“Private letters cannot serve as evidence before any court, particularly

in a case which concerns general idealistic convictions. Such letters

always bear the stamp of a subjective mood and therefore cannot have the

value of exact evidence. But if letters are to be believed, how is it

possible to pick out one at will and to discard the other? to believe

one and not to believe the other? We must believe Miss Sukloff that she

is a Socialist-Revolutionist, and the repeated statement of the

procureur that she is a Social Democrat is utterly incomprehensible.

Between the Socialist-Revolutionists and the Social Democrats there is a

great difference.... The labor organ which Miss Sukloff says in her

letters she wants to publish can by no means be the _Iskra_. Everybody

knows perfectly well that this organ is published abroad, and was being

issued long before Miss Sukloff wrote her letters, consequently she

could not have in view the _Iskra_ when she wrote about the intention of

herself and her friends to issue a paper....

“As regards the word ‘vampire,’ to consider it, particularly in view of

the doubtful conscientiousness of the translator, a deliberate intention

to commit a definite terrorist act, is juridically impossible. It is

simply a poetical expression of the terrorist mood which agitates now,

by force of circumstances, not one young heart in Russia. Whether it was

written ‘vampire’ or ‘vampires’ is, after all, of no import to us,

because in the letter is expressed only an abstract intention, and to

punish for such intentions no court has ever attempted.... The substance

of the accusation is that the accused had definite opinions,

convictions, and general intentions, and all this is quite

comprehensible, if one will be more attentive to her manner of life. A

worker since fifteen, vivid and bright, she ponders over the strange

contrast between her own and her chums’ position on the one hand, and

that of, let us say, their customers, while her own mental superiority

to those bedecked ladies could be no secret to her. Reasoning logically,

not hampered by prejudices which did not fasten upon her, her thought

came to certain conclusions. Meeting with people of greater mental

development, she, under their influence, adopted at first the Social

Democratic teachings; but her mind, being of wider scope, did not stop

there, and thanks to her militant temperament, she, having become

acquainted with the views of the Socialist-Revolutionists, joined

them.... We ourselves in her place would undoubtedly thirst as much as

she for emancipation and the possibility of a better life for herself

and others. It must be noted that, notwithstanding the specifically

Jewish persecution she was subjected to, the accused did not engage in a

narrow-nationalistic struggle. She had a broader outlook, and the

interests of all humanity are dearer to her. This is a talented nature,

responsive to all good; in some other country she might have been happy,

but here, among us—alas! This is not possible. The court may, of course,

convict her, but it will hardly be a triumph of justice; it will be

another ill-considered, unjust verdict, of which history knows not few.”

After two days of anxious waiting the verdict was announced: We were

sentenced “to be deprived of all rights and exiled to Eastern Siberia

for life.”

-----

Footnote 6:

Report.

Footnote 7:

A dark, windowless cell, in which prisoners are kept on bread and

water.

Footnote 8:

Quoted from the _Revolyutzionnaya Rossiya_, the organ of the

Socialist-Revolutionists, No. 37.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

IV

I

THE thought that I would be exiled to Siberia did not frighten me in the

least. The desire to escape from those odious walls was so great that I

would have been glad to be led not only into exile, but even to the

gallows. But day after day, month after month went by, and I still sat

in the Odessa prison, whither my comrades and I were transferred several

days after the trial, impatiently waiting to be transported to Siberia.

To all my protests and insistent requests to send me there the prison

authorities made one reply:

“We are awaiting special instructions from St. Petersburg with regard to

you and your comrades.”

“What more can they do to me?” I frequently asked myself. A feeling of

rage filled my heart more and more often as the months passed. I could

no longer speak calmly with the authorities. At their very sight my

blood began to boil.

“How much longer will you torture me within these walls?” I cried

whenever the prison governor appeared.

Conflicting rumors about the war with Japan penetrated into our cells,

but they could not hide from us that Russia was being defeated by the

Japanese. With every Japanese victory the prison authorities relaxed the

severe discipline more and more. This relaxation of the prison régime,

bought at the price of thousands of Russian people slain in battle, made

our life a little easier. The hope that the Japanese might help us free

ourselves from the despotic government gave us new strength to bear and

wait.

In July, 1904, the minister of the interior, Plehve, that pillar of

reaction who had boasted that he would “wipe out the revolution in

Russia,” was killed by a bomb thrown at his carriage by Yegor Sazonov, a

member of the “Fighting League” of the Socialist-Revolutionists’ Party.

This happy news was brought to us by the prison authorities themselves

who were greatly elated at the death of their chief. Plehve was

cordially hated not only by the people, but even by his own

subordinates. The appointment of Prince Svyatopolk-Mirski as minister of

the interior put an end, for a short time at least, to the sufferings

and hardships, which political prisoners were forced to endure.

Soon after the assassination of Plehve, my comrades and I were

unexpectedly included in a party of convicts who were being exiled to

Eastern Siberia. Before leaving the prison we learned what it meant to

be “deprived of all rights and exiled to Siberia for life.” We were

summoned to the office and told to put on convict garb. The dress of a

female convict consists of a coarse gray linen shirt, a skirt made of

the same material, a pair of black _kotí_, or slippers, with square

linen foot-wrappers in lieu of stockings, a long gray _khalát_[9] with a

yellow diamond-shaped patch in the back between the shoulders, and a

gray kerchief. This dress changes a person beyond recognition. When we

were led back to our cells our comrades did not recognize us. I was

frightened by my own reflection in the mirror when I saw myself in this

garb for the first time. There is something terribly degrading in it.

“What have I done? what have I done?” I repeated in great agitation. I

paced my cell, with difficulty dragging my feet dressed in enormous,

ugly kotí. And the feeling of hatred toward my oppressors grew in my

heart and I could not overcome it.

On the next morning my comrades and I were lined up with a party of

convicts who were being transported to Siberia for robbery and murder.

Our wrists were chained to theirs, and in this fashion we were marched

four abreast, in the middle of the dusty road, to the railroad station.

For the last time I looked at the big city to which I had come in quest

of knowledge and happiness.

“Oh God!” I thought to myself, “I left my father and mother, sisters and

brothers; I left my native fields, and came to this great city to find

the key to a better life: and _this_ is what I found!”

“Farewell, farewell, my native land ...” began the prisoners in a chorus

when the train started. Their plaintive tones accompanied by the

jingling of the chains made an indelible impression upon me.

The convict car was filthy and crowded to its utmost capacity. The

prisoners were making themselves comfortable, and their familiarity with

the surroundings suggested to me that they were not making this dreadful

journey for the first time.

The _stárosta_, or head-man, elected by the convicts figured out with

the help of the under-officer of the convoy the amount of

_kormovíye_[10] for the party. Ten kopecks was the sum a convict

received for his daily subsistence. For this money one could buy on the

road one and one-half pounds of bread. But peasant women meet the

trains, especially in Siberia, and give alms to the hungry, unfortunate

convicts—bread, milk, pies, and other eatables.

After an agonizing ride which lasted about two days, we arrived in Kief.

There we were placed in the forwarding prison. A forwarding prison

differs from a regular one in that the former is, in most cases, wholly

unfurnished, and the only article a cell contains is a large wooden tub

called _parásha_. We slept on the dirty floor with nothing under us but

our overcoats.

For two days we were kept there, and were not even let out for the daily

walk. There were fifty people in our _kámera_,[11] twenty-five women and

as many children. Some of the children became sick, and their unhappy

parents lived in constant fear that they would die from lack of pure

air. Mrs. Orloff begged the prison governor to permit her to take her

sick child out in the yard for a few minutes, but his only answer to the

distracted mother was:

“_Peresýlni_[12] are not supposed to be let out for a walk in the

forwarding prison. To-morrow you will leave here.”

[Illustration:

SIX POLITICAL PRISONERS AND THEIR GUARDS

Resting at the étape in their march to Akatúi.

Miss Sukloff is second from the left

]

From Kief we were taken to Kursk, and after spending two days in the

forwarding prison went on to Voronezh. And thus changing from the

crowded convict car to the forwarding prison and from the forwarding

prison to the convict car, and stopping in every large city, we finally

crossed the Urals and reached the town of Tyumén, in Siberia, after

three weeks’ travel. The Tyumén forwarding prison is located at a great

distance from the city, and the muddy road over which we were marched

came near becoming a grave-yard for some of us.

