Besides our own friends there were many people personally unknown to us who cared for our material needs, I mean the members of the “Red Cross of the Revolution,” of which mention has been made in an earlier chapter as the “old clothes society.” These were chiefly women, who undertook with much zeal the small but very charitable and indispensable task of providing for the political prisoners and exiles. Many a one, left deserted in the world, had reason to value the unselfish activity of these good Samaritans. Often enough have I seen the grateful emotion of some lonely soul, when the strange hand of a kind woman—one of the society’s members—bestowed on him cheerfully some useful and hardly spared article. Our little company in the prison of Moscow seems to have come off particularly well in this way. Long before the commencement of the journey to Siberia our benefactresses warned us to let them have a list of what we should be needing for our travels. When it is remembered that we were over fifty persons, and that before many of us lay a journey of more than half a year, it is evident how much opportunity there was for the thoughtful and minute care of these noble women. There were hundreds of little things wanted that gave them not only time and trouble, but personal inconvenience to procure; and their self-sacrificing exertions to lighten the lot of the captives were infinitely touching. Easter and Christmas are special feast days in Russia. The Russian revolutionists have definitely renounced all religious creeds, and there are many among them who in any case would have nothing to do with the Orthodox Russian Church—Jews, Germans, Poles, etc. Nevertheless, those in prison or in places of banishment always take part whenever possible in the common festivals of the people; and these days of rejoicing are doubly welcomed when they come to break the dreary routine of prison-life. Relations, friends, and the Red Cross ladies send food and even dainties to the prisons, and the inmates hold high revel. In the Moscow prison we had a specially merry time on Easter Eve. We had petitioned the Governor of Moscow for leave to pass the night before Easter together, according to Russian custom. This was conceded; and we all, including the women, assembled in the quarters of the “administratives,” where the rooms are large, because the prisoners are there grouped together, not confined in single cells. All manner of good things had been sent us—Easter cakes, eggs, hams, poultry, and all that is customary, including some bottles of light wine and beer—so that our Easter table was a magnificent sight.[54] Under the superintendence of the old governor and his staff we spent the evening and half the night in a merry fashion not often witnessed in a prison. Songs were sung, there were jokes and laughter; finally a harmonica appeared, and the young people began to dance. Yet, despite so much hearty and unfeigned