From Plotzk to Boston | Page 6

it, and said slowly (I imagined he enjoyed frightening us), "With these third class tickets you cannot go to America now, because it is forbidden to admit emigrants into Germany who have not at least second class tickets. You will have to return to Russia unless you pay at the office here to have your tickets changed for second class ones." After a few minutes' calculation and reference to the notes he had made, he added calmly, "I find you will need two hundred rubles to get your tickets exchanged;" and, as the finishing stroke to his pleasing communication, added, "Your passports are of no use at all now because the necessary part has to be torn out, whether you are allowed to pass or not." A plain, short speech he made of it, that cruel man. Yet every word sounded in our ears with an awful sound that stopped the beating of our hearts for a while--sounded like the ringing of funeral bells to us, and yet without the mournfully sweet music those bells make, that they might heal while they hurt.
We were homeless, houseless, and friendless in a strange place. We had hardly money enough to last us through the voyage for which we had hoped and waited for three long years. We had suffered much that the reunion we longed for might come about; we had prepared ourselves to suffer more in order to bring it about, and had parted with those we loved, with places that were dear to us in spite of what we passed through in them, never again to see them, as we were convinced--all for the same dear end. With strong hopes and high spirits that hid the sad parting, we had started on our long journey. And now we were checked so unexpectedly but surely, the blow coming from where we little expected it, being, as we believed, safe in that quarter. And that is why the simple words had such a frightful meaning to us. We had received a wound we knew not how to heal.
When mother had recovered enough to speak she began to argue with the gendarme, telling him our story and begging him to be kind. The children were frightened by what they understood, and all but cried. I was only wondering what would happen, and wishing I could pour out my grief in tears, as the others did; but when I feel deeply I seldom show it in that way, and always wish I could.
Mother's supplications, and perhaps the children's indirect ones, had more effect than I supposed they would. The officer was moved, even if he had just said that tears would not be accepted instead of money, and gave us such kind advice that I began to be sorry I had thought him cruel, for it was easy to see that he was only doing his duty and had no part in our trouble that he could be blamed for, now that I had more kindly thoughts of him.
He said that we would now be taken to Keebart, a few versts' distance from Verzbolovo, where one Herr Schidorsky lived. This man, he said, was well known for miles around, and we were to tell him our story and ask him to help us, which he probably would, being very kind.
A ray of hope shone on each of the frightened faces listening so attentively to this bearer of both evil and happy tidings. I, for one, was very confident that the good man would help us through our difficulties, for I was most unwilling to believe that we really couldn't continue our journey. Which of us was? I'd like to know.
We are in Keebart, at the depot. The least important particular even of that place, I noticed and remembered. How the porter--he was an ugly, grinning man--carried in our things and put them away in the southern corner of the big room, on the floor; how we sat down on a settee near them, a yellow settee; how the glass roof let in so much light that we had to shade our eyes because the car had been dark and we had been crying; how there were only a few people besides ourselves there, and how I began to count them and stopped when I noticed a sign over the head of the fifth person--a little woman with a red nose and a pimple on it, that seemed to be staring at me as much as the grayish-blue eyes above them, it was so large and round--and tried to read the German, with the aid of the Russian translation below. I noticed all this and remembered it, as if there was nothing else in the world for me to think of--no America, no gendarme to