Al. Syv."

30

(_Fourth letter to M. Goroshkin_)

"In case you would like to eliminate the work of my companion,--let me know, and it could be very easily done: she could be taken out of the house and put on the train going in any direction. Schmelin would help in this case. Then I would go away, for instance to Ekaterinburg or Omsk. I shall wait for your letter in regard to this, and in the meantime I'll remain just as I am now. Please do not let me stay in my actual position. I simply refuse to be aiming at her back with a concealed dagger. Even as it is, my life is untenable--the way I live, and the people I have to meet, make it perfectly horrid...."

(_end of letter missing_)

31

I never knew that a wireless apparatus for a range of more than one hundred miles could be such a small thing. Really this war has brought about some wonders, and it is clear to me this particular station, that was delivered yesterday, is a military outfit. I remember little about wireless telegraphy; only few explanations given to me by Capt. Volkhovsky, and after the very solemn inauguration of the "Spark-Radio" we had a gala-performance. It is but a superficial study indeed.

I cannot understand this strange silence of Goroshkin. Is he dead? If he is dead--what happened to Marchenko? Are they both dead? Now since the Ls are gone and Pasha has become some Bolshevik's property (poor little thing!) I have no idea what to do. Shall I consider myself in the game, or did the whole organization end; shall I continue on my own behalf? I have been thinking, and thinking about it, and have decided that I must continue my informative functions, and must wait as I have been told. They said I shall be on my post--and I must remain. The absence of letters does not mean much: they can be in a terrible situation in Moscow now--we know nothing. If my letters have not reached Goroshkin--they have reached somebody else; in the latter case I would have been hanged long ago, or shot, or something similar, if the letters did not reach friends.

Lucie? Well if she is not the crookedest woman! I do not think I could get rid of her now even if I would. Schmelin knows of my going out of town, it is clear. Of course he closes his eyes,--but I never can doubt that he will be the first to "put me on a clear water" as soon as he apprehends that the other commissaries know of my wanderings and trading with the Letts, and of what is now under our bed.

Something new: Lucie received a rubber bath, so I have to warm up the water and then wait....

(_end of page missing_)

... She would come back, as soon as I shall be ready putting the wires instead of the ropes in the yard for drying the linen. I was glad to know it. Certainly. Personally I am very glad to see her around: she is a nice little woman when she does not plot. It is agreeable to have tea at five and then everything looks so clean and neat since she came. Good God, should she be simply a nice little Lucie! How agreeable everything could become--as if there were no Revolution, no Bolsheviki, no Emperor.... But no; Fate has to put a drop of tar in a barrel of honey. However, perhaps I would have hated to see a cook around here: as soon as a woman gets too domestic--she infallibly becomes unattractive. As for Lucie--enclosed in a cage as we are--I never saw her unwashed, uncombed, frivolous or unladylike. So let her be a plotter. I must be grateful as we never quarrel.... She sends me away when....

(_end of page missing_)

32

(_Fifth letter to M. Goroshkin_)

"... a man by name Alexander Petrovich Mamaev from Novo-Nikolaevsk.

He has a plan of his own, which he wants to accomplish. He has some people working for him, nothing serious, if I may judge. Mamaev's plan is being worked out this way: his people will buy out the sentinels and take the Emperor and the Heir (perhaps the Princesses, but, as he says "the old woman will never be considered") and rush both eastward by the old highway. On the stations Mamaev's people are now hiring horses and coachmen. They have collected money amongst the merchants.

They plan to take the Emperor as far as Blagoveshchensk-on-Amur.

Thence to San-Haliang, on the Chinese side of the river. From San-Haliang somewhere out of the country,--I never heard where to. The organization works successfully in the region of Tomsk, where all is ready for immediate action.

