Читать книгу Slavs of the War Zone - William Frederick Bailey - Страница 11

Some time ago a post-card could have been purchased in Berlin for ten pfennigs which bore the inscription: “The famous picture of the Virgin and Child captured from Czenstochowa by our gallant army.” At the top of the card was a portrait of the Kaiser, surmounted by the Imperial Crown of Germany. As we look on this card we can realize the anguish of the Polish peasant who has made pilgrimage to this “the Holy Place” of Poland.

Let us picture Czenstochowa on the occasion of one of these pilgrimages. Every one who has travelled in Russia or in any Slav country knows what a pilgrimage means to these people, with their vivid imaginations, their deep religious feelings, their idealism. Hundreds, even thousands, of miles will they travel to visit a “Holy Place.” You see them coming in troops, whether it be to the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, to the Troïska Monastery near Moscow, or to the Shrine of Czenstochowa.

As a rule Czenstochowa awakes late, but not so on the morning of a pilgrimage. Then there is no sleep for any of the inhabitants. Let us see it on a winter morning with a great pilgrimage arriving to visit the shrine of Poland’s Virgin and Child. The streets are thronged, the snow has been trodden into marble solidity, and the dirty town—for in spite of its sacredness Czenstochowa is undoubtedly one of the most dingy and unkempt places in Russian Poland—sparkles in the chilly sunshine. Cross-crowned spires and copper-capped turrets float fairy-like against the pale azure of the sky. From all sorts of sheltered nooks and crannies where they have passed the night, cowering under their shaggy sheepskins, country folk and Jews, droshky drivers and stall-keepers creep leisurely forth to meet whatever fortune the day has in store for them. All along the sidewalks, here as everywhere else in Slav land, little booths and stalls have been set up presided over by black kaftaned Jews, long-nosed, bilious complexioned, and unsavoury. The shops of Czenstochowa leave much to be desired, but the pilgrims will find most things they require on these ramshackle stalls. But it is well to bear in mind that the piety of the Polish peasants—never to mention that of the Jews—does not interfere with their trading morals, so far as petty theft and sharp practices are concerned. The merchandise heaped about is surely varied. Poppy-seed cakes, peasant laces, sweet cracknels, fruit pastiles, undressed skins, earthenware, ironmongery, cheeses, bottles of peppermint water, black bread, boiled buckwheat groats, jars of pickled cucumbers, dried fish—of abominable odour—eggs, sour cabbage, diminutive Christmas trees—some unadorned and pretty, others hideously decorated with tinsel and pink paper, big red, white, blue, and green paper roses—huge bowls of sour and sweet cream, shivering birds in cages, tiny red parrots brought from Finland, finches, and thrushes, brightly coloured wooden toys, webs of linen, boneless purple slabs of horse flesh, tawdry jewellery, old books, second-hand and odoriferous clothing, marvellous and very beautiful peasant costumes, long black and scarlet betasselled boots, carpets, cotton gloves and stockings, local embroideries, inlaid steel ornaments, leather work, and many other things of varied interest, for all of which, however, purchasers were to be found. I was once told by a Transvaal storekeeper as I stood by while he sold yards of gay-coloured ribbons to some half-naked Kaffir women at Bond Street prices, “civilization is mainly wants and I supply them.” Evidently a Polish pilgrimage has, according to this expert, a very civilizing tendency.

