Yashka. My Life as Peasant, Officer and Exile E-Book

Maria Botchkareva

• Herausgeber: il glifo ebooks
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

This book tells the extraordinary story of Maria Botchkareva "Yashka", a peasant girl grown up in Siberia, who at the outbreak of First World War asked and obtained to enlist in the Russian army: not to be one of the many Red Cross nurses, but to be a soldier and fight.
Yashka fought and distinguished herself at the forefront, so that after the revolution of March 1917 the provisional government of Kerensky allowed her to organize a women combat unit that was talked about by the press around the whole world, and that was submitted to massacre on the battlefield of the last Russian offensive.
After the dismissal of the remains of her Women s Battalion of Death and the dissolution of the whole Russian army, Yashka managed to reach the West with the utopia of gathering funds to restore a people's army and to continue the war against Germany. In the United States, in 1918, her story was collected and published by a journalist of Russian origin, Isaac Don Levine.
It is controversial whether and how the figure of Yashka belongs to the women emancipation movement, as at the time was considered by the same Emmeline Pankhurst, who was a supporter and a friend of Yashka. Indeed Yashka acted instinctively following an unconditional and non-negotiable loyalty to her country, because in this loyalty she found at the same time self-respect and redemption by the deprivations of her experience.
By telling widely not only the facts, but also her own feelings and motivations, Yashka left us a testimony that rises far above the usual memoirs of war.
The story of Isaac Don Levine, fallen into oblivion for a long time, is now available again in this ebook, with an afterword by Alberto Palazzi that focuses on the definition of herself that Yashka was looking for in commitment and sacrifice for her country.

Leseprobe

Maria Botchkareva

Yashka

My Life as Peasant, Officer and Exile

GogLiB ebooks

ISBN: 9788897527220

First electronic edition: July 2013

www.goglib.com

Public Domain Mark 1.0

No Copyright

This work has been identified as being free of known restrictions under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights.

This ebook reproduces the following volume with accurate control of the scanner output:

Yashka – My Life as Peasant, Officer and Exile

by Maria Botchkareva

Commander of the Russian Women’s Battalion of Death

as set down by Isaac Don Levine

author of “The Russian Revolution”

New York

Frederick A. Stokes Company publishers

1919

Index

Introduction by Isaac Don Levine (1918)

Part One – Youth

I – MY CHILDHOOD OF TOIL

II – MARRIED AT FIFTEEN

III – A LITTLE HAPPINESS

IV – SNARED BY A LIBERTINE GOVERNOR

V – ESCAPE FROM EXILE AND YASHA

Part Two – War

VI – I ENLIST BY THE GRACE OF THE TSAR

VII – INTRODUCED TO NO MAN’S LAND

VIII – WOUNDED AND PARALYZED

IX – EIGHT HOURS IN GERMAN HANDS

Part Three – Revolution

X – THE REVOLUTION AT THE FRONT

XI – I ORGANIZE THE BATTALION OF DEATH

XII – MY FIGHT AGAINST COMMITTEE RULE

XIII – THE BATTALION AT THE FRONT

XIV – AN ERRAND FROM KERENSKY TO KORNILOV

XV – THE ARMY BECOMES A SAVAGE MOB

Part Four – Terror

XVI – BOLSHEVISM ON TOP

XVII – FACING LENINE AND TROTZKY

XVIII – CAUGHT IN A BOLSHEVIK DEATH-TRAP

XIX – SAVED BY A MIRACLE

XX – BEARING A MESSAGE FROM MY PEOPLE

Afterword by Alberto Palazzi (2013). Yashka and her self-definition in war

The text of Isaac Don Levine

Yashka and self-definition in loyalty to Russia

Back cover

Maria Botchkareva

Introduction by Isaac Don Levine (1918)

In the early summer of 1917 the world was thrilled by a news item from Petrograd announcing the formation by one Maria Botchkareva of a women’s fighting unit under the name of “The Battalion of Death.” With this announcement an obscure Russian peasant girl made her debut in the international hall of fame. From the depths of dark Russia Maria Botchkareva suddenly emerged into the limelight of modem publicity. Foreign correspondents sought her, photographers followed her, distinguished visitors paid their respects to her. All tried to interpret this arresting personality. The result was a riot of misinformation and misunderstanding.

Of the numerous published tales about, and interviews with, Botchkareva that have come under my observation, there is hardly one which does not contain some false or misleading statement. This is partly due to the deplorable fact that the foreign journalists who interpreted Russian men and affairs to the world during the momentous year of 1917 were, with very few exceptions, ignorant of the Russian language; and partly to Botchkareva’s reluctance to take every adventurous stranger into her confidence. It was her cherished dream to have a complete record of her life incorporated in a book some day. This work is the realization of that dream.

To a very considerable extent, therefore, the narrative here unfolded is of the nature of a confession. When in the United States in the summer of 1918, Botchkareva determined to prepare her autobiography. Had she been educated enough to be able to write a letter fluently, she would probably have written her own life-story in Russian and then had it translated into English. Being semi-illiterate, she found it necessary to secure the services of a writer commanding a knowledge of her native language, which is the only tongue she speaks. The procedure followed in the writing of this book was this: Botchkareva recited to me in Russian the story of her life, and I recorded it in English in longhand, making every effort to set down her narrative verbatim. Not infrequently I would interrupt her with a question intended to draw out some forgotten experiences. However, one of Botchkareva’s natural gifts is an extraordinary memory. It took nearly a hundred hours, distributed over a period of three weeks, for her to tell me every detail of her romantic life.

