THE VISIT OF THE MINISTER—I AM TURNED INTO A CONVICT—THE PRISON AT KIËV
Shortly after my trial a feverish anxiety set in at the Odessa prison:
the Minister of Justice was expected. Of course, everything except the
straw and the tub was taken out of my cell; and one day the great man
appeared, attended by an imposing suite—the governor of the town among
the rest. As soon as Nabòkov saw me he greeted me by name, which seemed
to excite the governor’s interest in no small degree.
“Your Excellency is pleased to recognise Deutsch?”
“Oh yes; we have met in Petersburg,” answered Nabòkov in an agreeable
tone, as if recalling a meeting in some elegant drawing-room instead of
in a prison. He then turned to me, to tell me that he had received my
petition, and had “reported to His Majesty”; but the Tsar had pronounced
that as a former member of the army I must go before a court-martial,
and therefore that had been the only course. The manner in which I was
lodged seemed to strike the minister unpleasantly, for he looked round
my cell, and asked if I were properly treated and had no complaints to
make. I now learned that my transference to Moscow was decided on; that
I was to winter there, and remain until the journey to Siberia was
possible.
The way in which the minister had spoken to me seemed to have made a
powerful impression on the prison authorities; for scarcely had “His
Excellency” left the place than the governor hastened to my cell, and
took me to one much more comfortable, where were a good bed, a table,
and a chair.
“A report has been made to His Majesty himself about you!” I was
therefore a person of consequence, and the governor’s official soul was
troubled. I was offered books from a lending library, and was henceforth
treated with marked civility. Of course, I knew that this alteration
really proceeded from orders given by the three functionaries spoken of
in a previous chapter, who had been the cause of my former
ill-treatment. This is a striking example of the arbitrary way in which
prisoners are used.
I had not much longer to enjoy these marks of favour. A fortnight later
I was informed that a party of convicts would start for Moscow that
evening. I was to accompany them, and accordingly must assume the
convict garb. After eighteen years I think of that day with a shudder.
First of all, I was taken into a room where was stored everything
necessary to the equipment of a convict under sentence. On the floor lay
piles of chains; and clothes, boots, etc., were heaped on shelves. From
among them some were selected that were supposed to fit me; and I was
then conducted to a second room. Here the right side of my head was
shaved, and the hair on the left side cut short. I had seen people in
the prison who had been treated in this fashion, and the sight had
always made a painful impression on me, as indeed it does on everyone.
But when I saw my own face in the glass a cold shudder ran down my
spine, and I experienced a sensation of personal degradation to
something less than human. I thought of the days—in Russia not so long
ago—when criminals were branded with hot irons.
A convict was waiting ready to fasten on my fetters. I was placed on a
stool, and had to put my foot on an anvil. The blacksmith fitted an iron
ring round each ankle, and welded it together. Every stroke of the
hammer made my heart sink, as I realised that a new existence was
beginning for me.
The mental depression into which I now fell was soon accompanied by
physical discomfort. The fetters at first caused me intolerable pain in
walking, and even disturbed my sleep. It also requires considerable
practice before one can easily manage to dress and undress. The heavy
chains—about 13 lbs. in weight—are not only an encumbrance, but are very
painful, as they chafe the skin round the ankles; and the leather lining
is but little protection to those unaccustomed to these adornments.
Another great torment is the continual clinking of the chains. It is
indescribably irritating to the nervous, and reminds the prisoner at
every turn that he is a pariah among his kind, “deprived of all rights.”
The transformation is completed by the peculiar convict dress,
consisting—besides the coarse linen underclothing—of a grey gown made of
special material, and a pair of trousers. Prisoners condemned to hard
labour wear a square piece of yellow cloth sewn on their gowns. The feet
are clad in leathern slippers nicknamed “cats.” All these articles of
clothing are inconvenient, heavy, and ill-fitting.
I hardly knew myself when I looked in the glass and beheld a fully
attired convict. The thought possessed me—“For long years you will have
to go about in that hideous disguise.” Even the gendarme regarded me
with compassion.
“What won’t they do to a man?” he said. And I could only try to comfort
myself by thinking how many unpleasant things one gets used to, and that
time might perhaps accustom one even to this.
My own clothes I gave away to the warders, and any possessions of
value—watch, ring, cigarette-case—I sent by post to relations. I kept
only my books. I had been given a bag in which to keep a change of
linen; and into it I also put a few volumes of Shakespeare, Goethe,
Heine, Molière, and Rousseau, thus completing my preparations for
travelling.