Around one of the large canvas booths a violent squabble has arisen. The sites of these larger booths are drawn for by lot by a chosen number of poor widows of the town, and woe betide any intruder who ventures to encroach within the limits of the sites thus allotted! A superabundant Jewess is shrilly proclaiming that she has been robbed. With one stout arm she clutches the thief, a miserable little underfed, damp-nosed peasant boy, the proof of whose guilt, a round, pink sugared ginger cake, bearing the damning marks of teeth not afraid to bite, lies on the snow for all to see. Here and there along the thoroughfares coke fires are cracking merrily in iron braziers, and round these, groups of country people are gathered exchanging gossip and smoking. In all the protected corners and spaces of the arcades are small tables given over to the sale of sacred images, nauseous pictures of bland virgins, insipid Saviours, crucifixes, rosaries, cruciform brooches and such like. Tiny shrine lamps, all ready for the pilgrimage, flicker in the bitter draught. At regular intervals down every street big public samovars are hissing and spluttering, and half-frozen country people are sipping boiling tea and warming their blue fingers on their nickel-encircled glasses. Restaurants and cafés are filled with the more opulent breakfasters, with chatter and tobacco fumes. In rows on the curbs are disgusting beggars, with bandaged arms and legs. The restless streams of humanity which pass and repass are extraordinarily interesting. All classes and people from far separated provinces jostle together. Tall, amiable looking, well bred Russian officers, in smartly cut overcoats and round lambskin caps; more officers in circular and all-enveloping cape-coats, these coats padded with eiderdown, trimmed with golden sable, lined with silk, with dangling, unused sleeves, the whole of such ampleness that their wearers’ progress is considerably hampered by the entanglement of swords and spurs in the cloth. Then there are civilians in dark coats, or capes, and high beaver hats; soldiers, immense fellows, seemingly impervious to the weather, for their overcoats swing by a strap from their necks, unworn. Only for their ears do the Russian “Tommies” appear to have any consideration, and these are protected by bandages of red or black cloth, which suggest the affliction of perpetual earache. Ladies of the upper and middle classes trip by as lightly as galoshes and long coats permit, their fur and wadded head-coverings, mouths and noses swathed in fleecy white shawls, their black eyes—the only part of their faces visible—sparkling coquettishly. Threading their brilliant way through the more sombrely clad populace come the peasants. Like giant flowers of every hue and shade are these countrywomen of Russian Poland—blue petticoated, red jacketed, white petticoated, green bloused—most of them snug, so far as the upper portions of their persons are concerned, in short sheepskins or in great shawls which glow and flame and flutter in the wind. Full skirts, reaching barely to their knees, sway and billow above high Hessian boots of black or scarlet leather. Ivory tinted cheeks—the hall mark of Poland’s beautiful women—in contrast to smooth raven black hair, eyes dark as night, and a background afforded by orange or crimson kerchiefs give the impression of so many exquisite living cameos. They are desirable when young, these Polish girls; but age, hard work, and much child-bearing leave them old at thirty, and by the time they are sixty—well—look at that ancient hag, squatting there on the curb, yellow-skinned, shrivelled, toothless, horrible, her acute beady black eyes, which dart from face to face suspiciously, the only human feature she possesses. She has come quite a hundred miles on foot, though some fellow-travellers no doubt gave her “lifts” at intervals—to present her last petition to the Little Virgin and her Son. Leaning languidly against a wall is a young married woman. Her wedding day—the only joyful, careless day in a girl’s life here—dawned and set nine months ago. Her parents drew the little hand in chalk on the door of her childhood’s home scarcely a year gone by, to indicate that their daughter had arrived at marriageable age, and, as she was pretty then, though so white and worn now, the settlement of her future was arranged within a few weeks. She, too, has come to this shrine of Czenstochowa to beg that the child she is expecting may prove a son. Her husband, a big, raw-boned, good-natured boy, is opening their bundle. In it is a wedge of rye bread, a piece of bacon fat; and the nearest samovar will provide tea. Think of it! This ailing girl-child of seventeen has come to where she stands from a village ninety miles away as the crow flies across the plains, in a springless, seatless cart, over roads indescribably bad, exposed to a temperature many degrees below zero, embittered by the cutting north wind so dreaded by Polish travellers. Let us hope that the gentle Little Mother of Czenstochowa looked with kindness on this girl, of whose trouble she herself had once experience. Did the Little Virgin grant a son, or did she take both mother and child away from this sorry land, away from her dreary mud hut on the steppe, from her filthy village with its melancholy willows, its fever-haunted swamps, from the horror which stalks to-day over all this tortured, blood-drenched country?

