DEDICATION TO EVAN CHARTERIS

MY DEAR EVAN,—This book, which you expressed a wish I should dedicate to you, consists of short essays and stories dealing entirely with Russian subjects.

These essays (which deal with Russia) are in no sense political. I will not go so far as to say they are uninteresting; such modesty is, as Bacon once pointed out, a gross form of boasting; besides which it is a mistake. If one underrates one’s wares one is taken at one’s word. I have found this out to my cost. Once when I was competing in a Civil Service Examination, and appeared as a candidate in the German viva voce, the German examiner asked me if I could speak German.

“Yes, a little,” I answered modestly.

[p. viii]

“Oh!” said the examiner, “I will then wish you good morning. I will no doubt have the pleasure of seeing you again the next time there is an examination.”

The next time there was an examination and I presented myself again to the German viva voce examiner, who happened to be a different man, when he asked me if I could speak German, I replied thus—

“Yes, I speak it as well as Bismarck spoke it, and my written style combines the solidity of Lessing’s, the limpidity of Goethe’s, and the lightness of touch of Heine’s, as you have no doubt observed from my written papers.”

“Then I need not trouble you any further,” said the examiner. This time I got full marks.

In the last book I wrote, which was also about Russia, there was a preface in which I said that I had no political opinions and that my only object was to give a record of things seen. In spite of this Conservatives said my book was a revolutionary pamphlet, and Liberals—English Liberals of course—Russian Liberals [p. ix]knew better—declared it was an apology for reaction.⁠[1] What better proof could I have had of its fundamental impartiality? But impartiality is unpopular. People prefer to see dogmatic opinions nailed like a flag to one side or the other; they cannot bear being told that both sides are right—and wrong. They do not much like being told that one is quite indifferent as to what people’s political opinions may be, because one is interested in them as human beings. In saying that such impartiality is unpopular, I have greatly understated the question. If one takes an impartial view of certain questions which inspire violent partisanship; if, for instance, one is opposed to vivisection and at the same time one has no

sympathy with anti-vivisectionists—if, for instance, one believes in the innocence of Dreyfus, and the Dreyfusards inspire one with disgust, or if, as in this case, one sympathises with the Russian Liberals and yet considers that their apologists in England talk incredible nonsense—it [p. x]is almost impossible to get a hearing at all. Both sides reject you, because you refuse not to admit that there are weaknesses and a certain measure of right on either side. The partisan cannot bear this to be said. His side must be altogether right, the other side must be altogether wrong; and if you venture to say that such a view is exaggerated and incomplete, you are howled down. People, and especially English people, are extraordinarily sensitive on this score (curiously enough), when a foreign country is in question. They regard every foreign country as being divided into two camps, the angels on one side, the devils on the other. In Russia the angels are all Revolutionaries, the devils are all Reactionaries. You, who have been in Russia, know that this is not the case. People in Russia,

as elsewhere, are all made of the same stuff: their opinions are largely due to circumstance. But we English have a passion for meddling with other people’s business, without understanding what that business is. This is especially the case when any complex problem arises [p. xi]in a foreign country, such as the Dreyfus case or the Russian Revolution. Some people call this our great traditional sympathy with “nations rightly struggling to be free.” Unfortunately such sympathy being generally based on a total misapprehension of the questions at issue, very often does more harm than good. For instance, when not long ago in the House of Commons it was debated whether or no the King should pay a visit to the Emperor of Russia, and some one suggested that were the visit to be cancelled the immense majority of the Russian people would regard it as an insult, and that the Russian peasants bore no ill-will towards the Emperor, but rather complained of the results of a system of government, which in the last few years has undergone and is still undergoing radical change—when

such arguments were brought forward some of the Labour Members nearly burst with ironical cheers. Here, they thought, was the voice of officialdom, Torydom, and hypocrisy speaking. Now turn to the facts. When Professor Kovolievski was elected a member [p. xii]for the first Duma in the government of Kharkov as an advanced Liberal member, he after his election asked some of his peasant electors whether he was not right in supposing that had he said anything offensive with regard to the Emperor at his meetings, there would have been no applause.

[1] The book is at this moment forbidden by the Censorship in Russia.

“We should not only not have applauded,” was the answer, “but we should have beaten you to death.”

And I am convinced that if any of our Labour Members went to any Russian village with an interpreter, and made speeches on the subject of the Emperor of Russia, such as they made in the House of Commons, they would swiftly be lynched. This, of course, does not mean that the Russian peasant is averse to reform, or does not suffer from the evil effects of bad government; but it means that he is a Russian, and that is a thing which our enthusiastic Liberals entirely overlook, and they overlook it because they do not know what Russia is, or what a Russian is. They are divorced from fact and soar in [p. xiii]wide spaces of theory. And that is the reason that although all my sympathies in Russia are with the poor, and with any people who contribute a mite towards the cause of reform, the ignorance of English Liberals on the subject makes me sick.

In this book you will not find, thank Heaven, very much talk of politics. You will find, on the other hand, truthful and accurate records of real people, seen with the naked eye, unobscured by prejudice and not magnified by the spectacles of exaggeration. Also some true stories. I hope it will amuse you.