At our first session Botchkareva made it clear that what she was going to tell me would be very different from the yarns credited to her in the press. She would reveal her innermost self and break open for the first time the sealed book of her past. This she did, and in doing so ruined completely several widely circulated tales about her. Perhaps the chief of these is the statement that Botchkareva had enlisted as a soldier and gone to war to avenge her fallen husband. Whether this invention was the product of her own mind or was attributed to her originally by some prolific correspondent, I do not know. In any event it was a handy answer to the eternal question of the pestiferous journalists as to how she came to be a soldier. Unable to explain to the conventional world that profound impulse which really drove her to her remarkable destiny, she adopted this excuse until she had an opportunity to record the full story of her daring life.

This book will also remove that distrustful attitude based on misunderstanding that has been manifested toward Botchkareva in radical circles. When she arrived in the United States she was immediately hailed as a “counter-revolutionary,” royalist and sinister intriguer by the extremists. That was a grave injustice to her. She is ignorant of politics, contemptuous of intrigue, and spiritually far and above party strife. Her mission in life was to free Russia from the German yoke.

Being placed virtually in the position of a father confessor, it was my privilege to commune with the spirit of this phenomenal rustic, a privilege I shall ever esteem as priceless. She not only laid bare before me every detail of her amazing life that memory could resurrect, but also allowed me to explore the nooks and corners of her heart to a degree that no friend of hers ever did. Maintaining a critical attitude from the beginning of our association, I was gradually overwhelmed by the largeness of her soul.

Wherein does the greatness of Botchkareva lie? Mrs. Emmeline Pankhurst called her the greatest woman of the century. “The woman that saved France was Joan of Arc – a peasant girl,” wrote a correspondent in July, 1917; “Maria Botchkareva is her modern parallel.” Indeed, in the annals of history since the days of the Maid of Orleans we encounter no feminine figure equal to Botchkareva. Like Joan of Arc, this Russian peasant girl dedicated her life to her country’s cause. If Botchkareva failed – and this is yet problematical, for who will dare forecast the future of Russia? – it would not lessen her greatness. Success in our materialistic age is no measure of true genius.

Like Joan of Arc, Botchkareva is the symbol of her country. Can there be a more striking incarnation of France than that conveyed by the image of Joan of Arc? Botchkareva is an astounding typification of peasant Russia, with all her virtues and vices. Educated to the extent of being able to scribble her own name with difficulty, she is endowed with the genius of logic. Ignorant of history and literature, the natural lucidity of her mind is such as to lead her directly to the very few fundamental truths of life. Religious with all the fervor of her primitive soul, she is tolerant in a fashion behooving a philosopher. Devoted to her country with every fiber of her being, she is free of impassioned partisanship and selfish patriotism. Overflowing with gentility and kindness, she is yet capable of savage outbursts and brutal acts. Credulous and trustful as a child, she can be easily incited against people and things. Intrepid and rash as a fighter, her desire to live on occasions was indescribably pathetic. In a word, Botchkareva embodies all those paradoxical characteristics of Russian nature that have made Russia a puzzle to the world. These traits are illustrated almost in every page of this book. Take away from Russia the veneer of western civilization and you behold her incarnation in Botchkareva. Know Botchkareva and you shall know Russia, that inchoate, invincible, agonized, striving, rising colossus in all its depth and breadth.

It must be made unmistakably clear here that the motives responsible for this book were purely personal. In its origin this work is exclusively a human document, a record of an exuberant life. It was the purpose of Botchkareva and the writer to keep the narrative down to a strict recital of facts. It is really incidental that this record is valuable not only as a biography of a startling personality, but as a revelation of certain phases of a momentous period in human history; not only as a human document, but as a historical document as well. Because Botchkareva always has been and still is strictly non-partisan and because she does not pretend to pass judgment upon events and men, her revelations are of prime importance. The reader gets a picture of Kerensky in action that completely effaces all that has hitherto been said of this tragic but typical product of the Russian intelligentsia. Kornilov, Rodzianko, Lenine and Trotzky and some other outstanding personalities of the Russian revolution appear in these pages exactly as they are in reality.

Not a single book, as far as I know, has appeared yet giving an account of how the Russian army at the front reacted to the Revolution. What was the state of mind of the Russian soldier in the trenches, which was after all the decisive factor in the developments that followed, during the first eight months of 1917? No history of unshackled Russia will be complete without an answer to this vital question. This book is the first to disclose the reactions and emotions of the vast Russian army at the front to the tremendous issues of the revolution, and is of special value coming from a veteran peasant soldier of the rank and file.

Perhaps surpassing all else in interest is the horrible picture we get of Bolshevism in action. With the claims of theoretical Bolshevism to establish an order of social equality on earth Botchkareva has no quarrel. She said so to Lenine and Trotsky personally. But then come her experiences with Bolshevism in practice, and there follows a blood-freezing narrative of the rule of mobocracy that will live forever in the memory of the reader.

Botchkareva left the United States towards the end of July, 1918, after having attained the purpose of her visit – an interview with President Wilson. She went to England and thence to Archangel, where she arrived early in September. According to a newspaper despatch, she caused the following proclamation to be posted in village squares and country churches:

“I am a Russian peasant and soldier. At the request of the soldiers and peasants I went to America and Great Britain to ask these countries for military help for Russia.

“The Allies understand our own misfortunes and I return with the Allied armies, which came only for the purpose of helping to drive out our deadly enemies, the Germans, and not to interfere with our internal affairs. After the war is over the Allied troops will leave Russian soil.

“I, on my own part, request all loyal free sons of Russia, without reference to party, to come together, acting as one with the Allied forces, who, under the Russian flag, come to free Russia from the German yoke and in order to help the new free Russian army with all forces, including Russia, to beat the enemy.

“Soldiers and peasants I Remember that only a full, clean sweep of the Germans from our soil can give you the free Russia you long for.”

Isaac Don Levine New York City,

November, 1918.

Part One – Youth

I – MY CHILDHOOD OF TOIL

My father, Leonti Semenovitch Frolkov, was born into serfdom at Nikolsko, a village in the province of Novgorod, some three hundred versts[1] north of Moscow. He was fifteen when Alexander II emancipated the serfs in 1861, and remembers that historic event vividly, being fond even now of telling of the days of his boyhood. Impressed into the army in the early seventies, he served during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78, and distinguished himself for bravery, receiving several medals. When a soldier he learned to read and write, and was promoted to the rank of sergeant.

