9 October 1917. Anton Denikin

Berdichev, Volynskaya guberniya, Russian Republic

In the morning the Commissariat began visiting all the units in the garrison, to obtain their consent to our transfer. The Committee had appointed a meeting of the whole garrison for 2 p.m., i.e., three hours before our departure, and in the field, moreover, immediately beside our prison.

This mass meeting did indeed take place; at it the representatives of the Commissaria and of the Committee of the Front announced the orders for our transfer to Bykhov, thoughtfully announced the hour of our departure and appealed to the garrison... to be prudent; the meeting continued for a long time and, of course, did not disperse. By 5 o'clock an excited crowd of thousands of men had surrounded the guard-room, and its dull murmur made its way into the building.
The meeting continued. Numerous speakers called for an immediate lynching... The soldier who had been wounded by Lieutenant Kletsando was shouting hysterically and demanding his head... Standing in the porch of the guard-room, Assistant Commissaries Kostitsin and Grigoriev were trying persuasion with the mob. That dear Betling, too, spoke several times, hotly and passionately. We could not hear his words.
At last, pale and agitated, Betling and Kostitsin came up to me.
"How will you decide? The crowd has promised not to touch anyone, only it demands that you should be taken to the station on foot. But we cannot answer for anything"
I replied : "Let us go"
I took off my cap and crossed myself : "Lord, bless us!"
The crowd raged. We, the seven of us, surrounded by a group of cadets, headed by Betling, who marched by my side with drawn sword, entered the narrow passage through this living human sea, which pressed on us from all sides. In front were Kostitsin and the delegates (twelve to fifteen) chosen by the garrison to escort us. Night was coming on, and in its eerie gloom, with the rays of the searchlight on the armoured car cutting through it now and then, moved the raving mob, growing and rolling on like a flaming avalanche. The air was full of a deafening roar, hysterical shouts, and mephitic curses. At times they were covered by Betling's loud, anxious voice :
" Comrades, you have given your word! . . . Comrades, you have given your word ! . . ."
The cadets, those splendid youths, crushed together on all sides, push aside with their bodies the pressing crowd, which disorders their thin ranks. Passing the pools left by yesterday's rain, the soldiers fill their hands with mud and pelt us with it. Our faces, eyes, ears, are covered with its fetid, viscid slime. Stones come flying at us. Poor, crippled General Orlov has his face severely bruised; Erdeli and I, as well, were struck — in the back and on the head.
On our way we exchanged monosyllabic remarks. I turned to Markov :
" What, my dear Professor, is this the end? "
" Apparently. . . ."
The mob would not let us come up to the station by the straight path. We were taken by a roundabout way, some three miles altogether, through the main streets of the town. The crowd is growing. The balconies of the Berdichev houses are full of curious spectators; the women wave their handkerchiefs. Gay, guttural voices come from above: "Long live freedom!"
The railway station is flooded with light. There we find a new, vast crowd of several thousand people. And all this has merged in the general sea which rages and roars. With enormous difficulty we are brought through it under a hail of curses and of glances full of hatred. The railway carriage. An officer — Eisner's son — sobbing hysterically and addressing impotent threats to the mob, and his soldier servant, lovingly soothing him, as he takes away his revolver; two women, dumb with horror — Kletsando's wife and sister, who had thought to see him off. . . . We wait for an hour, for another. The train is not allowed to leave — a prisoner's car is demanded. There were none at the station. The mob threatens to do for the Commissaries. Kostitsin is slightly buffeted. A goods car is brought, all defiled with horse-dung — what a trifle ! We enter it without the assistance of a platform; poor Orlov is lifted in with difficulty; hundreds of hands are stretched towards us through the firm and steady ranks of the cadets. ... It is already 10 p.m. The engine gives a jerk. The crowd booms out still louder. Two shots are heard. The train starts.
The noise dies away, the lights grow dimmer. Farewell Berdichev!

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