Berezovo: A Revolutionary Russian Epic

Re-reading the end of his last paragraph he wondered if she would appreciate the truth of what the old crone had said, for surely they were the ‘chiefs of all the politicals’ now. One could not count Nicolai Lenin’s criminally manipulative leadership of the Moscow workers.

Now there, he thought, was a man who saw life in only one dimension if ever there was.

A muffled snore from one of the bodies asleep on the hard wooden floor made him turn his head and gaze down upon the figures around him. In the centre of the floor lay Dr. Feit. Seeing him there, Trotsky smiled. He had grown fond of the old man during the weeks since the trial had ended. Within hours of the commencement of their journey into exile, the doctor had assumed the role of leader with the tacit but unanimous approval of the group. Without friction or rancour, he had succeeded in organising the families who had chosen to follow their men into exile and had sat for hours during the seemingly endless train journey telling the children folk tales to keep them amused. All the ‘privileges’ they had wrung from their guards had been due to the doctor’s skill as a negotiator. Each meal they had eaten on the train he had cooked personally and had often managed to provide a choice of dishes. In return, the affection that the exiles felt for him was the greater for not being blind gratitude. They all recognised that, by becoming both master and servant, the doctor was merely reacting to the circumstances in which he found himself. This was his method of coping. There was nothing like the hardship and uncertainties of exile to bring out the true nature of a man and Dr. Feit was a good man.

“What a pathetic lot,” Trotsky muttered aloud.

As if in answer, another man murmured and turned uneasily in his sleep. Moving the oil lamp nearer to the piece of paper, Trotsky turned up its wick. Then, picking up his pen, he dipped the nib into the shallow pool of ink and wrote:

Tonight we are staying in a large clean room with papered walls, American cloth on the table, a painted floor, large windows, two lamps. All this is very pleasant after those other filthy places. But we have to sleep on the floor because there are nine of us in the room. They changed our escort in Tobolsk and the new escort turned out to be as rude and as mean as the Tiumeni one had been courteous and well disposed towards us. This is due to an absence of any officers. The soldiers feel responsible for everything that might go wrong, But I must add that after only two days they have thawed considerably and we are establishing excellent relations with them, which is far from being a mere detail on such a journey.

Laying down the pen again, he held his hands close to the bowl of the lamp, trying to coax some warmth back into his chilled fingers as he thought of what else he could tell Natalya. Whatever happened after they arrived in Obdorskoye, he knew it would be different from his first exile. Now he was unencumbered; then he had been shackled to his wife and had had to waste two years doing odd jobs to feed the babies.