CHANGED CONDITIONS—A FRUSTRATED PLAN—THE MINISTER’S VISIT—A SECRET OF
STATE—MY LITERARY NEIGHBOUR
When the officer of gendarmerie handed me over to the governor of the
gaol, he pointed with his finger to a sentence in my charge-sheet,
whereupon the governor looked at me sharply. It was clear his attention
was being drawn to the warning of my former escapes, and the need for
strict surveillance.
I saw from the first that prison rules were less strict here. My
belongings, after examination, were brought into my cell. As soon as I
could look them over, I sought for the hidden money and scissors, and
behold, there they were! The careful scrutiny, both at the fortress and
here, had been no more successful in detecting them than had previous
examinations. The scissors I again concealed; but I wanted to change the
German notes, so as to have at any rate part of my money available, and
that was not a very simple matter. I began to observe the warders
carefully; there were three of them on my corridor. The man who had
searched my luggage seemed to me the most promising, and I determined to
bribe him. When he came on duty I took the money out of its
hiding-place, and called him into my cell.
“What do you want?” he asked, coming in and shutting the door behind
him.
“Did you search my luggage properly when I arrived here?”
“Yes, of course; is anything wrong?” he asked, quite alarmed.
“Oh, nothing much!” I said soothingly. “Only, I had better tell you that
you don’t know how to search. Look here! you never found these!” and I
held the bank-notes under his nose.
“Impossible!” he cried; “where were they hidden?”
“Well, that is my secret,” said I. “But listen! It is German money, and
if changed would come to about fifty roubles.[28] Take it, and when you
are off duty go to a money-changer—there are several on the Nevsky
Prospekt—and get it changed for Russian money. Half shall be yours, and
half mine. Is that agreed?”
Footnote 28:
Nearly £5 10_s._—_Trans._
“All right. I’ll see to it,” he said, and went off with the money.
“He bites,” I thought to myself; and at once began building castles in
the air. I knew from experience that the great thing was to establish
communication with the outer world, and this we revolutionists had often
effected by bribing warders to take letters into and out of prison. In
Kiëv and the south we called such warders “carrier-pigeons.” When I saw
how easily this one fell in with my proposal, I immediately began to
plan out further steps.
“After a few days,” I said to myself, “we will try him with a letter for
the post; and next I shall send him to someone I know with a commission.
When once things are in train, who knows? something may come of it.”
It was in the morning that I had given the warder my money, and I was in
great excitement all day. Several times he looked through the peephole
in my door, smiled and nodded at me, and of course I replied in similar
fashion. Towards evening he came into my cell again, and laid my notes
down on the table. “Take them back,” he said; “I am afraid of getting
into trouble. See here; a little while ago one of the others had two
watches given him, and they were found on him, and he was dismissed. You
see, I’ve a good place here, and get twenty-five roubles[29] a month. I
shouldn’t get so much again in a hurry. No, I’m afraid; take it back!”
Footnote 29:
About £2 5_s._—_Trans._
Of course I did not press him, for I knew that without courage he would
never make a “carrier-pigeon.” I saw no chance now of changing the notes
secretly, so I told him to take them to the governor, that they might be
added to the rest of my money.
“Tell him you found them in searching my luggage.”
“No, no, that won’t do. There would be no end of a fuss because I hadn’t
given them up directly. I’d rather tell the truth, and say you had just
given them to me.”
Thus did my visions end in smoke. The money was taken charge of, and no
further inquiry made.
Soon after this my books were brought to me, and I could also use the
prison library. After being for so long prevented from reading, this was
a great boon; and as writing materials were also allowed me, I was
altogether far better off here than in the Fortress of Peter and Paul.
Still, the little cell with its stone floor became a perfect oven in the
heat of summer, most unpleasantly stuffy and dusty; and the food was
inferior both in quantity and quality. But the walks were what was most
disagreeable. Imagine a huge circle, divided into sections by partitions
running from centre to circumference. In these cattle-pens we were
allowed to disport ourselves singly, carefully watched all the while by
warders stationed on a raised platform at the centre of the circle,
commanding all the “cattle-pens”; so that the prisoners had no chance of
communicating with each other. One could see nothing but the wooden
partitions, the back of the prison buildings, and a narrow strip of sky;
but every day we had to breathe the air here for three-quarters of an
hour, which seemed an endless time for such “recreation.”
