The White Terror and The Red: A Novel of Revolutionary Russia

by Abraham Cahan

  CHAPTER XVIII.

  PAVEL AT BOYKO'S COURT.

  Clara was introduced to Mme. Shubeyko, the warden's sister-in-law, andto her niece, the gendarme officer's sister. At first communication withMakar was held by means of notes concealed in cigarettes and carried toand fro by one of the warders, who received half a ruble per errand; butClara was soon installed in the warden's house. Once or twice Pavelspoke with Makar directly, by means of handkerchief signals based on thesame code as the telegraph language which political prisoners rap out toeach other through their cell walls. These signals Pavel sent from thetop of a hill across the river from Makar's cell window. To allaysuspicion he would wave his handkerchief toward Masha or Clara, whostood for the purpose on a neighbouring hill, giving the wholeproceeding the appearance of a flirtation. As to Makar, his cell was inan isolated part of the prison, facing the outer wall. Still, this modeof communication was exasperatingly slow and attended by some risksafter all, and Pavel had recourse to it only in case of extremenecessity, although to the prisoner it was a welcome diversion.

  One day, when Clara, Masha and Pavel were together, he said to thegendarme officer's sister, with mystifying gaiety:

  "Well, have you discovered the heroine of the Pievakin demonstration?"He regretted the question before it had left his lips. Clara wasannoyed.

  "No, why?" Masha asked, looking from him to her.

  "I have the honour to introduce--" he said, colouring. For some reasonMasha did not seem to be agreeably impressed by the announcement, andClara did not fail to notice it.

  As it was rather inconvenient for the son of Countess Varoff to be seenat the house of a major of gendarmes, Clara was to report to him at theresidence of her parents. In the depth of the markets and the Jewishquarter his identity was unlikely to be known. Clara had lived at thewarden's house about a fortnight when Pavel's first visit at the trunkshop took place. She offered him a rude chair in the small space betweenthe partition of her bed-room and the window by the wall that was linedwith the worn folios of her father's meagre library. The room waspervaded by odours of freshly planed wood, putty and rusty tin which thebreath of spring seemed to intensify rather than to abate.

  Motl, Hannah's sole employe, was hammering away at his bindings andcourting attention by all sorts of vocal quirks and trills. During theDays of Awe, the solemn festivals of autumn, he sang in a synagoguechoir; so he never ceased asserting his musical talents. As Clara'svisitor took no heed of his flourishes he proceeded to imitate domesticanimals, church bells, a street organ playing a selection from IlTrovatore, and a portly captain drilling his men, but all to no purpose.As the noise he was making was a good cover for their talk, she did notstop him. At any rate, Motl scarcely understood any Russian.

  "I have only seen him at a distance," Clara said, meaning the prisoner."But I know that he eats and sleeps well, and looks comfortable."

  "He would look comfortable if you tied him up in a sack. Is he still'dumb'?"

  She portrayed the warden's bed-ridden and voiceless wife who sufferedfrom a disease of the spinal and vocal chords, and the disorder at hishouse and in the prison. She had always wondered at the frequent casesof political gaol-breaking, but if every gaol were conducted as this onewas the number would be much larger, she thought. That vodka was quiteopenly sold and bought in every common gaol in the empire was no news toher, but this was a trifle compared to what she had heard of Rodkevich'sadministration. One of his gaolers had told her of imprisoned thieveswhom he would give leave of absence in order that he might confiscatepart of their booty when they came back.

  "Yes, I think he is a man who would go into any kind of scheme thatoffered money, or--excitement," she said, gravely; and she added with asmile: "He might even become a man of principle if there were money init."

  "He won't give 'a political' 'leave of absence,' though, will he?" Paveljoked. "Still, upon the whole, it looks rather encouraging."

  "I think it does."

  "Do you?" And his eyes implored her for a more enthusiastic predictionof success.

  "Indeed I do," she answered soberly. "But whether I do or not, we mustgo to work and get him out."

  "This damsel is certainly not without backbone," he said to himself.

