A Siberian Evangeline

ONE hundred and forty steamers ply up and down the Amur River and its tributary the Chilka. All fly the three horizontal stripes of Russia, red, white, and dull blue. According to treaty with China and notification to the rest of the world, craft flying other flags are unconditionally debarred these waters.

Half of the steamers belong to the company which receives a government subsidy for carrying the mail, and their going and coming seem to rest upon some impulse of regularity. Of course they are idle for more than half the year, when the river is closed and icebound, or else breaking and churning and releasing its imprisoned waters. The first steamer passes up early in May ; then until the bitter cold of the autumn the waters are never deserted.

One trip up or down the river has its monotonies even at the best of times, when the water is high and the danger of spending half of every day on mud bars is least. For thousands of versts the great brown river sweeps around the same long curves, and the same low landscape stretches away on either side, sometimes dimly bounded by a blue mountain range far away in Manchuria. Each wooden village at which the steamer stops seems like the last, and apparently the same eager group of peasants hurry down the watereaten bank to the beach, laden with loaves of bread, bottles of milk, and plates of sour cream. Yet the captain told me that for two summers the haggard woman who leaned all day against the rail of the lower deck had never failed a trip of his steamer up or down the river ; and in the winter, he had been told, she kept up her singular pilgrimage back and forth on tarantass or sledge. We sat in the shade of the pilot house, the captain sipping a glass of tea. He had just succeeded in getting the steamer off a mud bar inside of an hour, and he felt in good humor.

“You’ve noticed her amongst the third-class people ? ” (They were huddled, poor creatures, with their bundles, on the lower deck, with no particular place to lay their heads.) “She always stands by the rail, like that, and looks over toward the shore. When we blow the whistle and begin to slow up to make a landing at a village, she hurries to the place where the gangplank goes ; when it ’s let across she runs down to the beach, and hunts out the pope in the crowd and asks him a question. It ’s always the same thing : ' Have you seen Michael Petr’ich ? ’ or, ‘ Has Michael Petr’ich been here, from the commune of ―, in Little Russia? ’ And the pope always shakes his head ; and she comes back to the steamer, walking very slow, and takes her old place on the deck. Then she hardly moves for hours.”

“Perhaps he’s a convict — ticket-ofleave man — and she’s his wife ; or perhaps it is a man who has wronged her or her family, and she is seeking revenge. A murderer, perhaps.”

The captain shook his head. “She has money, and her passport is all right. She came out first with a neighbor’s family who were emigrating. I ’ve since met a woman from her village in Little Russia, and she says that the woman was betrothed to a Michael Petrovitch, and that she ran away to Odessa to work in a factory. In a little while she came back ; but the man had got the government permission to emigrate and was gone. She had a little money left her, and started off after him. She heard first that he was in the Transbaikal Province, then in the Amurskaia: so she’s been going up and down, and has n’t heard of him.”

“That ’s an unusual story for Russian peasants.”

The captain removed his cap, and ran his pocket comb — important possession of most Russian men — through his bushy hair. He was a nervous little fellow. His yellow beard was cut to a point, and his face was red from exposure, but it had a kindly and quizzical expression. His type was not unlike that of his Czar, — with proper respect to the latter. After replacing the comb in his pocket he thoughtfully said: —

“Yes, they don’t generally love that way. The people are afraid of her and leave her alone. They think that she is mad. But so long as she has her passport and pays her fare we have nothing ” —

The fateful cry of “ Vōsēm-por-lavini — vōsēm — sēm-por-la-vini — sēm — shèst-por-la-vini — shèst-por-la-vini — shèst ” — came to us from the bow. The captain got up, and hurried forward with an exclamation of excuse and impatience, and stood where he could watch the deck hand who threw a painted pole into the water, crying out the depth as he did so. We were on shallows again.

