartar and loves 
 to feel the metal between his hands. If a 
 substantial sum is mentioned, he nods his 
 head and exclaims, "That is money!" ^sjj 
 he could see it being emptied out with a
 
 Russian Money 117 
 
 joyous clash on the table in front of him. 
 Of course the people who see money that 
 way always see it in small quantities. The 
 Russian business man is crafty over small 
 deals. I imagine his money sense fails him 
 more or less in very large deals and financial 
 operations. To the true financier money 
 must be somewhat of an abstraction and high 
 finance a sort of higher thought.
 
 XI 
 
 WITHOUT VODKA, BEER, OR WINE 
 
 There is a great difference throughout the 
 land, something unmistakable, and you 
 cannot say that it is undefinable, you know 
 at once what it is. Vodka has disappeared. 
 Beer has gone. Wines are sold at the chem- 
 ists' only on presentation of a medical certifi- 
 cate endorsed by the police. So far from 
 relaxing, the liquor prohibition vigilance 
 has been increased, and districts to which 
 the Tsar's original ukase did not apply, such 
 as Russian Central Asia, have been taken in. 
 You see smart officers sitting down to a bot- 
 tle of citro, and it is rather a surprise that 
 they do not grumble. Male complexions 
 generally are becoming less red. 
 
 ii8
 
 Without Vodka, Beer, or Wine 119 
 
 As a result of over two years' temperance, 
 violent crime has practically disappeared 
 from whole countrysides, and when occa- 
 sionally some brutality has occurred, the po- 
 lice have managed to bring to book not only 
 the direct offender, but also the person who 
 was secretly brewing the liquor. The spirit 
 of peace has come into the industrial or min- 
 ing village on the Sunday and Saint's Day, 
 where formerly there were often scenes of 
 outrageous public hooliganism on the part of 
 whole populations. Money has increased 
 in the pockets of the poor. There is a 
 higher standard of living; butter is being 
 spread on the black bread. Peasant fam- 
 ilies are enjoying the eggs which formerly 
 they would have sold for the money to buy 
 drink. One of the reasons given for the 
 shortage of food supplies in the great towns 
 is that owing to the fact that the peasants 
 find nothing on which to spend their money
 
 I20 Russia in 1916 
 
 they will not sell their produce. Formerly 
 they could buy vodka. Infant mortality is 
 already very much on the decrease. On the 
 whole, children seem better cared for, 
 though Russian peasants are always inclined 
 to be rather careless of these gifts of God. 
 There is an outbreak of "fashions" in the 
 village, and if you ask your cook or serving- 
 maid she will tell you how cottons are being 
 cut this year, though the details seem to 
 have little reference to modes de Paris. 
 There is a popular joke that the peasant 
 women make a mistake in the word they 
 employ for fine dresses. "Just look at the 
 snariadi (shells) I am wearing," when they 
 mean to use the word nariadi, a townspeo- 
 ple's word for Sunday best. 
 
 There would also be much new reading 
 in the village but for the fact that for the 
 peasant there is as yet a dearth of printed 
 matter. Children are sent to cry out to
 
 Without Vodka, ^Beer, or Wine 121 
 
 passing trains for newspapers, and one finds 
 the wisps of old papers in one's carriage and 
 throws them on to the wind. They are 
 eagerly picked up. 
 
 It is noticeable that the people are more 
 active, less sluggish, particularly in the 
 towns. There is an unwonted amount of 
 energy in play. The suppression of vodka 
 is good, but it would be absurd to say that 
 the energies unleashed are entirely on the 
 side of good. The old Adam can express 
 itself in many ways. The wrong impulse 
 merely prevented is not excised, it breaks 
 out in another place. There Is' more gam- 
 bling, more unrestrained sexual sin. I sup- 
 pose no Tsar's ukase could clean up the 
 Nevsky Prospect or Tverskaya, or stop love 
 affairs with other men's wives. But even 
 if it could the sinful impulse would break 
 out somewhere else with perhaps greater 
 vigour.
 
 122 Russia in 1916 
 
 I have been over thousands of miles of 
 Russia this year, in town and in village, in 
 the melancholy north and in the passionate 
 south, and I can give authentic witness. 
 There is no noticeable leak of vodka. Ex- 
 cept in Archangel city, I saw no drunken 
 man anywhere. There they were drunk 
 with English whisky obtained from the 
 boats in the harbour. The pilot taking 
 boats out always expects a bottle of whisky 
 as well as his three-rouble tip. All manner 
 of people are, as a British captain expressed 
 it, " bumming around for whisky." I be- 
 lieve it is now probable that ships bound for 
 Archangel will only be allowed to take a 
 limited supply in future. Poor thirsty Rus- 
 sians, one can easily understand the wiles 
 of those who think they can get it at Arch- 
 angel ! 
 
 Shinkarstvo, or illicit distilling and sale, 
 has, it is true, broken out, as M, Kokofstef
 
 Without Vodka, Beer, or Wine 123 
 
 predicted when opposing the local option 
 measure before the war. Alcoholic substi- 
 tutes are prepared and sold in small quanti- 
 ties. There were several hundred prosecu- 
 tions during the past year. But the police 
 seem to have the suppression of this shin- 
 karstvo well in hand. 
 
 Some incurables have taken to methylated 
 spirit, eau de Cologne, furniture polish, and 
 some have died in consequence. 
 
 My impression is that enforced temper- 
 ance in alcoholic drink is going to be per- 
 manent in Russia — at least as far as the 
 Tsar's reign is concerned. National so- 
 briety is one of the ideals of the Tsar. It is 
 not a temporary measure. Licences may be 
 granted after the war on certain conditions, 
 and the rich may have their wines again. 
 But popular drinking is not likely to be re- 
 established unless some business Govern- 
 ment should ever get into power having big
 
 124 Russia in 1916 
 
 alcoholic interests. But business govern- 
 ments are not likely there. 
 
 The chief gain to Russia from a military 
 point of view must undoubtedly be held to 
 be the great increase of efficiency in the na- 
 tion. Their warm sociality always betrayed 
 them heretofore. In Russian character and 
 temperament the elimination of strong drink 
 has not had the effect which it might be ex- 
 pected to have if introduced in this country. 
 Here our efficiency, which is becoming 
 higher than before, would probably be little 
 affected by prohibition, but personal char- 
 acter and outlook on life would be changed 
 beyond doubt. 
 
 I have had to answer publicly several let- 
 ters on the subject of Russian Prohibition 
 and I append one letter and answer as per- 
 haps helpful generally. I am constantly 
 asked to refute false statements concerning 
 the sale of alcoholic liquor in Russia, but as
 
 Without Vodka, Beer, or Wine 125 
 
 replies take time to write I feel that the 
 many temperance societies might well estab- 
 lish vigilance committees to correct false 
 statements. A reference to the Russian 
 Consul-General in London on the subjects 
 generally elicits a simple confirmation of 
 what I write on the matter. 
 
 To the Editor of The Times. 
 
 "Sir, — In your issue of the 8th inst. Mr. 
 Stephen Graham writes : 'No wine or beer 
 ... is obtainable in Russia except clandes- 
 tinely, as at Archangel.' 
 
 "Mr. Graham's knowledge of Russia is 
 admittedly unique; he may be able to ex- 
 plain, therefore, what is a puzzle to those 
 who are interested in the subject. 
 
 "I take from your Russian Section of 
 Octobe^.28 the following excerpts: 
 
 "Page 6. — 'The Imperial Duma, while 
 generally prohibiting the consumption of 
 liquors containing alcohol, adopted an in-
 
 126 Russia in 1916 
 
 dulgent attitude towards grape wine. On 
 July 14 (27), 1915, the Government im- 
 posed upon grape wine a small excise at the 
 rate of i rouble 60 copeck per vedro. In 
 the case of grape wine, consumption amounts 
 to 40,000,000 vedros (120,000,000 gallons) .' 
 
 "Then, again, referring to mild beer: 
 
 '' This drink is supposed to contain not 
 more than i>^ per cent, of alcohol, although 
 it is manufactured almost without Excise 
 inspection and might easily be made stron- 
 ger. The breweries are earning big profits 
 from the sale of this beverage, bigger even 
 than their former profits from beer; the 
 State itself gets nothing.' 
 
 "Again, in the Returns of State Revenue, 
 page 14, there is given as receipts in 1916 
 from Liquor Excise, 41,322,000 roubles in 
 1916, as against 18,084,000 roubles in 1915.
 
 Without Vodka, Beer, or Wine izj 
 
 "Again, on page 15. — 'Profits of Liquor 
 Monopoly, 503,904,000 roubles in 191 6, 
 as compared with 30,718,000 roubles in 
 1915.' 
 