Soon the traffic becomes more lively. Sleighs and droshkies flash swiftly past, drawn, as their owners’ means allow, either by fine trotters or thin, hairy ponies. Wheels and sleigh rollers make but a slight noise on the hard, frozen slush. However, the jangling of the bells on the high, red tasselled yokes encircling the horses’ heads, the dull pounding of the hoofs, and the weird howls of the drivers warn the unwary to move out of danger. Some of the sleighs, those belonging to the farmers, are primitive in the extreme: rude, wooden affairs, crudely painted, the occupants of which are obliged to keep a fast clutch on the ragged ropes, which do duty for side doors, in order to prevent themselves being jerked out on to the road. Other sleighs are veritable works of art, bright with brass be-set harness, studded with steel plaques, decorated with blue and scarlet rosettes, with painted panels of artistic design. One group of loiterers is especially worthy of attention. They are Cossacks of impressive proportions, with massive round heads, short, bustling hair, beetling eyebrows, and straggling moustaches, who look defiant, but on a closer acquaintance, prove to be by no means churlish or brutal; indeed, quite the reverse. Though the day is still young many people have already imbibed a considerable amount of alcohol, for the weather is colder than usual, even for inclement Poland, and a night in the open makes a comforting drink desirable, which, when taken on empty stomachs, intoxicates, and that quickly. They drink hard, these Poles, and what wonder?

Round “the Holy Place”—the small church which enshrines the relic which is revered by the Eastern and the Western faith alike—round the home of what is believed to be the oldest picture existing in the Christian world, a surging crowd has already collected. But the church doors are still shut. Backwards and forwards sway the multitude, patiently obedient to the police who are endeavouring to preserve some sort of order. A thousand tired, eager faces are lifted to watch for the swinging back of the barriers. Some of the women faint and are hoisted over the shoulders of the crowd into safety.

Boom—boom—bo—o—m. Soft, rich, full of sonorous sweetness, the great bell of Czenstochowa tolls out its welcome, and at its tolling every head is uncovered, and the sacred sign is made by thousands of fluttering hands.

Then very slowly the heavy doors unclose, and the entire throng bows to the ground. Aristocrats, officers, tradespeople, peasants, bend side by side. For through the dusky gloom of the interior can be seen the glittering rows of the tall wax candles which burn perpetually before the heavy silver and gold embroidered curtain veiling “the Heart of the Heart of Poland.”

The organ breathes out a few chords as very quietly, three or four abreast, the pilgrims enter the building. And, when every square foot of the church is occupied, the doors fall to again, and those without must await their turn for admittance.

Most churches have their prominent characteristics, but it would be difficult to define exactly what is the chief characteristic of this tiny chapel of Czenstochowa. Its proportions are so small and yet so perfect. The tone of its colouring so soft and yet so resplendent. Like a deep whisper growing ever fuller and clearer, like the far-off murmur of the sea, the music swells out, and a mysterious Slavonic chant soars up towards the lofty rose and sapphire windows, up higher still into the golden mists of the roof. Such music! It seems to carry with it, as does the ocean, the whole awful burden of humanity; it seems to be composed of the cries and wailings and prayers of centuries worn and beaten in tears and lamentations. It is the questioning of generations upon generations of pale existences seeking still to discover the why and the wherefore of their being the call of suffering creation to its God.

And the door through which the simple hearts and untaught minds of these poor Polish people hope to pass into the presence of Him whom no man hath seen, or can see, is the jewelled frame of the little picture of human love which hangs here behind this silver and golden curtain. Out, and up, and over all rises the glorious and now triumphant chanting. Sobs and choking sighs bear it company. Passionate, tear-filled Slav eyes are fixed on the high altar, now dimly seen through silvery clouds of incense smoke. Amongst the scarcely breathing throng there is a sudden movement, a ripple of intense excitement, then absolute stillness, for the music ceases. A tiny bell tinkles. The heavy curtains part asunder, and the picture becomes visible.