Returning home at the end of the war, he passed through Tcharanda, a fishermen’s settlement on the shore of a lake, in the county of Kirilov, within forty versts of Nikolsko. No longer dressed as a moujik, military in gait and bearing, with coins jingling in his pocket, he cut quite a figure in the poor hamlet of Tcharanda. There he met my mother, Olga, the eldest daughter of Elizar Nazarev, perhaps the most destitute dweller of the place.

Elizar, with his wife and three daughters, occupied a shabby hut on the sandy shore of the lake. So poor was he that he could not afford to buy a horse to carry his catch to the city, and was compelled to sell it, far below the market price, to a traveling buyer. The income thus derived was not sufficient to keep the family from hunger. Bread was always a luxury in the little cabin. The soil was not tillable. Elizar’s wife would hire herself to the more prosperous peasants in the vicinity for ten kopecks[2]“ a day to labor from sunrise to sunset. But even this additional money was not always to be had. Then Olga would be sent out to beg for bread in the neighboring villages.

Once, when scarcely ten years old, little Olga underwent a harrowing experience, which she could never later recall without horror. Starting home with a basketful of bread, collected from several villages, she was fatigued but happy at the success of her errand, and hurried as fast as she could. Her path lay through a forest. Suddenly she heard the howling of a pack of wolves. Olga’s heart almost stopped beating. The dreadful sounds drew nearer. Overcome by fright, she fell unconscious to the ground.

When she regained her senses, she found herself alone. The wolves apparently had sniffed her prostrate body and gone their way. Her basket of bread was scattered in all directions, trampled in the mud. Out of breath, and without her precious burden, she arrived home.

It was in such circumstances that my mother grew to be nineteen, when she attracted the attention of Leonti Frolkov, who was then stopping in Tcharanda on his way home from the war. She was immensely flattered when he courted her. He even bought her a pair of shoes for a present, the first shoes she had ever worn. This captivated the humble Olga completely. She joyously accepted his marriage proposal.

After the wedding the young couple moved to Nikolsko, my father’s birthplace, where he had inherited a small tract of land. They tilled it together, and with great difficulty managed to make ends meet. My two elder sisters, Arina and Shura, were born here, increasing the poverty of my parents. My father, about this time, took to drinking, and began to maltreat and beat his wife. He was by nature morose and egotistic. Want was now making him cruel. My mother’s life with him became one of misery. She was constantly in tears, always pleading for mercy and praying to God.

I was born in July, 1889, the third girl in the family. At that time many railroads were being built throughout the country. When I was a year old, my father, who had once been stationed at Tsarskoye Selo, the Tsar’s residence town near the capital, decided to go to Petrograd to seek work. We were left without money. He wrote no letters. On the brink of starvation, my mother somehow contrived, with the aid of kind neighbors, to keep herself and her children alive.

When I was nearly six years old a letter came from father, the first he had written us during the five years of his absence. He had broken his right leg and, as soon as he was able to travel, had started home. My mother wept bitterly at the news, but was glad to hear from father whom she had almost given up for dead. In spite of his harshness toward her, she still loved him. I remember how happy my mother was when father arrived, but this happiness did not last long. Poverty and misery cut it short. My father’s rigid nature asserted itself again. Hardly had a year gone by when a fourth child, also a girl, arrived in our family. And there was no bread in the house.

From all parts of our section of the country peasants were migrating that year to Siberia, where the Government allowed them large grants of land. My father wanted to go, but mother was opposed to it. However, when our neighbor, Verevkin, who had left some time previous for Siberia, wrote glowingly of the new country, my father made up his mind to go, too.

Most of the men would go alone, obtain grants of land, till them, build homesteads, and then return for their families. Those of the peasants who took their families with them had enough money to tide them over. But we were so poor that by the time we got to Tcheliabinsk, the last terminal in European Russia, and the Government distribution point, we had not a penny left. At the station my father obtained some hot water to make tea, while my two elder sisters were sent to beg for bread.

We were assigned to Kuskovo, a hundred and twenty versts beyond Tomsk. At every station my sisters would beg food, while father tilled our tea-kettle with hot water. Thus we got along till Tomsk was reached. Our grant of land was in the midst of the taiga, the virgin Siberian forest. There could be no thought of immediately settling on it, so my father remained in Tomsk, while the rest of us were sent on to Kuskovo. My sisters went to work for board and clothing. My mother, still strong and in good health, baked bread for a living, while I took care of the baby.

One day my mother was expecting visitors. She had baked some cakes and bought half a pint of vodka, which she put on the shelf. While she was at work I tried to lull the baby to sleep. But baby was restless, crying incessantly. I did not know how to calm her. Then my eyes fell on the bottle of vodka.

“It must be a very good thing,” I thought, and decided to give a glass to baby. Before doing so I tasted it myself. It was bitter, but I somehow wanted more. I drank the first cup and, the bitterness having somewhat worn off, I drained another. In this manner I disposed of the entire bottle. Drowsy and weak, I took the baby into my arms and tried to rock it to sleep. But I myself began to stagger, and fell with the child to the floor.

Our mother found us there, screaming at the top of our voices. Presently the visitors arrived, and my mother reached for the bottle, only to discover that it had been emptied. It did not take her long to find the culprit. I shall always remember the whipping I got on that occasion.

Toward winter father arrived from Tomsk. He brought little money with him. The winter was severe, and epidemics were raging in the country. We fell sick one by one, father, mother, then all the girls. As there was no bread in the house, and no money to buy anything, the community took care of us till spring, housing and feeding us. By some miracle all of us escaped death, but our clothes had become rags. Our shoes fell to pieces. My parents decided to move to Tomsk, where we arrived barefoot and tattered, finding shelter at a poor inn on the outskirts of the town.

