The mention of devastated areas conjures2 a picture of the kind of destruction that happened in France. But in Poland the problem of devastation3 is quite different. It is almost true to say that the whole of Poland is devastated. In France the destruction was intensely concentrated in a narrow belt of country where battles were fought. In Poland, with its tremendous distances, the depth of devastation is rarely less at any point than two hundred miles. If in the summer of 1920 a Polish soldier had started from Warsaw in the defence against the Bolshevist invasion, had fought his way to Kiev, had fallen back in the retreat to Warsaw and, after the Polish victory, had again advanced to the present Polish front-line, he would have marched over a thousand miles in the space of four months.
We set out on a misty4 morning to cover the hundred and fifty kilometres which lie between the ruined city of Brest-Litovsk and the nearest town of Kovel. The road runs straight as a pencilled line across the sullen5 landscape. In all that stretch of country there is scarcely a sign of cultivation6. The fields have become a wilderness7, the rivers have overflowed8 and the whole is a barren swamp. The desolation was begun in 1915 when the Russians retreated before the Germans, driving the civilian9 population behind them, seizing the cattle and harrying10 with fire and with dynamite11. They destroyed all the post-houses, which made communications possible, and blew up all the bridges. Then came the German occupation and the establishment of the Russo-German trench12-systems forty kilometres to the east of Kovel. Whatever had been overlooked by the retreating Russians was picked clean by the advancing German armies. Until the Armistice13 this occupation lasted. When the Poles regained14 their freedom, the peasants who had been refugees during all this period, began to come back. They Had no sooner settled than the Bolshevists' assaults commenced, sweeping15 clean across this same stretch of tillage to the very gates of Warsaw.
As you travel the bleak16 road between Brest-Litovsk and Kovel, every sight is eloquent17 of the misery18 that has been wrought19. The route is marked by grave-yards and solitary20 crosses. Some are merely scratched on trees, the burial was so hurried. All surrounding is a brooding silence. One comes to clusters of houses, crouched21 beneath the weight of sky. Their roofs have collapsed22; their walls are charred23. Tenanting these ruins are gaunt human beings who hurry out of sight like pariahs24. Sometimes we met them struggling along the road on purposeless journeys. They wore no shoes; their feet were swathed in sodden25 rags. They had a hunted look and gave us a wide berth27 as though they feared our cruelty. Many of the travellers were children, with gray faces and hunted eyes.
At Kovel we picked up our guide. She was one of the Gray Samaritans—an American citizen of Polish origin who hailed from Pittsburgh. Her name was Christine Zduleczna; she has been working in the most appalling28 parts of this unhappy country for nearly two years. The Gray Samaritans are Polish-American girls, recruited by the Y. W. C. A. and at present attached to the American Relief Administration. All of them can talk the Polish language and most of them were old enough to remember the land of their birth at the time when they emigrated. Because of their dual29 nationality they are invaluable30 as a liaison31 between the need of the country and the American authorities. Their self-effacement is a sight to make more comfortable people blush. They practise the sacrifice of saints and the fearlessness of soldiers.
Kovel is a wretched hovel of a town, unsanitary, permanently32 splashed with mud, inhabited by Jews and White Russians. Nothing that Gorki or Tolstoi has described is more accursed and Godforsaken. Dirty, starveling shops, whose entire contents could be purchased for a dollar, stare out on a street which is a continuous puddle33 full of hidden holes and bumps. Droschkies, drawn34 by feeble ponies35, move weakly through the squalor. No one seems to have anything to do. Men in mangy fur-coats, with sweeping beards and unspeakably filthy36 faces shuffle37 aimlessly along the pavements. Soldiers step by more briskly, but with an expression in their eyes of people who are condemned38. It was here, outside a dingy39 stable, facetiously40 named the Bellevue Hotel, that we met Christine Zduleczna. She looked trim and confident in her horizon-blue uniform—a triumph of courage over circumstance. Her spirit was as unbowed and eager as her appearance, as we were soon to discover. She was one of the girls who remained at their posts last summer, evacuating41 peasants till the Bolshevists were almost within hailing distance. There was one girl on the Lithuanian Front who outstayed discretion42 and was captured.
Having taken Christine Zduleczna aboard, we ploughed our way out of the mud of Kovel and travelled due east towards the Front The signs of war were becoming more recent and frequent. Freight-cars in the railroad yards flapped in ribbons, tom into shreds43 by shells. Engines lay on their sides, as full of holes as pepper boxes. Carcases of animals were strewn about. At one point there was a pile of bones, as high as a house, picked clean of flesh. Then the rusty44 red of barbed wire commenced and the dreary45 maze46 of abandoned trench-systems.
