Yashka quotes

Such was the beginning of my career in life. I was eight and a half years old, small and very thin. I had never before left my mother’s side, and both of us wept bitterly at parting.

It was a grey, painful, incomprehensible world into which I was being led by my father.

My view of it was further blurred by a stream of tears.

The Lazovs left. They gave me money and gifts.

But my heart was like a deserted ruin in the winter, echoing with the howls of wild beasts.

Instead of a life of freedom, my parents’ basement awaited me. And deep in my bosom lurked a dread of the unknown. …

If I had any power of will it must have been dormant. Had I not found the world full of wrong since my childhood? Was not this one of the ordinary events of life?

We muzhiks were created to suffer and endure. They, the officials, were created to punish and maltreat.

And so I was led away by the guardian of peace and law, and made to suffer shame and humiliation. …

Gradually I won their respect and confidence. The small group of volunteers always defended me. As the Russian soldiers call each other by nicknames, one of the first questions put to me by my friends was what I would like to be called.

“Call me Yashka,” I said, and that name stuck to me ever after, saving my life on more than one occasion.

There is so much in a name, and “Yashka” was the sort of name that appealed to the soldiers and always worked in my favour.

I climbed out with the rest of the men, to be met by a volley of machine-gun fire. For a moment there was confusion.

So many of our number had fallen like ripe wheat cut down by a gigantic scythe wielded by the invisible arm of Satan himself.

Fresh blood was dripping on the cold corpses that had lain there for hours or days, and the moans were heartrending.

We had to go back. We were so exhausted that our bodies welcomed a rest. In those two days, the 7th and 8th of August, our ranks were refilled four times with fresh drafts. Our casualties were enormous.

The corpses lay thick everywhere, like mushrooms after rain, and there were innumerable wounded.

One could not take a step in No Man’s Land without coming into contact with the corpse of a Russian or a German. Bloody feet, hands, sometimes heads, lay scattered in the mud.

“What the devil!” cried the General. “Why did you undress?”

“I am a soldier, Excellency, and I obey orders without question,” I replied.

“Well, well. Hurry up and dress,” came the order.

Trenches filled with bloody corpses held no horror for me then. No Man’s Land seemed quite an attractive place in which to spend a day with a bleeding leg. The screech of shells and the whistle of bullets presented themselves like music to my imagination.

Ah, life was not so bleak and meaningless, after all.

It had its moments of bliss that compensated for years of torment and misery.

Such was their dazed condition, that they seemed to me no longer sane.

The front had become a veritable lunatic asylum.

One day, in the first week of the revolution, I ordered a soldier to take up duty at the listening-post. He refused.

It made my heart beat with joy and my eyes fill with tears, while deep in my soul something ached and yearned.

It was May, but there was autumn in my breast.

There was autumn also in the heart of Mother Russia. The sunshine was dazzling. The fields and the forests rioted in all the glories of spring. There was peace in the trenches, calm in No Man’s Land.

Kerensky, it appeared, made it a habit to shake hands with everybody. So that whenever he entered his office he shook hands with the old porter, thus quickly becoming the laughingstock of the servants.

“Now, what kind of a Minister is it,” the old porter was overheard complaining to a fellow-servant, “who shakes hands with me?”

After dinner Rodzianko took me to the Tauride Palace, where he introduced me to a gathering of soldiers’ delegates, then in session. I was warmly welcomed and given a prominent seat.

Then my lady-visitors surrounded me and begged and coaxed me to give way. Some of them wept, others embraced me, all of them exasperated my nerves.

Nothing was more calculated to enrage me than this wheedling.

I grew impatient and completely lost self-control, abandoning myself to hysteria.

Were not they going to lead in a general attack against the foe that would set the entire Russian front ablaze? Were not they sacrificing their lives for beloved Russia, who would surely remember with pride this gallant group of three hundred women?

Death was dreadful. But a hundred times more dreadful was the ruin of Mother Russia.

Besides, their Commander would lead them over the top, and with her they would go anywhere.

The men, raised to a high pitch of courage by Kerensky’s oratory, lost heart when the advance became imminent. My Battalion was kept in the trench by the cowardly behaviour of the men on both flanks. It was an intolerable situation, unthinkable, grotesque.

The sun crept out in the East, only to shine down upon the extraordinary spectacle of an entire corps debating upon their Commander’s order to advance.

It was four o’clock. The debate still continued heatedly. The sun rose higher. The morning mist had almost vanished. The artillery fire was slackening. Still the debate continued. It was five o’clock.