 "Can Mr. Graham reconcile the total 
 prohibition which he afiirms now obtains in 
 Russia with these excerpts, or are there 
 some errors in the figures which can be ex- 
 plained? 
 
 "Yours faithfully, 
 
 "H S. K " 
 
 ''November 9." 
 
 The following answer was given: 
 
 To the Editor The Times. 
 "Sir, — It is quite profitable to consider 
 
 Mr. K 's letter because of the blurred 
 
 notion of Russian temperance reform which 
 is prevalent in this country. It is most im- 
 portant that whatever opinion we may hold 
 regarding enforced temperance or other
 
 128 Russia in 1916 
 
 questions, we should yet keep a clear pic- 
 ture of the current life of our Allies. 
 
 "I am now just six weeks back in Eng- 
 land after a four months' journey in which 
 I visited places so wide apart in the Russian 
 Empire as Ekaterina, in the far north, and 
 villages of the Central Caucasian range, in 
 the south ; and I stayed a while in Petrograd 
 and Moscow, Rostof, Orel, and other con- 
 siderable cities, and I can say by the evi- 
 dence of my eyes that intoxicating liquor has 
 disappeared. The only drunken men I saw 
 were in Archangel. Officers to-day sit 
 down to talk over a bottle of citro. In the 
 restaurants you are given kvas, a sort of 
 fruity ginger-beer, which in truth is not 
 allowed to have more than ilA per cent, of 
 alcohol, and is in no sense a beer. 
 
 "The article in the Russian Section is by 
 the Petrograd Correspondent of The Times, 
 and consists chiefly of extracts from an ar- 
 ticle by the Russian Professor Migulin. I 
 find the phrase in the translation is 'malt
 
 Without Vodka, Beer, or Wine 129 
 
 beverage,' and not 'mild beer,' as Mr. K 
 
 puts it; and I think it refers to a beverage 
 something like birch beer as sold in Amer- 
 ica, a sort of empty symbol of beer taken not 
 because it is pleasant but because one must 
 order something with one's meals. It has 
 no alcoholic reality, is sold in bottles, and 
 is of a standardised taste and quality. 
 
 "As regards wine, it must be remembered 
 that in the Caucasus, in Transcaucasia, and 
 in Russian Central Asia there are wine in- 
 dustries, wine is the local popular drink, not 
 tea as in Russia proper. This wine is 
 usually kept in skins and sold in pots. 
 There is also a bottling industry, but the ex- 
 port of this wine from these remote parts of 
 the Empire to Russia proper has been pro- 
 hibited except in cases of specially guaran- 
 teed orders. 
 
 "I believe British and American and 
 other foreign subjects are allowed to pur- 
 chase wine for their private use on the 
 presentation of a certificate. Professor
 
 130 Russia m 1916 
 
 Migulin appears to be advocating a State 
 monopoly in the sale of wine on the ground 
 that 'only on condition of a State monopoly 
 would it be safe to allow the free circulation 
 of grape-wine; otherwise under the guise of 
 wine vodka will again make its appearance.' 
 For the phrase 'grape wine' read 'grape 
 juice.' Professor Migulin's figures are ap- 
 parently incorrect — the population of Rus- 
 sia is not consuming a gallon of grape-juice 
 per head in addition to what it drinks in the 
 way of citro, kvas, narzan, birch beer, etc. 
 
 "As regards the revenue returns, may I 
 make the following remarks: 
 
 "i. Although the sale of alcohol in the 
 form of drink has been abolished, the man- 
 ufacture continues in perhaps larger quanti- 
 ties. 
 
 "Enormous quantities have been exported 
 to France for use in the manufacture of high 
 explosives, and I do not need to say more 
 than that on the head of the extensive in- 
 dustrial uses of alcohol.
 
 Without Vodka, Beer, or Wine 131 
 
 "2. In the figures of profits of liquor 
 monopoly are included («) debts recovered ; 
 {h) sums brought in after the winding-up 
 of big shops where the accounts were not 
 simple; (c) sale of vodka in Russian Cen- 
 tral Asia and Transcaucasia (lately prohib- 
 ited in both these districts also) ; {d) sale 
 abroad; (e) the sale in Government shops 
 of Caucasian mineral waters, now very ex- 
 tensive. 
 
 "3. Under the heading Liquor Excise is 
 included the tax on mineral waters, grape- 
 juice, etc., tax on real wine in Central Asia 
 and Transcaucasia, on wine specially sup- 
 plied for foreign consumption, on wines al- 
 lotted to chemists for medical purposes, etc. 
 
 "4. The great increase in the returns is 
 due to the tax on non-alcoholic drinks and 
 Government sales. 
 
 "5. In these revenue returns the classifi- 
 cation and nomenclature is not scientific, 
 and the primary intention is to give a rough 
 guide to the figures of the Budget.
 
 132 Russia in 1916 
 
 ''I hope these remarks do something to 
 clear away the doubt in the minds of stu- 
 dents of figures and papers. For the rest 
 I can only reiterate the evidence of my 
 eyes — Russia is without spirits, beer, or 
 wine, and, if I may add it, she does not feel 
 in any way persecuted or tyrannised over 
 because of it. 
 
 "Your obedient servant, 
 
 "Stephen Graham."
 
 XII 
 
 GAY LIFE 
 
 I WAS at Petrograd and also at Kislovodsk, 
 which is a sort of Petrograd set in the midst 
 of the Caucasus, Russia's greatest watering- 
 place, a resort of the rich. As is commonly 
 said, you leave your children behind when 
 you go to Kislovodsk; they would only be 
 in the way. Here turn up in these war years 
 many who would otherwise be at Nauheim 
 and Carlsbad or on the Riviera. It is a 
 place of few conveniences, but it has an army 
 of doctors, it has the springs, and it has "so- 
 ciety." It was so crowded this summer of 
 1916 that people slept in passages, in out- 
 houses, in ramshackle cupboards and bath- 
 house, and paid fancy prices for the priv- 
 
 133
 
 134 Russia in 1916 
 
 ilege. Return seats in the trains were all 
 booked for two months ahead, and but for 
 "the loop-holes of escape" I should have 
 been forced to stay in the Caucasus until the 
 end of September. 
 
 Petrograd and Moscow being so desper- 
 ately serious in tone, many pleasure-lovers 
 decided to extend the summer season, and 
 even to try Kislovodsk as a winter resort. 
 There was lively speculation in rooms and 
 datchas with a view to high prices reigning 
 throughout the winter. 
 
 An unhealthy spot this Kislovodsk, the 
 air of its little streets heavy with the odour 
 of decay and dirt. It is in a valley and 
 there are glorious moors and hills about it. 
 But one never sees any visitor on the hills. 
 The visitors keep to the leafy promenades 
 in the park, within hearing of the music of 
 the bandstands and in reach of the cafe and 
 the ice-cream bar. The women are mostly
 
 Gay Life 135 
 
 in white, but more coarse of feature tlian in 
 most places in Russia — the faces of women 
 on a low level of intelligence, of the sort who 
 pride themselves on being "interesting" to 
 men. They wear their diamonds in the 
 afternoon. A lady was robbed of her 
 diamonds in broad daylight in Essentuki, 
 a neighbouring resort, and on being re- 
 proached for wearing diamonds in wartime, 
 replied, "Where else should I show them 
 except at the waters?" 
 
 The people who have made fortunes out 
 of the war are prominent at Kislovodsk, 
 and the emptiness of their gay life is an 
 unpleasant contrast to the realities of the 
 time. Not the cultured of Russia, these, 
 not the noble and the wise, not the people 
 who really are the nation! Yet enter into 
 conversation with one of these commercial 
 parvenus and you find boundless vanity and 
 self-importance. "We are the people who
 
 136 Russia in 1916 
 
 count in Russia," they say. Go into a res- 
 taurant and your senses will be lacerated as 
 you see them all around you eating with 
 th'eir knives. The books they are reading 
 are Artsibashef, Fonvizin, Verbitskaya. 
 Ask about the real artists of Russia and they 
 raise their eyebrows or express contempt. 
 They are nearest to the class in America that 
 invented the word "high-brow" and for 
 whom commercial talent must go on manu- 
 facturing huge quantities of loathsome "low- 
 brow" literature, art, music and drama. 
 
 Many people asked me about England, 
 but I was obliged to say the spirit of Eng- 
 land would not tolerate a Kislovodsk; we 
 have nothing quite so shameless during the 
 war. We have people who are profiting by 
 death and destruction and calamity and sor- 
 row, but public opinion does not allow these 
 venal gains to be flaunted in this way. 
 
 At Russian theatres, as indeed in English
 
 Gay Life 137 
 
 theatres at home, flippant and indecent 
 farces, the theatres themselves going ahead 
 of the people* and leading downward. One 
 thing we may generally surmise, comparing 
 one side of the footlights with the other — 
 the life of the people looking on is ten thou- 
 sand times better than the life presented 
 on the stage. The vulgar and cynical no- 
 tions expressed by the actors and actresses 
 are only regarded as curious or amusing or 
 spicily outrageous by the people who have 
 paid so much money for the doubtful priv- 
 ilege of listening. 
 