  He had familiarised himself with the details in the case of almost everyrevolutionist who had escaped or attempted to escape from prison. Someof these had made their way through an underground passage; others hadpassed the gateman in the disguise of a soldier or policeman; stillothers had been wrenched from their convoy, while being taken to thegendarme office or a photograph gallery. Prince Kropotkin had simplymade a desperate break for liberty while the gates of the prisonhospital in which he was confined stood open, a cab outside bearing himoff to a place of safety. Another political prisoner regained hisfreedom by knocking down a sentinel with brass knuckles, while stillanother, who was awaiting death in Odessa, would have made his escape bymeans of planks laid from his cell window to the top of the prisonfence, had not these planks proved to be too flimsy. In one place animprisoned army officer slipped away under cover of a flirtation inwhich a girl prisoner had engaged the warden. A revolutionist namedMyshkin had tried to liberate Chernishevsky, the celebrated critic, byappearing at the place of his banishment, in far-away Siberia, in theguise of a gendarme officer with an order for the distinguished exile,and a similar scheme had been tried on the warden of a prison inEuropean Russia. Both these attempts had failed, but then in the case inhand there was the hope of Rodkevich, the warden, acting as a willingvictim. Pavel said he would impersonate one of the gendarmes.

  "Some of the gaolers may know you," Mlle. Yavner objected.

  "That's quite unlikely, I was away so long. Besides, the thing wouldhave to be done in the evening anyhow. I must be on hand. It will benecessary."

  "You might be recognised after all," she insisted, shyly.

  Another project was to have a rope thrown over the prison fence, in asecluded corner of the yard. This was to be done at a signal fromwithin, while Makar was out for exercise, in the charge of a bribedguard. The guard was to raise an alarm when it was too late, telling howhis prisoner knocked him down and was hoisted out of sight. Or Makarmight be smuggled out in a barrel on some provision waggon, theprescribed examination of the vehicle being performed by a friendlygaoler. Whatever plan they took up, Pavel insisted on playing theleading part in it. He was for taking Makar away in a closed carriage,if need be under cover of pistol shots. Clara urged that in the eventthe equipage had to wait for some time, its presence about the prisonwas sure to arouse dangerous curiosity. Altogether she was in favour ofa quiet and simple proceeding. Safonoff's house was within easy distancefrom the prison, so if Masha could undertake to keep her brother awayfrom home, Clara would prefer to have Makar walk quietly to that place,as a first resort, thence to be taken, thoroughly disguised, to the"conspiracy house" of the Circle. But Pavel picked the proposition topieces.

  Since her initiation into the warden's house Clara had been in apeculiarly elevated state of mind, her whole attention being absorbed inher mission in which she took great pride. This uplifted mood of hersshe strove to suppress, and the clear-headed, matter-of-fact way inwhich she faced the grave dangers of her task animated Pavel with afeeling of intimate comradeship as well as admiration.

  As they now sat in the cleanest and brightest corner of the trunk shophe was vaguely sensible of a change in her appearance. Then he noticedthat instead of the dark woolen dress she had worn at the time of theirprevious meetings she had on a fresh blouse of a light-coloured fabric.To be seen in a new colour is in itself becoming to a woman, but thisblouse of Clara's was evidently a tribute to spring. Her face seemed tobe suffused with the freshness of the month.

  While they sat talking, her mother came in, an elderly Jewess, tall andstately, with a shrewd, careworn look, her hair carefully hidden beneatha strip of black satin.

  "Is that you, Tamara?" she asked without taking notice of the stranger.She said something to Motl, made f
or the door, but suddenly returned,addressing herself to her daughter again. She wanted to know somethingabout the law of chattel-mortgages, but neither Clara nor her visitorcould furnish her the desired information.

  "Always at those books of theirs, yet when it comes to the point theydon't know anything," she said, with a smile, as she bustled out of theroom.

  "Are these Talmud books?" Pavel asked, pointing at Rabbi Rachmiel'slibrary.

