On the evening of February 11, 1879, several friends of the
revolutionary cause, of whom I was one, met at Yvitchevitche's
lodgings, in the house Kossarovsky, Yleanski Street, Kieff, the town
where I was then living. After a short conversation, Anton, myself,
and several others left the house with the intention of passing the
rest of the evening with our friend, Madame Babitchev. The inevitable
samovar was bubbling on the table, our hospitable hostess gave us a
warm welcome, cigarettes were lighted, conversation was joined, and an
hour or more passed very pleasantly.
Anton was the first to leave, and he could hardly have reached the
street when we were startled by a loud report like the firing of a
pistol. We stared at each other in consternation, and Strogov, running
into the ante-room, looked through the window and listened at the door,
in order to find out what had happened. In a few minutes he came back
with satisfactory tidings. Nothing unusual seemed to be stirring in
the street; and he attributed the report we had heard to the banging
of a door in a neighboring café. So we resumed our conversation and
our tea-drinking with quiet minds. But five minutes later we were
again disturbed; this time by sounds the character of which there was
no mistaking. The trampling of heavy feet in the vestibule, hurried
exclamations, words of command, and the rattling of arms, told us only
too well with whom we had to do.
The police were upon us.
Notwithstanding our desire to resist, we knew that we should be
compelled to yield without a blow. There was not a weapon amongst us.
A few seconds were passed in anxious thought. Then the double-winged
doors were thrown violently open, and we saw that the ante-room
was occupied by a detachment of soldiers, with bayonets lowered and
ready to charge. From the right flank came the words, loud and clear:
“Will you surrender, gentlemen? I am the officer in command of
the detachment.”
I looked round and recognized in the officer with the gendarme uniform
and drawn sword, Soudeikin in person, then a subaltern in the Kieff
gendarmerie, later the famous chief of the political police of the
capital.
Despite the imposing military array, the haughty bearing of the
officer, the glittering bayonets and stern looks of the soldiers, and
the unpleasant sense of having fallen into their toils, the whole
affair seemed to me just a little amusing, and I could not help
smiling, and saying, in answer to Soudeikin's summons, “Are we then a
fortress, Mr. Officer, that you call upon us to surrender?”
“No; but your comrades....” the rest of the sentence, owing to the din,
I did not catch.
“What comrades?” I asked.
“You will soon see,” replied Soudeikin.
Then he ordered his men to search us, after which we were to be taken
to the police office.
The searching over, we were surrounded by thirty or forty soldiers,
with arms at the trail, and conducted to the Libed police station. Even
before we reached our destination we could see that something unusual
had happened. The building was lighted up, and there was an excited
crowd about the door. After mounting the staircase we were led into
the waiting-room. It was filled with armed men. Pushing my way with
some difficulty through the press, I saw on the other side of the room
several of our friends. But, my God, what a state they were in! Posen
and Steblin Kamensky were bound hand and foot; the cords so tightly
drawn that their elbows, forced behind their backs, actually touched.
Close to them were Mesdames Arnfeld, Sarandovitch, and Patalizina. It
was evident that something extraordinary had befallen in the house
of Kossarovsky, shortly after we left. I could not, however, ask our
friends any questions, for that would have been taken as proof that we
were acquainted. Yet, from a few words dropped here and there, I soon
learnt what had come to pass. They had resisted the police, a gendarme
had been killed, and all whom we had left at the meeting arrested.
I had hardly made this discovery when a disturbance was heard in
the next room—trampling of feet, loud exclamations, and voices in
contention, one of which I seemed to know. The next moment a man burst
into the reception-room, literally dragging behind him two gendarmes,
who tried in vain to stop him. His dishevelled hair, pale face, and
flaming eyes, showed that he had been engaged in a struggle beyond his
strength.
In a few minutes he was garotted and forced into a seat near us.
“Separate the prisoners one from another!” cried Colonel Novitzki.
On this each of us was immediately surrounded by four soldiers.
“If they resist, use your bayonets!” said the colonel.
After a short interval we were called one after another into the next
room. I was called the last. On responding to the summons I found
myself in the presence of several gendarmes and officers of police, by
whom I was searched a second time.
“Have the goodness to state your name,” said Colonel Novitzki, after
the operation was completed.
“I would rather not,” I answered.
“In that case I shall tell you who you are.”
“You will do me a great pleasure,” I replied.
“You are called Debagorio Mokrievitch,” said the colonel.
“Yes, that is your name,” put in Soudeikin.
“I am delighted to make your acquaintance, colonel,” I answered, giving
the military salute.
It would have been useless to deny my identity. My mother, my brother,
and my sister were living at Kieff, and I did not want to have them
compelled to confront the police and ordered to recognize me.