In comparison with the uncanny stillness of the fortress, things here
seemed full of life and bustle. The windows of the corridor looked into
the street, and its noises could be heard in the cells—the rumbling of
carriages, the cries of street-hawkers, or the dulcet music of an
organ-grinder. One felt so near freedom that the burden of prison life
was the heavier.
One day I heard unusually lively sounds in the corridor—scrubbing,
sweeping, and a general tidying-up. Some important visit seemed to be
expected, and I soon learned that the Minister of Justice, Nabòkov, was
coming to inspect the prison. Shortly after, he appeared in my cell,
accompanied by a numerous suite; and when my name was pronounced, he
greeted me and said—
“I have read your deposition, and was much pleased with its frankness. I
hope you will speak out in the same way before the court.”
I replied that, as I have already said, it was my object to state the
exact historical truth.
He went, but came back again, and put one or two unimportant questions
to me, looking, however, as though there were something else he would
have liked to say. He bent forward a little in speaking, and held his
hand to his ear. His whole bearing was simple and unaffected.
Kotliarèvsky was among the suite. He remained behind a moment, and told
me he wanted to speak to me when the minister had gone. Some time after
I was taken to him in a room that served as the prison schoolroom.
“I am not here on business,” said he, “but I should like to have a chat
with you about old times.”
So we sat down on a school-form and talked. Following a remark of mine,
Kotliarèvsky touched on the question I had raised before as to the
reason for my confinement in the Fortress of Peter and Paul.
“Why, you see, there were very important interests of State to
consider,” he said. “It was like this: if you were brought before an
ordinary tribunal and only prosecuted on the Gorinòvitch count, you
might be merely condemned to seven or eight years in Siberia; and that
would not be agreeable in _high quarters_.” He accented the last words.
“But they cannot try me otherwise,” I cried. “Germany only extradited me
on that stipulation.”
“Well, that remains to be seen,” said he. “We are at present on very
good terms with Bismarck, and he would not mind at all giving us this
little proof of his friendship. Or, if necessary, it could easily be
made out that you had committed some offence _after_ your extradition.
Which reminds me—the Germans have sent us on all the notes that you made
in Freiburg gaol.”
I was utterly astonished. I remembered that from sheer ennui I had now
and then written down odds and ends of notes, plans, etc., while I was
at Freiburg, but I could not conceive how those scraps could have come
into the hands of the Russian Government, for I had destroyed all my
manuscripts before leaving. I could only suppose that when I was out of
my cell for exercise some single sheets might have been abstracted. Even
then it seemed impossible that they could afford any foundation for a
fresh accusation sufficient to set aside the extradition treaty with
Germany. But Kotliarèvsky reassured me on that head.
“Oh, never fear! they would soon manage that. Nothing would be easier
than to get Germany’s consent, and then they would sentence you
according to your deserts. People who have had far less against them
than you—Malìnka, Drebyàsgin, Maidànsky—have long ago been executed. And
you—you broke out of prison just when you were at last to be brought up
for judgment in the Gorinòvitch case. Then for quite eight years you
were engaged in conspiracies; and then you were the instigator, along
with Stefanòvitch, of the Tchigirìn affair, and so on, and so on. That
all this should only let you in for a few years’ hard labour did not at
all suit the views of Government. So when you were extradited a special
council was held in _high circles_. Of course, I was not there. I am not
numbered among the elect; but this is what I have been told. At first
they were all unanimous in declaring that a modification of the
extradition treaty must be arranged, so that you might be brought before
a special tribunal. Then, as you can easily imagine, they would have
made short work with you! But one of these great personages had a qualm,
and he urged, ‘Germany might fall in with our views. Well and good! But
is that really a good precedent? They have caught Deutsch for us now.
To-morrow a still more important capture might be made in some other
country, and then it might be hard for us to get an extradition. The
Press would make a hubbub; they would say, Russia never respects
treaties, and would point to the case of Deutsch as an example.’ This
consideration influenced the majority, and it was consequently resolved
to proceed against you in the Gorinòvitch case only. This is why you
were put into the Fortress of Peter and Paul until a decision was
arrived at.”
It is quite possible that Kotliarèvsky betrayed this secret of state to
me with the object of loosening my tongue; but perhaps he really had no
afterthought, and told tales out of school just for the joke of it.
In the further course of our conversation he touched on many subjects,
among others on political prosecutions in Russia. I remarked to him how
often perfectly harmless persons were condemned to fearful punishments.
