The Secret Journey

I

IMMEDIATELY after my sons were released by the Tcheka, the elder was made ‘Military Instructor’ in our Volost, where he superintended the military training of young men in the various villages; and so we had the comfort and help of his being with us.

During this winter,— 1918-19,— we first came in direct contact with the Bolshevist authorities in the city; and the peasants came to us, advising us to join their commune, arguing that they might be able to protect us if we belonged to it. They passed a resolution in a Skhodka held without our presence, stating that as the ‘Ponafidines had always been friendly and good to the peasants, and Whereas, since the Revolution, they had never shown any political activity, but had always been ready to submit to all the revolutionary laws of the parish committee and commune,’ they asked to have ‘citizens Ponafidine and their sons registered as members of their community.’

This was, of course, not a political confession of faith, but a purely agrarian step. That it never had any practical result for us was not the fault of the peasants. In all that followed, when they repeatedly asked us if they might interfere in the action of the Bolsheviki against us, we advised them to keep still, for we doubted if their resistance would have any weight, while it surely would bring down on them the wrath of the Bolsheviki.

Our first visitor from the Bolsheviki was the County Commissar of Agriculture, an Esthonian, a butter-maker by profession, who arrived with secretaries, assistants, and professional farmmanagers. He was exceedingly polite, and altogether quite won our confidence. We heard later from one of those present, that he said, ‘That ’s the way I always treat them, until they lose their fright and show me everything. Then, when I have got what I want out of them, I begin to squeeze.’ And he certainly did squeeze us later on.

He went all over the estate, and then came in and discussed matters with us in a friendly and apparently open manner. He said that the chief object of the Commissariat was to see that no ground remained uncultivated, and that the greatest number of cattle and horses were raised. He assured us that we might remain in possession if we would guarantee to cultivate all our land as it had been done by us formerly, in order that we could give as much to the market as we did before. Under such circumstances, we could be permitted to have hired help, as was the rule on state farms.

We explained that it was out of the question. We had neither horses to plough with, nor cattle to furnish manure, as in other years, nor means with which to hire help. Also, we should cause bad feelings among the peasants, who now had the greater part of our grass-lands. The strongest argument of all, that we did not trust him and his fine words, or any other Bolshevik, could not, of course, be expressed.

His next suggestion was that they make a state farm in Bortniki, and I remain to manage the dairy for them. This last I evaded, claiming the right to do so, because I was over age for such work, and could not leave my sick husband. The question of establishing a state farm was left open, but everything they said pointed to such a fate for our estate. Before he left, I said to the Commissar, ‘What is to become of us in case the estate and all our property is taken from us? My husband and I are, unfortunately, still alive; how are we to be supported?’ In reply, he threw his hands in a comprehensive gesture about the room, and said, —

‘Oh, all this, your house and personal belongings are yours. They cannot be touched. We only take the farming implements and live stock. You and your husband can receive rations as issued to old people; your sons, of course, will be in the military service.’

He left us feeling, on the whole, reassured; we had not sufficiently learned the lesson that the Bolsheviki were teaching us, and therefore took the word of a Commissar as worth something.

A short time after this incident, going out into the hall one day, when I was quite alone in the house with my invalid husband, I saw three big, strapping Red Army men standing in the doorway, who, on seeing me, raised their rifles as for ‘ Attention,’ and with one voice shouted out, —

‘In the name of the Russian Socialistic, Federative, Soviet Republic, we arrest — your property.’ And at the last words they brought down their rifles to ‘At ease.’

I went up to them and asked them not to make so much noise, as my husband was sick, and added, ‘Now just put down your rifles, — you won’t frighten me, — and I ’ll get the samovar ready; we’ll drink tea, and afterward you may tell me what you want.’

At the sound of the word ‘samovar,’ instantly all their bellicose instincts were forgotten, and they asked eagerly,

‘Where shall we put them?’ And, standing the rifles in a corner that I indicated, they followed me docilely into my husband’s room.

I hastily explained to him in English that I thought the boys were all right if handled carefully, and to them I said, ‘You sit down and talk to my husband, who is blind and lonely, while I prepare the samovar for tea.’

