James P. Smythe

“ The Ekaterinburg organization is weak as I already wrote you. First because the organization is in Ekaterinburg and the Emperor in Tobolsk.
Who are these people? They want first of all, and altogether, restitution for the sake of getting good positions for valuable services rendered the Family. They all see that the restitution is problematic,--so their desire is not strong. They act weakly, they think lazily, they move with an agony of indifference. All that they have done is certainly known to Kobylinsky and--to the Commissaries. ”

“ 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.... ”

“ It is life. It is salvation from my miseries.
In the evenings I try to arrange in shape my documents and writings after the looting. For the documents I could be well paid, here,--but I do not want that. Let the Russia of to-morrow see what has been done by our present leaders, and by those who gave us to the scaffold.... M. Kerensky's letter to Grimm--alone would make me happy if some day its contents are known....
Where is Lucie now? How empty my house is!
The Princess came out to me in the garden and asked me whether I could go to Tobolsk and deliver a letter to Mr. Botkin there. ”

“ Those peculiar things can happen only in the present Russia. She is like a good make of automobile after a wreck. Everything seems to be crushed and broken--machinery, wheels, glass, body.... Still some parts are strong enough to keep moving. So miraculously there moved a part, which brought my handbag here from Moscow,--the very first ray of sun in my existence for a long time.
I came to the depot this morning--I had been coming every day since Schmelin gave me the baggage check--and saw a few men unloading a baggage coach. ”

“ Goroshkin brought me a passport of Mr. Syvorotka, with my description and my particular marks (broken shoulder) , documents and uniform, and gave me a few names in Tumen which I had to remember and to whom on behalf of Mr. Andrei Andreivich Vysotsky I should address myself.
"Your Excellency understands that nobody assumes any responsibility for your safety. You just must be in touch with the people," he said, "and be ready for what you were told to do, as we must have a man in Tumen. If I may suggest, you should not speak or act like a gentleman." ”

“ 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. ”

“ Kerensky sent two boxes of wine to the Tsar; the soldiers broke the boxes. They do not want any "luxuries" for the exiles. The Empress has no coffee--it is a luxury. But otherwise the attitude is not too bad. M. wrote that under the charming manners of the Tsar and especially the Heir, before the Soviet rule came, the soldiers very often changed their manners, their revolutionary hearts were melting--and then Col. Kobylinsky used to send those "soft rags" back to Petrograd, for they might be counter-revolutionary. ”

“ Yes, we have been together six weeks--more than that--we live under the same roof, eat the same food, have our life as close as two human beings can,--and yet--here we are,--apart from each other. You are a woman, it's up to you to break this distance and build a bridge over it. ”

“ Supposing they were to buy Kobylinsky, and the sentinels and the Bolsheviki. What will they do with the Emperor? Against them there would be the whole world. There is no way for the Ekaterinburg people to get him out, just as there is no way for the Germans. All is closed for them, except a crazy scheme of taking the Family into the interior, which I do not consider feasible. It is impossible. I was told to watch all that I could in connection with the move in Tumen; I was instructed to watch the Ekaterinburg organization and the Princess. ”

“ At present there is an organization in Tobolsk helping the family with money and food; the Ordovsky-Tanaevskys, the Prince Khovansky's family and the Budischevs. The latter house is on Rojestvensky Street about four blocks from the Mansion. Bishop Hermogen comes often, as well as Bishop Irinarch and some others. None are really good. The Empress is sick--the same old nervousness. The Heir is all right, barring a little accident--he fell down stairs and got a bad bump on his head. They say that the Bishop received a letter from the Dowager Empress which was brought by a German war prisoner. ”

“ The situation is very precarious: there is a decided tendency on the side of the Bolsheviki to take the family away--some say, to Ekaterinburg, others to Berezov; deputies from Petrograd and Ekaterinburg, arrived in Tobolsk asking the local soviet to give up the family. The members of the "Detachment of Special Destination" do not allow that, saying that the Family will be given only to the Constituent Assembly and the population is on the side of this detachment. There may be an outbreak. In certain houses there are firearms. ”