  "Yes," Clara nodded with an implied smile in her voice.

  "Can you read them?"

  "Oh, no," she answered, smiling.

  He told her that Makar was a deep Talmudic scholar and talked of theJewish religion, but she offered him no encouragement. She was brimfulof questions herself. Her inquiries were concerned with the futuredestinies of the human race. With all her practical common sense, shehad a notion that the era of undimmed equality and universal love woulddawn almost immediately after the overthrow of Russian tyranny. This, asshe had been taught by revolutionary publications, was to come as thelogical continuation of Russia's village communes, once the developmentof this survival of prehistoric communism received free scope. What shewanted was a clear and detailed account of life in Future Society.

  Her questions and his answers had the character of a theoreticaldiscussion. Gradually, however, he mounted to a more animated tone,portraying the future with quiet fervour. She listened gravely, her eyesfull upon his, and this absorbed look spurred him on. But presently hermother came in again, this time with a peasant customer, and they wentout to continue their talk in the open air. There were plenty ofdeserted lanes and bits of open country a short distance off. There wasa vague gentle understanding between them that it was the goldenidealism of their talk which had set them yearning for the unhidden skyand the aromatic breezes of spring. This upheld their lofty mood whilethey silently trudged through the outskirts of the market place. Theycould not as yet continue their interrupted conversation, and to speakof something else would have seemed profanation. At last they emerged ona lonely square, formed by an orchard, some houses and barns and theruin of an old barrack. The air was excellent and there was nobody tooverhear them. Nevertheless when Pavel was about to resume he felt thathe was not in the mood for it. Nor did she urge him on with any furtherquestions.

  From the old barracks they passed into a dusty side lane and thence intoa country road which led to a suburb and ran parallel to the railwaytracks.

  The sun was burning by fits and starts, as it were. In those spots wheremasses of lilacs and fruit blossoms gave way to a broader outlook, theroad was so flooded with light that Clara had to shield her eyes withher hand. Now and again a clump of trees in the distance would fallapart to show the snow-crested top of a distant hill and the blueishhaze of the horizon-line.

  Their immediate surroundings were a scrawny, frowzy landscape. The lawnsin front of the huts they passed, the homes of washerwomen, wereoverspread with drying linen.

  "Delightful, isn't it?" Pavel said, inhaling a long draught of the rich,animating air and glancing down a ravine choked with nettle. The remarkwas merely a spoken sigh of joy. She made no reply.

  They were both hungry, and presently they began to feel tired as well.Yet neither of them was disposed to halt or to break silence except byan occasional word or two that meant nothing.

  At last he said:

  "You must be quite fatigued. It's cruel of me."

  "I am, but it isn't cruel of you," she answered, stopping short, anddrawing a deep, smiling breath.

  He ran into a washerwoman's hovel, startling a brood of ducklings on hisway, and soon came back with the information that milk was to be had ina trackman's hut beyond a sparse grove to the right.

  A few minutes later they sat at a rude table in a miniature gardenbetween the shining steel rails of the track and a red-painted cabin. Itwas the fourth track-house from the Miroslav railroad station and wasgenerally known as the Fourth Hut. Besides milk and eggs and coarse ryebread they found sour soup. They ate heartily, but an echo of theirexalted dream was still on them. To Pavel this feeling was embodied inan atmosphere of femininity that pervaded his consciousness at thismoment. He was sensible of sitting in front of a pretty, healthy girlfull of modest courage and undemonstrative inspiration. The lingeringsolemnity of his mood seemed to have something to do with the shimmeringlittle hairs which the breeze was stirring on Clara's neck, as she bentover her earthen bowl, with the warm colouring of her ear, with theelastic firmness of her cheek, with the airiness of her blouse.

  A desire stirred in him to speak once more of the part she hadunconsciously played in his conversion, and at this he felt that if hetold her the story he would find a peculiar pleasure in exaggerating theimportance of the effect which her "speech" had produced on his mind.But it came over him that Makar was still behind the prison gate andthat this was not the time to enjoy oneself.