Page:Albert Rhys Williams - The Red Funeral in Vladivostok (1917).djvu/4

 yet there was no speaker. It was like a huge Quaker meeting in the open air. And just as a sermon has no place in Russian public worship so here a speech was not essential to this act of public devotion. But should someone from the people feel the impulse to speak there was the platform awaiting him. It was as if in the pause the people were generating a voice.

At last out of the crowd one came and climbed upon the high platform. He had not the gift of oratory but his frequent iteration, "They died for us," "They died for us," touched others to utterance.

Most eloquent of all was a lad of seventeen, the secretary of a league of young Socialists. "We were students and artists and such kind of people. We held ourselves aloof from the Soviet," he said. "It seemed to us foolish for workmen to govern without the wisdom of the wise. But now we know that you were right and we were wrong. From now on we shall stand with you. What you do, we will do. We pledge our tongues and pens to make known the wrongs that you have suffered the length and breadth of Russia and throughout the world."

Suddenly the word went through the throng that Constantin Soochanov had been paroled until five o'clock and that he was coming with counsels of peace and moderation. Soochanov was the president of the Soviet, a student twenty-four years of age, son of a high official of the Tsar, and a hero in a revolution that is not given to hero-worship.

While some were affirming his coming and others were denying it, he himself appeared. He was quickly passed along upon the shoulders of the sailors. In a storm of cheers, he climbed the ladder and came out upon the platform-top, smiling. …

As if to avert the flood of tragedy and pathos that beat suddenly upon him from every side, he turned his head away. His eyes fell for the first time upon the red coffins of the men who had been slain in defence of his Soviet and upon the mothers, wives and children of the men who lay within them. That was too much for him. A shudder passed through his frame, he threw up his hands, staggered, and would have fallen headlong into the crowd, but a friend caught him. With both hands pressed to his face, Soochanoy, in the arms of his comrades, sobbed like a child. We could see his breath come and go and the tears raining down his cheeks. The Russians are little given to tears. But that day there were seventeen thousand Russians who sobbed with their young leader on the public square of Vladivostok.

But Soochanov knew that many tears were an indulgence and that he had a big and serious task to perform. Fifty feet behind him was the English