“ It is evident that the salvation of the Family cannot come from Germany, for there would not be any place and way to take the Emperor out of Tobolsk, but by way of the Trans-Siberian,--a long journey with no possibilities of getting out of this country. The local Bolsheviki are beyond the control of the centers. ”

“ Kobylinsky himself was trying to maintain good relations with the soldiers, with Kerensky (who promised him promotion) and with the family through Kornilov's House, for the Emperor, like everybody else in Tobolsk, despises him. The Emperor has never said anything to or about Kobylinsky directly, however. Once only, when Kobylinsky was changing sentinels he bumped into the Emperor, and the latter said' "Still a Colonel?" That was really a sarcastic remark! Of course, now with the Bolshevik! everything has changed and the Family's position is very bad. ”

“ 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." ”

“ I can tell you and I think that you have already understood it, that I came to Tumen with orders to see a certain Syvorotka. I had to be with him, use his house, use his protection, use his connections. I did not know who this Syvorotka was.
A cave man? An ex-soldier? A sick man? A fat butcher? A sentimental, but dirty druggist? Of all the men in the world,--and while coming here I imagined all possible types,--that I should have met you, Alex! You have always meant so much to me. I have always liked you. When I saw you last in Petrograd I tried to get you into my affairs. Why? ”

“ There are certain ethics which would prevent me from liking to trail this particular lady.
I was greatly surprised when I heard that Mr. Kerensky was living in the Rossia Insurance Company Apartments, Pushkarskaya 59, Flat 10. If so, why this game of the Smolny crowd? Why not take him? The man of whom I wrote you in my last letter states that K-y is now planning to go to Stockholm and that a passport will be given to him by the Smolny Institute. Please communicate that to Marchenko. Schmelin says it is not his business. The ring was taken from K-y. Nothing new in Tobolsk. ”

“ She will laugh with her silvery laughter in somebody else's house, she will mend somebody else's socks, and sit on somebody else's lap. The "other chap from Monte Carlo," will be asked whether he remembers me. ”

“ The mean and envious beast that lived in our midst,--as it lives in every other country,--unseen, but felt, and always ready to crush the acquirements of existing civilization,--the mob came out from the underground world ”

“ Some of my documents are stolen. I don't see the letter from Marchenko to Schmelin, the chart with Mamaev's stations, and a few others. Fortunately, Kerensky's letter to Grimm was not taken, as I had put it under the floor of the barn with my money and watch.
She must have had the help of the man with the specs--she would not be able to understand my scratching. They must have been busy all day! But what really gets me wild--almost all of my letters to Goroshkin are here! How did she get them? I understand why Goroshkin's letters missed me--she got them!... ”

“ Hate your face! Hope the devil will get you soon!" she says,--but she isn't a bad woman, she means well, only she is not as clean as her profession demands. Altogether the kitchen is a mournful place. ”

“ Here they built up a fence, not very high. They fixed the fence so that no one can go over it, as the boards are trimmed sharp and have nails. All the windows look onto Liberty Street. On the opposite side of Liberty Street are private houses. Right across the street is the house of Kornilov Brothers, also a stone building; three stories, and in this house are those who went with the family in exile.
There are sentinels around. On Tuliatskaya Street near the fence--at its ends and in the middle,--three soldiers, on Liberty Street--four soldiers; two soldiers near the entrance hall. ”

“ Lucie asks me very often to take loads to the outskirts of Tumen, near the Freight Depot, which we receive with the Siberian pony, and I take it in my sledge behind the Depot, where I deliver the goods--only in the evenings--to the Letts. Sometimes we speak, but never much. ”

“ You wouldn't hesitate to pass over my dead body--for the sake of your affairs.... Again,--please do not feel offended,--there is another side. I am a working man. Tomorrow I must be at my job early in the morning. The night is growing old. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”