My father would work only a couple of days a week. He was lazy. The remainder of the week he idled away and drank. My sisters served as nurse-maids, while mother worked in a bakery, keeping the baby and me with her. We slept in the loft of a stable, with the horses stamping below us. Our bed was of straw, laid on the floor, which consisted of unshaven planks thrown across logs. Soon the baker’s wife began to object to feeding an extra mouth, which belonged to me. I was then over eight years old.

“Why don’t you send her to work? She can earn her own bread,” she argued.

My mother would draw me to her breast, weep and beg for mercy. But the proprietress became impatient, threatening to throw us all out.

Finally father came to see us, with the good tidings that he had found a place for me. I was to care for a five-year-old boy, in return for my board and eighty-five kopecks a month.

“If you do well,” my father added, “you will by and by receive a ruble.”

Such was the beginning of my career in life. I was eight and a half years old, small and very thin. I had never before left my mother’s side, and both of us wept bitterly at parting. It was a gray, painful, incomprehensible world into which I was being led by my father. My view of it was further blurred by a stream of tears.

I took care of the little boy for several days. One afternoon, while amusing him by making figures in the sand, I myself became so engrossed in the game that I quarreled with my charge, which led to a fight. I remember feeling keenly that I was in the right. But the child’s mother did not Inquire into the matter. She heard his screams and spanked me for it.

I was deeply hurt by the undeserved spanking administered by a strange woman.

“Where was my mother? Why did not she come to avenge me?”

My mother did not answer my cries. Nobody did. I felt miserable. How wrong was the world, how unjust! It was not worth while living in such a world.

My feet were bare. My dress was all in rags. Nobody seemed to care for me. I was all alone, without friends, and nobody knew of the yearning in my heart. I would drown myself, I thought. Yes, I would run to the river and drown myself. Then I would go up, free of all pain, into the arms of God.

I resolved to slip out at the first chance and jump into the river, but before the opportunity presented itself my father called. He found me all in tears.

“What’s the matter, Manka?” he asked.

“I am going to drown myself, papa,” I answered sadly.

“Great Heavens! What’s happened, you foolish child?”

I then poured my heart out to him, begging to be taken to mother. He caressed me and talked of mother’s distress if I left my place. He promised to buy me a pair of shoes, and I remained.

But I did not stay long. The little boy, having seen his mother punish me, began to take advantage of me, making my life quite unbearable. Finally I ran away and wandered about town till dark, looking for my mother. It was late when a policeman picked me up crying in the street and carried me to the police-station. The officer in charge of the station took me to his home for the night.

His house was rather large. I had never been in such a house before. When I awoke in the morning it seemed to me that there were a great many doors in it and all of them aroused my curiosity. I desired to know what was behind them. As I opened one of the doors, I beheld the police-officer asleep on a bed, with a pistol alongside of him. I wanted to beat a hasty retreat, but he awoke. He seized the pistol and, still dazed from sleep, threatened me with it. Frightened, I ran out of the room.

My father, meanwhile, had been informed of my flight and had gone to the police-station in search of me. He was referred to the police-officer’s home. There he found me, weeping on the porch, and took me to my mother.

My parents then decided to establish a home. All their capital amounted to six rubles. They rented a basement for three rubles a month. Two rubles my father invested in some second-hand furniture, consisting of a lame table and benches, and a few kitchen utensils. With a few kopecks from the last ruble in her purse my mother prepared some food for us. She sent me to buy a kopeck’s worth of salt.

The grocery store of the street was owned by a Jewess, named Nastasia Leontievna Fuchsman. She looked at me closely when I entered her store, recognizing that I was a stranger in the street, and asked me:

“Whose are you?”

“I am of the Frolkovs. We just moved into the basement in the next block.”

“I need a little girl to help me out. Would you like to work for me?” she asked. “I’ll give you a ruble a month, and board.”

I was overjoyed and started for home at such speed that by the time I got to my mother I was quite breathless. I told her of the offer from the grocery-woman.

“But,” I added, “she is a Jewess.”

I had heard so many things of Jews that I was rather afraid, on second thought, to live under the same roof with a Jewess. My mother calmed my fears on that score and went to the grocery to have a talk with the proprietress. She came back satisfied, and I entered upon my apprenticeship to Nastasia Leontievna.

It was not an easy life. I learned to wait on customers, to run errands, to do everything in the house, from cooking and sewing to scrubbing floors. All day I slaved without rest, and at night I slept on a box in the passageway between the store and house. My monthly earnings went to my mother, but they never sufficed to drive the specter of starvation away from my home. My father earned little but drank much, and developed his severe temper even more.

In time I got a raise to two rubles a month. But as I grew I required more clothes, which my mother had to supply me from my allowance. Nastasia Leontievna was exacting and not infrequently punished me. But she also loved me as though I had been her own daughter, and always tried to make up for harsh treatment. I owe a great deal to her, as she taught me to do almost everything, both in her business and in housework.

I must have been about eleven when, in a fit of temper, I quarreled with Nastasia Leontievna. Her brother frequented the theater and constantly talked of it. I never quite understood what a theater was like, but it allured me, and I resolved one evening to get acquainted with that place of wonders. I asked Nastasia Leontievna for money to go there. She refused.

“You little moujitchka (a peasant woman) what do you want with the theater?” she asked derisively.

“You d-d Jewess!” I threw into her face fitfully,

and ran out of the store. I went to my mother and told her of the incident. She was horrified.

“But now she won’t take you back. What will we do without your wages, Marusia? How will we pay the rent? We will have to go begging again.” And she cried.

After some time my employer came after me, rebuking me for my quick temper.

“How could I have known that you were so anxious to go to the theater?” she asked. “All right, I’ll give you fifteen kopecks every Sunday so that you can go.”

