Soon one of the arrested officers, who had been caught cursing Bolshevism while drunk, was set free. Before he went some of his companions intrusted him with messages to their relatives. I thought of the Vasilievs, who had so kindly taken me from the hospital to their home in the autumn of 1916, and begged the officer to visit them and tell them of my plight. He promised to do so and carried out his pledge. I sent them a message that I expected to be executed and asked their help. When Daria Maximovna got the message she was horrified and immediately set out to get permission to see me. But when she called at the Soldiers’ Section for a pass to see Botchkareva, she was taken for a friend of Kornilov’s and would have been badly mauled if not for the fact that her son Stepan, who had belonged to my Company and who had brought about the friendship between his mother and myself, was now one of the Bolshevik chiefs. Daria Maximovna cried out that she was the mother of Stepan Vasiliev, of such and such a department, and he was brought to identify his mother. This rescued her from a severe punishment. She appealed to her son to intervene in my behalf, but he refused, saying that he could not come to the aid of an avowed friend of Kornilov’s. He, however, obtained a pass to my cell for his mother. Later he responded to her entreaties and did say a few good words for me, telling the proper authorities that I was a simple peasant woman with no understanding of politics. On the fourth day of my imprisonment I received a quarter of a pound of bread, some tea and two cubes of sugar. The bread was black, consisting partly of straw. I could not even touch it and had to satisfy myself with three cups of tea. Later in the day a sailor came in, and, addressing me as comrade, informed me that one Vasilieva was waiting to see me. I was weak, so weak that I could not move a few feet without assistance. As soon as I got up and made a step, I sank back on the bed in a helpless condition. “Are you ill?” the sailor asked. “Yes,” I murmured. He took me by the arm and led me to a chair in the office. I was bathed in perspiration after the little walk and so dizzy that I could not see anything. When Daria Maximovna saw me she fell on my neck and wept. Turning to the officials, she cried out bitterly: “How could you ever have such a woman arrested and subjected to torture? A woman who was so kind to the soldiers, and suffered so much for your own brothers!” She then opened a package, took out some bread and butter, and handed them to me with these words: “Manka, here is a quarter of a pound of bread. All we got to-day was three-eighths of a pound. And this is a quarter of a pound of butter, our entire ration.”