“What would you have?” he replied. “When trees are felled there must be
chips. As the ancient Romans said: ‘_Summum jus, summa injuria_.’
Personally I do not approve of capital punishment at all. I say to
myself that in a great state political offences are inevitable. With a
population of many millions there must always be a few thousand
malcontents, and, of course, examples must be made of any disturbers of
the peace. But a strong Government ought to be able to render them
innocuous without resorting to the death penalty.”
In pursuance of this theme, he then asked me, to all appearance
casually, how many Terrorists in my opinion there might be in Russia. I
answered that I knew nothing at all about it, for I myself did not now
belong to the Terrorists, but to the Social-Democratic party.
“Oh yes,” he said, “but as a ‘friendly power’ you must be able to judge
as to the strength of the terrorist organisation. I think myself their
numbers must be very small now.”
In point of fact there were indeed very few active Terrorists left in
Russia. I did not, however, wish to strengthen Kotliarèvsky’s opinion
about the “friendly powers,” so told him that according to my estimate
there could be only a few thousand, not more.
“How can you make that out?” he asked. “It is quite impossible; I reckon
at most some hundreds. They have been imprisoned in crowds just lately.”
I persisted in my opinion, and therewith we separated.
At this time, _i.e._ in the summer of 1881, there were in this House of
Detention a number of prisoners accused of different political offences.
One of these so-called offences, on account of which numberless persons
had been sent to prison in Petersburg, Moscow, and many smaller towns,
or even in Siberia, was what Kotliarèvsky called “the old clothes case.”
He gave me the following account of this highly important affair of
state. In some domiciliary visit the police had found a note containing
the names of persons who were assisting the political prisoners by
providing them with clothes and other necessaries. Thereupon a number of
these persons were arrested; and he told me that an imposing case was
being trumped up against this “secret society,” under the name of the
“Red Cross League of the _Naròdnaia Vòlya_.” (Of course, Kotliarèvsky
did not mind giving a sly hit at the gendarmerie, with whom the police
officials have many little tiffs, each often putting a spoke in the
other’s wheel.)
A pretty conspiracy indeed—for providing prisoners with old clothes! I
shall hereafter always allude to this case as the “old clothes affair,”
and hope to show by it some of the little peculiarities of
“administrative methods” in Russia. These “administrative methods” are
sometimes extremely unpleasant for those treated by them. The
gendarmerie can imprison people, and exile them to Siberia or the
outlying provinces without trial, all by “administrative methods.”
Besides those implicated in the “old clothes affair,” there were at this
time in the gaol many prisoners involved in other cases, among them
several well-known literary men—Protopòpov, Krivènko, Stanyukòvitch, and
Erthel. The first-named was my neighbour, and we were soon knocking to
one another, though not without some misunderstanding at the outset.
Directly I told him my name he left off replying to my taps, I could not
imagine why. Several days passed. I could hear him going up and down in
his cell, could catch his voice when he spoke to the warder, but he left
all my signals unanswered; so concluding that he was afraid of being
caught (though the officials of this prison did not seem to make much
fuss over the knocking), I left off in despair. After a little, however,
he began again. “Why do you hide your name from me?” he asked. I replied
that I had told him my name at the very beginning, and repeated it; upon
which he hastened to apologise: “I took you for a spy; for I could not
make out what you said, and thought you seemed to be knocking confusedly
on purpose, so that I might not decipher the name.”
We now conversed together freely. Our names were well known to each
other, and we had many common friends. Of course, we were very anxious
to know one another by sight, and we accomplished this in the following
manner. From the windows of our cells, which were on the fifth floor, we
could see into the “cattle-pens”; and though we were all supposed to
take our exercise at the same time, we arranged together that each
should manage to get out of it on different days, and that he who
remained in his cell should recognise the other by a preconcerted
signal. The next thing was to know one another’s voice, and this also we
succeeded in effecting. We knew that in this prison, “politicals,” in
the “Case of the 193,” not only spoke together, but even conveyed small
objects to one another, by means of the water-closet pipes. The sanitary
system here was so arranged that on all the six storeys each pair of
cells was in communication, not only with one another, but also with
those immediately above and below. Thus twelve prisoners could arrange
together that they should simultaneously let the water run, so making a
space in the pipes that acted as a speaking-tube; and if one spoke into
the opening the voice could be heard perfectly in the connected cells,
while the running water prevented any inconvenient odour. In this
fashion we instituted a club of twelve members.