I left them cosily chatting and smoking cigarettes that my husband offered them. With tea and black bread, all we had to offer them, they became still milder; and finally, when they handed me a small piece of paper (we were having a paper famine and even official documents were written on little scraps, sometimes even on packing paper), it proved to be from the Commissariat of Agriculture, and began: —

‘Take from the Ponafidines thirty tablecloths, ten pairs of curtains, ten pairs portières, and ten window-shades, twelve upholstered chairs’ —and I forget now how many tables, books, bookcases, mirrors, and wardrobes, all to be taken for the ‘Communistic Club of Ostashkow,’ our county town. The paper was signed by the County Commissar of Agriculture.

As no business is ever done in Russia without bargaining, I did not see why this should be an exception, so began to use all my powders of persuasion — so successfully, that they came down from thirty tablecloths to eighteen; and when I took them around the house, to choose curtains and tables, they were kind enough to say, ‘Oh, give us what you care least about’; and on leaving, they gave us a receipt for all they took. This, by the way, was the only raid made on our house where the commission went through the form of giving us a receipt.

We parted quite touchingly. They invited us to come and see their club, and all went up to the bed to shake my husband’s hand very politely and to apologize for disturbing him. Later on, one of our acquaintances told us of a big military dinner given to all the Commissars and other Communists of importance — a very fine dinner for those hard times. Our friend, however, said that all his appetite left him when he saw the table spread with a handsome cloth for twenty-five persons, with my monogram and crest in the centre.

We were very much relieved to have this Communistic visit end as peaceably as it did; for two of the members of the party had been among those who had so maltreated neighbors of ours. They had arrested a Madam K— and all her family and guests, and kept them locked up, the family in different partitions of the cellar, without giving them seats or even straw to lie on: and there they were held for ten days. The guests, as presumably less culpable, were confined to rooms in the house, and all were brought into the dining-room for their meals, while soldiers, with rifles, guarded them, and entertained them by encouraging remarks, such as, ‘Eat more, it may be your last meal.'

When Madam K— complained of the dampness in the cellar, they said, ‘Never mind, even if you do take cold; for you will be shot to-morrow at the latest.’

All these remarks Madam K— answered mockingly, and added, ‘We must all die some day, and I would far rather be shot and done with, than to have this kind of a life last, or to lie an invalid for years in my bed.’

Madam K—was expecting a number of friends and relatives from Petrograd and Moscow, who were coming to the country in hope of laying in food-supplies. They continued to arrive for several days; and as each party of guests drove up, they were politely ushered to their rooms by the Red Army and Tcheka men, where they were promptly locked up, to their great astonishment.

Among the last to arrive was a French lady, who outwitted the Tcheka men in a very clever manner. She had jewels hidden inside the stocking on one foot, and when she was searched, as all were, she made a great fuss, pretending to be very bashful, and begged to take off her shoes and stockings herself. This she did, very coyly under her skirts. Somehow she managed to strip the same foot twice, and the soldiers shook out the shoe and turned the stockings inside out, never noticing that it was the same foot each time.

The Communists who visited us told us, with the greatest glee, of the indignities they heaped upon Madam K— and her guests; but they fortunately were very good tempered when they came to our house.

This again shows how uncertain our life was, and how our fate always depended upon the persons and the mood of the persons who happened to visit us. And this very uncertainty was one of the most wearing features of the long years. Many a bridge that we dreaded to cross, we found, on approaching, never existed; and again, when we least expected it, a flood would burst upon us. What has driven the refugees in tens of thousands from Russia, has not been altogether the fear of famine and starvation, but in some measure the impossibility of leading the life that made us each evening thank God for one more day of comparative peace, and in the morning ask Him for help to bear whatever the new day might have in store for us.

II

In spite of the promise of the Commissar of Agriculture, our personal belongings continued to be taken from us; and in April of 1919 the estate was turned into a state farm. We were permitted to live in a small bungalow on our (former) land and to cultivate with our own hands as many acres as a peasant family of the size of ours would be entitled to have.

In the late summer of the same year, my husband died, and we were able to bury him in the family vault, where for three hundred years the members of our family have been buried. My youngest son and I were alone; my other son was stationed only some four hours by train from us, but the two telegrams we sent him reached him after his father’s funeral. We could not send for him, as no permission was given to private persons to travel on that road. The peasants, however, rallied around us and did all they could for us in those sad days. My youngest son was then working in the Government Forestry Department near us, and he and I continued to live as before until September, 1920, when we were turned out by order of the Central Government.