Just at first nothing can be seen but a small, almost black square set in a splendid frame of diamonds, rubies, emeralds, topazes, and pearls, with a background as of beaten gold.

Only a little square, black and battered by age! But as one looks more intently the shadowy countenances of a soft-faced Byzantine Virgin and Child seem to emerge, clear and awe-filling.

This poor picture of Love, how old it is! Not beautiful, the only intrinsic value and loveliness it possesses borrowed from its surroundings, and from the simple faith which seeks to adorn and adore the Ideal it so feebly strives to represent. This dingy painting is plainly the work of an artist more gifted with religious fervour than with genius. It might very well be the crude effort of the physician, St. Luke, whom tradition declares to be the artist. In the second century—so the story goes—it was in Jerusalem, whence it was taken to Constantinople, and from there, several centuries later, it was conveyed to Kieff, to be finally deposited in its present resting place. During the period of the Tartar raids, in the twelfth century, it almost met with destruction. On the faded painted faces of Mother and Child may be seen the scars of the desecrating Mongol arrows, scars which the credulous assert will never be obliterated till Poland regains her freedom. In the Swedish war, when Czenstochowa was invested, as a last resort the citizens carried the picture through the streets, and out on the ramparts, to encourage the troops, whereupon, as the story goes, a glory descended upon the town, and after a twelve months’ siege the invaders were forced to retire, discomfited. These are only a few of the extraordinary tales—wonder tales—which have been woven round this Polish relic.

Only for five minutes are these weary, affectionate pilgrims permitted to gaze at their treasure, to do honour to which they have tramped so many leagues in snow and wind. Then the curtain descends and again the organ peals out—“Eleison! Kyrie Eleison!—Christe Eleison!”—the sopranos, clear and angelic; the basses, solid and grand, as only Slavonic basses can be. An ecstasy of sound; then silence once more. The doors re-open. A flood of light streams in, searching out the brilliant tints in the clothing of the peasants as they rise and clatter out, as gently as their heavy foot-gear permits, making way for another batch of worshippers to enter.

So they come and go, as the curtain rises and falls, and the hearts of those simple, credulous, unquestioning people are made happy.

This portrait of the Virgin and Child formed part of the Polish loot of the Kaiser of Germany, and post-card copies of “The Heart of the Heart of Poland” were sold in Berlin for a penny!

Czenstochowa stands to the south-west of Russian Poland just over the frontier, within striking distance of the German army of invasion. And, knowing the veneration with which the Poles regard this church and picture, the Germans circulated, through secret agents, a statement to the effect that this Virgin and Child had appeared to the Kaiser in a vision, and with tears commanded him to rescue their Shrine from the Russians. He then informed the Poles that such was his intention, and advised them in forcible terms to render him whatever assistance he might require. Amongst the many bribes he offered for Polish support were money and many rare jewels and fresh decorations—in German taste—-for the shrine.

But the Poles tore this proclamation into shreds, and the Kaiser promptly received a reply stating that he might betake himself and his money to the Devil from whom both he and it had come, for “neither we, the people of Poland, nor our religion are for sale.”

Furious at this answer, when the German Army arrived in Czenstochowa the usual atrocities and outrages were perpetrated. The church was desecrated and its picture was wrenched from its frame and dispatched to Germany. And, finally, to the dazed horror of the citizens and all Poles, a vulgar portrait of the Kaiser in uniform was raised above the dismantled altar, lights were placed before it, and the wretched people were daily driven in by the brutal German soldiers to kneel before the picture of the man whom they regard as the Devil incarnate. Presumably the Kaiser thought by this means to terrorize the Poles. They regarded their Virgin and Child as all-powerful, he would prove to them that he was stronger. But he little understood the Slavonic character. This incident, by which he hoped to cow a spirited people into subjection, has undoubtedly caused the Poles to stiffen their backs, and has had the result of bringing Polish Catholics and the followers of the Russian Orthodox faith to a better understanding. The relic is revered by Poles and Russians equally, and by insulting the Shrine of Czenstochowa the Kaiser has merely managed to insult both peoples and both religions.

Probably the most remarkable result of the present awful conflict in Russian Poland, and in fact throughout the whole of the dismembered Kingdom, is the quickening of Slavonic racial sentiment. This sentiment has been quietly developing for the last few years, in proportion as the peasant class has become more emancipated and better educated. Little by little, under Russian rule, which is not nearly so black as it has been painted, great industrial and commercial centres have sprung to life; Polish exports have increased, and Polish as well as Russian schools and colleges have greatly improved. The old policy and methods of repression exist no longer. The time has passed when Russian Poles were forbidden to wear their national costume or sing their national songs. Only one song—the national hymn of Poland—was tabooed of late years, and since the war the singing of this is not only permitted but actually encouraged. Russia long since recognized the fact—which Germany has failed to do—that it is utterly impossible to assimilate Poland. Russia herself has found her Slavonic soul since, something over one hundred years ago, she set to work to crush the same Slavonic soul out of Poland. For years both countries have been victims of their own individualism. And now, through the blood-red smoke of war, in which both suffer together, they are catching glimpses of the road which will lead them victoriously out of this agony to true racial Imperialism. Poles never failed of late to remark that the scattered Slav races must, within the near future, combine together to resist Teutonic aggression. Russia is the Slav country possessed of the vastest wealth, of power incalculable, of the greatest population—no less than one hundred and seventy millions—and she has given proof within late years that she means to change the policy which was really the invention of the German Bureaucrats that governed her for a century. Accordingly Polish leaders now acknowledge, some grudgingly, some frankly, that Poles and Russians, belonging to one race, speaking one tongue, must stand together in defence of a common nationality. Even before the outbreak of hostilities the Poles had tacitly ranged themselves alongside Russia against Teutonic aggression, which they were much too intelligent a people not to know was as much Poland’s business to combat as it was Russia’s.

Then came the crash, and above the turmoil rang out trumpet-clear the Czar’s proclamation of universal Slav liberty, and the restoration of the Kingdom of Poland. And a hurricane of racial recognition, gratitude and love swept through every Polish heart for the quiet Emperor, the first of his house to shake off the obnoxious Prussian influence, the first of his house to greet the oppressed and scattered Slav peoples—whether in Poland, in Bosnia, in Serbia, whether within or without his dominions, as brothers and fellow soldiers in arms against the same foe.

“Even if the Emperor had not made this proclamation,” declared one of the Polish Nationalist members of the Duma, “we Poles would have stood beside our Russian kinsmen. But this proclamation has given us strength and hope. For we know now that our national desire is, at last, to be realized, which desire is not opposed to Russian Imperialism, but in favour of it. For, as a free Slav nation, Poland will stand on Russia’s western frontier, a strong bulwark against the Teuton.”

The feeling of the Poles to-day towards Russia is well expressed in the words of another prominent Polish Nationalist, formerly a bitter opponent of all things Russian. “This war will mean the resurrection of the whole Slavonic world. Russia may, after all, prove herself the deliverer and avenger of the subjected Slavs. It is insolent and ignorant of Germany and Austria-Hungary to suggest that they will find an ally in Poland against Russia. The hour of Slavonic freedom and justice has struck. The weaker and submerged Slav nations and peoples are to-day ready to endure anything rather than, jointly with German foreigners, lift up their hands against their brother Slavs, and against France, Poland’s former friend. So let the politicians in Berlin and Vienna understand that, in our opinion, a war against Russia means a struggle against the liberty of the Slavs of the West as well as against the Slavs of the East. Better Muscovite any day than Teutonic supremacy.”

Russian is still the language of instruction in nearly all of the Warsaw schools. Of late the severity with which it was enforced upon the pupils, and the antagonism which it met with, has almost vanished. This has not, however, been the case in German Poland, where the bitterness existing between the Prussian rulers and the Slav ruled has been steadily on the increase.

