FRESH FEARS—THE COLONEL OF GENDARMERIE—INQUIRY INTO THE CASE OF GENERAL
MEZENTZEV’S MURDER—MEETING WITH BOGDANOVITCH—DEPARTURE
During my imprisonment in the Petersburg House of Detention my spirits
were altogether more cheerful than they had been since my first arrest.
At Freiburg I had been in a chronic state of excitement and unrest,
longing for the freedom that seemed so near. In the Fortress of Peter
and Paul I had been downcast and despairing. Now I had reached a
condition of equanimity and indifference.
“Hard labour in the Siberian mines,” I thought to myself. “What does it
matter whether it be for ten years or fifteen? It is much the same to
me.” My future was done for, my life gone. It is hard for a man to
reconcile himself to such a thought, particularly when he feels
physically sound and healthy, but one does somehow get accustomed to it.
At times there will arise sudden hopes, dreams of unexpected luck, of
happiness in a distant future; and then wild visions chase one another
in dazzling pictures through one’s brain. But I had lived through too
many bitter self-deceptions of the kind when I was at Freiburg; and I
was only annoyed with myself when I found my fancy dallying with them,
and tried to extinguish them at once. “Nonsense!” I cried to myself; “if
anything, the only unexpected turn Fate will do you will be some bad
trick.” And I steadfastly made up my mind to the worst.
Weeks had gone by since my change of prisons, and during that time I had
not been once up for examination. I did not know in the least how my
affair was going. “Perhaps in ‘high circles’ they’ve taken a new
departure, and invented some other means of treating me as a political
criminal. Why am I not brought before the court? Why do they not send me
to Odessa? Something must be happening.” I had begun to fidget in this
way occasionally, when one July morning, as I came back from my walk
feeling rather cheerful, the warder said to me, “Make yourself ready;
they have come to fetch you!” A hired droschky awaited me at the door,
and I and a gendarme got into it. From him I could learn nothing as to
our destination, and although this uncertainty did not last long, it
made me feel uncomfortably nervous. After about half an hour the
carriage stopped in the courtyard of a large building. I was taken into
a small cell with a tiny window, whose panes were of thick ribbed glass.
As I was pacing up and down here I noticed an officer at the peephole in
the door observing me closely.
“May I come in?” he asked, hesitatingly opening the peephole window.
“A strange question! I am at your disposal, not you at mine,” said I.
The door opened, and smiling apologetically, a young man in the uniform
of a colonel of gendarmerie stepped in.
“Allow me to introduce myself”—he bowed and clicked his spurs
together—“Colonel Ivànov.”
“I do not understand,” said I. “Will you please tell me where I am, and
why I have been brought here?”
“This is the office of the gendarmerie headquarters; you have been
brought here for examination, and will soon be taken before the Public
Prosecutor. I only wanted to have a chat with you, and revive some old
memories. We have many common acquaintances.”
“But how do you know me?” I asked, surprised.
“Oh, excuse me,” he cried, smiling, “there is hardly an intelligent
person in all Russia who does not know you by name.”
The young gentleman appeared to class himself among the
“intellectuals”—that set in Russian Society which just at this time was
protesting against the reactionary tendency and making its influence
felt in some of the best Russian journals. In the language of that
section of the Press it was customary to designate the revolutionists by
the harmless title of “intellectuals.”
“Oh, we have many common acquaintances,” the colonel resumed. “I knew
all your comrades—Malinka, Drebyàsghin, Maidànsky. I was formerly
adjutant of gendarmerie at Odessa, and made acquaintance with them
there. They were really delightful people.”
Now I understood why this man was a colonel already, notwithstanding his
youth. The big political cases during the end of the seventies and
beginning of the eighties had given many officers of gendarmerie and of
the law grand opportunities for self-advancement. The lives and freedom
of the “politicals” were the merchandise by which they founded their
fortunes. This gentleman had no doubt played no insignificant part in
condemning to penal servitude or to death those comrades of mine on whom
he was now lavishing his compliments. Perhaps he had been the originator
of the happy thought by which the traitor Kùritzin was induced to
sacrifice so many victims.[30]
Footnote 30:
Kùritzin was arrested in consequence of the attempt upon Gorinòvitch,
and turned traitor unknown to his former comrades. He was shut up in a
cell with the other prisoners, so that he might spy upon them; and
through his information some of them were sent to the mines in
Siberia, and many others delivered into the clutches of the law. I
believe that he himself is now practising somewhere as a veterinary
surgeon.
My interview with this engaging young man was not exactly to my mind,
and I was glad to be called away. I was taken to a comfortably furnished
apartment, where Kotliarèvsky was seated in an armchair before a large
table, looking over some papers.