I became a steady Sunday attendant of the gallery, watching with intense interest the players, their strange gestures and manners of speech.

Five years I worked for Nastasia Leontievna, assuming greater duties with the advance of my years. Early in the morning I would rise, open the shutters, knead the dough, and sweep or scrub the floors. I finally grew weary of this daily grind and began to think of finding other work. But my mother was sick and father worked less and less, drinking most of the time. He grew more brutal, beating us all unmercifully. My sisters were forced to stay away from home. Shura married at sixteen, and I, fourteen years old, became the mainstay of the family. It was often necessary to get my pay in advance in order to keep the family from starving.

The temptation to steal came to me suddenly one day. I had never stolen anything before, and Nastasia Leontievna repeatedly pointed out this virtue in me to her friends.

“Here is a moujitchka who doesn’t steal,” she would say. But one time, on unpacking a barrel of sugar delivered at the store, I found, instead of the usual six sugarloaves, seven. The impulse to take the extra loaf of sugar was irresistible. At night I smuggled it stealthily out of the store and took it home. My father was astonished.

“What have you done, Marusia? Take it back immediately,” he ordered. I began to cry and said that the sugar was not really Nastasia Leontievna’s, that the error had been made at the refinery. Then my father consented to keep it.

I returned to my place at the grocery and went to bed, but my eyes would not close; my conscience troubled me. “What if she suspected that a loaf of sugar was missing? What if she discovers that I have stolen it?” And a feeling of shame came over me. The following day I could not look straight into Nastasia Leontievna’s eyes. I felt guilty. My face burned. At every motion of hers my heart quivered in anticipation of the terrible disclosure. Finally she noticed that there was something the matter with me.

“What’s wrong with you Marusia?” she questioned drawing me close to her. “Are you not well?”

This hurt even more. The burden of the sin I had committed weighed heavier and heavier. It rapidly became unbearable. My conscience would not be quieted. At the end of a couple of restless days and sleepless nights I decided to confess. I went into Nastasia Leontievna’s bedroom when she was asleep. Rushing to her bed, I fell on my knees and broke into sobs. She awoke in alarm.

“What’s happened, child? What is it?”

Weeping, I proceeded to tell the story of my theft, begging forgiveness and promising never to steal again. Nastasia Leontievna calmed me and sent me back to bed, but she could not forgive my parents. Next morning she visited our home, remonstrating with my father for his failure to return the sugar and punish me. The shame and humiliation of my parents knew no bounds.

Sundays I spent at home, helping my mother in the house. I would go to the well, which was a considerable distance away, for water. My mother baked bread all week and father carried it to the market, selling it at ten kopecks a loaf. His temper was steadily getting worse, and it was not unusual for me to find mother in the yard in tears after father’s return in an intoxicated state.

I reached the age of fifteen and began to grow dissatisfied with my lot. Life was awakening within me and quickening my imagination. Everything that passed by and beyond the confined little realm in which I lived and labored called me, beckoned to me, lured me. The impressions of that foreign world which I had caught in the theater implanted themselves in my soul deeply and gave birth there to love-stirring forces. I wanted to dress nicely, to go out, to enjoy life’s pleasures. I wanted to be educated. I wanted to have enough money to secure my parents forever from starvation and to be able to lead for a time, for a day even, an idle life, without having to rise with the sun, to scrub the floor or to wash clothes.

Ah I what would I not have given to taste the sweetness, the joy, that life held. But there seemed to be none for me. All day long I slaved in the little store and kitchen. I never had a spare ruble. Something revolted within me against this bleak, purposeless, futureless existence.

II – MARRIED AT FIFTEEN

Came the Russo-Japanese War. And with it, Siberia, from Tomsk to Manchuria, teemed with a new life. It reached even our street, hitherto so lifeless and uneventful. Two officers, the brothers Lazov, one of them married, rented the quarters opposite Nastasia Leontievna’s grocery. The young Madame Lazov knew nothing of housekeeping. She observed me at work in the grocery store, and offered me service in her home at seven rubles a month.

Seven rubles a month was so attractive a sum that I immediately accepted the offer. What could one not do with so much money? Why, that would leave four rubles for me, after the payment of mother’s rent. Four rubles! Enough to buy a new dress, a coat, or a pair of those modish shoes. Besides, it gave me an opportunity to release myself from the bondage of Nastasia Leontievna.

I took entire charge of the housekeeping at the Lazovs. They were kind and courteous, and took an interest in me. They taught me table and social etiquette, and took care that I appeared neat and clean.

The younger Lazov, Lieutenant Vasili, began to notice me, and one evening invited me to take a walk with him, In time Vasili’s interest in me deepened. We went out together many times. He made love to me, caressing and kissing me. Did I realize clearly the meaning of it all? Hardly. It was all so new, so wonderful, so alluring. It made my pulse throb at his approach. It made my cheeks flame with the heat of my young blood.

Vasili said he loved me. Did I love him? If I did, it was more because of the marvelous world into which he was to lead me than on account of himself. He promised to marry me. Did I particularly want to marry him? Scarcely. The prospect of marriage was more enticing to me because of the end it would put to my life of drudgery and misery than on account of anything else. To become free, independent, possessed of means, was the attractive prospect that marriage held for me.

I was fifteen and a half when Vasili seduced me by the promise of marriage. We lived together for a short while, when orders came to the Lazovs to leave for a different post. Vasili informed me of the order.

“Then we will have to get married quickly, before you go,” I declared. But Vasili did not think so.

“That’s quite impossible, Marusia,” he said.

“Why?” I inquired sharply, something rising in my throat, like a tide, with suffocating force.

“Because I am an officer, and you are only a plain moujitchka. You understand, yourself, that at present we can’t marry. Marusenka, I love you just as much as ever. Come, I’ll take you home with me; you’ll stay with my parents. I’ll give you an education, then we will get married.”