[Illustration:
PRISONERS MARCHING THROUGH THE STREETS OF ODESSA
To face page 96
]
Evening came. The officer in command of the convoy appeared in the
prison courtyard with his men and took the party in charge. I was
conducted to the office. A _statyehny spìsok_[41] is prepared for each
individual convict, in which his name and place of exile are entered,
and also a list of the exciseable things he takes with him. In the
_statyehny spìsok_ of each political prisoner his photograph is pasted,
and in mine there were two.
Footnote 41:
Literally “a list of particulars.”—_Trans._
The officer carefully went through all these _dossiers_. We were then
arranged in processional order. The soldiers surrounded us; the officer
lifted his cap and crossed himself.
“A pleasant journey! Good-bye!” called out the prison officials.
“Thanks. Good-bye!” cried the officer. He then gave the signal to start,
and off we marched at a slow pace to the station.
On account of the conditions attached by the Grand Duke of Baden to my
extradition, I had till now been treated sometimes as an ordinary
criminal, sometimes as a “political”; but from the moment I joined this
convoy I was treated frankly as a “political.”[42] This being so, I was
not placed among the ordinary criminals when we reached the train, but
was put in the compartment reserved for the escort. Here there was a
fair amount of room, and one could be pretty comfortable, while the
others were packed like herrings in a barrel; but, on the other hand,
the society of the soldiers was not very enlivening, as they dared not
exchange a word with me in presence of the officer.
Footnote 42:
The Russian Government has a twofold reason for making this careful
distinction between ordinary and political prisoners after conviction.
Firstly, in order that the supervision of the latter shall be
stricter, and that they may be prevented from influencing the ordinary
prisoners; and secondly, because the “politicals” were originally only
recruited from the upper and privileged classes, and the tradition
remains.
After four-and-twenty hours we arrived at Kiëv, where we were to have a
day’s rest. We got out of the train, were formed up in procession,
encircled by the soldiers, and marched by a roundabout way through the
suburbs to the prison.
A strange emotion possessed me, when, after years of wandering both in
Russia and abroad, I once again passed through the streets of my native
town. I had not been here since I had fled from prison in 1878, six
years before; and now I returned in chains, with the ominous yellow
diamond on my back, a convict doomed to years of exile.
“Get on, get on! Mind what you’re about!” I heard a rough voice say, and
felt a poke in my back from the butt-end of a rifle.
“This is the beginning,” I thought, and pictured all the humiliation and
suffering that lay before me. However, the officer had remarked the
incident, and coming up, reprimanded the soldier who had hustled me.
When we came to the prison gate the convicts were told off one by one
like sheep, and let through the door in turn. I was taken straight to
the office. Here everything was altered, and everywhere faces were
strange to me. Fat old Captain Kovàlsky was gone, and the rest of the
staff had been changed too.
“It was from this prison you escaped?” asked a haughty-looking man in
uniform, the new governor, Simàshko. I assented.
“Ah, you managed that very cunningly!” said he, laughing.
In reality the thing had been very simple. One of my comrades, named
Frolènko, had provided himself with a false passport, and had got
employment in the prison; one night he took Stefanòvitch, Bohanòvsky and
me away disguised as warders.[43]
Footnote 43:
The story of this escape has been told by Professor Thun, in his
history of the Russian revolutionary movement (_Geschichte der
revolutionären Bewegung in Russland_), and also by Stepniak
(_Underground Russia: Two Escapes_), who had it from Bohanòvsky; but
the readers of the present volume may like to have it repeated with
more detail than our author has thought fit to give.
When Stefanòvitch, Deutsch, and Bohanòvsky were imprisoned at Kiëv,
Frolènko contrived to obtain work in the prison as a sort of odd man
under the name of Michael. He gradually rose to be warder, first in
the criminal and then in the “political” department, where, in spite
of a feigned protest made by his three friends (who did not wish to
appear on good terms with him), he was appointed to their corridor.
They lost no time in fixing a night for their escape together; and
having obtained two suits of private clothes and a warder’s dress for
the prisoners to put on, he let them out of their cells at midnight.
As they were creeping along the dark passages one of them stumbled
against something, at which he grasped to save himself from falling.