George Kennan, the well-known American writer, describes this prison in

these words:[13]

“I looked around the cell. There was practically no ventilation

whatever, and the air was so poisoned and foul that I could hardly force

myself to breathe it. We visited successively in the yard six kámeras,

or cells, essentially like the first, and found in every one of them

three or four times the number of prisoners for which it was intended,

and five or six times the number for which it had adequate air space. In

most of the cells there was not room enough on the sleeping-platforms

for all the convicts, and scores of men slept every night on the foul,

muddy floors, under the _nari_,[14] and in the gangways between them and

the walls....”

In these germ-infested barracks we were kept for three long months.

Typhus fever and other epidemic diseases carried off two or three people

every day, and we escaped death only through some miracle.

Winter had already set in when we started out again. In a blinding

snow-storm we were lined up by the soldiers of the convoy, and began our

journey to Krasnoyarsk. The convict car was even more filthy and crowded

than in European Russia. The severe Siberian frosts did not add to our

comforts. There were the usual stops for a day or two in a forwarding

prison, and marching to and fro, in half-torn shoes, over roads covered

with ice and snow.

Tormented with hunger and cold, exhausted by the hardships of Siberian

travel in winter, and extremely fatigued we dragged ourselves into the

forwarding prison at Krasnoyarsk after sixteen days of travel. Here at

last we learned to which places we were to be banished.

One morning the prison governor brought in a bundle of official papers.

These contained our several destinations. To my inexpressible terror I

was to be sent _alone_ to the village of Aleksandrovskoye, in the

province of Yeniseisk, about three thousand miles from my native

province of Vilna. I stood before the governor, listened to his words,

but could not believe that I was to be parted from my friends, taken to

a remote, lonely village, and left there to pass my days alone.

“How is that? how is that?” I kept repeating the meaningless words,

knowing perfectly well that the governor had nothing to do with

designating the place of exile and could not change anything.

From Krasnoyarsk we were taken to Kansk. The Kansk forwarding prison,

which was the last _étape_ of our memorable journey together, almost

became the grave of the whole party. We came to the prison in the

evening. The barrack in which we were placed had evidently not been

heated for a long time, as ice and snow lay on the floor all along the

walls. We asked the head-keeper for some wood, and made a fire in the

stove. After the fire had burned out, we closed the chimney and went to

sleep. At night a child began to cry. Some of us heard his cries, but

could not move from our places. Attracted by the child’s cries, a keeper

came and called to us, but seeing that we did not respond, opened the

door. Then he understood the cause of our silence. The cell was filled

with fumes of charcoal, and we all lay in a stupor. He immediately

summoned a number of soldiers who carried us out on the snow and

rendered first aid. As soon as we had fully recovered we were taken to

our respective destinations. The Orloffs were sent to the village of

Ribinskoye, in the province of Yeniseisk, about thirty miles from

Aleksandrovskoye. They went first. Then two guards came and took me.

From Kansk we had to travel on foot. Before starting the exiles on their

march the prison doctor examines them, and if any are found to be weak

or infirm _telyégas_[15] are provided for them to ride in. To my great

luck the doctor decided that I was too sick to walk, and I was allowed

to ride in a cart.

[Illustration:

MISS SUKLOFF READING IN HER CELL

]

Two guards escorted me to the first étape and delivered me under

signature to the _uryádnik_.[16] The uryádnik summoned the head-man of

the village and ordered him to procure a horse. After a long dispute the

peasants found an old nag, and I, under the escort of the village

constable, proceeded to Aleksandrovskoye. In every settlement which we

passed on the way the peasants, and particularly the women, regarded me

very curiously. On learning that I was an exile they fed me, and in one

village the women even gave me a pair of high felt boots, as I suffered

terribly from the extreme and continuous cold.

Finally we arrived at the _vólost_, or rural district, to which

Aleksandrovskoye belonged. Here the uryádnik and the vólost scribe

opened the papers which the constable had carried all the time in a

sealed envelope.

“There are special instructions with reference to you,” said the scribe

to me.

“What are those special instructions?” I asked.

“It is stated here that you are a political offender and must be guarded

very closely,” he replied.

I slept that night at the scribe’s house, and on the next day he took me

to the village of Aleksandrovskoye, which was about eighteen miles from

the vólost. The village consisted of perhaps thirty huts, and was

inhabited mostly by Russian colonists. At the house of the

_stárosta_,[17] to which I was first taken by the scribe, women and

peasants gathered and began to consider what should be done with me. The

women, folding their arms on their breasts, stood shaking their heads

compassionately and saying in melancholy tones:

“Poor girl, poor girl! Your parents must have shed bitter tears when you

were taken from them in such tender years.”

Some of them offered to take me to their homes. One old peasant who

stood thoughtfully stroking his long, white beard thus settled his

doubts:

“It means, then, that she was sent to us for life and we may do with her

whatever we want. Did I understand you rightly?” He turned to the scribe

who was explaining to the peasants how to treat me.

At last, after a long discussion, it was decided that I would stay at

the house of the church watchman. The uryádnik ordered the constable to

come every morning to my house to see if I was still there. At parting

he warned the peasants:

“Remember that you are all responsible for her.”

The peasants made the sign of the cross, and in a body led me to the

house of the church watchman.

Yet for a long while the women continued their expressions of sympathy

and shed tears, repeating, “You poor, unfortunate orphan,” before I was

finally left alone. When they cried and called me “orphan” I really felt

that I was alone, alone in this whole great world. I sat helplessly

looking about myself, and a feeling of pity for myself filled my heart.

But the immediate environment did not give these feelings a chance to

grow. The people would not let me rest for a minute.

My host, an old man white as snow, soon came in and asked me:

“Can you read?”

After receiving an affirmative reply, he extracted a letter from his

pocket. It was from his son, a soldier in the Manchurian army.

The news that I could read traveled fast. All the peasants gathered all

printed and written matter they could find in the village and brought me

to read to them. They surrounded me on all sides and listened to me with

respectful attention. The desire to know about the war with Japan was

not mere curiosity on the part of the illiterate peasants. They had a

blood interest in it, as nearly every one of them had a son, a husband

or a brother on the battlefield, from whom they had not received word

for months, and despaired of ever hearing from them.

On the morrow the women came to me carrying bowls of milk, plates of

butter, and various other gifts, and begged me to write to their sons

and husbands. Listening to the tales of woe of these old mothers and

young wives, who desperately clung to the last hope that their loved

ones had not been killed, but only wounded and crippled for life;

looking at the little orphans who already knew that they were to see

their fathers no more, I forgot my own grief and thought only of what I

should do to lighten their terrible burden. But to my great sorrow I had

no means of being useful to them, and all I could do was to write

letters to people whom I believed to be dead.

A few days after my arrival the village priest came to see me. He was a

robust man of a very cheerful disposition and liked to drink a great

deal. He spoke to me in a fatherly manner.

“Only do not get discouraged. There is nothing eternal in this world,”

he said in answer to my statement that I had been sent there, not for a

term of years, but for life. “My daughter is going to be married,” he

continued, “and there is no one here to make dresses for her, so you had

better come to live with us and help her with the sewing.”

I consented, as I was very glad to do something to earn my bread.

II

I was no longer in prison, I saw no more the prison walls, but I did not

feel myself free. The purposeless life in a remote Siberian village

seemed to me worse than a prison. The peasants, together with the

priest, drank for two or three days during the week. They spent all

their money at the Government liquor shop, and when they had no ready

cash they pawned anything they could conveniently carry out of the

house. It seemed that only the _vódka_ gave them the possibility of

forgetting the miseries of their wretched existence. In those “drunken”

days I hid myself in some corner that no one might see me, and sat

looking at the heaps of snow which separated me from the rest of the

living.

“You must escape, you must escape from here,” an inner voice grew more

and more insistent within me.

The scribe, the uryádnik, and the constable were the only people

supposed to keep watch over me, and they seemed neglectful of their

responsibility. They may have supposed that the dense forest which

surrounded the village was the best guard.

“To escape, to escape,” I repeated to myself in the long, sleepless

nights, staring into the darkness and making plans, each one more

fantastic than the other.

In the meantime the news of the “Bloody Sunday” reached our village.

With trembling hands I held the paper and read to the peasants how the

working-men of St. Petersburg, led by Father Gapon, had gone to petition

their Czar to better their conditions of life; how they had marched with

their wives and children, carrying icons and the portrait of the

Emperor, and singing patriotic hymns; how they had suddenly, without

warning, been shot down, trampled by Cossack horses, and beaten with

sabers and _nagáikas_;[18] how the streets of St. Petersburg had been

turned into a battlefield where hundreds of dead and dying lay.... Here

the peasants stopped me.