I walked forward and looked down, also. There were two little upper decks : the one on which I stood, about three feet above the other, had the pilot house and the captain’s cabin, and just cleared the paddle wheels ; the lower one was built over the tops of our tiny staterooms. On the bits of clear deck below, the third - class passengers — men, women, and children-were crowded. Some Cossacks abode in the bow, and assisted the deck hands with capstan and poles when we were stuck on the river bottom. They were watching the record on the painted pole with interest. On the other side, indifferent to all around her, stood the woman of whom we had spoken, and I observed her again with a feeling of new interest.

Few of those Russian peasant women are pretty, though few, on the other hand, are repulsive. Their hair is apt to be straw-colored and straight, and their eyes blue. They lack delicacy of feature and the feminine charm which rarely exists in an atmosphere barren of homage for their sex. At the most they are thoroughly wholesome and good-natured, used to work in the fields as hard as the men, and bear the babies too, which is merely a side issue. This woman was gaunt and her face was haggard. At first I thought her middle-aged, but after watching her closely I realized that she was younger than she seemed. Some mental mishap or physical illness had stolen her youth. In spite of this her face had the quality of beauty. The prettiness which many of these peasant women may possess when they are girls passes away quickly under the stress of such a life as theirs ; real beauty never, except in degree, — that is, its essence.

I had thought the captain’s story unusual, because the Russian peasant is not romantic, and there is no gleam of chivalry in his soul. His marriage is largely a matter of convenience. The husband is often very kindly to his wife and fond of her, and the children are their joint pride and care ; but few could sympathize with the intense feeling which must inspire the woman who leaned on the rail below, who for two years had kept up her lonely search. You may feel interested in the average moujik (peasant) from a distance, but you rarely feel as strongly attracted to any as I did to this woman gazing dumbly toward the shore, mystery and sorrow in her face.

We passed a steamer or two every day, and when one glided into view from behind a curve of the river we blew a greeting and received a reply. Then what a change in the rigid figure! She quivered with excitement, and leaned eagerly forward to scan with her eyes the oncoming boat. If it was loaded with emigrants, packed together so closely that we saw them as a whole, in a blurred mass, she leaned forward all the more eagerly in a vain and pitiful attempt to see every face, and then shrank back despairingly after it had passed. How long could she keep this up without going mad as the people thought her ?

The days passed, with very little to distinguish one from another. The country still stretched away in its low, barren monotony. Once in a while, to make life tolerable, the river curled for a few versts within a group of hills or passed a bold cliff surmounted by a wooden cross.

It is a difficult feat to navigate these rivers, with their shifting banks of mud or sand. At night, all the way from Nikolaievsk, at the mouth of the Amur, to the point where navigation ends on the Chilka, we were never out of sight of a light at night, always twinkling through the darkness on one side of the river or the other, wherever it could guide the skipper best ; and in the daytime the gaudily painted lamp poles were of equal value as marks whereby to steer a course. When the heavy fog fell, we anchored till it passed away. To tend these lamps, light them at night, and patrol the river, over a thousand men are employed by the government, many of whom lead hermit lives. We used to see them paddling their canoes near the shore, out of reach of the current, on their way from one lamp to another, and sometimes we caught sight of a solitary hut of logs half hidden in the timber. I thought of the long winter, when the river was in its icy clasp and the summer occupation gone. Then these lonely men spent the time in gathering furs, which they sold at some village store or sent to one of the large cities in the spring. Still there must be many days when the snow imprisons the isolated hut, and what are the resources of the occupant ? Does he sleep, or weep, or think ? What a life!

These thoughts were in my mind one night as we steamed slowly against the current, and dark headlands came into view, were passed, and faded into the blackness behind us. The cry came monotonously from the bow: “Vōsēmpor - la - vini — vōsēm — sēm - por - lavini — sem — sliest-por-la-vini —shèst — piāth - por - la - vini — piāth — chetēērys - por - la - vini — ehe-tēērys-chetēērys ” —

Suddenly the pilot’s bell rang sharply in the engine room, and the steamer slowed up, then stopped, keeping her wheels revolving just enough to resist the current.