The order was to evict us with two weeks’ notice, giving us what was strictly necessary as to household goods, forty pounds of flour, three changes of linen and other garments, ‘according to the season’ — this, after repeated assurances that what we raised ourselves could not be taken from us! Existing ‘decrees’ also ensured us, as the family of a Red Army man, exemption from all requisitions, and from any curtailing of our rights. Here again we found that the ‘ freedom and ‘liberty’ of Bolshevist Communism, as well as their decrees, are subject to many interpretations.

On hearing of this order, the peasants went to town and interceded for us so successfully, that we were allowed a year’s supply of flour for myself, all our vegetables, and most of the clothing that we had saved. My sons were supposed to get army rations. The horse and the cow were to be taken from us.

The first years we had scrupulously kept intact the inventory of our property as made out by the peasants in 1917. Though we had often found ourselves in great need of what we could have obtained by bartering our household goods or clothing, we had never touched anything. But finally the day came when we realized that we were dealing with robbers, and that we must have more courage in acting for the future.

So we began to ‘steal’ our own property that the Bolsheviki claimed as the ‘people’s,’ and to hide it. Me had a girl in the house who watched and reported our every movement, so it took a good deal of skill to outwit her. During the day I would collect what I most wished to save, and pack it in boxes or bundles, at odd moments, as I could, when this girl’s eyes and cars were otherwise engaged. Some dark or stormy night, when our spy was asleep, my son and I would grope our way in the dark to the attic, carrying the boxes or bundles down the stairs, stopping breathlessly to listen to each sound — down the hill, keeping well in the shadow of bushes and trees, to our little boat moored to the landing. Then we would row across the lake to where some ‘speculators were waiting to buy what we had; or, more often, to a neighbor’s or some trusty peasant’s who would hide the things for us. Sometimes a few days later we would learn of a contemplated raid on one of these houses, and then another night-expedition would have to be undertaken, and a safer hiding-place found.

In this way we gradually smuggled clothing, household goods, and rye out of the house, until we had things hidden in twelve different places. So when the black day came and we were finally turned out of our last home, and were faced with life without our cow, we were able, by selling some of these treasures, to get the means of persuading the Agricultural Department to leave us our cow. In those hard times, if we could only have milk with our potatoes and rye bread we felt that we were rich indeed, and had no right to complain.

The cow once secured, the next problem was how to feed her. We had hay enough that my son had harvested himself, and we managed by a little extra persuasion to get this supply included in the permission for taking the cow, but this hay was in our barn, over twenty miles from the city, and it would have to be carted around the lake.

At this time we were suffering from an acute salt famine that continued for many months. There is plenty of salt in Russia, but this was just another example of mismanagement. In our part of the country salt was so scarce, and so dear, at that time, that it was used as our standard currency. Go to the market place and ask the price of anything and you were given it in so many pounds of salt; hire a carpenter, washerwoman, or day-laborer, and salt would be demanded in payment.

And here we — without salt, or any apparent prospect of obtaining it — were told by the peasants that they would only cart the hay to town for salt! Seven pounds of salt for each load of hay, and as the roads at that season were very bad we knew that the loads would be small. Trusting to Providence, we promised to obtain the salt in some way, and they brought us the hay, consenting to be paid gradually as we could get the salt. Immediately on arriving in the city I went to some Jewish acquaintances who had hidden supplies and who gladly gave us salt for milk. As the price of salt was so exceedingly high, it took nearly the whole winter’s supply of milk to get sufficient to pay for bringing the cow’s food to town, leaving very little for our own use.

The little town to which we had moved was so crowded with troops that we almost despaired of getting lodgings. One basement room had to serve as bedroom, sitting-room, and kitchen for us, and a little stable was found for our cow, with a loft for the precious hay. Hard as our life was in many ways, we felt that it was easier to endure these new troubles than it had been to live on the old estate and see the house where generations of our family had been born and had grown up and died, now occupied by strangers.

III

All these years we had been cut off from the outside world. No mail had come through from November, 1917, to October, 1920. All the news we had came through the Bolshevist papers. They gave accounts of the spread of Bolshevism abroad, and of the conversion of more and more countries to Communistic ideas.

