Get 5,1925 Cambridge Wass. THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY JANUARY, 1919 THE RUSSIAN [These sayings on war and peace were set down by Madame Fedorchenko, a Russian nurse, from talks which she overheard among Russian soldiers at the front in 1915, 1916, and 1917. From a large amount of material they are selected, translated, and arranged. These detached utterances of wounded soldiers, many of whom could neither read nor write, lying in their cots, were spoken without premeditation or thought of the nurse's presence. Beyond translation, they are printed absolutely without change. Foreshadowing the inevitableness of events, they seem to penetrate the mystery of Russian character.-THOMAS WHITTEMORE.] WAR, war! To some expected, unexpected to others. Many a man is unready, unprepared, body and soul. The crude gray forces were driven forth, to be the laughing-stock of the nations, with nothing made clear to them; on the principle evidently that, having lived miserably so far, they might as well die for no reason they knew. Straw was good enough for us Russians to fight the Germans with. By the wish of Wilhelm, by the order of Antichrist, war has been let loose over the world. War has eaten the corn in the land, and war has cut down nations by their roots. From the beginning of time there has been nothing like it. War is more dreadful than thunder, it is sharper than lightning, and is not more merciful than the wrath of God. A cloud has gathered amid the clear day; war has come amid the Russian people. The women weep, and the girls, and the little children; the old men brood and swear. At first, when they took us, seven VOL. 123-NO. 1 girls, and we sang teen of us, from our village, we knew nothing, only just felt bad. At every station we raised a row and swore at the girls, and we sang all the way; but we were homesick all the same. Then they began to drill us, and to some purpose, inasmuch as we even fell off in flesh. And they treated us most contemptuously, just as if we had been fools. Yet we were by no means fools. We all were used to farm-work, every mother's son of us. I worked under my father, and he was very strict. The only free time I had was when I worked at a factory for four months. On my way here I cried right along; I felt I was taking leave of life. Mother has been dead these fifteen years, yet I kept moaning, 'Mother, mother!' as I cried. Our mother sent for us all. I came from the factory, and these were her words: 'Live, my son, long; but live so that your life may not seem long to anyone else.' I used to attend to a garden. My father was a gardener, and my grandfather also. They were good gardeners. |