Instantly a deafening noise woke the echoes, he had clutched the rope
of the alarm bell! “Michael” hastened off to explain to the staff that
he had accidentally caught at the rope, and luckily this sufficed to
satisfy everyone. As soon as all was quiet again he collected his
companions from the corners where they had hidden, and all proceeded
safely to the entrance, where the key was handed to “Michael” without
a question. They stepped out of the prison almost into the arms of an
officer; but he proved to be their comrade Ossìnsky, who had been
organising the affair, and who now conducted them to the river, where
a boat with provisions was ready for them. They travelled up the
Dnieper for a week, concealing themselves in the long rushes of the
bank if a steamer came in sight; and they finally reached Kremutshy,
where Ossìnsky furnished them with passports and money. “Michael” was
for long supposed by the Kiëv prison officials to have been made away
with by the escaping prisoners.—_Trans._
After the usual formalities I was led away to my cell, and as I passed
along the corridors I noticed that structural alterations had been made
everywhere. The cell in which I was installed was unusually large, and
was almost filled up by the wooden bedshelves; apparently it was
generally used for a large number of prisoners temporarily confined
there, and had now been assigned for my sole occupation, so that I might
not be left among the other convicts.
The prison of Kiëv has an interesting history in connexion with the
“politicals.” Many episodes—not always entirely tragic—in the
revolutionary movement have taken place there; indeed, in that respect
scarcely any other Russian prison except the Fortress of Peter and Paul
can equal it. Above all, it has been the scene of frequent escapes.
Besides us Tchigirìners, in the same year the student Isbìtsky and an
Englishman named Beverley attempted an escape. They had scooped out a
tunnel under the wall, and were actually already free, when a sentinel
espied them and fired. The Englishman fell dead, and Isbìtsky was
caught. Four years later another student, named Basil Ivànov, escaped
with the help of the officer in command of the guard, a certain Tìhonov,
a member of the _Naròdnaia Vòlya_. Shortly before my arrival, Vladìmir
Bìtshkov also disappeared from Kiëv prison in a very mysterious way, and
so far as I know a certain much-esteemed authority has to this day not
solved the riddle of that, and is probably still racking his brains over
it. Finally, in August, 1902, eleven “very important” prisoners escaped
from Kiëv, nine of them having been arrested early in the year, and two
the year before. These prisoners were allowed to take exercise every
evening in the prison courtyard, in presence of only one warder. They
and their friends knew that one of the surrounding outer walls, beyond
which were fields, was unguarded on the outside. They were provided
secretly with an iron anchor weighing twenty pounds, and with an
improvised ladder made of strips of sheets. At a given moment some of
the prisoners muffled and gagged the guard, and tied him up before he
could give the alarm. In the meantime others formed themselves into a
living pyramid, and thus managed to fix their anchor to the top of the
prison wall, so that they could fasten to it their ladder for ascending
and a rope for descending on the other side. That after they were
actually free they could manage to hide in the town, and afterwards all
get away safely, was due to the sympathy of the general public, many
members of which not only helped the fugitives by deed, but also
subscribed together a considerable sum to assist the escape. It is
noteworthy that from first to last in this affair no one was killed or
hurt, nor a drop of blood shed.
But these prison walls have also witnessed sadder scenes. Many
revolutionists have passed their last hours within them, waiting to be
led to the scaffold. Still greater is the number of those who have left
this place to tread the path to exile and the Siberian prisons. Only the
Fortress of Peter and Paul, the gaol at Odessa, and perhaps the Warsaw
citadel, can for memories like these compare with the prison of Kiëv.
Here too, more than anywhere else, have conflicts taken place between
the imprisoned revolutionists and the authorities. The tradition as to
these occurrences remains unbroken; every “political” cherishes the
memory of the “old times”—_i.e._ the exceptionally stormy years 1877-9.
The young generation speaks of them as the “heroic ages”; and not only
the prison staff, but even the ordinary criminals (who are employed here
in the domestic labour of the place), relate stories of them. The
authorities have never succeeded in uprooting the independent spirit
that flourishes within these precincts, and the door had hardly closed
behind me when I had a proof of it.
“The ‘politicals’ beg that you will be so kind as to write down your
name, in what case you are implicated, and where you were sentenced,” I
heard a voice at the door say. I stepped nearer, and saw it proceeded
from one of the ordinary criminals, who was speaking through the
peephole. When I answered that I had nothing on which to write, he
instantly produced a pencil and a bit of paper, and poked them through
to me.
I stated shortly who I was, and begged my comrades to let me know in
return who and how many they were, and concerned in what cases. The same
man came back almost immediately with a reply, which ended with the
words: “You will soon hear particulars verbally from our ladies.”
And sure enough I soon heard a woman’s voice bidding me climb up to the
window. I did so; but as I then found that there was no way of opening
it, I wasted no time, simply proceeding to smash two panes of the double
windows. Outside stood two ladies, wives of political prisoners, by name
Paraskovya Shebalina[44] and Vitolda Rechnyèvskaia. They were taking
exercise in the courtyard of the women’s quarters, and my window being
close to the wall separating the two yards, we could easily communicate.
I thus heard full details about the imprisoned “politicals,” who were
not few in number, as a trial had just taken place in the Kiëv courts,
at which twelve persons had been sentenced: four of them, including
Shebalìn, to penal servitude, and his wife to exile, on the sole ground
that in their house type had been discovered with which a pamphlet was
to be secretly printed. We were, however, suddenly interrupted in our
talk by the appearance of the assistant governor.
Footnote 44:
Surnames in Russian take the feminine termination when used for a
woman. It will be noticed below that the husbands of these two ladies
are called Shebalìn and Rechnyèvsky.—_Trans._
“What’s all this? You’ve broken the window?”
“Yes,” said I; “why haven’t you proper fastenings, so that they could be
opened?”
“Well, you will suffer for it; you will be frozen with cold to-night.”
And in fact there was a sharp November frost. He then turned to the two
ladies, and bade them go away, as it was entirely against rules to wait
about at the door. Here, however, he met his match; for the two turned
on him, requesting him to be off himself, and not disturb us. Paraskovya
Shebalina especially was most energetic in her treatment of him. She was
a lively and charming young lady, whom the atmosphere of a prison had
rendered so nervously excitable that the mere sight of an official would
send her into a passion, which led to endless contests.
Vitolda Rechnyèvskaia shared the captivity of her husband. They were a
very young couple, married only a few days before their arrest. Thaddeus
Rechnyèvsky[45] was twenty-one years of age; he had just left the school
of jurisprudence in Petersburg University when he was arrested, and was
now (1884) under examination as to his association with the Polish
Socialist “proletarian” party, whose members were prosecuted at Warsaw
in 1885.
Footnote 45:
See portraits, pp. 259 and 260.
Besides the above mentioned, who were either condemned to banishment or
still under examination, there were in the prison a number of people who
were to be exiled by “administrative methods.” There had been riots in
Kiëv University shortly before this, in consequence of which the
University was closed, and many of the students were imprisoned.
New facts and impressions crowded upon me, and it was late before I lay
down. I threw over the plank-bed the sheepskin that had been given me,
and covered myself with my great-coat. The night was frightfully cold,
and the wind whistled through the broken window. I put my bag under my
head, but the French and German classics it contained did not make a
very comfortable pillow, and it was long ere I slept. Suddenly I was
awakened by a terrific hullabaloo. I ran to the door, and called to the
warder to know what was happening. After some time he turned up, and I
learned that the criminals in the next room had been having a tussle;
one of them had hidden away a few roubles, and the others having seen
it, had tried to murder and rob him. He had succeeded in keeping them at
bay and calling for help.
“That’s the way that lot always go on!” remarked the warder composedly,
and returned to his post and his nap. There were no further consequences
of the scrimmage; with an “I’ll teach you!” the warder had separated the
combatants, and the thing was at an end. He never even reported the
occurrence, it was such an everyday event.
Next morning the governor came hurrying to me, and said that the colonel
of gendarmerie was coming to visit me. This was Novìtsky; I did not know
him personally, but many amusing stories were told about him in our
circles. He arrived, accompanied by his adjutant, put the usual
question—“Have you any complaint to make?”—and then began to chat. It
was pure curiosity that had brought him. I remember he wanted to know
if, when abroad, I had come across Debagòrio-Makriyèvitch, who had been
imprisoned at Kiëv in 1879 and condemned to penal servitude; but on his
way to Siberia had “swopped” with one of the ordinary criminals, and so
escaped. When I said I had seen him in Switzerland, Novìtsky overwhelmed
me with questions: “Now tell me, how is Vladimir Kàrpovitch? What is he
doing over there?” One would have thought Makriyèvitch was at least one
of his relations; he spoke of him familiarly by his Christian name and
his father’s name.[46] Like Colonel Ivànov in Petersburg, who had known
my old companions, he too went off into praises of them; though all the
while he was doing what he could to bring two of Makriyèvitch’s comrades
to the scaffold.[47] They are easy-going people, these ornaments of
officialdom!
Footnote 46:
It should be remembered that in private intercourse Russians do not
use their family names, but the Christian name combined with the
Christian name of the father, _e.g._ Vladimir Kàrpovitch—Vladimir, son
of Kàrpo, the same man’s family name being Debagòrio-Makriyèvitch.
Footnote 47:
Antònov and Brantner, besides Ossìnsky and some of the others whose
names I have mentioned above.