Picture the state of this country since the war deluge burst over it. The atrocities perpetrated by the Germans in Belgium and France were mild compared with those which they committed in Poland. Picture this land, always melancholy, desolate, and poor, given over to the destroyer. Across its steppes, parched by the scorching summer sun, the dust is blowing up before a hot wind in choking clouds. And realize, if possible, that this dust, which covers everything with a grey mantle, is the dust of that which was living humanity last year; the dust of thousands upon thousands of half-buried corpses. Borne upon the stifling breeze comes an awful, almost insupportable stench of death. Here and there dotted over the wilderness are miserable villages, consisting, as everywhere throughout Poland, of two parallel rows of thatched hovels, separated by a track, now inches deep in powdery dust, in winter ankle high in oily mire. It is well to remember what these villages look like, for it seems probable that but few of them will survive the tempest of destruction which has burst upon the country. Wooden gates and high wooden fences separate these hovels from the so-called road. The always-present village ponds have dried up and become merely holes of sticky, evil-smelling mud. Flies infest everything, carrying poison and fever to the living from the dead. The surrounding fields are unfilled, for the wretched people have no heart to cultivate land which to-morrow may be swarming with “the devils in grey.”[9] The manure heaps, which are stacked by the side of every hovel, fizzle and reek in the white sunlight.

Picture one village in particular, which is, after all, only one of many that have met the same fate. Groups of the frightened inhabitants are clustered in the road between the two rows of tumble-down houses. Some still make a pretence at carrying on their simple occupations, but the greater number are too stunned to indulge in any activity. The heat is oppressive and sickness is rife. Many new crosses rear themselves up over there in the cemetery, where the freshly-made graves are all small. For pestilence takes the children first. The faces of those who remain are haggard, sallow, ghastly. Up in the small whitewashed church at the end of the village street the old priest is about to say vespers and his people kneel around him. Only the rustling of the wind through the willows and amongst the shivering poplars, the crying of the wild fowl on the mist-obscured marshes, the lowing of the untended cattle on the fields, the shuffling of feet, and the whining voice of the old priest disturb the ominous silence. Dusk falls, and then the night; and on the wings of night rides up the storm so long expected. A light—not of the moon—angers the sky above the dark belt of pine forest fringing the low horizon. Then a great burst of flame rushes up into the silver-dusted heavens, followed by a second flame, and by a third. And from very far off comes the rumble of thunder—not altogether like thunder, for it never ceases, and seems to gather strength till, with an awful crash, it shakes the very earth. The whole sky is now crimson. Now come wild shrieks. Doors open, and every hovel disgorges its inmates. Mothers grasp their babies, old people one another, the girls stand mute—paralysed—for they have heard of the fate which befell their sisters in Kielce, in Krzepice, in Turek, in Sieradz. And redder still blazes the horizon, nearer rumbles the thunder of the cannon. “To the Church!” cries someone, and, like a covey of terrified birds, women, old people, children—there are no able-bodied men left in the place—rush towards their poor sanctuary. But what use to pray? God has forgotten them as He forgot the innocent in Kielce, in Sieradz. What use to pray when “the grey devils” have taken down their Little Virgin from her shrine and desecrated Poland’s “Holy Place”?

They will pray no more, neither will they attempt to escape, for the plains are infested with the devils.

They will do as the bravest Polish folk do. They will fire their village and destroy themselves. Better death than dishonour and outrage. And the thunder roars nearer.

Each family enters its hovel and every door is closed. Half an hour: and then, from beneath the dilapidated wooden doorways, from under the overhanging thatch of the weed-grown roofs, through the one-paned windows, hungry, fiery tongues of flame shoot out, curl up, and ripple on. Black volumes of smoke vomit from the chimneys, through every crevice. Another quarter of an hour—Polish hovels are old and dry—and this village has gone like the rest, and those who inhabited it have joined their neighbours—eternal witnesses against the “devils in grey”—the Kaiser’s Missionaries of Kultur.[10]

The River Narenta, Bosnia.

In the Valley of the Narenta: Bosnia-Herzegovina.

[To face page 44.