Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 3, May 1906

<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_25" id="Page_25"></SPAN>[<SPAN href="images/027.png">25</SPAN>]</span></p> <h2>UT SEMENTEM FECERIS, ITA METES.</h2> <h3>By <span class="smcap">Voltairine De Cleyre</span></h3> <p class="center">(To the Czar, on a woman, a political prisoner, being flogged to death in Siberia.)</p> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> <div><i>How many drops must gather to the skies</i></div> <div class="i1"><i>Before the cloud-burst comes, we may not know;</i></div> <div class="i1"><i>How hot the fires in under hells must glow</i></div> <div><i>Ere the volcano's scalding lavas rise,</i></div> <div class="i1"><i>Can none say; but all wot the hour is sure!</i></div> <div class="i1"><i>Who dreams of vengeance has but to endure!</i></div> <div><i>He may not say how many blows must fall,</i></div> <div class="i1"><i>How many lives be broken on the wheel,</i></div> <div><i>How many corpses stiffen 'neath the pall,</i></div> <div class="i1"><i>How many martyrs fix the blood-red seal;</i></div> <div><i>But certain is the harvest time of Hate!</i></div> <div class="i1"><i>And when weak moans, by an indignant world</i></div> <div class="i1"><i>Re-echoed, to a throne are backward hurled,</i></div> <div><i>Who listens hears the mutterings of Fate!</i></div> </div></div> <div class="center"><ANTIMG src="images/sep12.jpg" width-obs='83' height-obs='16' alt="Decorative separator" /></div> <h2>THE WHITE TERROR.</h2> <h3><i>I.&mdash;The Flogging of a Student.</i></h3> <p class="center">(<span class="smcap">By an Eye-Witness&mdash;M. Kirilov, of the "Russ."</span>)</p> <p>December 18th. Near the Gorbaty Bridge, Moscow. A group of soldiers of various arms and an officer. Great animation, jokes, cries, gesticulation, contented faces. A student has fallen into their hands.</p> <p>"Well, boys, make room," says the officer. "The performance begins!"</p> <p>"Take off your trousers," says the officer, turning to the student. The latter is pale, silent, and does not move.</p> <p>"Trousers off!" cries the officer, in rage; but the student, without a drop of blood in his face, whiter than the snow, does not move, but only looks around in silence with horrified eyes and meets everywhere the triumphant faces of his tormentors. He drops his head and remains silent as before.</p> <p>"Well, then, boys, we must assist our dear student; his hands, poor thing, are frost bitten and do not obey."</p> <p>The voice of the officer changes; it becomes sweet and smooth. He looks at the student with pleasure.</p> <p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_26" id="Page_26"></SPAN>[<SPAN href="images/028.png">26</SPAN>]</span></p> <p>"Take off his dear little trousers!" he orders his soldiers. The latter unbutton and tear down his trousers. The student does not resist. Then he is thrown on the ground.</p> <p>"Give him beans, boys!"</p> <p>Two powerfully-built soldiers step forward, holding whips in their hands.</p> <p>The flogging begins. It lasts a long time, accompanied by loud laughter, jokes and noise. The student is silent all the time and lies with his face buried in the snow. He is constantly being asked whether he feels allright, and is kicked with the boots on his head.</p> <p>"Halt!" cries the officer at last, when the whole body of the student has been covered with blood. The excited soldiers do not leave off at once, but continue for some time. At last they stop.</p> <p>"Please, sir, won't you allow us, too, to have a little game?" smilingly ask a couple of artillery soldiers, saluting the officer.</p> <p>"Well, have a go at him," says the officer kindly.</p> <p>The second shift gets to work, and turning up their sleeves, takes over the bloody whips and resumes the flogging of the student, who still, as before, is lying in the snow without uttering a word. Only his body still thrills instinctively as the soldiers get more and more excited and the blows become more and more frequent.</p> <p>"Sir, we, too, want some of the lark," impatiently interfered some of the dragoons, and having received the permission of the officer, substituted themselves for the artillery men and with new force and zeal began to flog the student, who still lay strictly as before, only his body scarcely moving.</p> <p>"Well, here you are, you got your higher education&mdash;all the three faculties!" somebody joked as the flogging at last stopped and the student lay motionless in the snow.</p> <p>But he was not flogged to death. He was taken to the other side of the river and there shot.</p> <h3><i>II.&mdash;Lieutenant Schmidt, of the Sevastopol Mutiny, after being captured.</i></h3> <p class="center">(From a letter received by Prof. Miliukov from a lady correspondent who saw Schmidt in the Fortress and had the tale from his own lips.)</p> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />