CHAPTER XXI

HOW THEIR CUP BRIMMED FULL

Winter was always a bitter time at Kara, a time of much hardship and suffering to the ill-found and ill-fed prisoners, and to the members of the Free Command a time of pinching struggle to make both ends meet. But it was also an opportunity for much self-sacrificing generosity and the sharing of little with those who had less. For the Government allowance of twelve shillings a month did not go far, when firing and lighting were added to the already heavy burden of food and clothing; and the means of outside increment, few at best, were almost eliminated by the absurd restrictions of the law.

Of course there were occasional remittances from home, some of which reached their destinations, and were valued at many times their intrinsic worth because of the remembrances they brought; but many of which never arrived at all and wasted themselves on objects very different from those intended by the senders.

It was a time of mutual help all round. And if all outside was cold black and white, inside was much rosy cheer and much good fellowship, when the members of the community met at this house or that, to save fires and lights for the rest.

But that winter was long remembered above all previous winters for the delightful hospitality of the Palma cottage.

Serge Petrovitch had always been helpful and freehanded. That winter his and his wife's generosity knew no bounds. The little house was open to all, and scarcely a night in the week but its windows gleamed like hospitable jewels, while all around was wintry desolation of ice and snow, and above, a sky as grim as a curse.

The glowing heart of the rough clay stove never once died out the winter through, and the hearts of its owners were warm to all the world.

They were completely and absolutely happy. The brimming cup had reached their lips unspilled, and the deeper they drank of it the more there was in it. It overflowed on all around and carried new strength to the weary and uplifting for all.

And Anna Roskova especially rejoiced and took credit to herself, for she was convinced that it was her outspoken reasoning with Hope that had removed the unbelievable estrangement between these two. And when she nodded knowingly to her hostess, and sometimes quietly rallied her on the subject, Hope would smilingly acknowledge, what all the world could see, that she was as happy as the day and night were long.

For a time the police, as was their custom, used to intrude upon them now and again to see what mischief was afoot. But finding nothing but cheerful, unconspiring faces and much merry talk, and always the proffer of a cup of hot tea, their visits ceased. Not but that they would have liked to continue them for sake of the material benefits, for cheerful faces and merry talk were none too common at Kara. But, though the sheep may perforce receive the sheepdogs with politeness, they can never mingle on friendly terms. Many a Cossack guard looked enviously at the glowing windows of the Palma house that winter, and wished himself a political prisoner so that he might be inside.

Captain Sokolof maintained very friendly relations with them, and that was beneficial in many ways. It lightened the surveillance of his inferiors, and, since he insisted on Paul's acceptance of the official salary for his medical work, it placed them in a position of affluence compared with their neighbours, and their neighbours reaped the benefit.

Sokolof never forgot that he owed his life to these two. More than once he hinted that he was working in their behalf, though he did not specify how, and he constantly and openly expressed to them his disgust at the neglect his communications suffered at the hands of his superiors at St. Petersburg.

"Now if I had my way," he said once, "I would have every official of the Ministry serve a term in Siberia so that they should know how things really are. They would learn a great deal that it would do them good to know. They have their pleasures and their functions and their pressing matters close at hand, and Kara is very far away, and Kara can wait."

Colonel Zazarin troubled them little. He was not their immediate official head, and only came in contact with them by a descent from his pedestal. They had shown him as plainly as they dared, when he did call upon them, that he was not wanted, and by degrees his visits fell off. Then, too, he had had a great scare with the typhus, and he still deemed it good for his health to keep aloof from prisons and prisoners as much as he possibly could.

So all through that winter the heart of the stove glowed warmly, and the samovar was always on the boil. And Hope Pavlova baked incessantly, and was busy and happy from morning till night, but happiest at night when her little house was packed like a biscuit-box with less favoured folk, whose faces smiled at sight of her in spite of all their woes.

So radiant was she then that they wondered at her new rich beauty, and discussed among themselves what had come to her. And over their tea and cakes, to which some of them had been looking forward with keen anticipation all through the long cold day, they talked and talked--these victims of great ideas, and very harmless victims, most of them--and sometimes they laughed and sometimes even sang.

A smaller sphere could hardly have been found, nor a narrower, nor a gloomier. But these two, by the wealth of love that was in their own hearts, and by the beauty of life that had come to them through their love, touched all these smaller lives with the gladness of hope, and strengthened them for the sorrows they had to bear.

It was in those long winter days and nights that Hope undertook to introduce her husband to the peculiarities and beauties of the English language, which she herself, as her mother's daughter, spoke with ease and fluency. He was an apt pupil, and made rapid progress, and many a hearty laugh rose over their lessons and his first barbarous attempts at pronunciation. That was how, thanks to her stringent drilling, he came, in later days, to speak English like an educated Scotchman, an accomplishment which any man may be proud of, and which stood him in good stead when the time came.

Yes, winter at Kara is a hard and bitter time at best, and for some a time of dull anguish and black despair. To such, as far as they could get at them, Hope and Pavlof became minor providences, where the major came like to be forgotten or abjured through utter hopelessness and misery.

They cheered, and comforted, and fed starved souls and bodies alike, and shared to the full their own overflowing happiness with those who had none, and felt the richer for all they gave.