 I witnessed a three-act play, translated 
 or adapted from the French, where there 
 was the usual dressing and undressing on 
 the stage and scampering about in under- 
 garments. Suddenly the lady who had 
 the most abominable part to play, in the 
 midst of one of the most unpleasant parts 
 clutched at her breast with her hand and
 
 138 Russia in 1916 
 
 fell with a loud thud on the stage. Then 
 the curtain came down. We waited. Pres- 
 ently out came a weedy-looking pale-faced 
 commercial and made the following state- 
 ment: 
 
 As Mme. A. has had a heart seizure we 
 cannot continue the performance. The 
 management, however, hope that the audi- 
 ence will not on that account feel a griev- 
 ance or that the money ought to be returned. 
 To-night's tickets will be available to-mor- 
 row night, when a substitute will be found 
 for Mme. A. 
 
 At this there were angry shouts from all 
 over the theatre : 
 
 "What is the money to do with it?" 
 
 "We don't want to see the wretched play 
 again." 
 
 "How is her health?'' 
 
 "Tell us how she is."
 
 Gay Life 139 
 
 Some one else came out from behind the 
 curtain and asked: 
 
 "Is there a doctor here?" 
 
 A young woman at once came up. But 
 the audience left its seat and crowded for- 
 ward towards the curtain asking angrily 
 how the actress was. The actress was not 
 a particular favourite. But the people 
 cared, and what is more, they had been 
 made ashamed by the callous but sincere 
 statement of the management on the more 
 important aspect of the interruption of the 
 programme. Life on the stage and life, 
 how wide apart! 
 
 Intoxication through alcohol has disap- 
 peared, and with it a certain amount of ab- 
 normal and bestial vice, but the world re- 
 mains as evil and human. 
 
 Drink, as the porter in Macbeth said, is 
 the great equivocator, it sets on and sets off,
 
 140 Russia in 1916 
 
 persuades and then disheartens. The re- 
 moval of drink has left men more restless 
 — at least in the towns. Probably in the 
 village the removal of all kinds of drink 
 has been an unmixed blessing. But in the 
 towns the roving eye of man has roved fur- 
 ther. It is impossible to clear up the im- 
 morality of the towns by Imperial ukase. 
 The Russian boy of the town is born into 
 a world of more temptations and risks than 
 the English boy. A great deal of disclosed 
 Russian genius must be poisoned between 
 the ages of twelve and twenty by certain so- 
 cial conditions which no one in Russia seems 
 capable of making an effort to clear up. 
 The Russian town of to-day is no doubt none 
 too easy for the young woman, and it seems 
 a sort of hell for the young man, a long 
 burning and the worm which dieth not. 
 Health, health, how to obtain conditions of 
 health, that is the problem!
 
 Gay Life 141 
 
 I was speaking to a somewhat famous 
 Russian senator about the deportation of 
 superfluous population from Petrograd and 
 he said: "The decentralisation of our cit- 
 ies' populations is one of the things which 
 are coming. Why should Moscow and 
 Petrograd increase in size? They only do 
 so at the expense of Russia as a whole. We 
 have plenty of room for all " 
 
 I strayed into various cafes in strange 
 towns this summer and ordered my coffee 
 and settled down to write parts of a long 
 book on religion and life with which I was 
 preoccupied all these months in Russia. I 
 was generally intent to sit down and write 
 out some idea which had occurred to me 
 whilst I had been walking. One evening I 
 found myself in a typical den — the long al- 
 ley of a cafe with women on each side, 
 painted, powdered, striking, their legs 
 crossed or spread about the table legs, ciga-
 
 142 Russia in 1916 
 
 rettes in their hands, half-finished glasses of 
 coffee in front of them. 
 
 Down the alley came young men with 
 flickering eyes and lips, now and then a leer, 
 a sickly smile, a cynical or satirical grin. 
 "This is the world," think the young men, 
 "this is the gay wicked world where what 
 should never be sold can be bought." 
 
 But they are wrong — it is only a wee 
 wicked corner. The great wide world is 
 sweeter, healthier.
 
 XIII 
 
 OLD FRIENDS 
 
 I MET Alexander Alexandrovitch Beekof, 
 the hunter of Archangel at Moscow. He 
 had purchased three fine pictures by our 
 friend Pereplotchikof, and they stood in his 
 room in the Gostinny Dvor in wooden pack- 
 ing cases. Alexander Alexandrovitch stood 
 me a lunch at Martianitch's in the Red 
 Square on a meatless day — a merchant's res- 
 taurant where you may see many antique 
 Russian types of merchants wearing knee 
 boots and blouses and longish hair. We 
 had a nice dish of fish-pie {rastegai) with 
 our soup, and though no wine was available, 
 the bill, as I saw, for the two of us was 
 twenty roubles, and three roubles more went 
 
 143
 
 144 Russia in 1916 
 
 for the tip. In that way war prosperity ex- 
 pressed itself. My friend had to spend 
 many days in Moscow collecting boots in 
 small parcels. As the Government allows 
 no packing-cases with goods to be taken by 
 train from Moscow to Archangel (I im- 
 agine fine art is exempted from this regula- 
 tion), Alexander Alexandrovitch Beekof 
 had to buy some twenty portmanteaus to 
 take.his purchases of boots back to his native 
 city. 
 
 Pereplotchikof the painter is not very 
 well. Heart weakness deprived him of the 
 use of his legs this summer. He was con- 
 fined to his bed and felt very wretched. I 
 spent many mornings and evenings sitting 
 and talking to him. The doctors say that 
 vegetarianism has been too much for his con- 
 stitution. One evening I brought him a 
 quantity of rich honey I had come across in 
 a little shop in Moscow. He was delighted
 
 Old Friends 145 
 
 as a child, and honey he said was ideal food 
 for him. In exchange for this gift he gave 
 me an old cross which he had once picked 
 up'On a market stall. 
 
 Alexey Sergeitch came with me to visit 
 Pereplotchikof one evening and was much 
 touched to see the change in him. But we 
 had a very lively talk of old days on the 
 Dwina. Alexey Sergeitch is now a teacher 
 of history in several secondary schools in 
 Moscow. He has just published his first 
 book, the fruit of some historical research, 
 and he looks forward to writing other books 
 of like character, so making a career in his- 
 tory. He has the directly opposite view to 
 mine regarding Russia and we had many 
 long and inconclusive debates on Church 
 and State. His sister, Varvara Sergevna, is 
 nurse in an immense military hospital on 
 the Volhonka. I spent an evening up till 
 midnight with her, helping to cut rolls of
 
 146 Russia in 1916 
 
 linen for bandages with atrociously blunt 
 scissors. Russia has few machines for this 
 work. Every night thousands of Russian 
 girls are arduously cutting linen as we did 
 with Varvara. 
 
 Nicholas, my first Russian friend, whom 
 I met in London ten years ago and tried to 
 learn Russian from^ the boy who invited 
 me to spend my first Christmas in Russia at 
 his father the deacon's in Lisitchansk, is 
 now settled down and married, and has a 
 family at Kishtim in the Urals, where his 
 knowledge of English has found him a place 
 in the office of an Anglo-Russian mining 
 company. 
 
 Nicholas and I lived with another poor 
 student, three in a room, in Moscow — that 
 was after the Christmas in the country. 
 Our most intimate friend was a certain 
 Sasha, a gaunt but happy student of phil- 
 ology. He used to bring stories and read
 
 Old Friends 147 
 
 them aloud to our weekly student parties on 
 Saturday evening. From him I heard first 
 some of the stories of Kuprin and also Che- 
 khof's Dushetchka or ''Little Soul," which 
 Mrs. Garnett has lately translated under the 
 title of 'The Darling" ^ — a famous story. 
 Sasha has grown cold to Nicholas now, and 
 I had lost sight of him, but the many refer- 
 ences to my work in the Russian Press 
 brought to his mind the idea that the Eng- 
 lishman he once knew was the same as the 
 one now so well known. So he wrote to 
 me, and I tried to see him this summer — 
 married now and in good circumstances, 
 working in the Russian Foreign Of- 
 fice. 
 
 Julia, of whom I wrote in "The Way of 
 Martha and the Way of Mary," as a type 
 of a Martha, has had a year of pain, caught 
 erysipelas from a servant, and this devel- 
 
 1 "The Darling" by Anton Chekhof tr. by Constance Garnett.
 