There is much imagination in Mamaev's plan, and though I know his preparations are watched in Ekaterinburg, they do not meet with approval at all. Captain Kaidalov of the Crimea Horse Regt. is now the soul of Ekaterinburg and he does not approve. He is a fine fellow, I know, and very courageous: he went to the local soviet, became their confident and _persona grata_ and I think is virtually the only one who really understands the problems and realizes their difficulty and their danger. Please let me know whether I should inquire any longer about all of this!

Yours,

Alex. Syv."

33

Sunday she came back from the trip. I felt quite lonesome all of this week. Two men were with her: one--a Russian, the silent type, with a big hat, who was taking care of the horse: the other, a tall, broad faced Anglo-Saxon fellow, whose bronzed face would be appropriate in the tropics but not on the white steppes of Siberia. A little longhaired pony brought the trio in a fancy sledge early in the morning. The Englishman (his name is Stanley) started to work with the radio, silent, serious, smoking a short black pipe. He took me for Lucie's servant. If I had had any doubt of his nationality, I never could have mistaken his tobacco: Navy Cut,--_the one make_ I can't tolerate. He filled our small house with blue clouds of stink. When they all came I ran to the sledge, but from a distance Lucie signaled to me with her eyes that no tender expressions were needed. She sent me out for food, then to a drug store, then to the post-office, etc., etc. I obeyed.

So around noon I went to see the Princess. They all make me sick, especially since the L. tragedy. "If God does not help--we cannot." A certain Mme. K-v is now hanging around her. A suffragette--that's what she is. She said "some women are now here--we know nothing about ..."

alluding of course to me. I hardly could wait until evening.

It was evening when S. finished connecting the kitchen station with the city current. When I came home he and the Russian were trying to harness the pony. The poor little horse was choking from the smoke of his pipe and trying to bite the torturer.

"Say, Lucie," the Englishman said to her, as shivering in my overcoat, she came out to say good-bye to him, "the benzine is in the barn, over there under the hay. Tell your man to be careful and not to smoke around here."

"If it did not explode after your pipe, sir," I replied in my best Shakespearian, "my cigarette won't do any harm. So don't be alarmed."

It took him about half a minute to digest the fact that I could understand his cockney. Lucie became almost hysterical with laughter and ran into the house.

Then he made a serious face and sprang into the sledge and the Russian flicked the horse with the whip. Near the corner, I saw him say something to the Russian and they turned back.

"Say," the Englishman asked, "are you English? Or Canadian, I fancy?"

"Never mind me, Major or Captain, or whoever you are. I'm just I.

Don't fancy, and proceed. I'm busy."

I closed the gate and heard another formidable crack of the whip on the pony's fat flanks.

Hundreds of bells started ringing again, and then died away in the distance, drowned out by a locomotive whistle....

And here I was in my room again. In the corner stood Lucie, lovely creature with all her funny actions and thoughts, Heaven knows by what and whom inspired.

"Look what I brought, Alex! Here are canned goods, and chocolate and coffee, and ham, and ..." and she threw package after package on the bed. On one of them I read "Army and Navy Calcutta," but said nothing and looked away. I'm getting sly. She noticed it too, the little devil! She sent me out to see whether or not the gate was closed, and when I came back the label was scratched out.

34

(_Sixth letter to M. Goroshkin_)

"There are, virtually, three--or perhaps more--organizations, members of which have decided to save the Emperor from imprisonment. They all realize the danger of letting things go on by themselves, or of relying upon German promises.

The latter are well known here and in Tobolsk from Bolshevik sources.

When during the Brest-Litovsk _pourparlers_ the Russian Delegates were waiting for the Germans, the latter entered the room of conference, and found it filthy with smoke; the Bolsheviki were extremely hilarious, and laughed and joked among themselves. To show his independence Monsieur Trotsky was sitting on the table; others were without collars and in the most unrespectable state of humor. When the German delegation entered they did not move; the leader of the Germans, an old general, stopped for a moment, looked at them in disgust, and then suddenly shouted: "Stand! Attention! Get up, you, Kameraden!"