“Is it possible,” they asked, “that the czar, in whom we believe, could

do that? Is it possible that he it is who takes our children and sends

them to the Japanese to be killed? Is it possible that _he_ does all

this, and not his ministers?”

They took the paper from me, turned it in their hands, and made me read

it all over again, from the beginning. On that day their faith in the

czar was shattered, and they openly showed their sympathy with me, a

direct victim of his despotic rule.

To me the fact that the St. Petersburg working-men had gone to petition

the czar for a better life had another significance. I saw in it the

awakening of the toiling masses, and regarded it as the fore-runner of

that great revolution which was to shake the throne from its foundation.

“It can not be that the blood of the innocent children slain in the

streets of St. Petersburg on the ninth of January should remain

unavenged,” I thought. I saw that the Russian people could no longer

suffer the yoke of czarism, that Russia must be free, and I firmly

decided to escape and join, weapon in hand, in the great struggle

towards liberty and justice for my oppressed and down-trodden country.

III

The vólost scribe was an intelligent and kind man, and he openly showed

his sympathy with me. I made up my mind to ask him to get from the

uryádnik permission for me to go to Kansk. I hoped to find there

comrades who would help me with money and a passport.

“Yes,” said the scribe in answer to my request, “I can get for you the

desired permission. But if you should run away the responsibility would

fall upon me, because I am sure the uryádnik will prove in some way or

other that I conspired with you. You know that I am the father of four

children,” he went on, “but if you give me your word of honor that you

will return, I will persuade the uryádnik to let you go to Kansk for a

few days.”

[Illustration:

THE ENTRANCE TO THE AKATÚI PRISON

]

His proposal was difficult for me to accept. If I should give him my

word of honor I would have to return, and my only aim in asking for

leave was to escape. For two days I went about trying to find a way out

of the difficulty, but finally decided to agree to his condition. It was

absolutely necessary to go to Kansk and procure money and a passport,

without which I could not even think of escaping.

We went to the uryádnik, and after considerable questioning he consented

to let me go to Kansk for a few days.

On the first of February, 1905, I left the village, riding in the cart

of a peasant who was going to town on business. I had no addresses, and

did not even know if there were any political exiles in Kansk. The

peasants of Aleksandrovskoye had assured me that there were many

“nobles” there. As I found later, the politicals were known there as

“nobles.”

After two days’ travel we reached Kansk. For the sum of two kopecks a

ragged boy drove me to the blacksmith’s shop. A tall man in a blue

blouse, his hands and face covered with soot, greeted me with a cordial

smile. I told him my name, and he led me to his house. There I was met

by a pale, frail-looking young woman who held a sickly baby wrapped in

rags. Having overcome the feeling of embarrassment I experienced at the

sight of their wretched poverty, I told them the object of my visit.

“I am very sorry,” said Mr. M——, the blacksmith, “but I don’t think you

will get anything in this town. There are only six politicals here, and

they are all starving. The only thing we can do for you is to give you

letters of recommendation to our Irkutsk people. There are a great many

of them there, and they will surely help you.”

A few hours later the whole exile colony of Kansk gathered at the house

of Mr. M——. They held a consultation and decided that I must go directly

to Irkutsk. They bought me a railroad ticket to that city out of their

last money, and that very evening I boarded a train, carrying in my

pocket a letter of recommendation. As I was dressed in a mixture of

civil and convict garb, the passengers stared at me, and I did not feel

quite at ease.

After two days’ travel I came to Irkutsk. When the cab stopped in front

of a rich house on the main street of the city I hesitated for a few

seconds. “What if they will not let me in?” I rang the bell. A beautiful

young girl opened the door. I handed her the letter of recommendation,

and she invited me to sit in the waiting-room. Directly an old man of

short stature entered. He asked me who I was and what I wanted. Having

convinced himself that I really was the person I claimed to be, he shook

my hand and invited me to meet his wife and children.

This man, Mr. K——, was an old revolutionist, exiled to Irkutsk many

years before. But notwithstanding his “past” he now held a high

Government position. That same day he handed me a hundred rubles and a

passport on which he wrote in his own hand that I was a “merchant’s

daughter.” Such a passport was as good as a real one in Siberia, because

the príestavs and the uryádniks who endorse them are so ignorant that

they can hardly read Russian. Mrs. K—— helped me put on her daughter’s

clothes, and presented a watch to me. In short, I was made

unrecognizable.

It was necessary to return to Aleksandrovskoye. I knew that the scribe

would feel uneasy about my long absence. I did not want to think how I

would escape after my return: the difficulties seemed insurmountable,

but I had given my word of honor, and had to return.

With sorrow in my heart I bade good-by to those kind people. One of Mr.

K——’s sons went with me to Kansk, as they were afraid that I might be

arrested on the road.

In the railway compartment—we traveled in the second-class—were two army

officers. They made friends with my companion and treated him to vódka

and cigars. There was nothing in their appearance to arouse our

suspicions.

When night came I lay down on my cot. I could not sleep. The thought

that I was going back to that lonely village would not let me rest.

Suddenly I felt that somebody was tugging at the chain which supported

my watch. I opened my eyes, and to my great terror saw the same officer

who had been so amiable with me several hours before. In one hand he

held my bag which contained the hundred rubles and the passport. I

emitted a terrible shriek. The officer seized me by the throat, and

began to choke me. I became unconscious....

When I had regained consciousness my first thought was that the money

and passport were gone. I heard people talking near me, but had no

desire to look at them.

“Why didn’t they let me die?” I thought. “What will I do without the

money and the passport?”

I could not move my head, and the fingers still seemed to be choking me.

At the first station I was carried into the gendarme office. The two

officers were already there. They turned out to be escaped Sakhalien

convicts masquerading as army officers.

“Why did you want to kill me?” I asked my assailant. “Didn’t you see

that I am not rich?”

“Why did you cry out?” was his reply. “I had to save myself. After all I

did not choke you to death.”

The bag with the money and the passport was returned to me. I owed my

life to Mr. K——’s son, who was the first to reach my side when the

robber choked me.

After an absence of ten days I returned to Aleksandrovskoye. The scribe

and the uryádnik were delighted to see me.

“And we already thought that you would not come back,” said the

uryádnik, smiling.

IV

The question how to escape did not leave me for a moment. The only

people from whom I hoped to get the necessary information were the

Orloffs, who lived in the village of Ribinskoye, the nearest to ours,

and I decided to make my way in that direction. I was afraid to ask the

peasants for aid, notwithstanding their sympathetic attitude. Besides, I

knew that if the authorities found out that somebody had driven me to

Ribinskoye the poor peasants would be held responsible for my escape.

There was one way left to me, and that was to walk the distance of

twenty-eight miles which separated the two villages. The road to

Ribinskoye I knew well enough.

On the second day after my return from Irkutsk I got up at daybreak,

dressed as warmly as I could, and with a few pieces of bread tied in a

handkerchief set out in the direction of Ribinskoye. The whole village

was fast asleep, but the very huts seemed to watch my steps. Every sound

made my heart beat faster, and I looked around expecting to see somebody

running in pursuit. Soon I came to the end of the village. The smooth,

silvery road stretched before me. I straightened up, drew a full breath

of clear, frosty air, and quickened my pace. My fear had disappeared.

Calmly I looked at the snow-covered forest which stood on both sides of

the road, and I walked faster and faster, dreaming of freedom for myself

and my country.

I don’t know how long I walked thus. I only remember that a sharp pang

of hunger interrupted my dreams, and I began to consume one piece of

bread after another, without slackening my pace. Suddenly I heard the

clatter of horse’s hoofs behind me. Without stopping to think for a

second, I turned to the forest, but the sleigh was near me before I had

time to get under the cover of the trees.

“Where are you going?” a voice called to me. I turned around. It was a

peasant who lived in a neighboring village. He knew me well.

“I am going to Ribinskoye,” I replied indifferently, “and have no money

to hire a sleigh.”

“Get in,” he said. “I am going there, too, and will give you a lift.”

A few hours later I was at the house of the Orloffs. The tiny arms of

their child embraced me.

“I won’t let you go away from us no more,” he said, patting my cheek.

The cold in the house was fearful. The wretched poverty in which the

Orloffs lived astonished even me. A rickety table, two broken chairs,

and an ancient wooden bed which squeaked and lurched every time one sat

down on it made up all their possessions.