I became hysterical, and throwing myself at him like a ferocious animal, I screamed at the top of my voice:

“You villain. You deceived me. You never did love me. You are a scoundrel. May God curse you.”

Vasili tried to calm me. He drew near, but I repulsed him. He cried, he begged, he implored that I believe that he loved me, and that he would marry me. But I would not listen to him. I trembled with rage, seized by a fit of uncontrollable temper. He left me in tears. I did not see Vasili for two days. Neither did his brother nor sister-in-law. He had disappeared. When he returned, he presented a pitiable sight. His haggard face, the appearance of his clothes, and the odor of vodka told the story of his two days’ debauch.

“Ah, Marusia, Marusia,” he lamented, gripping my arms. “What have you done, what have you done? I loved you so much. And you did not want to understand me. You have ruined my life and your own.”

My heart was wrung with pity for Vasili. Life to me then was a labyrinth of blind alleys, tangled, bewildering. It is now clear to me that Vasili did love me genuinely, and that he had indulged in the wild orgy to forget himself and drown the pain I had caused him. But I did not understand it then. Had I loved him truly, it might all have been different. But a single thought dominated my mind: “He had promised to marry me and failed.” Marriage had become to me the symbol of a life of independence and freedom.

The Lazovs left. They gave me money and gifts. But my heart was like a deserted ruin in the winter, echoing with the whine of wild beasts. Instead of a life of freedom, my parents’ basement awaited me. And deep in my bosom lurked a dread of the unknown...

I stealthily returned home. My sisters had already noticed a different air about me. Perhaps they had seen me with Vasili at one time or another. Whatever the cause, they had their suspicions, and did not fail to communicate them to mother. It required little scrutiny for her to observe that from a shy little girl I had blossomed forth into a young woman. And then there began days and nights of torture for me.

My father quickly got wind of what had happened at the Lazovs. He was merciless and threw himself upon me with a whip, nearly lashing me to death, accompanying each blow with epithets that burned into me more than the lashes of the whip. He also beat my mother when she attempted to intervene for me.

My father would return home drunk almost every day, and immediately take to lashing me. Often he would drive me and mother barefoot out of the house, and for hours, at times, we shivered in the snow, hugging the icy walls.

Life became an actual inferno. Day and night I prayed to God that I fall ill or die. But God remained deaf. And still I felt that only sickness could save me from the daily punishment. “I must get sick,” I said to myself. And so I lay on the oven at night to heat my body, and then went out and rolled in the snow. I did it several times, but without avail. I could not fall sick.

Amid these insufferable conditions, I met the new year of 1905. My married sister had invited me to participate in a masquerade. My father would not hear, at first, of my going out for an evening, but consented after repeated entreaties. I dressed as a boy, which was the first time I ever wore a man’s clothes. After the dancing we visited some friends of my sister’s, where I met a soldier, just returned from the front. He was a common moujik, of rough appearance and vulgar speech, and at least ten years older than myself. He immediately began to court me. His name was Afanasi Botchkarev.

It was not long afterward that I met Botchkarev again in the house of a married sister of his. He invited me to go out for a walk, and then suddenly proposed that I marry him. It caught me so unexpectedly that I had no time for consideration. Anything seemed preferable to the daily torments of home. If I had sought death to escape my father, why not marry this boorish moujik? And I consented thoughtlessly.

My father objected to my marrying since I was not yet sixteen, but without avail. As Botchkarev was penniless, and I had no money, we decided to work together and save. Our marriage was a hasty affair. The only impression that I retain is my feeling of relief at escaping from my father’s brutal hands. Alas I Little did I then suspect that I was exchanging one form of torture for another.

On the day following our marriage, which took place in the early spring, Afanasi and I went down to the river to hire ourselves as day laborers. We helped to load and unload lumber barges. Hard labor never daunted me, and I would have been satisfied, had it only been possible for me to get along with Afanasi otherwise. But he also drank, while I didn’t, and intoxication invariably brutalized him. He knew of my affair with Lazov, and would use it as a pretext for punishing me.

“That officer is still in your head!” he would shout. “Wait, I’ll knock him out of there.” And he would proceed to do so.

Summer came. Afanasi and I found work with an asphalt firm. We made floors at the prison, university and other public buildings. We paved some streets with asphalt. Our work with the firm lasted about two years. Both of us started at seventy kopeks a day, but I rose to the position of assistant foreman in a few months, receiving a ruble and fifty kopecks a day. Afanasi continued as a common laborer. My duties required considerable knowledge in the mixing of the various elements in the making of concrete and asphalt.

Afanasi’s low intelligence was a sufficient torment. But his heavy drinking was a greater source of suffering to me. He made a habit of beating me, and grew to be unendurable. I was less than eighteen years old, and nothing but misery seemed to be in store for me. The thought of escape dug itself deeper and deeper into my mind. I finally resolved to run away from Afanasi.

My married sister had moved to Barnaul, where she and her husband served as domestics on a river steamer. I saved some twenty rubles, and determined to go to my sister, but I needed a passport. Without a passport one could not move in Russia, so I took my mother’s.

On the way, at a small railway station, I was held up by an officer of the gendarmes.

“Where are you going, girl?” he asked brusquely, eyeing me with suspicion.

“To Barnaul,” I replied, with sinking heart.

“Have you a passport?” he demanded.

“Yes,” I said, drawing it out of my bag.

“What’s your name?” was the next question.

“Maria Botchkareva.”

In my confusion I had forgotten that the passport was my mother’s, and that it bore the name of Olga Frolkova. When the officer unfolded it and glanced at the name, he turned on me fiercely:

“Botchkareva, ah, so that is your name?”

It dawned upon me then that I had committed a fatal mistake. Visions of prison, torture and eventual return to Afanasi flashed before me. “I am lost,” I thought, falling upon my knees before the officer to beg for mercy, as he ordered me to follow him to headquarters. In an outburst of tears and sobs, I told him that I had escaped from a brutal husband, and since I could not possibly obtain a passport of my own, I was forced to make use of my mother’s. I implored him not to send me back to Afanasi, for he would surely kill me.