There was not a sign of human habitation, not a roof or a wall left standing47; and yet people lived there. How? In the timbered dug-outs which the Germans had constructed; in old gun-emplacements; in shell-holes. They lived like foxes, anywhere and anyhow by burrowing48 underground. And what do they feed on? In many parts of the devastated areas they are eating grass as though they were cattle. They boil it into a kind of soup. Where they have no flour of any sort, they bake bread out of a mixture of bark and acorns49. But our Gray Samaritan informed us that there was almost no ruined village that we had passed, where an American Children's Relief Station had not been established. She knew, for she had established them; that was her job. Whoever dies in Poland, the children will be saved as long as America recognises their necessity. But if America were to grow forgetful, most of them would be dead before another summer. The cruelty of the situation is that only the children can be fed; the parents, the grandparents and the boys and girls above the age of fourteen have to take their chance.
The melancholy51 of dusk was settling over this old battlefield, where for long years men had cursed and hated and butchered one another, when we drew up at our first point of call in the trench-dwellers' colony of Switniki.
Floundering in the mud and making a strong effort to keep our footing, we crossed a trench and approached a hut constructed out of the debris52 of the battlefield. Quarter sections of corrugated53 iron, 'which the Germans had used for their gun-emplacements, had been riveted54 together, and the sides and top had been covered with sod. The place was in darkness when we knocked at the door. It was still in darkness when we were allowed to enter. Then, very sparingly, the only candle was lighted. It would be blown out the moment we departed. By its illumination we saw an old man and woman—they looked old, but they may not have been more than fifty. The woman's gray hair hung loose about her face; she was kneeling in a praying position in her bed. Perhaps it was the Three Kings she was expecting. This was the night when they were supposed to come, riding out of the East to leave their presents at the doors of the needy55, just as twenty centuries ago they had tapped on the door of a stable in Bethlehem and found the Christ-Child in his poverty, asleep upon his mother's breast.
We gazed round the little room. It was speckless56. All the rooms which we visited in this colony were. The people might be dying of starvation, but they were determined57 to die cleanly. That is the difference between your peasant and your city-dweller. One missed the abominable58 smells which accompany destitution59 in Warsaw. These people had the native gentleness of a race which has always been self-respecting, inventing their own music and poetry, and owning their little plot of land. They were not going to become disrespecting now.
Our host was a Pole—an exception to the community, most of whom were White Russians. He told his story simply. Before the war he had owned three acres, two cows and a team of horses. He had had a son who had gone to America and had been in the habit of sending him money. When the Russian armies were driven out of Poland by the Germans, he had been forced to move back into Russia. His farm had been cut up into trenches60, as we could see for ourselves. After the Armistice he had returned to find a rubbish-heap, full of foulness61. He had set to work with the little money he had to buy a horse and implements62; then last summer had come the Bolshevist invasion, eating up everything like a plague of locusts63. Now he had nothing. One could not fill in trenches and level a land blown about by shells without implements, merely with one's naked hands. And worst of all, during his long exile, he had lost touch with his son in America. Probably the son thought him dead. If he could only discover his son's address, everything might yet be well. So perhaps it wasn't for the Three Kings that the old mother had been listening so intently, when she had heard our footsteps in the mud and our sudden tap. As I had expected, the moment we departed the candle was blown out.
We came to another hut. This time they were White Russians. Outside the door the Soltys, or head-man of the village, joined us. Inside we found a family of seven children and a mother who was a widow. Her husband had died of typhus, but it was more true to call it starvation, she said. Here they had no candles, so they lit shavings of wood. Again, in spite of the poverty, everything was proudly speckless. An oven of baked mud had been built in one corner and the top of it afforded two of the children with a bed. And what pretty children they were, from the baby to the eldest64 who was a girl of seventeen! The walls were decorated with branches of spruce in case the Three Kings should come.
The story was the same as the last. They had been prosperous, owning their little farm and earning extra in the summer by hiring themselves to the big estates. Then the German invasion had driven them into exile and on their return they had found the industry of centuries blotted65 out. How did they live, we asked. The American kitchen took care of the children. All the children in the village would have died the Soltys said, if the Americans had not come to their rescue. In this particular family the girl of seventeen and a son of fifteen were the main supports. The boy was not present; he slept with the pony—their only possession—to prevent its being stolen. The boy and girl travelled the country in the spring and summer, hiring themselves and taking flour in payment. Very often they were cheated by the farmers, who after weeks of work would turn them adrift with nothing. And then, of course, there was the trouble of bringing the flour back—a hundred miles sometimes, from far outside the devastated areas—carrying it. They spoke66 uncomplainingly, merely stating facts. The girl of seventeen, who took these risks and journeys, kept smiling and nodding her confirmation67. The children peeped at us from behind the mud furnace like startled rabbits.