When I told them that I had decided to escape they were glad for me.

“I don’t see how we can live here,” said Mrs. Orloff. “The child is

growing; he will soon be three years old. We can not earn anything here.

The money which I get from home is hardly sufficient to pay rent and buy

fire-wood.”

She looked haggard and worn, and it seemed to me that tuberculosis had

already laid its stamp on her beautiful face.

Mr. Orloff hastened to change the conversation.

“Yes,” he said, “now, after the ‘Bloody Sunday,’ we must give up the

delusion that we can bring about better conditions by peaceful

propaganda. We must fight tyranny with its own weapons. Such outrages of

the Government can be responded to only by bombs and bullets. Eh, if we

could only get out of here!”

He paced the room, hardly able to control his emotion.

“How can you escape with the child?” I said. “You will be recognized

immediately.”

“Yes, this is the only thing which keeps us back,” answered Orloff

dejectedly.

I looked sorrowfully at these young people who were deprived of

everything in life and whose only child hindered them from making an

attempt to regain their freedom. A slow death from hunger and cold

awaited them. I looked at the innocent little child who was slowly

wasting away before the very eyes of his parents, and a happy thought

struck me.

“Listen,” I turned to the Orloffs. “I will take your child with me, and

you will escape later. The police will look for me _alone_ and for you

_with a child_, and this change of parts will save us all.”

For a moment their sad faces brightened with hope.

“Bória,” I said to the boy, “do you want to go to Grandma with me?”

“Yes, I do,” he replied with a determined look. “I shall go, and Mamma

shall go, and Papa shall go. I don’t want to be here; it’s cold here.”

In a few hours the affair was settled. I was to take the child to its

grandparents in Vilna, and the Orloffs were to escape after receiving

word from me that everything was “all right.”

In the evening Mr. Orloff found a peasant who agreed to drive me to the

next village, a distance of forty miles, for three rubles. The following

day we spent in making warm clothes for the child and preparing for the

long journey. As soon as it grew dark the driver came to call me.

The mother embraced her child and me for the last time.

“I entrust him to you,” she said, weeping bitterly. “He is all I have in

this life.”

“_Mámotchka_, don’t cry. I don’t want you to cry. Better come with me to

Grandma. I don’t want to leave you here.”

He brought his mother’s coat and tried to put it on her.

“Hurry up, hurry up,” urged the driver. Mr. Orloff took the child in his

arms, kissed his weeping wife, and we went out. The night was still and

cold. Heaps of snow covered the ground. We walked rapidly, and the frost

squeaked under our feet. At the end of the village stood our sleigh. The

horses impatiently dug the snow with their hoofs. I sat down, Mr. Orloff

put the child in my lap, kissed him once more, gave my hand a tight

squeeze, and we started.

The sleigh glided swiftly over the smooth road. The horses ran, and the

driver hummed a tune. I pressed the child in my bosom, and listened to

his regular breathing. Soon the driver got out of the sleigh and ran

alongside the horses trying to warm himself. I did not move, being

afraid to disturb the child, who was sound asleep.

At four o’clock in the morning we arrived in the village, and knocked on

the door of a peasant hut. We were admitted. To all questions where I

came from and where I was going, I replied in a plaintive voice that the

child had been left an orphan and I was taking him to his grandparents

in Russia.

After an hour’s stay in the hut, during which I warmed my frozen limbs

and fed the child, I decided to go farther. My plan was to drive as far

as Krasnoyarsk, to hide in that city so long as it was necessary for the

hue and cry caused by my escape to subside, and then proceed to Vilna by

railroad. My host readily consented to take me to the next village.

“Give three rubles, and I’ll drive fast,” he said.

At six o’clock I sat again with the child in my lap, and we renewed our

journey over the endless road which ran through the Siberian

_taigá_.[19] In the afternoon we came to the village. From there an old

peasant drove me farther. He charged me only one ruble, saying that I

was going far and needed the money.

For two days and three nights we rode thus, stopping only to warm

ourselves and change horses. I hardly slept all this time. Sitting in

the sleigh and listening to the roar of the wind in the taigá I wondered

if we would ever reach Krasnoyarsk alive.

In the morning of the third day the child became sick. He cried, and

complained of pain in his body. The severe cold, lack of warm food, and

constant sitting in the sleigh had proved too much for him. I had to

stop for a whole day. My anxiety knew no bounds. To the worry over the

child’s sickness was added the fear that the police might overtake me.

Toward evening the child felt better, and we set out again.

At last there remained only about ten miles to Krasnoyarsk. I was

beginning to think myself out of danger, when in the middle of the day,

on the road to Krasnoyarsk, I heard behind me the voice of our uryádnik.

“Stop, stop! Whom are you driving?” he shouted to my driver. My blood

grew cold. Instinctively I hid my face behind the child’s back. I heard

the footsteps of people near me, but saw nothing.

“A woman with a child,” said one of them. “Go ahead!”

I hugged and kissed the child who had saved me from certain arrest. I

promised the driver _na vódku_[20] and he let the horses go at full

gallop.

Finally we arrived in Krasnoyarsk, and stopped at a hotel. I felt sick.

All my body was aching from the long ride. The child had grown terribly

thin, and his dear little face showed traces of hunger and cold. Both of

us needed a good rest, but I had spent more money than I had intended,

and owing to lack of funds, I could not stop at Krasnoyarsk for long.

Having paid all the money I had for a second-class railroad ticket to

Vilna, I left the city after a twenty-four hours’ stay at the hotel.

The long journey from Krasnoyarsk to Vilna passed without any serious

incidents. The child proved the best protection from the searching eyes

of the police and gendarmes. The spies who swarmed at every big station

did not pay the least attention to me. They evidently could not think of

such a combination. When we came to Chelyabinsk—the border line between

Siberia and European Russia—and had to change trains, our car was

suddenly locked, and the passengers were let out singly and their

passports examined. I held the child in my arms, and the gendarmes

passed me without a question.

On the fifth of March I came to Vilna, and delivered the child to its

grandparents. I sent a telegraphic message to the Orloffs telling them

that their child was safe. Being only a short distance from my home, I

decided to see my parents. I ran a terrible risk, as my parents must

have been shadowed by the secret police, but my love for them proved

stronger than all considerations of prudence and safety. That very day I

despatched a comrade with a letter to my parents, and in the evening

they came to me. The joy of our meeting seemed to make us forget all the

past sorrows and sufferings.

“I will not give you any more to _them_,” mother repeated over and

again, without even attempting to dry the tears which ran in streams

down her face.

Father took out fifty rubles and said to me:

“This money I borrowed. Take it and go abroad. There you will be safe

from all the horrors which you have lived through.”

“Father, I can not do that. The thing which was done to me and thousands

of others can not go unpunished. I can not let it go.”

My father took my head in his hands and looked with his soft eyes

straight into mine.

“O, God! what have they made of you? You do not even cry, and there is

so much hatred in your eyes, even at the sight of your old parents.”

“I can not, I can not,” I kept saying. The hands of my father tenderly

pressed me closer and closer to his breast.

“Look,” he said with tears in his voice, “how gray the three years of

your imprisonment have made me. What will become of us if you are

imprisoned again?”

“Father, dear Father, listen to me. It is beyond my strength to endure

the suffering and persecution to which you and millions like you are

subjected. I can not bear it. And to put an end to it we must be strong,

and must fight. I will go and _kill_ the murderers and tyrants, and

hundreds will follow my example. And if I die....”

My father drew back, and stood staring at me in speechless terror. My

mother ceased crying. Unable to stand the ordeal any longer, I threw

myself on the bed, hid my face in a pillow, and wept for a long, long

time, sobbing like a child.

On the next day Father and Mother went to the railroad station to see me

off. I boarded a train for Minsk. From there a Jewish contrabandist

directed me to the Austrian border. After hiding for three days in a

small frontier town, I safely crossed the border into Brody.

-----

Footnote 9:

Overcoat.

Footnote 10:

Provision-money.

Footnote 11:

Cell.

Footnote 12:

Convicts who are being transported.

Footnote 13:

_Siberia and the Exile System_, Vol. I, p. 87.

Footnote 14:

Sleeping-platforms.

Footnote 15:

Springless wooden carts.

Footnote 16:

Chief of village police.

Footnote 17:

Head-man.

Footnote 18:

Cossack whips.

Footnote 19:

Forest.

