There was something even more exciting in Dorpat than the honky-tonk – a visit to the book-seller. Old Herr Krüger, a German from Germany proper, had taken me straight to his heart; the fact that I was his best customer may well have strengthened his affection for me. I spent long hours browsing among his books, generally in the forenoon when the shop was empty. As
soon as the clerks had gone to lunch, he would give me a knowing smile and then roll down the iron shutter in front of the shop. A candle was lighted, and like two conspirators we tiptoed down into the cellar, one part of which was separated from the rest by an iron door. Herr Krüger looked around nervously, then pulled away the boxes piled before the iron door, took a key out of his pocket, opened the door without making a sound, and led me into the dangerous space where “forbidden” books were kept.
A strange assortment. Stepniak,* Kropotkin,* Kennan’s work on Siberia,*
Rütten & Loening’s series on “Society,”* works by Sombart* and Bebel.*
Any one of these books would have been sufficient to send Herr Krüger to Siberia. Down here in the cellar, in the infectious atmosphere of forbidden writings, a change came over the old man. He no longer spoke in the third person; he did not say: “Here is a book which might interest the Baroness,”
but: “Look at this, this is an interesting work, but the people here don’t understand anything. They are barbarians.” Then, to his heart’s content, he would vent his contempt for the barons, the reactionaries, the whole country. In his damp, musty book catacomb the respectable little old man became a revolutionary. Here all his hatred of the arrogant aristocracy, all the anger he had had to keep bottled up for months, spilled out. For a brief moment, down there in the cellar of his book shop, he was a free man.
Such sudden transformations were not unusual. I studied Russian with a young Estonian girl who had graduated from the Russian Gymnasium. Her brother had been exiled to Siberia after the 1905 Revolution, and her father, a small farmer, was still being subjected by the police to repeated house searches and other forms of harassment. At first Linda Must was distant and reserved. She gave me my hour and never spoke a word that did not pertain to the Russian lesson. Slowly I managed to gain her confidence and later even her friendship. She let herself be persuaded to stay for tea after the lesson was over. I was happy to have some one with whom I could talk openly. Linda was a pretty girl, lively and clever. Once we were chatting happily of a hundred different things, when in astonishment I noticed that a change had come over my little friend. She was again sitting up stiffly, her face quite expressionless, as though she had put on a mask, and her eyes were cold and hard. In the doorway of the salon stood my husband – the enemy, the aristocrat. For as long as he was there, not a word was to be got out of her. An oppressive, icy atmosphere of hatred filled the entire room.
Friends
This hatred of the landlords smouldered throughout the whole land, suppressed, but ready to break out at any moment. The Baltic barons, unabashed fighting men and rowdies, did not mind at all being surrounded by enemies; it added zest to their primitive joie de vivre. Besides, they despised their opponents and were convinced that they would always be able to handle them. I, in contrast, was depressed by my awareness of the general hostility, though I personally was never an object of it. The workers on our estate felt that for some reason or other the “foreign baroness” was on their side; they liked me, and they were good to me. The herdsmen neglected the other animals so as to take special care of my sheep. When I let the cook persuade me that it was possible to cross a hen with a pheasant the forester caught me a beautiful pheasant cock and the foreman planted a whole wood in the chicken run so that the pheasant would feel at home.
The crossing did not work out, for although the hens were willing the pheasant refused to perform his marital functions. The wood, however, flourished in the chicken run and was a source of much happiness to me, as a sign that the people of whom I was genuinely fond did not look upon me too as an enemy.
The workers, male and female alike, never lost an opportunity of demonstrating their friendship for me. I remember a certain potato harvest;
my husband had gone off to hunt and I was to see to it that none of the potatoes were stolen. I was ashamed to stand idly in the fields among all the people working, and so I worked along with them as best I could.
Now and again a worker came up to me and, using the familiar “du” form they used among themselves, said: “Don’t tire yourself out. The basket is too heavy for you, don’t lift it.” And when it began to get cool, one of the workers suddenly stepped up holding my leather jacket; without a word he had run to the house, half an hour away, to fetch the jacket for me.” Our lady is not to catch cold.” The good fellow was most bewildered when I suddenly began to cry because I was so touched by his goodness.
I also think back upon one gloomy winter evening, when after a nasty scene with my husband I lost my head and ran wildly out into the snow.
I had no idea where I was going, I only wanted to get away, far away – perhaps I would freeze to death, and then everything would be all right.
My husband, who knew how much I feared the cold, thought: “She will come back as soon as she gets cold,” and sat down calmly at his desk.
The house servants were of another opinion, however. They set out with lanterns to hunt for me.
I ran into the forest, where the snow was very deep. I was dead tired;
I sat down on the ground and tried to go to sleep – that was the easiest way to freeze to death. In the distance I heard voices calling: “Praua! Praua!
(Lady!) Where are you?” But I let them call; I did not want to go back. I was beginning to be overcome by a pleasant weariness. How good it would be to go to sleep, to forget everything, and never be sad again. I felt my eyes closing.
Someone shook me awake. Standing above me, a lantern in her hand, was Kaje, the washerwoman, who could hold her own with any man when it came to drinking and fighting. Her face, hard as if carved out of wood, beamed with joy because she had at last found me.
“Come back at once.”
“I don’t want to, Kaje. Go away and let me die.”
She laughed. “Nonsense!” Then she picked me up like a child, placed me on her shoulders, and carried me back to the house, scolding me all the way, but now and again interjecting gently in her hoarse, boozy voice:
“You poor child! You poor child!”
I had dreamed of helping these people to a better, easier life, and now I was for them a “poor child” who needed to be helped and cared for.