“I have some documents here that concern you,” he said, and began to
read aloud:—
“In the beginning of August, 1878, the widow of the murdered Baron
Gèhkin, adjutant in the gendarmerie, observed in the neighbourhood of
General Mèzentzev’s house two young men who were apparently watching for
the General.” The document went on to state that the Baroness had
recognised one of these young men to be myself; and on the following day
she had seen them again on the watch, her cousin Baron Berg being with
her at the time. Then followed a paper in which Baron Berg corroborated
the lady’s evidence. There was a time, 1878-9, when a good many people
delighted in romancing about me, and persisted in ascribing to me a
prominent rôle in events taking place in the most widely separated parts
of Russia. These imaginings even found their way into the press, and I
was often surprised to read in the papers accounts of my varied
exploits; I seemed to be a perfect Stenka Rasìn![31]
Footnote 31:
A noted Cossack chieftain of the seventeenth century, who has become a
hero of Russian popular romance.—_Trans._
I remember, for example, that on May 25th, 1878, when I was still in
prison at Kiëv, a rich lady of that place was murdered, evidently by
thieves. Baron Gèhkin was shot on the following night, May 26th; and on
the night _after_ that, May 27th, I and two comrades escaped from
prison. I soon saw in the newspapers that, according to the opinion of
many astute persons, the author of both these murders could be none
other than myself!
The evidence as to my being concerned in the death of General Mèzentzev
was in the same way complete nonsense. When Kotliarèvsky had read me the
documents, he asked me what I had to say about them.
“It appears that the Government has not given up the attempt to
implicate me in affairs not specified in the extradition treaty,” I
said; “I shall therefore refuse to answer questions relating to any
outside matter.”
“Well, if you refuse to give evidence, we will leave it alone,” said
Kotliarèvsky, with perfect composure, and he clapped the papers together
again. “Besides, I may as well tell you that I attach no importance to
the testimony of these good people. So far as I can make out, you had
already gone abroad when Mèzentzev was murdered?”
I assented. He seemed, nevertheless, to want to draw me out on this
subject; but as I did not assist his endeavours in that direction he
began to chat about indifferent matters, asking me questions as to our
Socialist propaganda and our views. When, however, I quoted from some of
our writings, he confessed that they were quite unknown to him.
While we were talking, Bogdanòvitch came in from a neighbouring room. My
readers will remember him as the gentleman who had been by way of
identifying me at Freiburg. He greeted me, and sat down at the table. We
met without any sign of ill-feeling or recollection of the sharp
passage-at-arms we had had together.
“I wish you would tell me,” I said to him, “as it is now a thing of the
past, when did you see me in Kiëv? I have no remembrance of you.”
He replied, laughing, that he had seen me once in prison; but I saw at
once that he was bluffing. Evidently he had recognised me at Freiburg
merely from Kotliarèvsky’s description. I was curious to know when
exactly the Baden authorities had found out with whom they were dealing;
and when I asked him this, Bogdanòvitch replied, “They knew some weeks
before the extradition that you could not be Bulìgin, and then you were
put under stricter supervision, with a guard before the prison. About
ten days before my arrival they were informed that you were
Deutsch.”[32]
Footnote 32:
While these pages are in the press comes the news (May, 1903) of
Bogdanòvitch’s assassination. Having risen to be Governor of Ufa, he
had suppressed in a very brutal manner a strike at Zlatoust. Shortly
afterwards he was shot in a public park, and his assailants
escaped.—_Trans._
It was now clear to me why I had been moved into a different cell, and
also why Herr von Berg had forbidden me to speak Russian with my
visitors.
As I was going away, to be taken back to the House of Detention, I asked
Kotliarèvsky whether I should soon be brought before a fully qualified
tribunal. He could give me no decided answer, and himself seemed
surprised at my being kept in Petersburg so long.
This was the last time I saw Kotliarèvsky. I learned afterwards in
Siberia, from comrades arriving there, that though he had dealt fairly
by me, his conduct of some political trials had been considered
altogether too mean; it not only drew down on him the bitter hatred of
the accused, but was too much even for his superiors, and he was
withdrawn from the cases. About three years ago he was President of the
Courts at Vilna; where he is now (1902) I do not know.
This interview convinced me still further that the Government would not
be content to restrict themselves to prosecuting me in the Gorinòvitch
case. Every morning I awoke wondering what would happen next; but day
after day went by without anything fresh. July came, then August, and I
was still waiting in my cell. One day towards the end of August
gendarmes again came for me, and I was ordered to prepare for a journey;
it had at last been decided to send me to Odessa. While the carriage
conveyed me through the streets I sadly took leave of my beloved
Petersburg, which I could never hope to see again.