Footnote 20:

Drink-money.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

V

I HAD decided to go abroad, because I had learned that the leading

spirits of the “fighting league” of our party were just then living at

Geneva. It was my intention to join the league and become a terrorist.

My own life and that of my friends had taught me that peaceful methods

of struggle with tyranny were no longer possible. Terrorism at that time

was not only the mood of individuals in Russia, but all classes of

society were pervaded with the spirit of active struggle. The masses

were waiting only for a signal to rise in open revolt against the

despotic régime.

To become a member of the terrorist organization was a matter of

considerable difficulty. Only people with an established revolutionary

reputation were admitted. With doubt in my heart I arrived in Geneva.

Luckily, I found there Comrade Nicholai, who had escaped from Siberia a

few weeks before me, and had already succeeded in forming the

acquaintance of people who stood close to the league. Thanks to his

efforts, I obtained an interview with the leaders of the organization

several days after my arrival in the city.

By their keen sympathy and thoughtful attitude these people made a

profound impression upon me. With great circumspection they tried to

dissuade me from the course I had chosen, but it was of no avail. I knew

too much about the life of my unhappy country to change my resolution

and turn from the path to which I had been driven.

The executive committee finally decided to admit me into the

organization. My first mission was to be the assassination of General

Trepov. He was the St. Petersburg Governor-General. He it was who issued

the famous order to the local garrison “not to spare cartridges.”

The first and foremost condition of the life of a terrorist is the

complete severance of all intercourse with relatives and friends. A

terrorist may not even correspond with anybody. The sole purpose of this

is to safeguard innocent people against governmental persecution in the

event of arrest of a member of the organization. There have been cases

when people were exiled to Siberia or sentenced to long terms at hard

labor for having written to or received a note from a terrorist.

This isolation and constant dwelling on one thought have a very peculiar

effect upon one. The whole universe no longer existed for me. Trepov’s

photograph represented to me a symbol of all of Russia’s ills, and his

death the only cure for them. Now, when I think of the weary weeks which

I passed in a little village, I know that only fanatical faith gave me

the moral strength to prepare myself for such an act. My thoughts could

not clearly picture that to which I was inevitably drawn. The fact that

I was going to sacrifice my own life had absolutely no influence

whatever upon me. I never even thought of my own death. But _his_ death,

the death of one whom I considered the cause of thousands of deaths, was

constantly in my mind.

At last, after a month of weary solitude, a comrade brought the

disappointing news that General Trepov had found out in some way about

the intention of the “fighting league” and had taken extraordinary

precautions: he did not receive anybody and scarcely left his house. The

committee deemed it best to postpone the attempt until another way was

found.

The “fighting league” always had a list of high government officials

whose activity was most injurious to the liberal movement, and upon such

officials the league, in conjunction with the central committee of the

Socialist-Revolutionists’ party, pronounced sentences of death. Next on

the list was Governor-General Kleigels at Kief, who by indiscriminate

suppression of all manifestation of dissatisfaction among peasants,

students, and workingmen and cruel persecution of the Jews had made

himself hateful to all who had the welfare of Russia at heart. General

Kleigels was warned by the Kief committee of the party that he would be

assassinated if he did not cease his atrocities; but he continued his

policy of suppression, and took measures to guard against an attempt on

his life.

Comrade Nicholai and I undertook to execute the sentence pronounced upon

Governor-General Kleigels. It was planned that we should settle at Kief,

Comrade Nicholai as a street peddler and I as a flower-girl. These

occupations gave us the possibility of being in the street all the time

without arousing suspicion.

From seven o’clock in the morning till eight in the evening I sat on a

stone at the corner of the street where the general lived. Comrade

Nicholai had a stand on the opposite corner. A week passed, and then

another, then a third, but Kleigels would not leave his house. One day

two Cossacks galloped past me, followed by a closed carriage with two

Cossacks riding in the rear. The carriage stopped before a church. I hid

myself around the corner. At last Kleigels appeared, but his wife and

son were with him. My eyes fell at that moment on my comrade, who stood

at the entrance of the church. Despair was written on his face. I

understood his thoughts. Had this cowardly general heard that Kalyáev

had twice risked his life, but would not kill the Grand Duke Sergius

because the duchess was with him, and so used his family as a shield? To

us they proved an insurmountable barrier. It was no part of our policy

to shed the innocent blood of women and children. We strictly adhered to

this rule, sometimes at great cost to ourselves.

So my second mission was doomed to failure. Soon after my last

unsatisfactory conference with M. Azeff, a prime mover in the league

(whom I later knew as an infamous traitor to our sacred cause), a bomb

hurled by Ivan Kalyáev ended the life of Grand Duke Sergius, then

governor-general at Moscow.

Crazed with fear, the czar locked himself in his palace, which was

filled with soldiers. But the revolutionary propaganda in the army had

weakened even this bulwark of czarism, and the soldiers could no longer

be trusted.

In the meantime the political agitation in the country was assuming

unheard-of proportions. Partial strikes on railroads and other public

and private enterprises united into one country-wide general strike. The

whole mechanism of the great empire came to a standstill. The

authorities completely lost their heads, and for several days the very

capital was virtually ruled by the “council of labor deputies” elected

by the workmen of St. Petersburg.

This open and general revolt forced the czar to yield, and on the

seventeenth of October, 1905, he issued the famous manifesto granting a

constitution to Russia.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

VI

ON the day following the issue of the manifesto, the “black hundred,”

which consisted chiefly of the riffraff of the city population, with an

admixture of secret police agents, disguised gendarmes, and spies, took

possession of Kief. They robbed and murdered the defenseless inhabitants

of the city before the very eyes of the soldiers and police, and were

even helped by these in their work of pillage and slaughter.

To resist the attacks of these hooligans, the young people formed

self-defense leagues. I became a member of one of these leagues, and

with a revolver in hand fought off the drunken mob. After two days of

such activity my position in the city became insecure. I was under

surveillance, and arrest threatened me at any moment. Then I decided to

leave. I changed my appearance somewhat, and went to Moscow. I stayed in

Moscow for some time, and, having learned that agitators were wanted in

the province of Tchernigoff, went there. I had a letter to a certain Mr.

B——, who was well known for his revolutionary propaganda among the

peasants.

When I came to him and declared my intention of doing propaganda work in

the villages, he said to me:

“I am very sorry you came to us at such a bad time. Governor Khvostoff

has been ‘pacifying’ the peasants, and the village now presents a

dreadful sight.”

He introduced me to two comrades, a middle-aged man and a young girl,

and we three started out the next day. We were dressed in peasant garb,

and in our wallets, which we carried on our backs, were prohibited

pamphlets. Toward evening we came to the nearest village. We entered a

hut, and the host welcomed us very cordially.

“Put up the samovar,” he said to his wife, who was rocking a baby in a

cradle suspended from the ceiling.

“Well, Vania, why didn’t you come around to us for such a long time?”

the host asked, turning to my comrade.

“I was in Moscow,” Vania answered.

“What have they decided there?” asked the host. But suddenly his

cheerful, smiling face darkened, and not waiting for an answer, he said:

“Did you hear what happened to us here?”

[Illustration:

IVAN KALYÁEV

Born 1877, assassinated Grand Duke Sergius, sentenced

to death and executed in the fortress of

Shlússelburg in 1905

]

“Yes, I did,” my comrade replied; “but I want to hear the whole story

from you.”

“Wait, the boys will come, and we will talk it over,” said the host.

“Did you bring any books?” he asked.

We untied our wallets and laid out on the table all the pamphlets we had

brought. The host reverently picked up every one of them and read the

titles aloud.

Soon the hut filled with young and old peasants. There were even women

with infants in their arms. They all knew Vania well, and greeted him in

a friendly manner.

“See how many of our people are missing!” said an old peasant with a

white beard. “That’s after the manifesto.”

“Tell Vania everything,” several voices said at once.

The old peasant laid his hands on the table, crossed them, and began:

“When we heard that the czar had issued a manifesto and had given us

liberty,—and the year had been a bad one, and there was nothing in our

barns,—we understood by the czar’s favor to us that we might take the

superfluous grain from the landowners. We gathered the whole village,

came to the house of the landowner, called him out, and said to him:

“‘The czar’s favor gave us a manifesto that we might take your grain,

there being none in our barns. Give us the key. We will divide fairly,

and shall not forget you.’