The last family that we visited had been rich by peasant standards. They had owned forty acres, three teams of horses, six cows, many pigs and geese and hens. All that they had found on their return from exile was forty acres of polluted mud. The household consisted of a grandfather, with a white beard and a shock of black curly hair. He had the eye of a hawk68 and the face of an intellectual. There was his wife, the grandmother, a lean woman with a humorous mouth and eyes which held you at bay with a veiled defiance69. There was their daughter, a widow, very little and meek70. And then there were her four children.
"You must not judge us as you see us now," the old man said. "You should have seen us once with all our cattle. Should I live as I do, if I could help it?"
The furnace threw out a ruddy glow. On the hot stones four little cakes were baking, which the four little boys regarded with popping eyes. "They are the cakes of the Three Kings," the grandmother explained; "they are filled with poppy-seeds. I travelled a long way to get the flour, and I worked and worked. And then I was afraid that I would be robbed on the lonely roads before ever I got it back."
We asked them what they usually ate. Oh, anything and often nothing. Did they ever bake any of this acorn50 bread? They wished they could, but they hadn't any acorns.
And so through the night of the festival of the Three Kings we drove back across the desolate71 battlefields. At Kovel we said good-bye to Christine Zduleczna. We left her in her mouldy room, in the dingy den26 of the Bellevue, which looks more like a thieves' kitchen than a hotel. She parted with us with a cheery smile—she loved her people and her work. If she had her choice, while the need was so great, she wouldn't be anywhere else. But I, for one, felt a coward in leaving her alone to carry such a burden.
We struck the bleak, interminable road which leads through Brest-Litovsk to civilisation72. Our lamps as we parted the wall of darkness, picked out the crosses of silver birch, the black and white verst poles, the graveyards73 and the humpy ruined houses. They revealed them to us one by one, beckoning74 them out of oblivion, making each tragedy seem separate and the more significant. It was bitterly cold. We huddled75 closer and shivered in our rugs and furs. Sometimes we dozed76 in a nodding fashion. But whenever we roused, like figures of grief on a frieze77 of blackness, we saw the straggling forms of outcast travellers, their feet swathed in rags, journeying in search of bread. Very often they were boys and girls, above the age of fourteen whom so far the American Relief has not had sufficient funds to rescue. They were journeying in quest of bread on the night, when according to tradition, the Three Kings should have been riding from the East to bring them help.
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
devastated
|
|
| v.彻底破坏( devastate的过去式和过去分词)；摧毁；毁灭；在感情上（精神上、财务上等）压垮adj.毁坏的；极为震惊的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
conjures
|
|
| 用魔术变出( conjure的第三人称单数 )； 祈求，恳求； 变戏法； （变魔术般地） 使…出现 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
devastation
|
|
| n.毁坏；荒废；极度震惊或悲伤 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
misty
|
|
| adj.雾蒙蒙的，有雾的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
sullen
|
|
| adj.愠怒的，闷闷不乐的，(天气等)阴沉的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
cultivation
|
|
| n.耕作，培养，栽培（法），养成 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
wilderness
|
|
| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
overflowed
|
|
| 溢出的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
civilian
|
|
| adj.平民的，民用的，民众的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
harrying
|
|
| v.使苦恼( harry的现在分词 )；不断烦扰；一再袭击；侵扰 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
dynamite
|
|
| n./vt.(用)炸药(爆破) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
trench
|
|
| n./v.(挖)沟，(挖)战壕 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
armistice
|
|
| n.休战，停战协定 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
regained
|
|
| 复得( regain的过去式和过去分词 )； 赢回； 重回； 复至某地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
sweeping
|
|
| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
bleak
|
|
| adj.(天气)阴冷的；凄凉的；暗淡的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
eloquent
|
|
| adj.雄辩的，口才流利的；明白显示出的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
misery
|
|
| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
wrought
|
|
| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
solitary
|
|
| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
crouched
|
|
| v.屈膝，蹲伏( crouch的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
collapsed
|
|
| adj.倒塌的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
charred
|
|
| v.把…烧成炭( char的过去式)；烧焦 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