That is all I have to say about this book. Books, like every other human thing, rarely end by being what they were meant to be. The books we dream of are magnificent, interesting, exhaustive, bulky, but nevertheless not too long. They glow in the imagination like a living coal. The books we write are scrappy, short, not sufficiently interesting, and often appear to be too long in spite of their brevity. So far from glowing, they [p. xiv]resemble the ashes of an extinct cigar. Every time one finishes a book one thinks the next one will be better; but this is an illusion. This book is no exception to the melancholy rule, but such as it is, it is yours, and, I repeat once more, I hope you will like it.

M. B.

North Cottage London, 1908

[p. xv]

PREFACE

THE essays and stories contained in this book are reprinted for the greater part from the Morning Post, by whose kind permission I have been allowed to republish them here. My thanks are also due to the Editor of the Oxford and Cambridge Review for permission to republish the article on Andreev’s Life of Man; and to the Editor of that brilliant but too short-lived periodical the Ne Plus Ultra (published at Eton), for allowing me to make use of a story called “The Amorphists,” which appeared in its columns. My thanks are due to Mr. H. Belloc, who kindly read the proofs of this book for me.

[p. xvii]

A JOURNEY IN THE NORTH

I STARTED at night. The battle for a place in the third-class carriage was fought and won for me by a porter. A third-class carriage in Russia is not at all uncomfortable if you have a thick blanket, because every passenger has a right to the whole length of a seat. Three people can sit on the seat but only one can lie on it. The other two lie in berths above you or below you, as the case may be. At the end of the seat is a passage, and then there are further seats stretched horizontally across the windows. The seats are made of wood, and if you have a thick blanket and a pillow they are quite as comfortable as any other bed.

The differences between railway carriages in p. 2Russia and in England is that the Russian carriage is broader and bigger. Every carriage (whatever the class) is a corridor carriage. The first class is divided into separate compartments, but in the second and third class there is no partition and no doors dividing the corridor from the seats occupied by the passengers.

When you first step into the third-class carriage it is like entering pandemonium. It is almost dark, save for a feeble candle that gutters peevishly over the door, and all the inmates are yelling and throwing their boxes and baskets and bundles about. This is only the process of installation; it all quiets down presently, and everybody is seated with his bed unfolded, if he has one, his luggage stowed away, his provisions spread out, as if he had been living there for years and meant to remain there for many years to come.

This particular carriage was full. The people in it were workmen going home for the winter, peasants, merchants, and mechanics. Opposite to my seat were two workmen (painters), and next to them a peasant with a big grey beard. Sitting by the farther window p. 3was a well-dressed mechanic. The painter lighted a candle and stuck it on a small movable table that projected from my window; he produced a small bottle of vodka from his pocket, a kettle for tea, and some cold sausage, and general conversation began. The guard came to tell the people who had come to see their friends off—there were numbers of them in the carriage, and they were most of them drunk—to go. The guard looked at my ticket for Vologda and asked me where I was ultimately going to. I said “Viatka,” upon which the mechanic said: “So am I; we will go together and get our tickets together at Vologda.” The painter and the mechanic engaged in conversation, and it appeared that they both came from Kronstadt. The painter had worked there for twenty years, and he cross-questioned the mechanic with evident

pleasure, winking at me every now and then. The mechanic went into the next compartment for a moment, and the painter then said to me with glee: “He is lying; he says he has worked in Kronstadt, and he doesn’t know where such and such things are.” The mechanic came back, “Who is the Commandant p. 4at Kronstadt?” asked the painter. The mechanic evidently did not know, and gave a name at random. The painter laughed triumphantly and said that the Commandant was some one else. Then the mechanic volunteered further information to show his knowledge of Kronstadt; he talked of another man who worked there, a tall man; the painter said that the man was short. The mechanic said that he was employed in the manufacture of shells. They talked of the disorders at Kronstadt last year. The painter said that he and his son lay among cabbages while the fighting was going on. He added that the matter had nearly ended in the total destruction of Kronstadt. “God forbid,” said the peasant sitting next to me. No sympathy was expressed with the mutineers. The painter at

last told the mechanic that he had lived for twenty years at Kronstadt, and that he, the mechanic, was a liar. The mechanic protested feebly. He was an obvious liar, but why he told these lies I have no idea. Perhaps he was not a mechanic at all. Possibly he was a spy. He professed to be a native of a village near Viatka, and declared that he had been p. 5absent for six years (the next evening he said twelve years).

From this question of disorders at Kronstadt the talk veered, I forget how, to the topic of the Duma. “Which Duma?” some one asked; “the town Duma?” “No, the State Duma,” said the mechanic; “it seems they are going to have a new one.” “Nothing will come of it,” said the painter; “people will not go” (he meant the voters). “No, they won’t go,” said the peasant, cutting the air with his hand (a gesture common to nearly all Russians of that class), “because they know now that it means being put in prison.” “Yes,” said the painter, “they are hanging everybody.” And there was a knowing chorus of “They won’t go and vote; they know better.” Then the mechanic left his seat and sat down next to the painter and said in a whisper: “The Government⸺” At that moment the guard came in; the mechanic stopped abruptly, and when the guard went out the topic of conversation had been already changed. I heard no further mention of the Duma during the whole of the rest of the journey to Vologda. The people then began to prepare to go to sleep, except

p. 6the peasant, who told me that he often went three days together without sleep, but when he did sleep it was a business to wake him. He asked me if his bundle of clothes was in my way. “We are a rough people,” he said, “but we know how not to get in the way. I am not going far.” I was just going to sleep when I was wakened by a terrific noise in the next compartment. Some one opened the door and the following scraps of shouted dialogue were audible. A voice: “Did you say I was drunk or did you not?” Second voice (obviously the guard): “I asked for your ticket.” First voice: “You said I was drunk. You are a liar.” Second voice: “You have no right to say I am a liar. I asked for your ticket.” First voice: “You are a liar. You said I was drunk. I will have you discharged.” This voice then recited a long story to the public in general. The next day I ascertained that the offended man was a lawyer, one of the “bourgeoisie” (a workman explained to me), and that the guard had, in the dark, asked him for his ticket, and then as he made no sign of

life had pinched his foot; this having proved ineffectual, he said that the man was drunk, p. 7whereupon the man started to his feet and became wide awake in a moment. Eventually a gendarme was brought in, a “protocol” was drawn up in which both sides of the story were written down, and there, I expect, the matter will remain until the Day of Judgment.

I afterwards made the acquaintance of two men in the next compartment; they were dock labourers and their business was to load ships in Kronstadt. They were exactly like the people whom Gorki describes. One of them gave me a complete description of his mode of life in summer and winter. In summer he loaded ships; in winter he went to a place near Archangel and loaded carts with wood; when the spring came he went back, by water, to St. Petersburg. He asked me what I was. I said that I was an English correspondent. He asked then what I travelled in. I said I was not that kind of correspondent but a newspaper correspondent. Here he called a third friend, who was sitting near us, and said, “Come and look; there is a correspondent here. He is an English correspondent.” The friend came—a man with a red beard and a loose shirt with a pattern of flowers on it. “I p. 8don’t know you,” said the new man. “No; but let us make each other’s acquaintance,” I said. “You can talk to him,” explained the dock labourer; “we have been talking for

hours. Although he is plainly a man who has received higher education.” “As to whether he has received higher or lower education we don’t know,” said the friend, “because we haven’t yet asked him.” Then he paused, reflected, shook hands, and exclaimed: “Now we know each other.” “But,” said the dock labourer, “how do you print your articles? Do you take a printing press with you when you go, for instance, to the north like you are doing now?” I remarked that they were printed in London, and that I did not have to print them myself. “Please send me one,” he said; “I will give you my address.” “But it’s written in English,” I answered. “You can send me a translation in Russian,” he retorted.

“English ships come to Kronstadt, and we load them. The men on board do not speak Russian, but we understand each other. For instance, we load, and their inspector comes. We call him ‘inspector’ (I forget the Russian p. 9word he used, but it was something like skipador), they call him the ‘Come on.’ The ‘Come on’ comes, and he says ‘That’s no good’ (niet dobrò), he means not right (nié harosho), and then we make it right. And when their sailors come we ask them for matches. When we have food, what we call ‘coshevar,’ they call it ‘all right.’ And when we finish work, what we call ‘shabash’ (it means ‘all over’), they call ‘Seven o’clock.’ They bring us matches that light on anything,” and here he produced a box of English matches and lit a dozen of them just to show. “When we are ragged, they say, ‘No clothes, plenty vodka,’ and when we are well dressed, they say, ‘No plenty vodka, plenty clothes.’ Their vodka,” he added, “is very good.” Then followed an elaborate comparison of the wages and conditions of life of Russian

and English workmen. Another man joined in, and being told about the correspondent, said: “I would like to read your writings, because we are a ‘gray’ people (i.e. a rough people), and we read only the Pieterbourski Listok, which is, so to speak, a ‘black gang’ newspaper. Heaven knows what is happening p. 10in Russia. They are hanging, shooting and bayoneting every one.” And he went away. The dock labourer went on for hours talking about the “Come on,” the “All right,” and the “Seven o’clock.”

Then I went back to my berth and slept, till the dock labourer came and fetched me and said that I had to see the soldiers. I went into the next compartment, and there were two soldiers; one was dressed up, that is to say he had put on spectacles and a pocket-handkerchief over his head, and was giving an exhibition of mimicry, of recruits crying as they left home, of mothers-in-law, and other stock jokes. It was funny, and it ended in general singing. A sailor came to look on. He was a non-commissioned officer, and he told me in great detail how the Sveaborg mutiny had been put down. He said that the loyal sailors had been given 150 roubles (£15) a-piece to fight. I think he must have been exaggerating. At the same time he expressed no sympathy with the mutineers. He said that rights were all very well for countries like that of the Finns. But in Russia they only meant disorders, and as long as the disorders lasted Russia would be p. 11a feeble country. He had much wanted to go to the war, but had not been able to do so. In fact, he was thoroughly loyal and bien pensant.