Читать книгу The Red Reign. The True Story of an Adventurous Year in Russia онлайн

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For a time I was fascinated by this paradoxical life. How human beings could drink champagne through long nights when horrible starvation besieged every window and door; how the officers of the busiest army in the world could squander hours and days and weeks, when mutiny and sedition were daily eating into the ranks; how men of such excellent camaraderie spirit could look upon suffering with a cool shrug—all this was new to me, and made me wonder greatly. But after a time the reports coming in from Kutais, to the west of Tiflis, were so startling that I grew more and more impatient to witness what an army of “pacification” reveals. There in Kutais, the dreaded and hated General Alikhanoff was pushing forward the grim work of repression.

My good friend Prince Andronnikov secured for me the necessary permission, and one memorable Monday evening I ordered Ivan to be ready to start for Kutais that evening.

Kutais lies to the west of Tiflis, about eight hours’ journey on the railroad. The train I planned to take left Tiflis a little before midnight. Ivan insisted that we leave the hotel more than an hour before train-time. I thought this an unreasonable margin of time, but before we reached the station I realized that it is always safe to allow ample time for the unexpected in Caucasia. We had crossed the bridge spanning the Kur and had turned into a dark unlighted street, running toward the station, when suddenly the cries of “Stoi! Stoi!” (Halt! Halt!) rang out in the darkness. Five soldiers sprang out of the shadow and stopped our carriage, while a sixth leveled a bayonet at my breast, so close that when I threw open my bourka (a long hairy cape extending from the shoulders to the ground), and reached for my passport and credentials, it brushed against the steel point. My uniform was only distinguishable under the bourka. The officer in charge of the search-party spoke