We were used to stopping in midstream, but not when it seemed possible to go on, so all the passengers on deck asked the captain what was the matter. “Light ’s out,” he replied laconically, and then I noticed that there was no yellow glimmer on either shore. A boat was lowered and rowed heavily upstream, soon disappearing into the darkness. The captain came near and leaned on the rail at my side.

“It looks like rain,” he said, in a tone of gratification, for if it fell his troubles would cease. “We are stopping now to find out why the lamp is not lit ; it seldom happens.”

“ What is the cause ? ”

“Man may be sick, or drunk — or dead.”

The steward came toiling up the steps with a great brass samovar, and the captain went into his cabin to sip his evening cup of tea. Clouds hid the stars, and the moon attempted to struggle through where they were thinnest, and cast a faint glimmer over the rapidly flowing water which finally merged into the blackness of the shore. Near the steamer it foamed angrily from the slowly moving paddle wheels which kept us stationary in midstream. The sound of oars came out of the darkness, and we could distinguish the shadowy form of a boat struggling against the current. The passengers who were on deck crowded to the side to pick up some item of interest from the mysterious incident, and a long rope was whirled out to the man in the bow, who caught it on the fly. Then the oars were shipped and the men drew themselves alongside.

In the stern lay a limp black figure.

“He ’s either sick or dead. If he ’d been drunk, they would have left him, ” said the captain, who stood at my side again. Then we both descended to the lower deck. Here the emigrants were huddled, and many of them had curled up in the midst of their luggage, fast asleep for the night. The sailors were lifting the limp form to the deck. The captain knelt beside it.

“Have him brought to my room,” he said, rising.

“Herosho ” (All right), was the response, and the men began to lift him again. They were interrupted by a cry, — a cry of grief and joy blended curiously together.

“Michael! Michael Petr’ich! Michael ! Michael! ” and the sombre figure of the peasant woman, the woman of the quest, impelled its way through the crowd and sank beside the prostrate man. With tense movement she leaned over to look into his face, and remained for a minute absolutely motionless, — looking, looking, looking ; then the man opened his eyes. “Michael, Michael, — Michael! ” and her tone had a note of rapture.

A faint smile came into the man’s face along with the shadow of death. “Marya, ” he whispered, and tried feebly to raise himself.

She lifted him with her strong arms so that his head lay against her shoulder, and clasped him close. Then, with the smile on his face, he died ; and still the woman held him.

Some of the rough moujiks rubbed their eyes with the backs of their hands, and most of the women sobbed, while their children clung to them in wonder, and one of the babies began to wail. An old grandmother put her arms gently about the woman who knelt, clasping her dead, and finally led her away. Then the captain gave some orders in a low tone, and we climbed silently to the upper deck.

At eight o’clock the next morning we came to the town of Pokoroffsky, nor far from the junction of the Amur and the Chilka. Here, as soon as we stopped, a bier was carried on shore, and the pope met it on the beach. There was a little graveyard on a hill overlooking the group of log houses, and among the multitude of wooden crosses a grave was dug.

The captain, with his kindly red face, approached the woman before she followed the bier to the beach. “Will you not go on with us to the railroad and return to your home in Little Russia? ”

She answered simply : “ Here is my home. I will take land, and build a house before the winter.” Then she went down to the shore. I caught sight of her face. It was still haggard, but the despairing, questioning look was gone, and I thought that the deep shadows were beginning to vanish in the light of certainty and peace. Who could say that her quest was not worth while ?

As our boat steamed away we could see the slow procession climbing up the hill to the little mortuary chapel. Then a curve of the winding river took us slowly out of sight of the brown houses clustered between low hills, and the green spires of the church, and from the bow came the familiar cry of “Vosem-por-la-vini — vōsēm - sēm-por-lavini — sēm ” —

Anna Northend Benjamin.