“You can see for yourself that the committees stand for talk, endless talk.

An army that talks is not a fighting army.

In order to save the front it is necessary to abolish the committees and introduce strict discipline. General Kornilov seems to be the man to accomplish this. I believe he can do it. All is not yet lost.

These five thousand men, all so docile and humble, some with tears still fresh on their cheeks, were like a forlorn flock of sheep that had lost its shepherd. It seemed impossible to believe that these men were capable of murder.

You could curse them now, you could even strike them, and they would bear it without protest.

They were conscious, deeply conscious of a great crime. Quietly they stood, from time to time, uttering a word of regret, engrossed in mourning. And yet these same lambs were ferocious beasts two hours ago.

All the gentleness now mirrored in their faces was then extinguished by a hurricane of savage passion. These obedient children had actually been inhuman a short time ago. It was incredible, and still it was the truth.

Such is the character of the Russian people.

The coffin, an oblong box of unshaven boards, draped inside and out with a white sheet, was brought at four o’clock. The body had been washed, but it was impossible to restore the face to its normal appearance. It was disfigured beyond recognition.

“God only knows the future—shall we ever meet again?” I asked the two men in a stifled voice, as I bade them farewell.

Kerensky, livid, motionless, answered in a hoarse whisper:

The mob decided that we were on the same road and sent a couple of horsemen to overtake us. The horsemen, of course, returned empty-handed.

“She is a witch!” many soldiers shook their heads with superstitious awe.

“A witch, undoubtedly!” was repeated in tones of uneasiness by others.

It took a day or so for the Commandant to get ready the necessary documents and funds for all the girls. Then the disbanding began. Every ten or fifteen minutes a girl was sent away, now in one direction, now in the opposite.

It was a pitiful finale to an heroic chapter in the history of Russian womanhood.

The Battalion had struggled gallantly to stem the tide of destruction and ignorance. But the tide was too strong. It had swamped all that was good and noble in Russia. Russia herself seemed wrecked forever in that maelstrom of unbridled passions.

And yet I was not alone in that expectation. There was a time when even Rodzianko believed as I did, and Brusilov and Kerensky had thought that the self-sacrifice of the women would shame the men.

But the men knew no shame.

My girls had departed. Of the whole Battalion there remained only myself and a few of the instructors. In the evening I made my way to the road where a motorcar was waiting to smuggle me away.

In addition, I was, of course, provided with money for expenses.

It was very amusing to lose one’s identity and appear as a complete stranger.

I was no longer Maria Bochkareva, but Alexandra Smirnova. And as I glanced at myself in the mirror it seemed even to my own eyes that I had been reincarnated from a soldier into a Sister of Mercy.

I left Novocherkassk in the evening, after an affectionate parting from Kornilov. He kissed me as he bade me farewell, and I wished him success for the sake of the country. But there was no success in prospect. We both knew it only too well.

A heavy darkness had settled on Russia, stifling all that was still noble and righteous.

Encouraged by my success in reaching Kornilov’s line, I determined to return by myself. I was taken to the outposts by a group of officers, and from there, accompanied by their blessings, I started out through the war zone alone.

Here, within another hundred feet or so, were the woods. There, I might still hope to hide. I prayed for strength to get there. Bullets whistled by me, but firing as they ran the men could not take aim.

The woods! the woods! It was the one thought that possessed my whole being.

Louder and louder grew the shouts behind me:

“Who would support her?” I appealed to Heaven. “She will be forced to go begging in her old age if I am killed.”

Life became very precious to me, the same life that I had exposed to a hundred perils.

I did not want to die an infamous death, to lie on the field unburied, food for carrion crows.

“

Yes, I will die as a hero.

”

At this point Peter came in, followed by some members of the investigation committee. All were happy. It was a wonderful moment.

How an act of humanity transforms men’s countenances!

Peter and his comrades congratulated me, and I was too overcome to express all the gratefulness that I felt toward these men.

I prepared it for you originally to take in case the mob got their way, so that you should escape torture at the hands of these savages. I hope you will not need to resort to it in Moscow.”

I still carry with me that poison pill wherever I go.⁠ ⁠…

Petrukhin gave me forty roubles for expenses, as I was penniless. I thanked him and asked him to write a letter to my people, telling them where I was. We then took leave of one another.

I could not help laughing. I laughed long, without restraint. It was so amusing.

I was almost tempted to disclose to him how I had duped him.

He still has no idea that Alexandra Smirnova, whose fictitious address at Kislovodsk he, in all probability, cherishes yet, was Maria Bochkareva!