My simple peasant speech convinced the officer that I was not a dangerous political, but he would not let me go. He decided that I should go with him. “Come along; you will stay with me, and to-morrow I will send you to Barnaul. If you don’t, I’ll have you arrested and sent by étape[3]back to Tomsk.”

I was as docile as a sheep. This was my first contact with the authorities, and I dared not protest. If I had any power of will it must have been dormant. Wasn’t the world full of wrong since my childhood? Wasn’t this one of Life’s ordinary events? We moujiks were created to suffer and endure. They, the officials, were made to punish and maltreat. And so I was led away by the guardian of peace and law, and made to suffer shame and humiliation...

I was then free to go to Barnaul, and I resumed my journey. When I arrived there, my sister quickly found employment for me on the steamship. The work was comparatively easy, and my life rapidly took a happier turn. It was such a relief to be away from that drunken, brutal, savage husband.

But the relief was short-lived. Afanasi came to my mother after my disappearance to inquire for my whereabouts. She evinced surprise upon hearing of my flight, denying all knowledge of my destination. He returned to our house again and again. One day in his presence the mail-carrier delivered a letter from Shura. He seized it, and through it learned that I was in Barnaul.

One morning, as I was standing on the deck of the ship, which was anchored in the harbor, my eyes suddenly fell on a figure approaching the wharf. It was a familiar figure. In another moment I recognized it as that of Afanasi. My blood froze and my flesh crept as I sensed what was coming.

“Once fallen into his hands, my existence would become one of continuous torture,” I thought. “I must save myself.”

But how could I escape? If I were on land I might still have a chance. Here all avenues are closed. There, he is already approaching the gate to the wharf. He is stopping to ask a question of a guard, who nods affirmatively. Now, he is walking a little faster. His face wears a grin that strikes terror into my heart. I am trapped... But no, just wait a moment, Afanasi. Don’t celebrate yet. I rush to the edge of the deck, cross myself and jump into the deep waters of the Ob. Ah, what a thrill it is to die I So I have outwitted Afanasi, after all. It’s cold, the water is cold. And I am going down, down... I am glad. I am triumphant. I escaped from the trap... into the arms of death.

I awoke, not in Heaven, but in the hospital. I was observed jumping into the river, dragged out unconscious, and revived.

The authorities questioned me as to the cause of my attempted suicide, and drew up a protocol. I told them of my husband, of his brutality, and of the utter impossibility of living with him.

Afanasi was waiting in the anteroom, to see me. My attempt at drowning had upset him tremendously. It aroused a sense of shame in him. Touched by my story, the authorities went out and angrily rebuked him for his maltreatment of me. He pleaded guilty, and swore that he would be gentle to me in the future.

He was then admitted to the ward in which I lay. Falling on his knees, he begged my forgiveness, repeating his oath to me and professing his love for me in the most endearing terms. His pleas were so compelling that I finally consented to return home with him.

For a while Afanasi was truly a different man. In spite of his coarse habits, I was deeply moved by his efforts at tenderness. However, that did not last long. We resumed our life of drudging toil. And vodka resumed its grip on him. Once drunk, he would turn savage again.

Gradually life with Afanasi grew as insufferable as before my escape. That summer I turned nineteen, and I saw ahead of me nothing but an infinite cycle of dreary years. Afanasi wanted me to take to drink. I resisted, and that infuriated him. He made it a habit to torment me daily, holding a bottle of vodka to my face. Deriding me for my efforts to lift myself above my environment, he resorted to blows and tricks to force the bitter drink down my throat. One day he even stood over me with a bottle of vodka for three whole hours, pinning me down to the ground so that I was unable to move a muscle. I remained unconquerable.

Winter came. I baked bread for a living. Sundays I went to church to pray God to release me from my bondage. Again the thought of escaping wormed itself into my mind. The first requisite was, of course, a passport, so I went secretly to a lawyer for advice, and he undertook to obtain one for me legally. But hard luck attended me. When the police constable called to deliver the passport to me, Afanasi was at home. My scheme was discovered, and I, trapped. Afanasi jumped at me and bound me hand and foot, deaf to my entreaties and cries. I thought my end had arrived. In silence he carried me out of the house and tied me to a post.

It was cold, very cold. He flogged me, drank, and flogged me again, cursing me in the vilest terms.

“That’s what you get for trying to escape,” he bawled, holding the bottle to my mouth. “You won’t escape any more. You will drink or you will die!”

I was obdurate and implored him to leave me alone. He continued his flogging, however, keeping me for four hours at the post, till I finally broke down and drank the alcohol. I became intoxicated, staggered out into the street, and fell to the pavement in front of the house. Afanasi ran after me, cursing and kicking me. We were quickly surrounded by a crowd. My neighbors, who knew of his cruelty to me, came to my defense. Afanasi was roughly handled by the people, so roughly, indeed, that he left me in peace for some time afterwards.

Christmas was fast approaching. I had saved, little by little, fifty rubles. Every kopeck of that money was earned by extra toil during the night. It was all the earthly possession that I had, and I guarded it jealously. Somehow, Afanasi got wind of its hiding place and stole it. He spent it all on drink.

I was crazed with fury upon discovering the loss. What the money meant to me in the circumstances is difficult to describe. It was my blood, my sweat, a year of my youth. And he, the beast, squandered it in one orgy. The least I could do to my torturer was to kill him.

Frantically, I ran to my mother, who was struck by the expression of my face.

“Marusia, what ails you?”

“Mother,” I gasped, “let me have an ax. I am going to kill Afanasi.”

“Holy Mother, have mercy!” she exclaimed, raising her hands to Heaven and falling on her knees, exhorting me to come to my senses. But I was too frantic with rage. I seized an ax and ran home.