“The landowner began to yell at us, and went back into the house. We

waited, but he didn’t come out. Then we decided that he had heard

nothing about the czar’s manifesto. So we broke the lock, divided the

grain among ourselves, and went home. That was in the morning. Toward

evening we heard a noise, and the dogs were barking. We went out and saw

an important official coming. All about him were Cossacks. We thought

that he came to read to us the czar’s manifesto, so we fetched bread and

salt and met him, bowing low. He ordered us to gather in the village

square. We came in good order, and he swore at us in the worst language.

Then he shouted:

”‘Those of you who first thought of rioting and going against the

landowner step out.’

“We all answered in chorus:

“‘Your high Nobility, we did not riot, but there was a manifesto from

the czar that we might take the grain from the landowner, there being

none in our barns.’

“‘I’ll show you!’ he shouted, striking us with a nagáika. ‘I’ll show you

what the czar’s manifesto means! Let us have rods, rods!’

“They seized Andrei first, and flogged the poor fellow so that he

remained lying on the spot. His hapless wife was weeping, and the

Cossacks hit her in the face with their nagáikas and swore at her. The

women and children began to cry. The Cossacks surrounded us on all sides

and did not let us get away. They flogged ten people, and after that the

official—it was the governor—said:

“‘And now take the grain back to the landowner’s barn.’

“‘That, your high Nobility, we cannot do,’ we answered. ‘There was a

manifesto from the czar that we might take the grain for ourselves.’

“‘Shoot these dogs!’ he shouted to his Cossacks, and they fired a

volley. Eight were killed and many wounded. After that the Cossacks went

to the houses and began to rob us. They insulted our wives and

daughters, and Savitch’s girl they crippled for life.”

As he spoke his white head was shaking, and his withered hands were

trembling. Every word of his sounded terrible in the dimly lighted hut.

He finished, and rested his head on his hands. For a long time no one

dared to disturb the silence which reigned in the room. It seemed to me

that a whole eternity had passed since he began his woeful tale.

About ten o’clock the gathering broke up. We remained there for the

night. I did not sleep. That night a resolution ripened in my mind. In

the morning I refused to go farther and returned to the city. I went to

a member of a local committee of the Socialist-Revolutionists’ party. He

was a well-known revolutionist who had spent a great many years in

prison and in Siberian exile. To this man I confided my secret.

“Very well,” he said; “I will communicate with the committee.”

On the same day he delivered to me the following decision:

“The committee deems the assassination of Governor Khvostoff necessary

at this moment, as a response to all the atrocities he has committed in

the villages. It has also become known to the committee that the

governor is trying to organize a Jewish pogróm in the city of

Tchernigoff. In consideration of all this the committee accepts your

proposal, and authorizes you to make the attempt.”

Mr. V—— also gave me money for necessary expenses and some information

about the governor.

He lived at one end of Tchernigoff. His house stood on a hill, and was

surrounded by a garden. Fortunately, the third house from his was

vacant, and I immediately rented it. The house was rather too large for

one person, and to avert suspicion I told the landlady that I expected

my mother and sister from Warsaw. I sent my passport—that of a Polish

school-teacher—to the police station, and in a few days it came back

safely. Then I telegraphed to Comrade Nicholai. He had shortly before

left the hospital, having been wounded during a pogróm that occurred on

the day after the issue of the manifesto. Comrade Nicholai arrived in

Tchernigoff in a few days, and took lodgings opposite the Noblemen’s

Assembly. As we had learned, the governor sometimes visited there.

Sitting at my window, I studied the governor’s daily routine. I learned

when he got up and when he went to sleep. I learned when he received and

whom. I even knew his dinner-hour.

For a whole week the governor did not leave his house except for a walk

in his garden. Slowly the days and sleepless nights dragged by. Alone

with my thoughts, I paced the deserted house. I spent most of the time

making up a list of the governor’s victims. I treasured the names of

those who had been shot or flogged to death by him. I read and re-read

for the thousandth time the simple narratives of the peasants about his

terrible crimes, and my heart bled for them. Hopefully I looked in the

direction of the shelf on which the bomb lay.

Finally it became positively known to us that the governor would drive

on New-Year’s day, at twelve o’clock, to the Noblemen’s Assembly, and we

decided to assassinate him on his way back.

* * * * *

It was New-Year’s eve. I sat near the window and looked at the

snow-covered road. There was only one thought in my mind: he must die.

All doubts had disappeared. I knew, I felt that it was going to happen.

At midnight I carefully removed the tube from the bomb, dried the

powder, and reloaded the bomb. I put the four-pound tin box in a fine

hand-bag specially bought for the occasion, and again read over the list

of the peasants murdered by the governor. I set everything in order,

wrote a letter, and left money for the landlady. Then I went to bed.

“I must sleep,” I repeated to myself, and I actually fell asleep.

A knock at the door roused me. I opened my eyes, and the consciousness

of what was going to happen on that day filled my soul. My heart began

to beat faster and faster. There was another knock at the door. I

slipped on a morning gown, and looked out of the window. A group of

masked children stood at the door. I understood that they must have come

to congratulate me, and, according to custom, throw millet-seeds all

over the house. For this they get a few kopecks.

I admitted them, and in feverish haste began to hand to them anything I

could lay my hands on. An uncontrollable desire to remain a little

longer with these innocent children seized me, and I begged them to take

off their masks and have tea with me. They hesitated; but when one of

the elder boys took off his mask, all followed his example. I made tea,

and seated the children about the table. They were becoming bolder and

bolder, and soon they were chatting carelessly and curiously regarding

me and everything in the house.

The samovar was steaming merrily on the table, the children were

laughing noisily, the sun shone brightly in my window. For a minute I

forgot what was going to happen in a few hours. Suddenly a Cossack

galloped past, followed by a carriage. I recognized the carriage. The

children continued to laugh, but I no longer heard them.

“Go, go, children! it is time!” I exclaimed. “But first let us bid

good-by.”

They looked at me in surprise. Their cheerful little faces clouded with

regret, and their thin, unwashed hands extended to me.

“Don’t forget me, children!” I said.

They made the sign of the cross, wished me a happy New-Year, and quietly

went away. I dressed hastily, took my hand-bag, and went into the

street.

[Illustration:

THE PRISON WALL FROM THE OUTSIDE

]

The day was bright and cold, the sky cloudless. The street was almost

deserted, with only now and then an occasional passer-by hurrying to

church. Four blocks from my house was a bridge on which a gorodovoi

stood on fixed post. Holding the bag in my hand, I passed him, and he

bowed low and wished me a happy New-Year. Soon, however, I came back,

and began to walk up and down not far from my house. A few minutes later

I saw from afar Comrade Nicholai walking with slow and measured steps

toward me. In his hand he held a box tied with a red ribbon: that was a

bomb. He crossed the bridge, and stopped about seventy or eighty feet

from me. I knew then that he would throw the bomb from there. It was our

understanding that he would throw the bomb from where he stopped. I

continued to walk back and forth in the direction of the governor’s

house. Comrade Nicholai overtook me, and whispered while passing:

“I saw him. Remember, keep farther away from me, lest an accident should

happen to your bomb when mine explodes.”

“All right,” I whispered in reply.

“Good-by!” said Nicholai, and quickly went to his former place.

I followed him with my eyes, hardly moving. The street still remained

deserted. Suddenly a mounted Cossack appeared, and behind him a

carriage. Comrade Nicholai immediately stepped down from the curb. At

that moment the carriage approached him. He raised his hand, and threw

the bomb under the carriage. The bomb fell softly on the snow and did

not explode. A police officer who was riding behind the governor sprang

at Nicholai, and I heard the report of a pistol. The carriage stopped

for an instant; but evidently taking in the situation, the coachman

began to whip the horses, and drove at full gallop straight in my

direction. I stepped into the middle of the road, and with all my might

hurled the bomb against the carriage window. A terrific force instantly

stunned me. I felt that I was lifted into the air.

When I regained consciousness and opened my eyes there was nobody

around. I lay on the road amid a heap of debris. Blood was streaming

down my face and hands. I tried to lift my head, and lost consciousness.

When I came to the second time I was standing near a cab, supported by a

strange woman. She was telling something to the cabman, but I could not

hear her. She put me into the cab, and the driver started. He drove past

my house, across the bridge, where a gorodovoi had always stood, but

where there was none now. We rode through the whole length of the street

without meeting a human being.

“What does this mean? Where are all the people?” I thought to myself.