 148 Russia in 1916 
 
 oped into a sort of blood-poisoning. Sores 
 appeared all over her body, and then one big 
 sore threatening her with death; she has 
 been, as it were, vivisected through the open 
 wound all the summer, and felt that she her- 
 self must have cut up live animals for sci- 
 ence's sake in some previous existence, and is 
 now living through the animals' experience 
 that her soul may really know what it means. 
 She has been in terror lest her sisters should 
 be infected from her and she has been afraid 
 lest she should die and they be left without 
 her motherly protection. Poor Julia ! But I 
 left her on a fair way to recovery. Little 
 Lena is very well. The old lady, the 
 Queen of Spades, is more frail and is suffer- 
 ing from the effects of a bad fall. 
 
 Varvara Ilyinitchna is much older, has 
 lost a son, has had heart attacks, and is 
 bound to take things more easily. Alex- 
 ander Fedotch looks extremely well. The
 
 Old Friends 149 
 
 daughter is matron of a small hospital, and 
 has a wonderful time with her men. 
 
 Amelia Vasschevina, the old grand- 
 mother, has sold the white house, has paid 
 her debts and has a large margin over. I 
 fear, however, high prices will whittle her 
 little fortune of ready money away. Her 
 daughter Masha, the despair of all doctors, 
 suffering from an incurable internal com- 
 plaint which has been diagnosed as cancer, 
 appendicitis, neuritis, inflammation of the 
 solar plexus and what not, and for which 
 she has had all manner of treatment and 
 swallowed all sorts of medicine, has recom- 
 menced her work as a dentist. And though 
 suffering agonies of pain she has the nerve 
 to doctor teeth and smile at the lugubrious 
 and fearful faces of her patients. Poor 
 Masha, she has been cut open and examined 
 and sewn up again, mesmerised, prayed into, 
 and this last spring a miracle worker was
 
 150 Russia in 1916 
 
 brought to consider her. He always carried 
 about with him an Indian sword. 
 
 He said : "Don't tell me what you think 
 is the matter with her or what the symptoms 
 are. That would only make it more dif- 
 ficult for me." He came into her room 
 took out a bit of glass from a waistcoat 
 pocket, and looked at her face through it. 
 
 "You will live," said he, and he dropped 
 his glass and went away. "But I charge you 
 nothing," he added, and he brandished his 
 sword as he went out at the door. 
 
 Loosha, of whom I have sometimes writ- 
 ten, feels more happy than she has ever done 
 before. What the secret is I do not know. 
 But she has begun to write poetry. 
 
 Katia of Kief married the young lawyer. 
 He was taken for the war, but the family 
 used influence to bring him back to a safe job 
 in the rear. I do not know what happened 
 to discarded Boris.
 
 Old Friends 151 
 
 Mme. Odintsefa is still keen on her evan- 
 gelicals, and reads Spurgeon's sermons with 
 the same enthusiasm as in old days she read 
 Mrs. Besant.
 
 XIV 
 
 RUSSIA'S NEW WAR PICTURE 
 
 Russia has now a popular war-picture done 
 by one of the most famous of her artists, 
 Nesterof. It appeared during the past win- 
 ter, and prints of it are now exposed in every 
 city, postcard reproductions on every book- 
 stall in Russia. It shows a wounded Rus- 
 sian officer standing beside a Russian sister 
 of mercy. He is in khaki, and is decorated 
 with the Order of St. George; she in white 
 hospital dress. Both faces are marvellously 
 expressive of suffering — the woman seems 
 drowned in past suffering, and yet aware of 
 the immensity of suffering that yet must 
 come. The man has the vision in his eyes 
 that makes it all worth while. 
 
 152
 
 Russia's New War Picture 153 
 
 Her face is one of faith, his of vision. 
 Together they express the ideal relationship 
 of a man and a woman, he fighting the 
 great fight, living life as it ought to be lived, 
 she supporting him with her faith and her 
 love. 
 
 Nesterof when he was yet a boy began to 
 paint frescoes in churches, and has painted 
 in his time many a wonderful Madonna and 
 Child. In this picture where he has de- 
 scended to paint just a woman and a man 
 in the midst of daily life you may see a sort 
 of suggestion of the Mother and Child, a re- 
 flection of some other composition, of some 
 Russian Madonna and leaping Babe. Here 
 also the man is really a child, though his 
 eyes have the knowledge of the ideal and 
 the quest, and the woman's face has purity 
 and love and foreknowledge of the suffer- 
 ing that must come. 
 
 The background of the picture is Russia,
 
 154 Russia in 1916 
 
 the green forest of pines and firs, the melan- 
 choly placid lake, the wan white church 
 with its swelling coloured dome. Russia 
 is in the background. Russia bore them, 
 and their hearts yearn towards her. 
 
 So it can be a popular Russian war pic- 
 ture and be hung on many walls and looked 
 into and loved in this strange year of grace 
 1916. 
 
 The words printed below are the famous 
 lines of the poet Khomiakoff : 
 
 The podvig is in battle: 
 
 The podvig is in struggle: 
 
 The highest podvig is in patience, 
 
 Love and prayer. 
 
 I leave the word podvig because, as I 
 wrote in my chapter explaining the word in 
 "Martha and Mary," it is difficult to render 
 it by any one word in English. But it is 
 one of the most important words in the Rus- 
 sian language. Here possibly the nearest
 
 Russia s New War Picture 155 
 
 word is "trial." It means a noble deed, an 
 act of faith, a noble battle against fearful 
 odds, a great sacrifice or act of renunciation, 
 a shaming of the devil, a bold religious af- 
 firmation. Volumes might be written on it. 
 The acts of the anchorites and hermits are 
 podvigs. St. George killing the dragon per- 
 formed a podvig. The seven champions of 
 Christendom would in Russia be the seven 
 podvizhniks and their heroic exploits pod- 
 vigs, but there we have not a word. For 
 performing podvigs Russian soldiers are 
 decorated. But, as Nesterof tells us in his 
 picture, there are the greatest for which 
 there is no decoration. 
 
 The greatest podvig is in patience, 
 Love and prayer. 
 
 The sound of these Russian words is so beau- 
 tiful in the original tongue that inevitably 
 after you have read them you go on mur-
 
 1^6 Russia in 1916 
 
 muring them till they are yours — a posses- 
 sion of the heart: 
 
 Podvig yest ee f srazhenie: 
 Podvig yest ee f borbay : 
 Veeshy podvig f terpenie, 
 Liubvy i molbay. 
 
 This is not absolutely correct translitera- 
 tion, but I have written in the hope that it 
 may be easier to say. 
 
 This picture is true for Russia and will be 
 valuable long after peace has come as a his- 
 torical witness of the spirit of the time. In 
 the war, despite all its ugliness and acciden- 
 toriness, human nature is revealed as more 
 beautiful, more daring, also more tender. 
 The Russians have this picture, and we also 
 have the reality. There is a strong spiritual 
 life manifest among us. It is manifest in the 
 faces of the soldiers and in the life of their 
 anxious and loving women they leave be- 
 hind. Will not some one paint it for us?
 
 XV 
 
 IN THE HOSPITAL 
 
 I VISITED several hospitals in Moscow, 
 Rostov, and Petrograd. Those in the north 
 had not many wounded, those in the south 
 had the men who had been hurt in Brusilof s 
 advance. Russia looks her best in hospital 
 where the men are suffering not only for 
 Russia but for us, where the appearance of 
 the men has the idealisation of hospital dress, 
 and the transfiguration of care. There is 
 no more sweet possession for a woman than 
 a hospital where tenderness and love may be 
 lavished and patience given without end. 
 
 Russia has had generally more wounded 
 than any other nation, and the arrangements 
 for the receipt of the wounded have been 
 
 157
 
 1^8 Russia in 1916 
 
 wonderful all the time. Despite a national 
 incapacity for organisation, the wounded 
 have not died for want of care and fore- 
 thought. In that speaks the Russian com- 
 passion and love for suffering humanity. 
 The nursing of the wounded is an endless 
 tale of personal devotion. 
 
 Several of my Russian women friends are 
 in hospitals, and I visited them and talked to 
 the soldiers, heard all the tales of their prow- 
 ess. Surprising what a number of boys 
 there are among the wounded, young fel- 
 lows of thirteen or fourteen who have man- 
 aged somehow to get into the Army. It was 
 difficult to know how to address them — as 
 boys or as men. 
 