Afanasi returned, drunk, and began to taunt me with the loss of my precious savings. I was white with wrath and cursed him from the depth of my heart. He gripped a stool and threw it at me. I caught up the ax.

“I will kill you, you blood-sucker!” I screamed.

Afanasi was stupefied. He had not expected that from me. The desire to kill was irresistible. Mentally, I already gloated over his dead body and the freedom that it would bring me. I was ready to swing the ax at him...

Suddenly the door flew open and my father rushed in. He had been sent by my mother.

“Marusia, what are you doing?” he cried out, gripping my arm. The break was too abrupt, my nerves collapsed, and I fell unconscious to the floor. Upon awakening I found police authorities in the house, and I told them everything. Afanasi was taken to the police-station, while the police officer, a very humane person, advised me to leave town to get away from him.

I got my passport, but my money was gone. I could not afford to buy a ticket to Irkutsk, where Shura had moved from Barnaul. Determined to go at all cost, I boarded a train without a ticket. The conductor discovered me on the way, and I cried and begged him to allow me to proceed. He proposed to hide me in the baggage car and take me to Irkutsk, on condition that I... Enraged, I pushed him violently from me.

“I will put you off at the next station,” he shot at me, running out of the car. And he kept his word.

Nearly all the distance to Irkutsk was yet before me, and I wanted to get there without selling myself for the price of a ticket. There could be no thought of going back. I had to get to Irkutsk. I boarded the next train, stealthily crouched under a bench, as it moved out of the station.

Ultimately I was discovered, but this conductor was an elderly man and responded to my tears and implorations. I told him of my experience with the first conductor and of my total lack of money. He allowed me to proceed, but as soon as an inspector would board the train, the conductor would signal to me to hide under the bench. Sometimes I would spend several hours at a stretch there, concealed by the legs of some kind passengers. In such a manner I journeyed for four days, finally reaching my destination – Irkutsk.

III – A LITTLE HAPPINESS

I arrived In Irkutsk without money. All I had was what I wore. I went to look for my sister, who was In poor circumstances and sick. Her husband was out of work. One could not expect an enthusiastic welcome under such conditions. I lost little time in seeking employment, and quickly found a place as a dishwasher at nine rubles a month. It was an unbearable task, in a filthy hole patronized by drunkards. The treatment I received at the hands of the clients was so revolting that I left at the end of the first day.

On the third day I found work in a laundry, where I had to wash hundreds of pieces daily. From five in the morning till eight in the evening I was bent over the washtub. It was rough labor, but I was forced to stay at it for several weeks. I lived with my sister In one small room, paying her rent. Presently I began to feel pains in my back. The hard work was telling on me. I resolved to leave the laundry, although my sister opposed it. I had no money saved.

Having had experience in concrete work, I applied for employment to an asphalt contractor. He was kind enough to give me a trial as an assistant foreman on a job he was doing at the Irkutsk prison. I was to take charge of ten men and women laborers.

When I began I was met by an outburst of mirth on all sides. “Ha, ha,” they laughed, “a baba, a woman, assuming a foreman’s place!”

I paid no heed to the ridicule and proceeded about my business quietly and gently. The men obeyed, and as they perceived that I knew what I was about, began even to gain respect for me. I was given for that first test the preparing of a floor. Stretching myself on the ground with the rest of the party, planning and working, I managed to finish my task a couple of hours ahead of my schedule, and marched the men triumphantly out of the building, to the utter amazement of the other foremen. My boss was all merriment.

“Look at this baba!” he said. “She will have us men learning from her pretty soon. She should wear trousers.”

The following day I was put In charge of twenty-five men. As they still regarded me as a queer novelty, I addressed a little speech to them, telling them that I was a plain peasant worker, only seeking to earn my bread. I appealed to their sense of fairness to cooperate with me. Sending for some vodka and sausages I entertained them and won their good will completely. My men called me “Manka” affectionately, and we got along splendidly. I was such a phenomenon that the contractor himself invited me to his home for tea. His wife, who was a very kind soul, told me that her husband had been praising me to her very much.

The great test, however, came several days later. I had to prove my ability in preparing asphalt and applying it. We were all at work at four o’clock in the morning. As the quality of asphalt depends on the proportions of the elements used, the men were waiting rather amusedly for my orders. But I gave them without hesitation, and when the boss arrived at six o’clock he found the kettles boiling and the laborers hard at work, pouring the asphalt on the gravel.

This work must be done without relaxation, in awful heat and suffocating odors. For a whole year I stayed at it, laboring incessantly, with no holidays and no other rest. Like a pendulum, always in motion, I would begin my daily cycle before dawn, returning home after sunset, only to eat and go to bed to gain strength for another bleak day’s round.

At the end I broke down. I caught cold while working In a basement, and became so weak that I was taken to the Kuznetzov Hospital, where I was confined to bed for two months. When I recovered and rested for about a week, I returned to my job, but found it occupied by a man who had been especially brought from European Russia. Besides, there wasn’t much work left for the firm in Irkutsk.

My sister and her husband moved back to Tomsk about this time, and my situation grew desperate. I looked for a place as a domestic servant, but having no reference, I found it impossible to obtain one. The little money I had finally gave out. My only friends in town were the Sementovskys, neighbors to my sister. I lived with them, but they were poor themselves, and so, for days at times, I would go hungry, my only sustenance consisting of tea.

One day I applied at an employment agency and was informed, after being asked if I would agree to leave town, that a woman had been there looking for a servant, and offered to pay twenty-five rubles a month. I instantly expressed my willingness to go with her. She appeared in the afternoon, young, beautiful, elegantly dressed, her fingers and neck adorned with dazzling jewels. She was so tender to me, eyed me carefully, asking if I was married.

“I have been,” I replied, “but I escaped from my husband about two years ago. He was such a brutal drunkard.” I was then in my twenty-first year.