At last, one never-to-be-forgotten day, letters came from dear friends in America, saying that they were working to get us out. Only those who have gone through what we in Bolshevist Russia have endured, isolated as in a prison, can understand what we experienced when those letters came, assuring us that there were people living as human beings have a right to live, and that there was a hope of our escaping from what was a slow, living death. Life in Russia is now one longdrawn-out physical, mental, and moral torture, especially for people of our class. It is next to impossible to get out of the country, prohibition and strict surveillance within, and many complications that meet a Russian citizen as soon as he crosses the frontier. But at last, in December, 1921, the longed-for moment arrived, and it was in an unexpected way.

Every step had to be taken with the greatest care and secrecy, not only for our own sakes, but to avoid any risk of involving our friends. Hard as it was, therefore, to leave without a word of farewell, we decided not to take anyone into our confidence, and we left Russia without even the landlord of the rooms we occupied having any suspicion of our intentions.

Finally, one dark stormy night, the three of us — my two sons and myself — started on what we knew was the road either to freedom or to death. We took with us only what we could carry in sacks tied on our backs, and were guided by people whom we did not know, and whose faces we never saw through that long black night.

We found ourselves driving through snowdrifts in absolute silence; passing places where we had to make long détours to avoid exposing ourselves to lights, or running into the Red sentinels, stationed all along the border. After driving hours in the bitter cold, and having many false alarms, we came to a very serious obstacle in our path. It was an open, riverlike channel, some fifty feet broad, where large blocks of ice were floating. Our guides told us they were in the habit of unharnessing their horses and laying them bound with ropes on the sledges. Then, by gathering the blocks of ice together with long hooks, the sledges could be pushed across. We asked where we should be during that operation, and were told that we could ‘jump from block to block.’

In the darkness we could just distinguish black spots on the white snow, which we knew were open places in the ice and meant water. Our men began feverishly to unharness the horses; but, something alarming them, they decided that it was too great a risk to spend so much time, and that we must get across as speedily as possible.

Passing long ropes under the bodies of the horses and around the shafts, the ends of which were held by the drivers, we proceeded to cross as best we could. The large blocks of ice were drawn together, making as solid a mass as possible; and over this the horses stepped quickly and lightly, as only Russian horses can do, accustomed as they are to crossing unsafe ice.

One of our horses broke through, but my son and the driver jumped off the back of the sledge on to the firm ice, and with the support given by the ropes the horse was able to scramble out and we all crossed in safety.

A few days later, when safely over the frontier, we met a family who had experienced greater difficulties than those that had fallen to our lot. Their horse, breaking through the ice, had been unable to get out and, in its extremity, began to scream. Fearing that it might be heard by the Red sentinels, the guides struck it over the head, and pushed the body of the horse and the sledge under the ice so as to leave no trace — and continued their way on foot.

After going some hours farther in the darkness, we were told that the frontier was crossed, but we soon found that our trials were not at an end.

The understanding with the guides had been that they were to take us to a village, where we could get a horse to take us farther. What was, then, our dismay when our guides abruptly stopped and, ordering us to get out, began throwing our sacks after us onto the snow, telling us that they would take us no farther! All our protestations were in vain. Waving their hands indefinitely in the darkness, our guides kept repeating: ‘Go in that direction and you will be sure to strike a village.’ Taking up their reins, they dashed off, and were soon swallowed up in the darkness.

Unbroken snow and drifts lay before us in the direction so vaguely indicated, without a track to guide us; but we tied on our bags and set out as hopefully as we could. I, however, came very near wrecking our expedition; for my knees were so frozen that I could not make them bend. The snow was drifted in some places nearly to my waist, and every few steps I would fall. In fact, we all did; but the difference was that my sons could at once regain their feet, whereas I had no strength to rise with the bag on my back. My sons would remove the sack and pull me to my feet, only to be obliged to repeat the operation after a few steps.

The night was wearing on, and we were not far enough over the frontier for safety; but I could do no better. As a last resort, one of my sons suggested going on in hope of finding help, leaving us with his bags to struggle on as we could. So my eldest son and I took one bag at a time, dragging them a few rods, and then going back for others. In this way, falling and rising, we made some progress, until, to our dismay, we realized that the footprints that we were following were being fast obliterated by the storm, and the horror of losing each other was added to our anxieties.