 I visited the Anglo-Russian Hospital at 
 Petrograd one evening, and saw how our 
 English sisters have become friends with the 
 simple Russian lads, sit at their bedside with 
 dictionary and notebook, and carry on de-
 
 In the Hospital 159 
 
 lightful and pathetic conversations. The 
 Russian authorities will not allow a 
 wounded man to leave until he is well 
 enough to return to his unit. The conse- 
 quence is that the wounded man remains 
 longer in a hospital in Russia than he would 
 in a similar hospital in England. And the 
 longer they stay the better are they known 
 to those who tend them. The English in the 
 hospital on the Nevsky at Petrograd obtain 
 a farr notion of the character and tempera- 
 ment of the Russian soldier. My impres- 
 sion was that they admired and loved him 
 greatly. He was all that had been written 
 of him and said of him, and something 
 more — religious, simple, brave, patient, 
 cheerful, and sociable. Jolly boys these 
 Russian wounded, not dour like Cromwell's 
 soldiers although they are as religious as 
 his, not Puritans, not intolerant. No one 
 asks suspiciously of the sister nursing him,
 
 i6o Russia in 1916 
 
 "Are you not perhaps a Protestant?" And 
 then feels suddenly, "I am saved and she is 
 damned," but a general feeling that God's 
 mercy is needed more for the poor suffer- 
 ing soldier than for the bright angel who is 
 nursing him. 
 
 When our women were on the point of 
 going out to Russia to work in this Anglo- 
 Russian Hospital I confess I felt a doubt 
 as to whether they would not find fault when 
 they got to Russia and dislike the Russian 
 Tommy because he was unlike his British 
 brother. But I was wrong. The Russian 
 peasant is convincing when you see him day 
 after day, and it is your lot to tend him 
 whilst he is suffering. Singing their na- 
 tional songs and their national Church 
 music in those good choruses which without 
 selection any hospital affords, you hear the 
 voice of Russia with your ears be they keen 
 or dull, and dressing wounds and watching
 
 In the Hospital i6i 
 
 you see character. Undoubtedly ai the 
 same party of British nurses and doctors 
 were thrown simply into the midst of ordi- 
 nary educated men and women in Petrograd 
 or Moscow instead of being given to the 
 wounded they might easily come away with 
 a less true impression. 
 
 But here amongst the men suffering for 
 you and me and all of us is Holy Russia, 
 which was and which is. 
 
 A considerable amount of spiteful non- 
 sense is written against the notion of Russia 
 conveyed by the term Holy Russia, and I 
 among others am blamed for idealising Rus- 
 sia, or as Mr. Zangwill puts it, of Ruskinis- 
 ing her. And another Hebrew writing un- 
 der an assumed name finds fault with me 
 because I said at the National Liberal 
 Club, "Love Russia, and do not distrust her 
 as you have done in the past." Another 
 Russian Jew, who has been embittered by
 
 1 62 Russia in 1916 
 
 political treatment writing also under a 
 pseudonym, pursues a violently misrepresen- 
 tative campaign in Russia against the con- 
 ception of Russia as a country that can be 
 spiritually helpful to us. 
 
 How bitter these other friends of Russia 
 are! They are those who have suffered 
 through political disabilities; they are those, 
 who not being Christian cannot be expected 
 to be touched as we are; they are those who 
 would prefer to see in Russia a free but non- 
 Christian democracy as in France; for that 
 end they are political revolutionaries. 
 
 Holy Russia is a living fact. And if it 
 had ceased to be, study of Russia would be 
 merely history and archaeology. Nietszche 
 said to German women, "Hope that your 
 child may be the superman — the antichrist 
 — hope that he may be a Napoleon." The 
 covenant to Russian women and to our 
 women is "Hope that your child may be
 
 In the Hospital 163 
 
 the Christ-child." It is the Christian thing 
 which Russia has to give, and may God 
 help the Christian background of Russia to 
 shine clear to Europe. If Russia were 
 merely Sturmer, Protopopof, Gorky, Rubin- 
 stein (the finance manipulator), Reinbot 
 (who organised the police graft of Mos- 
 cow), Rasputin (the debauched Siberian), 
 Sukhomlinof (who is at rest in the fortress 
 of Peter and Paul), Masoyedof (who was 
 hanged for betraying Russia), Azef, Mil- 
 yukof, Kerensky, Count Benckendorf, etc., 
 etc., how little interest she would have for 
 us! 
 
 If the crassly selfish, materialistic, mid- 
 dle-class of the Russian towns were Russia, 
 who would stir one little finger to be 
 friendly with her, except simply our com- 
 mercial people who see that money can be 
 made in Russia? 
 
 No one has shown more unsparingly the
 
 164 Russia in 1916 
 
 dark side of the Russian life than I have in 
 my books. In describing the pilgrimage 
 to Jerusalem I described the exploitation 
 that I saw. I have perhaps even gone too 
 far in describing the uglinesses of modern 
 Russia (in "Changing Russia"). But I do 
 believe in Holy Russia, and as far as Russia 
 is concerned do not care for anything else. 
 1 hate to see her being commercialised and 
 exploited, and to see her vulgar rich in- 
 creasing at the expense of the life-blood of 
 the nation. Without any question the new 
 class of middle-rich coming into being 
 through Russia's industrial prosperity is the 
 worst of its kind in Europe. They are 
 worse than anything in Germany, and it is 
 they who are beginning to have the power in 
 Russia. It is the green and inexperienced 
 who think that power wrested from the 
 Tsar and his Court is grasped by the ideal- 
 ists of Russia. It is grasped by the cap-
 
 In the Hospital 165 
 
 italists and often by the foreign capitalists. 
 
 Poor Russia, she has not many faults, she 
 has only many misfortunes. I am asked to 
 discount Holy Russia and set off various 
 things against it. The Russians steal — well, 
 they did not steal in the villages till the 
 railway came, bringing the thieves. And 
 where there are no railways now there are 
 no thieves. They lie — that is a matter for 
 psychological inquiry. They do not lie as 
 we lie. They are cruel. So are we all, 
 but the Russians are tender also. Tender- 
 ness is their characteristic. What else is 
 there to say against the Russian peasant? 
 He does not work enough. 
 
 Well, grant everything, admit all that can 
 be said against him, and subtract all from 
 Holy Russia. I am not afraid to do it. I 
 have had to do it long ago for myself. And 
 there still remains Holy Russia, the beauti- 
 ful, spiritual individuality of the nation.
 
 XVI 
 
 THE PROSPECTS FOR PEACE 
 
 The year 19 16 closes in peace discussion. 
 There has always seemed to me to be a like- 
 lihood that the war, the khaki and the guns, 
 the gallant men and the sacred graves alike 
 would be snowed over with papers and 
 eventually almost lost sight of. Some elo- 
 quent German pastor cried out in a war ser- 
 mon — 
 
 "White snow, white snow, fall, fall for 
 seven weeks ; all may'st thou cover, far and 
 wide, but never England's shame; white 
 snow, white snow, never the sins of Eng- 
 land." 
 
 Our attitude would be rather : Never the 
 sins of Germany. But even they must be 
 
 166
 
 The Prospects for Peace 167 
 
 covered at last. And the snow which the 
 pastor asked for has begun to fall, blown by 
 a somewhat gusty westerly wind. 
 
 It is America that is sending it across and 
 I imagine that Americans would be spe- 
 cially interested what Russians think of the 
 prospects for peace. 
 
 The problem of peace as it afifects Russia 
 differs somewhat from the problem as it 
 affects France and Britain. It is well to 
 keep in view the central facts. 
 
 Germany made war on Russia and showed 
 herself ready to sacrifice Russia on the altar 
 of her own greatness. The Kaiser so far 
 from being on friendly terms with the Tsar, 
 set out to despoil the Tsar of tracts of ter- 
 ritory. Russia being an autocracy much 
 more depended on the Tsar and his min- 
 isters than on the Duma or the voice of the 
 people manifested in the press. He an- 
 swered War with War. As far as can be
 
 1 68 Russia in 1916 
 
 ascertained no attempt was made by so- 
 called "Germans at court" to stave off war or 
 make a pact with Germany and sacrifice 
 France. Several large German landown- 
 ers sold their estates and returned to the 
 Fatherland before the war broke out, for 
 they knew the cash was coming. Germany 
 did not wish to come to an understanding 
 with Russia before July, 1914. Germany 
 thought it more profitable to sacrifice the 
 Russians than to share with them power in 
 Europe. 
 
 The German people confident in the pos- 
 session of an enormous armament and of a 
 genius for organisation which put them 
 first and the rest nowhere, despised Russia. 
 Russia's friendship was not worth striving to 
 obtain. There were admirable foundations 
 for building a German-Russian friendship 
 of a most lucrative kind, deep German roots 
 in finance, commerce, government and ad-
 
 The Prospects for Peace 169 
 
 ministration and blood ties and inter-mar- 
 riages amongst important German and Rus- 
 sian families, but it was thought to be more 
 profitable to fight than to be friends. 
 
 Doubtless a German victory would have 
 increased the profits of many pseudo-Rus- 
 sian merchant houses. But from the Im- 
 perial point of view it should be borne in 
 mind that there is probably not the slight- 
 est doubt or vagueness in the Tsar's mind, 
 and there has not been since the outbreak of 
 war. The Kaiser has not only injured but 
 has insulted Russia. There is a quarrel 
 which can only be happily settled by the 
 Germans being beaten utterly in the field. 
 