The cab turned into some street, and stopped in front of a house. The

name of a hospital at once brought me to my senses. I understood that

through some miracle I had been saved from destruction, and that I had

been brought, not to the prison, but to a private hospital. I paid the

cabman, waited until he disappeared around the corner, and then went. At

every step blood streamed down my face, blinding me. I walked and

walked, utterly unaware of where I was and where I was going. I felt

that my strength was leaving me, and that I would soon fall in the

middle of the street. I chanced to see an open gate. I went into the

yard, and sat down on the snow. The thought that I was saved did not

console me. I knew that whoever should undertake to hide me would perish

together with me.

“Where, where shall I go?”

To stop the flow of blood, I put some snow in my handkerchief and

applied it to my head. This refreshed me a little. Then I took off my

fur coat and lay down on it. Gradually my hands and feet began to grow

numb with cold. The snow about me became red. Drops of blood froze on my

face and hands. It grew dark. I felt a strange weakness in my whole

body, and a deadly drowsiness seized my benumbed limbs. I do not know

how long I had lain thus when I felt that some one was tugging at my

sleeve. With difficulty I opened my eyes. A youth stood near me. He bent

down close to my ear, and I distinctly heard: “Is that you who killed

the governor—you?”

His words lighted up my dying consciousness.

“Yes, it is I.”

The youth straightened up, looked once more at me and the blood-stained

snow, and went away without saying another word. Hardly five minutes had

passed when he came back, followed by a hunchbacked old man. They raised

me in their arms, and carried me into a house. The warm air and cold

water applied to my head brought me to full consciousness. I realized

that these poor Hebrews were imperiling their lives.

“I must go away from here,” I said to the old hostess who was coaxing me

to lie down on their only bed.

“But the young man asked us to take care of you,” she replied.

The youth returned from somewhere greatly agitated, and said that the

police were following me by the blood trail, and would probably soon be

there.

“Oh, oh!” groaned the old woman, and in great terror began to circle

about the room. I ran to the door, intending to go out, but the woman

cried to me:

“What are you doing? They will see you, and we shall perish.”

Suddenly she opened the wardrobe, pushed me in, and locked it.

Humiliated and exhausted, I leaned against the door of the wardrobe, not

daring to breathe. A far-away noise reached my ear. It came nearer and

nearer. I heard the tramping of many feet near my hiding-place. My knees

bent under me, and I lost consciousness.

Late at night I found myself sitting at a table. The room was lighted by

a candle. The old woman was whispering in my ear:

“Thanks to God! I succeeded in fooling them.”

I could not understand what she was saying. I felt sharp pain in my

head, and my whole body was burning. I cared about nothing, and wished

only for quiet and rest.

The youth came in, holding in his hands a soldier’s coat and cap. They

put it on me, and holding me under the arms led me into the yard. They

seated me in a sleigh, with the youth beside me, and we drove away. We

rode aimlessly through the city, passing everywhere patrols of soldiers

and police. This eighteen-year-old youth evidently did not know where he

was taking me. Bewildered by his discovery, and not wishing to deliver

me into the hands of the infuriated authorities, he tried to save me at

the risk of his own life.

At last we safely got out of the city, and after driving the whole night

came to the town of Gorodnia. In this little town, where the youth hoped

to put me on a train, we were stopped by a police captain with a group

of soldiers. They took us to the police station and kept us there until

a company of Cossacks arrived. I was separated from the youth, put in a

closed carriage, and rushed back to Tchernigoff. We came there toward

evening.

There was no furniture whatever in the filthy cell at the police station

where they first put me, and I lay down on the floor. I was so weak from

the loss of blood that I could not stand on my feet. A gendarme with a

drawn saber stood near me. The door was not locked.

For several days I was in a semiconscious state. I remember only that my

cell was always crowded with officials, high and low, who came to look

at me. Whenever I began to fall asleep, the gendarme roused me and

demanded:

“Who are your accomplices? What are their names?”

Weak and exhausted as I was, this question always brought me back to

consciousness. I knew perfectly well why the gendarme asked me this, and

silence was my only answer.

This inofficial torture continued for two weeks, but the consciousness

of duty was so strong in me that all the physical pain and misery they

inflicted upon me did not produce the desired effect, and all the subtle

contrivances of the gendarmes to wring a confession from me were futile.

All that they could think of doing to me was in a vast degree milder

than what I had done to myself. My tormentors understood this, and

seeing that their inhuman methods did not bring the desired results,

they often let me sleep. During these two weeks the procurator and the

examining magistrate came to see me a couple of times. But as I did not

at all think of denying that I had thrown the bomb at Governor

Khvostoff, they lost all interest in the case, and conducted the

investigation with cold indifference. They did not even succeed in

learning my real name, and I appeared before the court as “Unknown.” By

not revealing my identity I hoped to spare my parents the cruel agony

for a daughter who must die on the gallows.

On the sixteenth of January, late at night, I was transferred to the

military prison, and told there that I would be tried by court-martial

the next day. At ten o’clock in the morning Comrade Nicholai, the youth

who was guilty of nothing but not having betrayed me to the police, and

I appeared before the military court. When we were led into the

court-room it was crowded with gendarmes and police. In a corner sat the

unfortunate old parents of the youth. They were the only outsiders.

The ceremony of the trial lasted about half an hour, because we did not

deny the fact, and there remained only to render the verdict, which they

as well as we knew beforehand. We were offered to say our “last

word.”[21] Comrade Nicholai rose and said:

“Gentlemen of the court: I went openly to fight the enemies of the

people. I knew beforehand that for this death awaited me. But the belief

that only by this means we can free Russia gave me the strength to

sacrifice my young life. And now, before my death, I swear to you, my

enemies, that this youth is innocent, and that I see him for the first

time in my life.”

[Illustration:

A GROUP OF POLITICAL WOMEN PRISONERS

In the yard of the Akatúi prison.

Miss Sukloff is seventh from the left

]

“Gentlemen of the court,” said the youth, “I do not ask for clemency for

myself, although I do not consider myself guilty. But I beg you to look

at my old parents and take pity on them.”

It was my turn to say my “last word,” and I rose.

“Gentlemen of the court: I swear to you by my sacred belief that Russia

will be free, for in this belief I went to my death; I swear to you by

the name of the ‘fighting league,’ to which I have the honor of

belonging, that this boy is innocent. Look at me. I am young, and I love

life. I never knew Khvostoff, and had nothing against him personally. I

went to assassinate him for the terrible atrocities committed by him in

the villages, and after he had proved to be a real enemy of the people.

I knew beforehand that I should die for this, but the thought of death

did not terrify me. I went openly to my aim, and never lied even to my

enemies. Perhaps I have only twenty-four hours to live, and you are the

only people I see before my death. At this minute I want to forget that

you are my enemies, and, as before God, I swear that this youth is

innocent.”

I sat down, and the procurator rose and said:

“Gentlemen of the court: Although the accused produce a favorable

impression, I, in the name of the law, must demand a death-sentence for

all three.”

After this the court retired to deliberate upon the verdict, and we were

taken to our cells.

Terror seized me at the thought that they might hang this strange

eighteen-year-old boy. I paced my cell for hours. The sun set, it grew

dark, and the judges were still deliberating. Oh, if only they would not

hang him!

The clock struck midnight. Some one stealthily opened my door.

“To the court-room, please!”

The gendarme spoke in a whisper. The corridor was half dark. There was a

clinking of spurs and sabers and the noise of hurried footsteps.

Gendarmes and police were everywhere. The court-room was empty. The

faces of the judges looked tired and haggard. The procurator did not

look at us. At the sight of their expressions the torturous thought,

“They will hang him! They will hang him!” passed in my mind. Everything

grew cold within me. I could hardly stand on my feet. At last the

president of the court, an old general, read the verdict.

“Nicholai Shpeizman is sentenced to death by hanging. ‘Unknown’ is

sentenced to death by hanging. B—— A—— is sentenced to ten years at hard

labor.”

I felt as if a heavy load had fallen off my shoulders. We congratulated

the youth and bade him good-by.

“Ten years at hard labor!” I said aloud. “You will not have served a

year when Russia will be free.”

The judges looked in surprise at our animated faces, and one gendarme

whispered to the other:

“They probably did not hear their own sentences.”

We were led back to our cells.

“Is this a death-sentence?” I asked myself when I was left alone. “But

why is my heart so light? Why don’t I feel what is going to be in

twenty-four hours?” I searched all the recesses of my soul, I watched

its innermost thoughts and movements, but there was no sign of death.