My son and I held a council of war, and decided that he was to go on and get into communication with his brother. This he was very reluctant to do, as it involved leaving me quite alone; but I insisted that in doing so lay our only hope of keeping in touch with each other.

Before starting, my son gathered all our sacks and, piling them up, told me to sit down and rest; then he in turn disappeared in the darkness. I soon found that sitting still and thinking was the last thing to do, and that I must act-even if with little result. Taking one bag at a time, I stumbled on, making some headway, until I found that the footsteps I was following were becoming so faint, that in the darkness I sometimes had to feel for them with my fingers. This seemed to me the last straw, and dropping the bag that was in my hand, I hurried on, feverishly trying to go as fast as I could, losing all estimate of time. It seemed to me that eternities passed before I saw, way ahead of me, a light brightly gleaming in the darkness.

IV

No lost mariner ever saw the saving light with more thankfulness and joy than did I, alone in the darkness, with dangers worse than shipwreck behind me. Now I felt I could rest and get my breath. Gathering up all our sacks, I sat down and patiently waited till I saw the dark figures of my two sons looming out of the darkness. Now we did not mind stumbling and falling, for we knew that the goal was near.

It seems that the son who had gone first struck a little clearing in the forest — the only one, as we afterwards learned, anywhere near. Here he found a forester’s cabin and, waking the family, asked them to put a lamp in the window to guide us, and to prepare something hot to drink. Retracing his steps, he met his brother, and the two found me.

When we entered that little oneroomed cabin, and were met by the fragrant aroma of real coffee, the first we had smelled — to say nothing of tasting — in years, I think that was one of the strongest sensations of that long night.

The young wife spoke no Russian, but her heart went out to us, and she bustled about, getting our frozen garments thawed and dried, and placed before us a steaming coffee-pot, milk, and — what seemed to us a most unwarrantable extravagance — a saucer heaped full of sugar. We had not seen so much sugar in one place for a long time. She then made us comfortable, one on her bed, others on the floor, to rest while her husband went to a neighboring village.

How we slept! It was day when the men came in, and we had a long argument about hiring their horse to take us to the quarantine. On every frontier these quarantines are established against Russian refugees. Though nominally to protect Europe against the epidemics, — now a part of the Bolshevist régime, — it seemed to us that there was more of political than sanitary significance to the quarantine, where we were told we must spend two weeks.

On arriving there we found that our friends in America had taken all necessary steps to make the remainder of our journey both safe and comfortable — and so we were led out of that land of desolation and suffering. Our escape was made possible, humanly speaking, by the activity of our friends; but every step was so wonderfully guided and the rough ways made smooth, that we could only thank God for his mercy to us.

In looking back, we felt that we had awakened from an awful nightmare. We almost forgot that we were leaving all we held dear and our homeland; for Russia is so changed. Our family also is almost entirely broken up. Death, — largely from privations, — exile, imprisonment had done their work.

What we left is not Russia. Not only have the Bolsheviki ruined a great empire and made it desolate in every sense of the word, but the very life and spirit of Russia are changed. Among people once unparalleled for their kindliness, hospitality, and charm, one now sees, on the one hand, only the despotism, brutality, and even luxury of the few, in whom not a Russian trait seems to have survived; and, on the other hand, the cowed, starving mass, with all initiative and life crushed out of them.

But I fully believe that Russia is not dead. How long it will take her to rise and shake off the heavy yoke that is crushing all intellectual and moral life, and begin a new and freer development, no one can foretell. ‘ Many waters must flow ’ — as the Russian proverb has it — before peace and life can come; and, in the meantime, the toll must be great in life and misery; but the dawn will come with God’s help. While holding fast to this belief, one’s heart is heavy in thinking of the many lives so uselessly sacrificed, families scattered, and suffering endured — and oh! so bravely that no pen picture can portray the reality.

The only gleam of light came through the wonderful work of Hoover’s Relief Administration. One of my nephews, also a Russian refugee, wrote me of the help he and his family had received through that organization, and added: ‘So long as Russians have breath in them, they will pray God to reward the Americans who sent them food for their starving bodies, and, above all, words of cheer to keep up their courage in their time of dire need.’