 The Russian people ratified the decision 
 of the Tsar. There was a very great una- 
 nimity, doubtless revolutionary Russia was 
 glad to be fighting for the same cause as 
 republican France and free England. The 
 war has been called all manner of things
 
 170 Russia in 1916 
 
 pleasing from a liberal point of view, a war 
 to protect small nations, a war against mili- 
 tarism, a war of progress against reaction. 
 But fundamentally it is a quarrel. The 
 press can say what it likes and theorists may 
 theorise in terms interesting or not interest- 
 ing to those at the head of affairs. But 
 they for their part know one thing clearly, 
 that it is a quarrel — it does not matter how 
 people justify it to their consciences as long 
 as they co-operate heartily in the great task 
 of defeating the enemy. 
 
 The war, however, goes on a long time 
 and there have been many blunders and 
 scandals. The political extremists care for 
 one thing more than for defeating Germany 
 and that is for their political game at home 
 whatever it may be. It has occurred to 
 them — cannot the war be made the means of 
 overthrowing the autocracy as such, by mak- 
 ing ministers responsible to the Duma in-
 
 The Prospects for Peace 171 
 
 stead of to the Emperor as heretofore. And 
 since the Russian retreat of 191 5 a large po- 
 litical game with important possibilities has 
 developed. Political war of a kind has 
 raged unceasingly and rages now. 
 
 This has played a little into German 
 hands and had it not been for the complete, 
 steadfast and unwavering hostility of the 
 Tsar towards Germany, Russia would have 
 succumbed to the seductions of internal 
 strife. Germany as it is, hopes steadily for 
 revolution in Russia — for a nation divided 
 against itself cannot stand. 
 
 All through 1916 a rumour, however, has 
 been persistently spread by word of mouth 
 that the Tsar was likely to sign a separate 
 peace. Every scandal that could damage 
 the name of the Tsar has been repeated and 
 magnified — the object being to obtain a 
 transference of French and British sympa- 
 thies from the Tsar and his ministers to the
 
 172 Russia in 1916 
 
 Duma and the progressive parties in the 
 nation. Such a transference of sympathy 
 would naturally endanger the stability of 
 Russia and play into the German hands — 
 quite apart from the question of the future of 
 Russian internal government and control 
 
 I cannot record here the gossip about 
 Rasputin, Sturmer, the Empress, the falls of 
 ministers. An immense amount of random 
 rubbish is talked in Russia. Talking po- 
 litical scandal is one way of passing the 
 time. The influence of Rasputin (a Siber- 
 ian peasant and not a monk, not a priest, 
 though he called himself Father and gave 
 blessings) was greatly exaggerated. Some 
 ladies took him up, as miracle-workers and 
 magicians are taken up when they can be 
 found. But he never had any influence with 
 the Tsar. He seems to have been a curious 
 character but he is now dead and the gossip 
 about him will cease. I do not believe he
 
 The Prospects for Peace 173 
 
 was working for Germany — as he had very 
 little notion of what Germany was and could 
 not even pronounce three consecutive words 
 of his own language correctly. He was an 
 obscure being and degraded even so. He 
 prophesied that the Tsarevitch would lose 
 his health if he, Rasputin, should cease to 
 support him. I should say the boy's health 
 would improve, now that the black arts have 
 been removed. 
 
 Sturmer, the ex-Premier, was the most 
 unpopular prime-minister Russia has had. 
 He, happily, has gone. And in Russia they 
 never come back. 
 
 The fall of Sazonof was a shock. The 
 motive for his retirement is said to be the 
 Japanese agreement which he arranged. It 
 was also said to be due to disagreement over 
 Poland. The British diplomatic body has 
 undoubtedly leaned on Sazonof and would 
 like to bring him back. Our diplomacy in
 
 174 Russia in 1916 
 
 Russia during 191 6 has, however, been in no 
 way inspired. Its object seems to have been 
 to play a political game, as at Salonika so 
 at Petrograd, and to back the Duma at any 
 cost. Buchanan has turned out to be an ex- 
 traordinary speech maker; a contrast to the 
 silent Russian Ambassador in London. 
 
 A cloud has been over the East obscuring 
 it from our eyes. Happily however at the 
 end of the year the cloud has lifted. Stur- 
 mer has gone. Rasputin is dead and Russia 
 has announced clearly by the voice of 
 her new minister and emphatically through 
 the lips of the Tsar what she is fighting 
 for. 
 
 The Tsar's message to his army before 
 Christmas has more significance in it than 
 many parliamentary debates, speeches of 
 ministers or theories of theorists, and I leave 
 it fittingly as the close of this attempt at a 
 political elucidation.
 
 The Prospects for Peace ij^ 
 
 It is now more than two years since Ger- 
 many in the midst of peace and after secretly 
 preparing over a long period to enslave ail 
 the nations of Europe, suddenly attacked 
 Russia and her faithful Ally France. This 
 attack compelled England to join us and 
 take part in our battle. 
 
 The complete disdain which Germany 
 showed for principles of international law as 
 demonstrated by the violation of the neu- 
 trality of Belgium and her pitiless cruelty 
 towards the peaceful inhabitants in the occu- 
 pied provinces, little by little united the 
 Great Powers of Europe against Germany 
 and her ally Austria. 
 
 Under the pressure of the German troops, 
 which were well provided with the tech- 
 nical aids to warfare, Russia and France 
 were compelled in the first year of the war to 
 give up a portion of their territory, but this 
 temporary reverse did not break the spirit of 
 our faithful Allies, nor of you my gallant 
 troops. In time, by the concentrated efforts 
 of the Government, the disparity of our own
 
 176 Russia in 1916 
 
 and the German technical resources was 
 gradually reduced. But long before this 
 time, even from the autumn of 1915, our 
 enemy was experiencing difficulty in retain- 
 ing the territory he had occupied, and in the 
 spring and summer of the current year suf- 
 fered a number of severe defeats and as- 
 sumed the defensive along the whole front. 
 His strength apparently is waning, but the 
 strength of Russia and her gallant Allies 
 continues to grow without failing. 
 
 Germany is feeling that the hour of her 
 complete defeat is near, and near also the 
 hour of retribution for all her wrong-doings 
 and for the violation of moral laws. Simi- 
 larly, as in the time when her war strength 
 was superior to the strength of her neigh- 
 bours, Germany suddenly declared war 
 upon them, so now, feeling her weakness, she 
 suddenly offers to enter into peace negotia- 
 tions and to complete them before her mili- 
 tary talent is exhausted. At the same time 
 she is creating a false impression about the 
 strength of her Army by making use of her
 
 The Prospects for Peace 177 
 
 temporary success over the Rumanians, who 
 had not succeeded in gaining experience in 
 the conduct of modern warfare. 
 
 But if, originally, Germany was in the po- 
 sition to declare war and fall upon Russia 
 and her Ally France, in her most favour- 
 able time, having strengthened in wartime 
 the Alliance, among which is to be found all 
 powerful England and noble Italy, this 
 Alliance in its turn has also the possibil- 
 ity of entering into peace negotiations at 
 such a time as it considers favourable for 
 itself. 
 
 The time has not yet arrived. The 
 enemy has not yet been driven out of the 
 provinces occupied by her. The attain- 
 ment by Russia of the tasks created by the 
 war — the regaining of Constantinople and 
 the Dardanelles, as well as the creation of a 
 free Poland from all three of her now in- 
 complete tribal districts — has not yet been 
 guaranteed. 
 
 To conclude peace at this moment would 
 mean the failure to utilise the fruits of the
 
 178 Russia in 1916 
 
 untold trials of you, heroic Russian troops 
 and Fleet. These trials, and still more the 
 sacred memory of those noble sons of Russia 
 who have fallen on the field of battle, do not 
 permit the thought of peace until the final 
 victory over our enemies. 
 
 Who dares to think that he who brought 
 about the beginning of the war shall have it 
 in his power to conclude the war at any time 
 he likes? 
 
 I do not doubt that every faithful son of 
 Holy Russia under arms who entered into 
 the firing line, as well as those working in 
 the interior for the increase of her war 
 strength or the creation of her industry, will 
 be convinced that peace can only be given 
 to the enemy after he has been driven from 
 our borders; and then only wiien, finally 
 broken, he shall give to us and our faithful 
 Allies reliable proof of the impossibility of 
 a repetition of the treacherous attack and 
 a firm assurance that he will keep to these 
 promises. By the strength of these guaran- 
 tees he will be bound to the fulfilment in
 
 The Prospects for Peace 179 
 
 times of peace of those things which he un- 
 dertakes. 
 