I saw no longer the walls of my solitary cell. I heard no more the

stealthy footsteps of the gendarmes. I no longer looked at the

indifferent faces of my jailers. There was no death, there were no

longer the cruel chains which bound Russia. I was rising higher and

higher, supported by thousands of arms. Where am I? Where am I? “Russia

is free, free!” some one whispered in my ear. “You did not assassinate

any one. That was all a nightmare, a horrible nightmare.”

“Dress yourself, dress yourself!”

This voice at once roused me to consciousness.

“Is it possible that the twenty-four hours have already passed?” I

involuntarily asked the gendarme. “What time is it?”

“It is six o’clock in the morning,” he replied.

“Isn’t it all the same,” I thought to myself, “whether they will hang me

a few hours earlier or later?”

The sun had not yet risen. And how I wanted to see the sun!

“Where will _it_ be?” I asked the gendarme, but he only looked at me

with a confused expression and did not answer. Suddenly I remembered the

letter I had prepared for my parents. It was my last word to them. I

looked around; there was no one but this gendarme.

“Listen,” I said to him. “I cannot go to the gallows at peace with

myself not having sent this note to my parents. This is the last wish of

a woman who goes to die, and you cannot refuse her. Whoever you are, you

have or had parents and must understand their terrible grief.” And I

pressed the note into his hand. He looked about him, concealed the note,

and said:

“All right; I will send it. But now I am taking you not to the

execution, but to the prison.”

“They will hang me _there_,” I assured him.

Later I found that my parents never received this note. But, after all,

he was a kind gendarme, because the thought that the parents would

receive my last words of consolation gave me much strength, and I would

have died happy.

In a closed carriage, surrounded on all sides by mounted soldiers, I was

taken to the city prison. I was locked in a dark and filthy solitary

cell. “I shall have to wait here a whole day,” I thought to myself. The

day passed quickly, and night came. I lay down on the cot without

undressing. In alarm I listened to the footsteps of the gendarmes in the

corridor. “Why don’t they take me?” I thought. The hours slowly dragged

by. Footsteps were constantly heard; frequently they approached my door,

but passed it every time. Finally I fell asleep.

When I woke, the sun was high. An uncontrollable joy of life seized me.

I felt my hands, my limbs, and the happy consciousness that I was alive,

young and strong, was stronger than the death-sentence which hung over

me. Every sound I could catch gladdened me. The tiny bit of blue sky I

saw through the bars enchantingly drew me toward itself. I paced my

cell, and my dreams carried me far beyond the prison walls. A great

feeling of love of life, love of all living, grew more and more within

me, and it vanquished death.

“They will hang you to-night,” I tried to argue with myself, but the

words seemed meaningless. They could not conquer my belief in life, in

all living. My jailers no longer irritated me. There was no more hatred

in my heart toward these misguided people. They seemed so far, far away

from me.

The whole day I was in a state of exaltation, and in the evening I again

prepared for death, and waited. Without undressing, I lay down, but

could not keep awake and fell asleep. Six days passed thus in the

expectation of death. Every morning I looked in surprise at the bit of

sky, which calmly regarded me from its azure height.

“What is it, then? Is it possible that this is death?” I wondered.

On the seventh day there came a knock on the wall. My heart began to

beat joyfully: so I had a neighbor!

“Who are you?” I knocked immediately, and there came an answer, clear

and unmistakable, “Shpeizman.”

“O God!” I exclaimed, “how is that? He is here, and they did not hang

him yet!”

Soon we were deeply engrossed in conversation. It appeared that he had

spent all the time in the military prison, and had just been brought

here.

“This is the last day,” he knocked.

“Yes, I am sure,” I answered.

We hastened to share all our thoughts and feelings, all that we had

lived through in the years of our friendship, unbroken by prison and

exile.

“I don’t want you to die,” Nicholai knocked, and the feelings which had

been hidden deep in his heart were at this hour of death freely

expressed in words.

I could no longer stand near the wall. In utter exhaustion I fell on my

cot. Hour passed after hour. Night came. There was an unusual noise in

the corridor. I held my breath, and pressed my hands close to my heart.

I heard the door of the adjoining cell open “They are taking Kolia,” I

thought. I listened. Some one approached my door.

“Farewell, my beloved! Farewell, my dear! Be happy!”

“Kolia! Kolia!” I cried, but the thick walls drowned my feeble voice. I

crouched in a corner and listened. The noise of footsteps grew fainter

and fainter and died away. The strokes of a hammer were heard. “They are

finishing the gibbet,” passed in mind. I leaned against the wall through

which Kolia had talked; he was there no more. My heart was painfully

compressed, and in the stillness of the night I could hear his dying

sigh.

Some one stealthily opened my door and entered the cell. “At last!” I

thought, and, straightening up, turned to face my executioners. It was

beginning to dawn, and the little lamp which lighted my cell had grown

faint in the light of breaking day. The governor approached and looked

in my face without uttering a word. There was something evil in his

look. I understood that he had come from the execution. He stood for

about five minutes and went away.

[Illustration:

ANOTHER GROUP OF POLITICAL PRISONERS IN THE AKATÚI STRONGHOLD

]

I lay on my cot with my eyes open. A snow-storm was raging outside and

knocking at the window-bars. The prison clock struck ten. The door of my

cell was thrown wide open, and a high official entered.

“I have brought you imperial clemency. Your life has been granted to

you,” he said and went out.

Slowly the hours passed. I lay motionless on my cot, trying to grasp the

enormous significance of the fact. But a sudden void had formed within

me, and there was nothing but emptiness in my soul. The thread of my

inner life had broken, and I now vainly tried to gather the lost ends.

-----

Footnote 21:

It is a general practice in Russian courts to allow the accused to

address the court before the judges retire to deliberate upon the

verdict.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

VII

I

MY new life so graciously granted to me by the czar soon began. I was

summoned to the office, and the governor asked me to sign a paper which

stated that my death sentence had been commuted to penal servitude for

life. Then he announced to me that I should be put in fetters. The

solemn face with which he made this announcement appeared ridiculous to

me. What meaning could fetters have to me now?

The doctor, for form’s sake, examined me and said that I was “well fit.”

Nearly all the handcuffs and leg-fetters there could be found in the

enormous prison were brought into the office and tried on me, but all

proved too large and fell off. They were made for men, and feminine

wrists and ankles did not measure up to their standard. Finally the

governor found a way out of this exasperating difficulty. A blacksmith

was called, my wrists and ankles were measured, and on the following

morning new fetters were ready. Whether by mistake or intentionally, I

don’t know, but they were made so tight that on the second day my hands

began to swell. This caused me excruciating pain. I tried my best to

conceal this circumstance from the governor, as I was sure that the

fetters had been put on me at his personal wish, and my suffering would

only gladden him.

On January 27th I was taken to the railroad station and put on a train

for Moscow. On the road the soldiers of the convoy—there were four of

them—risking their own liberty, took off my handcuffs. In the same car,

in a separate compartment, sat the officer in charge: he could come in

any minute and see that my handcuffs were off. I asked the soldiers to

put them back on me, but they would not hear of it. And only a short

distance from Moscow they handcuffed me again.

When I was brought into the office of the Moscow forwarding prison,

_Butírki_, the governor was greatly surprised to see me in fetters. He

exchanged significant glances with the secretary, and whispered

something to him. He ordered to place me in a solitary cell. Three days

later the fetters were taken off, after seventeen days of pain and

humiliation.

Soon after my arrival there were brought to Butírki five other young

women revolutionists: Aleksandra Izmailovitch, the daughter of a general

who had not yet returned from the battlefields of Manchuria. She had

attempted the life of the Minsk chief of police during the Jewish pogróm

in that city. For this she was sentenced to death, which was commuted to

a life term at hard labor.[22] Anastasia Bitzenko, a school teacher, who

shot General Sakharov at Saratov, one of the five generals personally

sent by the czar to suppress the peasant revolt. She was sentenced to

death, which was commuted to a life term at hard labor.[23] Lydia

Yezerskaya, the wife of the Mayor of the city of Mohilev, who attempted

the life of the Mohilev Governor Klingenberg for his active part in the

Jewish pogróm in that city. She was sentenced to thirteen years at hard

labor. Revecca Fialka, a dressmaker, who was arrested at Odessa in

charge of a bomb factory and sentenced to ten years at hard labor. And

lastly Marie Spiridonova, a school teacher, who shot Governor

Luzhenovski of Tambov when he was returning with his Cossacks from a

punitive expedition to the villages. She was sentenced to death, which

was commuted to a life-term at hard labor.