By the way,
a very, very good news:
click hereThis means more of us must help each other translating all those letters! : DDD
Letter of March 3, 1916
http://tinyurl.com/7se7ymz[I'm not so sure that an absent father would find such a letter from his daughters to be that reassuring! I. N.]
My Dear Sweet Papa!
Yesterday, after we saw you off [
at the train station], Tatiana, Anastasia and I drove in the motor
car to the [
military] cemetery. It took us forever to get there because the roads were so bad. We
arrived there and went to visit the graves of the officers [
i.e., their reposed patients]. It wasn’t so
bad, because there was little snow there. Then I wanted to go to the graves of the lower rank
wounded too. The snow on the side of the road was piled up in a big heap, so with great effort I
crawled up it on my hands and knees and jumped down on the other side. The snow turned out to
be above my knees, and although I had on high boots, I was already quite wet, so I decided to
proceed farther just the same. I immediately came upon one grave bearing the surname of Mishchenko,
the name of one of our wounded, so I put some flowers there and went on. Suddenly I
saw a marker with the same name. I looked at the tombstone, checked which regiment he belonged
to, and it turned out that
he was our wounded, and not the other one. Well, I put some
flowers for him too and had just managed to go a little ways when I fell on my back. I landed in
such a manner that it was some time before I could get up, since the snow was so deep that I
could in no wise reach the ground with my hand to get some support. At last I got up and continued
on my way.
At that time Tatiana and Anastasia said that they were going to go to the other cemetery to visit
the grave of Sonya Orbeliani, and that they would come back for me. They sent a man to help me,
the caretaker of the cemetery. With effort he crawled to me, and we began to search for the other
grave. We searched and searched, and could not understand what had became of it. It turned out
that it was nearer to the cemetery railing, and we would have to climb across the ditch. He stood
in the ditch and said to me: “I will lift you across”. I said: “No”. He said: “Let’s try”. Of course,
he did not lift me to the other side, but, rather, dropped me right in the middle of the ditch. So
there we both stood in the ditch, up to our stomachs in snow and dying from laughter. It was very
difficult for him to crawl out, since the ditch was deep. I had trouble too. Well, somehow or other
he got out and then gave me his hands. I, of course, slid on my belly back down into the ditch
about three more times, but at last I got out. And all this time the two of us were holding flowers
in our hands. Then we couldn’t manage to crawl between the crosses because we both had on
long overcoats. Nevertheless, I did find the grave. At last we made it out of the cemetery.
Tatiana and Anastasia were already waiting for me by the road. I was half dead from being overheated
and wet. We got into the motor car and drove off. I took off my boots in order to shake out
the snow. At that moment a cart met us coming from the opposite direction. We were traveling
rather fast. We swerved just slightly, when the steering wheel spun in Lapin’s hands, and the
front tires went into the snow up to the headlights, and the car began to lean sharply to the left. I
jumped out onto the road with only one boot on, while trying to put on the other one. What were
we to do; there was no one around, and it was already 1:10 P. M. Then we three decided to walk
home, but fortunately at that moment a certain company of soldiers were returning from target
practice, and they dug out the car. As it was, we had already walked almost as far as the firing
range. The car then caught up with us, and thus we returned home safely.
But the road was in horrid condition the whole route, and we were certain that the car would
break down. Opposite the Cuirassiers’ regimental church we went flying so bad that Tatiana almost
smacked her head against the roof of the car. That afternoon, while driving in the troika, we
almost overturned the other sleighs. Therefore, when, after all of that, we set out to drive to our
hospital, we were certain that we would find ourselves upside-down in the ditch, or something
else would happen to us. [....]
Author