 Let us be firm in the certainty of our vic- 
 tory and the Almighty will bless our stand- 
 ards and will cover them afresh with glory, 
 and will give to us a peace worthy of your 
 heroic deeds, my glorious troops — a peace 
 for which future generations will bless your 
 memory. 
 
 Nicholas. 
 
 Postscript: 191 5, 191 6 and then annus 
 mirabilis we are told. Wonderful things 
 will happen in 1917. That means we hope 
 and expect peace in 1917. Germany does 
 also. The only peace possible, however, 
 seems to be that of complete victory over 
 the enemy. As a personal opinion I think 
 it unlikely that complete victory will be ob- 
 tained in 1917. It is also unlikely that a 
 compromise peace will be effected. The 
 bill against Germany is too heavy for the 
 German nation to accept. 
 
 If instead of making a vague general ofTer
 
 i8o Russia in 1916 
 
 of peace in December, 1916, Germany had 
 offered the status quo we might possibly with 
 great humiliation and vexation have all ac- 
 cepted the proposal. I think we should not, 
 but we conceivably might. But Germany 
 and her allies would have liked to keep some 
 of the fruits of their victories and they 
 could not then ofifer status quo. In all prob- 
 ability they will offer it later but then it will 
 be too late as it is too late now in January, 
 1917. The bill against the Germans grows 
 more heavy every day and every week the 
 war is prolonged. Our chance of victory 
 over them at the same time seems to increase 
 as steadily. Next summer when the Ger- 
 mans have been routed in France and Bel- 
 gium and Poland — shall we be more likely 
 to consider a peace that would be acceptable 
 to the Germans? I am sure not. Will 
 Russia be more ready? Certainly not. 
 Rather the demands on Germany will have 
 increased. 
 
 I do not write this urging more war or 
 craving for peace, but rather as a commen-
 
 The Prospects for Peace i8i 
 
 tator. I am sorry for the Germans in a way. 
 But I realise that in July-August, 1914, they 
 chose a line of action from which followed a 
 certain set of consequences if they failed. 
 
 We on the Entente side have not improved 
 our cause. We have tried to fight the Ger- 
 mans in their way. We have seemed to be- 
 have abominably in Greece — have become 
 entangled in an irrelevant political quarrel 
 there. But then we have simply been doing 
 the best we can, according to our ability. 
 Not many idealists would rush to offer their 
 life for our cause now and great numbers 
 have lost interest in it. But the unsolvable 
 quarrel remains. How long the war will 
 last seems to depend chiefly on the length of 
 time the German armies can hold out against 
 the ever-increasing machinery of death and 
 destruction which faces them.
 
 XVII 
 
 HOME 
 
 Because of the regulations regarding tak- 
 ing printed matter in one's luggage I was 
 obliged to post to London some thirty pack- 
 ets of books. Possibly by appealing to our 
 Embassy at Petrograd I might have obtained 
 what is called a Foreign Office bag and have 
 been immune from censor revision. A con- 
 siderable number of British subjects are ac- 
 commodated in this way. But it seems to 
 me to be an incorrect thing to do. 
 
 I had bought some dozens of pictures 
 and ikons. I had precious manuscript 
 which I should not dream of trusting to the 
 post, and if it had been proposed to confis- 
 cate that manuscript at Archangel as I 
 
 182
 
 Home 183 
 
 stepped aboard I should have remained in 
 Russia to save it. But I got through with- 
 out trouble. 
 
 Our people at Archangel w^ere extremely 
 kind to me, and put me on a returning am- 
 munition ship, and I went all the way to 
 Britain in comfort and without change. 
 
 The boat was a turret ship, one of those 
 with hollowed-in sides, constructed to evade 
 the true charges of the Suez Canal, where 
 the toll is according to the breadth of the 
 vessel. It had been ten times a year through 
 the Suez Canal for twenty years, and now 
 for the first time in its history was in north- 
 ern latitudes. The crew were shivering 
 Lascars, tripping about in one garment and 
 looking more like girls than men. Each 
 and every one had received from the Gov- 
 ernment two warm suits of underclothing, 
 woolly trousers, coats, and wraps, but these 
 things were locked away in their boxes, and
 
 184 Russia in 1916 
 
 you could not persuade them to wear one. 
 For the Lascar is a real Jew in temperatment 
 and has a passion foi selling clothes and 
 chaffering over them. 
 
 We steamed out gently through the traf- 
 fic and along the narrow channels of the 
 many-mouthed river, and after some hours 
 got clear into the White Sea.^ 
 
 When we passed a buoy the captain, who 
 was rather a character, would retire to his 
 sitting-room, take up his concertina, and 
 play "Land of Hope and Glory," the "Dead 
 March" in Saul, "Ip-I-addy," and other 
 favourites. 
 
 We sailed under sealed orders and did not 
 sight another vessel except British war-ships 
 and patrol boats till we were nearing Ler- 
 wick. 
 
 In the Arctic there was calm, and we re- 
 
 1 Seven lines concerning mines and buoys excluded by 
 Censor.
 
 Home 185 
 
 captured the light which was fleeting with 
 the approach to the equinox. The even- 
 ings grew appreciably longer. It was cold, 
 and the barometer was going down "for ice." 
 
 The captain and officers felt the cold 
 badly, stamped to keep warm, and came in 
 to meals with red faces and bright eyes. "If 
 there is a Gulf Stream it ought to be warmer 
 than it is," said the captain. "Do you be- 
 lieve in its existence?" 
 
 I could not give an opinion. 
 
 "According to the hand-book, there is," 
 said the skipper. "It flows north-east, but a 
 little note says 4t has been known to flow 
 south-west' Two and two make four, but 
 they have been known to make five. All I 
 can say is that if there is a Gulf Stream we 
 are going against it at this moment and beat- 
 ing our engines. Our maximum is 11^ 
 knots, and we are doing 12."
 
 1 86 Russia in 1916 
 
 It was touching to hear English coming 
 over the water when we were hailed by 
 British patrols. 
 
 "What is the name of the ship?" 
 
 "Glamis." 
 
 "What is your cargo?" 
 
 "Wood — and — flax. Wood — and — flax." 
 
 "Ah well, I can't attend to you now, you'd 
 bettah drop your ankah." 
 
 At one point, to the great disgust of the 
 skipper, we were stopped by a cruiser and 
 some twenty mail-bags were sent to us. And 
 we lost our steam. "They signalled us six 
 miles away. Why couldn't they have said 
 they wanted us to slow up for mails, instead 
 of allowing us to come up at full speed, 
 and then giving us 'Stop immediately' and 
 making us reverse the engines and go full 
 astern." 
 
 We were a lot of cheerful British grum- 
 blers. I was the only passenger on board,
 
 Home 187 
 
 and so got to know them all pretty well. 
 Every man was a character in his way, and 
 their remarks filled me constantly with 
 mirth. 
 
 Our last three days were stormy in the ex- 
 treme — regular equinoctial weather. The 
 captain did not sleep, for the waters were, 
 in his opinion, "too submariny." I put out 
 my lifebelt and wrapped up my manuscripts 
 in a waterproof packet. 
 
 "What will happen should we strike a 
 mine or be torpedoed?" I asked of the cap- 
 tain. 
 
 "Unless the engines were blown up we 
 should proceed as best we could on the in- 
 jured ship," said he. He showed me what 
 were the vital sections of the vessel. 
 
 "In any case we should not take to the 
 boats except in the worst extremity," said 
 he. "For the Lascars have no will to live 
 and they would not row us far. We should
 
 1 88 Russia in 1916 
 
 throw three dead overboard every morning, 
 they so quickly lose hope." 
 
 At Lerwick we learned the name of the 
 port for which we had to make. 'Twas 
 Aberdeen, and as the captain shouted this 
 to us from the boat in which he was return- 
 ing from the man-of-war, all the officers 
 rushed to look at their shipping almanacks 
 to see what the tides were. We made out 
 that we could just get in in time. And 
 the vessel that night did the best she ever 
 did. 
 
 Still we missed the tide and had to wait 
 all day outside Aberdeen, and that was very 
 tantalising. I had made up my mind to 
 stay the night at a hotel, and then suddenly 
 the Daylight Saving Bill made me an un- 
 looked-for present of an hour, and it was 
 possible to catch the 8.30 night train for 
 London. 
 
 An extremely cautious Customs Officer
 
 Home 189 
 
 looked at my things, but said naught, and 
 he insisted on my unpacking the samovar 
 which I was bringing home. When he saw 
 it, he remarked: 
 
 ''It'll be something for taking pictures?" 
 
 He said this because I had put in the 
 chimney a number of pictures and maps to 
 keep them from crumpling. 
 
 The doctor when he came thought we 
 might be detained in quarantine for a week. 
 The captain had a sore throat. He must 
 go to a hospital and have a culture of it 
 taken. 
 
