All this surprised me very much. I considered the moment most inappropriate for "acting," and if what G. said was serious, then why had the whole business been started? During this period nothing new had appeared in us. And if G. had started work with us such as we were, then why was he stopping it now? This altered nothing for me materially. I had decided to pass the winter in the Caucasus in any case. But it
changed a good many things for some of the other members of our group who were still slightly uncertain and made the difficulty for them insuperable. And I have to confess that my confidence in G. began to waver from this moment. What the matter was and what particularly provoked me is difficult for me to define even now. But the fact is that from this moment there began to take place in me a separation between G. himself and his ideas. Until then I had not separated them.
At the end of August I at first followed G. to Tuapse and from there went to Petersburg with the intention of bringing back some things;
unfortunately I had to leave behind all my books. I thought at the time that it would be risking very much to take them to the Caucasus. But in Petersburg, of course, everything was lost.
Chapter Eighteen
I WAS kept in St. Petersburg longer than I had thought to be and I only left there on the 15th of October, a week before the bolshevik revolution. It was quite impossible to stay there any longer. Something disgusting and clammy was drawing near. A sickly tension and the expectation of something inevitable could be felt in everything. Rumors were creeping about, each one more absurd and stupid than the other. Nobody understood anything. Nobody could imagine what was coming later on. The "temporary government," having vanquished Kornilov, conducted the most correct negotiations with the bolsheviks who openly showed they did not care a hang for the "socialist ministers" and tried only to gain time. The Germans for some reason did not march upon St. Petersburg although the front was open. People now thought of them as saviors both from the "temporary government" and from the bolsheviks. I did not share the hopes based upon the Germans because, in my opinion, what was taking place in Russia had to a considerable extent got out of hand.
In Tuapse there was still comparative calm. Some kind of soviet was sitting in the country house of the Shah of Persia but plunderings had not yet begun. G. settled down at a fair distance from Tuapse to the south a little over fifteen miles from Sochi. He hired a country house there overlooking the sea, bought a pair of horses, and lived with a small company of people. Altogether about ten persons were gathered there.
I went there too. It was a wonderful place, full of roses, with a view of the sea on one side and a chain of mountains already covered with snow on the other. I was very sorry for those of our people who had stayed in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
But even on the day following my arrival I noticed that there was something wrong. There was not a trace of the Essentuki atmosphere. I was particularly astonished at Z.'s position. When I had left for St. Petersburg in the beginning of September Z. was full of enthusiasm; he continually urged me not to stay in St. Petersburg since it might become so difficult to get through.
"Do you never intend to be in St. Petersburg any more?" I asked him then.
"One who flees to the mountains does not turn back," Z. replied.
And now, on the day following my arrival in Uch Dere, I heard that Z. intended to return to St. Petersburg.
"What can he be going back there for? He has left his employment, what is he going to do there?"
"I do not know," said Dr. S., who had told me about it. "G. is not pleased with him and says that he had better go."
It was difficult for me to get Z. himself into a talk. He obviously did not desire to explain but he said that he really intended to leave.
Gradually, by questioning others, I found out that a strange thing had happened. A very absurd quarrel between G. and some Letts, our neighbors, had occurred. Z. was present at it. G. had not liked something Z. had said or something, and from that day he had completely changed towards him, stopped speaking to him, and, in general, put him into such a position that Z. was obliged to announce his decision to leave.
I considered this to be pure idiocy. To go to St. Petersburg at this time seemed to me the height of absurdity. There was a real famine there, unruly crowds, robbery, and nothing else. At that time of course one could not yet have imagined that we should never see St. Petersburg again. I counted upon going there in the spring. I thought that by the spring there would be something definite. But now, in the winter, this was quite unreasonable. I could have understood it if Z. was interested in politics and was studying the events of the period, but as this was not the case I saw no motives for it whatever. I began to persuade Z. to wait, to decide nothing at once, to talk to G., and to try somehow to clarify the position. Z. promised me not to be in a hurry. But I saw that he was indeed in a very strange position. G. completely ignored him and this produced on Z. a most depressing impression. Two weeks passed in this way. My arguments had worked on Z. and he said that he would stay if G. agreed to let him. He went to speak to G., but came back very soon with a disturbed face.
"Well, what did he say to you?"
"Nothing in particular; he said that once I had decided to go I had better go."
Z. went. I could not understand it. I would not have let a dog go to St. Petersburg at that time.
G. intended to pass the winter at Uch Dere. We lived in several houses spread over a large plot of land. There was no kind of "work" in the sense of what had been at Essentuki. We chopped up trees for winter firewood; we collected wild pears; G. often went to Sochi where one of our people was in hospital, having contracted typhoid before my arrival from St. Petersburg.
Unexpectedly G. decided to go to another place. He found that here we might easily be cut off from all communication with the rest of Russia and be left without provisions.
G. went away with half of our company and afterwards sent Dr. S. for the rest. We again forgathered in Tuapse and from there we began to make excursions along the seashore to the north where there was no railway. During one of these trips S. found some of his St. Petersburg acquaintances who had a country house twenty-four miles north of Tuapse. We stayed the night with them and the next morning G. hired a house half a mile away from them. Here our small company again forgathered. Four went to Essentuki.
Here we lived for two months. It was a very interesting time. G., Dr. S., and I went to Tuapse every week for provisions for ourselves and fodder for the horses. These trips will always remain in my memory. They were full of the most improbable adventures and very interesting talks. Our house stood overlooking the sea three miles from the big village of Olghniki. I had hoped that we would live there a longer time. But in the second half of December there came the rumors that a part of the Caucasian Army was moving towards Russia on foot along the shores of the Black Sea. G. said that we would again go to Essentuki and begin fresh work. I went first. I took part of our belongings to Pyatigorsk and returned. It was possible to get through although there were bolsheviks in Armavir.
The bolsheviks, in general, had increased in the north Caucasus and friction began between them and the Cossacks. At Mineralni Vodi, when we all passed through there, everything was outwardly quiet, although murders of many persons whom the bolsheviks disliked had already occurred.
G. hired a large house in Essentuki and sent out a circular letter, dated the 12th of February, over my signature, to all the members of our Moscow and St. Petersburg groups inviting them to come with those near to them to live and to work with him.