Trapped in 'Black Russia': Letters June-November 1915Pierce, Ruth
History
Trapped in 'Black Russia': Letters June-November 1915
Pierce, Ruth
World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives; World War, 1914-1918 -- Russia
Then began the most restless night I ever spent. We bumped along in a
third-class carriage, and descended to wait for an hour or more on the
platform of some little crossroad station. We sat on our bags till our
spines cracked with fatigue. The men smoked one cigarette after another.
As far as I could see stretched dark fields lighted dimly by thick
stars, with a wind blowing out of the darkness into our faces. No one
spoke. Down the tracks a round white headlight grew bigger and bigger.
The noise of the approaching train filled the night. We scrambled into
another third-class carriage and sat on some more hard, narrow seats for
an hour or so.
At last the dawn came--a square of gray light through the train window.
Almost every one had fallen asleep. How pallid and ugly they looked with
their mouths open and their heads lolling forward!
At ten we changed for the last time before Kiev. The carriage was not
divided up into compartments, but was open, with rows of seats and an
aisle down the center, like our trains in America,--only there was an
upper story of seats, too. I stretched out and went to sleep. When I
woke the carriage was filled. Marie and I occupied one seat together.
Opposite us sat a fat, red-nosed man, with a fur cap, though it was
summer. Between his legs was a huge, bulky bag. When the train stopped,
he put a pinch of tea in his little blue enameled teapot, which he
filled at the hot-water tank that is at every Russian station just for
that purpose. He pulled out of his bag numberless newspaper packages and
spread them out on the newspaper across his knees--big fat sausages and
thin fried ones, a chunk of ham, a boiled chicken, dried pressed meat, a
lump of melting butter, some huge cucumber pickles, and cheese. With a
murderous-looking knife he cut thick slices from a big round loaf of
bread that he held against his breast. He sweetened his tea with some
sugar from another package, and sliced a lemon into it. When he had
finished eating, he carefully rolled up the food again and put it away,
and settled back in his chair. With great deliberation he took out of
his vest pocket a little black box with bright flowers painted on the
lid. He fingered it lovingly for a moment, then he took a pinch of
snuff, closing his eyes in ecstasy and inhaling deeply. He did this
three times and blew his nose vigorously. Then he put the box away,
brushing off the gray grains of powder that had fallen down his vest
front. All day long, every time the train stopped, he refilled his
little blue enameled teapot and repeated the ceremony, even to the last
grain of snuff.
Across the aisle sat two priests, unshaven and unshorn, in wide black
hats, their long, greasy black hair falling over the shoulders of their
dirty gray gowns. They spent the day in prayer and eating and drinking.
They were evidently bound for Kiev on a holy pilgrimage to the Lavra.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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