II.  TUMEN

II.  TUMEN

19

Only five months ago—­I had a wife, income, good food....  Only five months ago—­I had a country.

The mean and envious beast that lived in our midst,—­as it lives in every other country,—­unseen, but felt, and always ready to crush the acquirements of existing civilization,—­the mob came out from the underground world; criminal hands let the mob on the streets.  Weak and shaky fingers unlocked the trap; a magnificent gesture of an ignorant Don Quixote invited the spies, the thieves, the murderers “to make the New Russia.”

I see foreign faces around me; I hear foreign accents in every line of each new edict; I listen to the strange names of our new governors.

The Mob is in power; and the friendly faces of our Allies became dry and cold....

Looking backward—­I try to find out whether there was a mistake of my own, or my own crime, for which some unknown and heartless Judge is now so severely punishing me?

* * * * *

Here I am, a graduate of the two best institutions in Russia and Germany, a man with five generations behind me,—­all thoroughbred, all civilized, all gentlemen.  Here I am in disguise—­as apparently thousands and thousands of other Russians are, just as bearded as they, just as dirty, just as hungry, just as alone in the world.

My name is now Alexei Petrovich Syvorotka, formerly non-commissioned officer, 7th of Hussars, born in the province of Kursk.  I dress in an old military overcoat, have a badly broken shoulder blade (second degree injury at Stanislau), and as my documents say—­have been evacuated to Tumen, where I am supposed to receive my soldier’s ration.  Syvorotka!  Would you talk to a man with such a name?

This Syvorotka, a humble creature—­a shadow of yesterday—­has only one thing of which he cannot be robbed, his only consolation:  the sorrow which he wears deep under his uniform jealously concealed from the rest of the world.

20

My baggage—­the handbag—­was found.

Those peculiar things can happen only in the present Russia.  She is like a good make of automobile after a wreck.  Everything seems to be crushed and broken—­machinery, wheels, glass, body....  Still some parts are strong enough to keep moving.  So miraculously there moved a part, which brought my handbag here from Moscow,—­the very first ray of sun in my existence for a long time.

I came to the depot this morning—­I had been coming every day since Schmelin gave me the baggage check—­and saw a few men unloading a baggage coach.  I approached them.

“Hello,” I said to a tartar whose abominable face was covered with pock marks, (nowadays one must always address the most hostile looking person in a crowd, never the most sympathetic, for one should not show any weakness to the mob), “any work”?