 "A lot of bally rot, I call it," the captain 
 kept repeating, and tears were almost trick- 
 ling from his eyes. 
 
 The doctor, however, let me go, and I sent 
 a small boy to fetch a taxi. The taxi ap- 
 peared at about 8.25 P. M., and I just got 
 to the station in time. There was half a 
 minute.
 
 190 Russia in 1916 
 
 "Take it easy, you've plenty of time," said 
 a porter to me, characteristically. 
 
 All my possessions were labelled, and the 
 doors of the guard's pan opened in the mov- 
 ing train and accepted the extra bags. I 
 sped along through a throng of v^^omen wav- 
 ing good-bye to soldiers, and got into a car- 
 riage as by miracle. 
 
 There for a moment I paused and consid- 
 ered. 
 
 What a contrast to Russian ways, the pos- 
 sibility of getting of¥ by a train with such a 
 hairbreadth of margin. 
 
 The contrast was flattering to ourselves. 
 
 Soon, however, came another contrast, less 
 flattering. Two drunken men got in. I 
 was feeling particularly tender to everything 
 English, and could not possibly have felt 
 critical or wished to grumble. 
 
 But one of the drunken men wanted to 
 fight. He stood up and held on a minute to
 
 Home 191 
 
 the window-strap, looked at me vaguely, and 
 exclaimed: 
 
 "I pronounce my ultimatio." 
 
 ''What is it?" I asked cheerfully. 
 
 "Self-defence," he replied, and then re- 
 lapsed into his seat with a bump. 
 
 So I was home. And all night long the 
 train rushed on to London. 
 
 THE END 
 
 PRINTED IN THE UNITID STATES OF AMERICA
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 Through Russian Central Asia 
 
 Illmirattd, $2.2j 
 
 This book describes a journey by the author through 
 Russian Central Asia. Among the topics which the au- 
 thor touches upon are the Russian pioneers, Mohammed- 
 anism and its characteristic expression, the colored tribes, 
 Russian rule, the expansion of the Russian empire and 
 the question of danger to India. The volume tells of 
 much tramping, of wayside experiences, of sights in the 
 desert and nights under the Asian stars or in the tents of 
 the nomads. 
 
 "A delightful book. . . . Always and everywhere 
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 edge of Russia to the reader's heart and brain." — C/ti- 
 cago Herald. 
 
 " Full of information and as charming as it is informing. 
 It is rich in the lure of the open road ... in the romance 
 of old cities, in the wildness of the vast waste spaces. . . . 
 In the view it gives of a phase of Russian life entirely new 
 to American readers." — New York Times. 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 Publishers 64-66 Fiftdi Avenue New York
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 The Way of Martha and the Way of Mary 
 
 Illustrated, $2.00 
 
 Stephen Graham is a close student of Russia ; he has a consuming 
 interest in the Russian nature and deep sympathy with Russian char- 
 acter. For many years he has Hved among the people of whom he 
 writes. " The Way of Martha and the Way of Mary " is a study of 
 Russian national characteristics, particularly as typified by her religious 
 spirit, which is contrasted with the spirit of Western Christianity. 
 A national idea, national unity, has its origin in the national religion, 
 and this is especially true of Russia, because the intensity of Russian 
 character demands some absorbing ideal to which it may turn. 
 
 "All that is beautiful in Russia's life, art and culture," writes Mr. 
 Graham, " springs from the particular and characteristic Christian ideas 
 in the depths of her. She is essentially a great and wonderful unity. 
 It is of that essential unity that I write." 
 
 " The Way of Martha and the Way of Mary " is a valuable addition 
 to the list of important books Mr. Graham has written on Russia, 
 books that are treasuries of information and a source of inspiration to 
 those who love mankind. 
 
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 Publishers 64-46 Fifth Avenue New York
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
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 Illmtrated, cloth, 8vo, $2.00 
 
 For more than seven years Stephen Graham has been a close stu- 
 dent of things Russian. Compelled by an intense sympathy with the 
 country and its people, he forsook his native England and went to 
 Russia when he was twenty-three to study at first hand the life and 
 customs of that country. This was the beginning of an attachment 
 which grew stronger with the years and out of which have come several 
 of the most important contributions made to English literature bearing 
 on the Russia of modern times. 
 
 At the outbreak of the present European war Mr. Graham was in 
 Russia, and his book opens, therefore, with a description of the way the 
 news of war was received on the Chinese frontier, one thousand miles 
 from a railway station, where he happened to be when the Tsar's sum- 
 mons came. Following this come other chapters on Russia and the 
 War, considering such subjects as. Is It a Last War?, Why Russia Is 
 Fighting, The Economic Isolation of Russia, An Aeroplane Hunt at 
 Warsaw, Suffering Poland : A Belgium of the East and The Soldier and 
 the Cross. 
 
 But "Russia and the World" is not by any means wholly a war 
 book. It is a comprehensive survey of Russian problems. Inasmuch 
 as the War is at present one of her problems it receives its due consid- 
 eration. It has been, however, Mr. Graham's intention to supply the 
 very definite need that there is for enlightenment in English and 
 American circles as to the Russian nation, what its people think and 
 feel on great world matters. On almost every country there are more 
 books and more concrete information than on his chosen land. In fact, 
 " Russia and the World " may be regarded as one of the very first to 
 deal with it in any adequate fashion. 
 
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 Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
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 Cloth, illustrated, 8vo, $1.75 
 
 " The author's notes on people and places, jotted down in the open 
 air, while sitting on logs in the forests or on bridges over mountain 
 streams, form a simple narrative of a walking trip through Russia. 
 The sketches read like those of a rebel against modern conditions and 
 commercialism, who prefers to these the life of a wanderer in the wil- 
 derness." — Outdoor World. 
 
 "A book throbbing with life which cannot help but prove of interest 
 to many readers. The book is a treasury of information, and will be a 
 source of great inspiration to those who love mankind ; while the 
 author tells us much of the sorrow and degradation of the world he 
 also tells as much of his own high and noble thinking." — The Ex- 
 aminer. 
 
 " It is with life itself rather than the countries visited that this col- 
 lection of sketches is concerned. It is personal and friendly in tone, 
 and was written mostly in the open air while the author was tramping 
 along the Caucasian and Crimean shores of the Black Sea, and on a 
 pilgrimage with Russian peasants to Jerusalem." — Country Life in 
 America. . 
 
 *'Mr. Graham has seen many interesting parts of the world, and he 
 tells of his travels in a pleasing way." — Suburban Life. 
 
 "... there is much that the reader will heartily appreciate and 
 enjoy." — Boston Transcript. 
 
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 Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New Tork
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 7ith Poor Immigrants to America 
 
 Decorated doth, 8vo, illustrated, $2.00 
 
 " We collected on the quay at Liverpool — English, Russians, Jews, 
 Germans, Swedes, Finns. . . . Three hundred yards out in the harbor 
 stood the red funneled Cunarder which was to be-ar us to America. . . ." 
 The beginning of the voyage is thus described, a voyage during which 
 the reader sees life from a new angle. The trip across is, however, but 
 the forerunner of even more interesting days. Stephen Graham has 
 the spirit of the real adventurer and the story of his intimate association 
 with the immigrants is an intensely human and dramatic narrative, valu- 
 able both as literature and as a sympathetic interpretation of a move- 
 ment which too frequently is viewed only with unfriendly eyes. 
 
 "Mr. Graham has the spirit of the real adventurer. He prefers 
 people to the Pullmans, steerage passage to first cabin. In his min- 
 gling with the poorer classes he comes in contact intimately with a life 
 which most writers know only by hearsay, and interesting bits of this 
 life and that which is picturesque and romantic and unlooked for he 
 transcribes to paper with a freshness and vividness that mark him a 
 good mixer with men, a keen observer and a skillful adept with the 
 pen." — North American. 
 
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 BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 With the Russian Pilgrims to Jerusalem 
 
 Decorated chthy illustrated, 8vo, $^.75 
 
 The journey of the Russian peasants to Jerusalem has never been 
 described before in any language, not even in Russian. Yet it is the 
 most significant thing in the Russian life of to-day. In the story lies a 
 great national epic. 
 
 "Mr. Stephen Graham writes with full sympathy for the point of 
 view of the devout, simple-minded, credulous peasants whose compan- 
 ion he became in the trip by boat from Constantinople to Jaffa and 
 thence on foot to the holy places." — The Nation. 
 
 " Apart from the value which must be attached to the authenticity of 
 the glimpses of Russian life that Mr. Graham gives in his latest book, 
 it also clearly ranks him as the best modern writer of the saga of vaga- 
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 a delightful mixture of description, impression, and delineation of a 
 peculiar but colorful character." — Book News Monthly. 
 
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 ceptionally fine snapshots, and is of commanding interest, whether read 
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