pariahs
|
|
| n.被社会遗弃者( pariah的名词复数 )；贱民 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
sodden
|
|
| adj.浑身湿透的；v.使浸透；使呆头呆脑 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
den
|
|
| n.兽穴；秘密地方；安静的小房间，私室 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
berth
|
|
| n.卧铺，停泊地，锚位；v.使停泊 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
appalling
|
|
| adj.骇人听闻的，令人震惊的，可怕的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
dual
|
|
| adj.双的；二重的，二元的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
invaluable
|
|
| adj.无价的，非常宝贵的，极为贵重的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
liaison
|
|
| n.联系，（未婚男女间的）暖昧关系，私通 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
permanently
|
|
| adv.永恒地，永久地，固定不变地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
puddle
|
|
| n.(雨)水坑，泥潭 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
drawn
|
|
| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
ponies
|
|
| 矮种马，小型马( pony的名词复数 )； ￡25 25 英镑 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
filthy
|
|
| adj.卑劣的；恶劣的，肮脏的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
shuffle
|
|
| n.拖著脚走，洗纸牌；v.拖曳，慢吞吞地走 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
condemned
|
|
| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
dingy
|
|
| adj.昏暗的，肮脏的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
facetiously
|
|
| adv.爱开玩笑地；滑稽地，爱开玩笑地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
evacuating
|
|
| 撤离，疏散( evacuate的现在分词 )； 排空（胃肠），排泄（粪便）； （从危险的地方）撤出，搬出，撤空 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
discretion
|
|
| n.谨慎；随意处理 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
shreds
|
|
| v.撕碎，切碎( shred的第三人称单数 )；用撕毁机撕毁（文件） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
rusty
|
|
| adj.生锈的；锈色的；荒废了的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
dreary
|
|
| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
maze
|
|
| n.迷宫，八阵图，混乱，迷惑 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
47
standing
|
|
| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
48
burrowing
|
|
| v.挖掘（洞穴），挖洞( burrow的现在分词 )；翻寻 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
49
acorns
|
|
| n.橡子，栎实( acorn的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
50
acorn
|
|
| n.橡实，橡子 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
51
melancholy
|
|
| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
52
debris
|
|
| n.瓦砾堆，废墟，碎片 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
53
corrugated
|
|
| adj.波纹的；缩成皱纹的；波纹面的；波纹状的v.（使某物）起皱褶(corrugate的过去式和过去分词) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
54
riveted
|
|
| 铆接( rivet的过去式和过去分词 )； 把…固定住； 吸引； 引起某人的注意 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
55
needy
|
|
| adj.贫穷的，贫困的，生活艰苦的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
56
speckless
|
|
| adj.无斑点的，无瑕疵的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
|
57
determined
|
|
| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
58
abominable
|
|
| adj.可厌的，令人憎恶的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
59
destitution
|
|
| n.穷困，缺乏，贫穷 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
60
trenches
|
|
| 深沟，地沟( trench的名词复数 )； 战壕 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
61
foulness
|
|
| n. 纠缠, 卑鄙 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
62
implements
|
|
| n.工具( implement的名词复数 )；家具；手段；[法律]履行（契约等）v.实现( implement的第三人称单数 )；执行；贯彻；使生效 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
63
locusts
|
|
| n.蝗虫( locust的名词复数 )；贪吃的人；破坏者；槐树 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
64
eldest
|
|
| adj.最年长的，最年老的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
65
blotted
|
|
| 涂污( blot的过去式和过去分词 )； （用吸墨纸）吸干 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
66
spoke
|
|
| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
67
confirmation
|
|
| n.证实，确认，批准 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
68
hawk
|
|
| n.鹰，骗子；鹰派成员 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
69
defiance
|
|
| n.挑战，挑衅，蔑视，违抗 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
70
meek
|
|
| adj.温顺的，逆来顺受的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
71
desolate
|
|
| adj.荒凉的，荒芜的；孤独的，凄凉的；v.使荒芜，使孤寂 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
72
civilisation
|
|
| n.文明，文化，开化，教化 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
73
graveyards
|
|
| 墓地( graveyard的名词复数 )； 垃圾场； 废物堆积处； 收容所 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
74
beckoning
|
|
| adj.引诱人的，令人心动的v.（用头或手的动作）示意，召唤( beckon的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
75
huddled
|
|
| 挤在一起（huddle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
76
dozed
|
|
| v.打盹儿，打瞌睡( doze的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
77
frieze
|
|
| n.(墙上的)横饰带，雕带 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |