But no, they do not say this; they go, and they will continue to go; they cannot but go as long as they fear that which ruins the body and not that which ruins both the body and the soul. "Whether we shall be killed," they argue, "or maimed in these chinnampos, or whatever they are called, whither we are driven, we do not know; it yet may happen that we shall get through safely, and, moreover, with rewards and glory, like those sailors who are now being feasted all over Russia because the Japanese bombs and bullets did not hit them, but somebody else; whereas should we refuse, we should be certainly sent to prison, starved, beaten, exiled to the province of Yakoutsk, perhaps even killed immediately." So with despair in their hearts, leaving behind a good rational life, leaving their wives and their children,--they go. Yesterday I met a Reservist soldier accompanied by his mother and wife. All three were riding in a cart; he had had a drop too much; his wife's face was swollen with tears. He turned to me:-- "Good-by to thee! Lyof Nikolaevitch, off to the Far East." "Well, art thou going to fight?" "Well, some one has to fight!" "No one need fight!" He reflected for a moment. "But what is one to do; where can one escape?" I saw that he had understood me, had understood that the work to which he was being sent was an evil work. "Where can one escape?" That is the precise expression of that mental condition which in the official and journalistic world is translated into the words--"For the Faith, the Tsar, and the Fatherland." Those who, abandoning their hungry families, go to suffering, to death, say as they feel, "Where can one escape?" Whereas those who sit in safety in their luxurious palaces say that all Russian men are ready to sacrifice their lives for their adored Monarch, and for the glory and greatness of Russia. Yesterday, from a peasant I know, I received two letters, one after the other. This is the first:--