“Paying the Penalty.”
“Look up, my darling, you are safe now,” were the next words of which my
returning consciousness was cognizant. Opening my eyes, I saw those of
Sergius bent anxiously upon me, and thankfully realized that I was
embraced by his strong arms and pillowed upon his warm breast. Surely it
was as he said. I was no longer in danger, and might give all necessary
explanations without the paralyzing presence of an assembly which put
patriotism before every other duty to humanity.
“Thank God, I have found you!” I murmured, while the tears of relief
flowed down my cheeks. “Oh, Sergius! how could you leave me without one
word of farewell?”
“I was compelled in honor to come here without an instant’s delay. And
it was hard enough to tear myself away on my wedding-day, without
undergoing the agony of parting. Besides, I knew that you would refuse
to let me come without you, and I dreaded to involve you in danger.”
“Yet you did not dread danger for my husband, who is dearer to me than
life.”
“Indeed I did! But I dreaded dishonor still more. And there was another
danger of which you are doubtless still ignorant. Had I not answered in
person the telegram which summoned me hither, sudden death, at the hands
of outraged patriotism, would have overtaken me in England. For our
Society, which may strike you as a small one, has its ramifications all
over Europe, and it never spares those who break their oath of
obedience.”
“But you barely escaped from St. Petersburg without falling into the
hands of enemies, and even the strictest Society could hardly accuse you
of leaving the country to evade your oath.”
By this time all haziness had left my mind, and I felt altogether
stronger. I raised myself into a sitting posture, and prepared for my
first attempt to wean my husband from his determination to do all which
his associates wished him to do. I looked around me to see that we were
quite alone, in a small room, and that the door, which no doubt
communicated with the larger apartment, was firmly closed. Then, with
momentarily augmenting excitement, I began to tell Sergius all about my
own journey hither.
“And do you know my principal object in following you?” I continued.
“Nina told me that the special duty which demanded your presence here
was the _removal_ of the czar. For God’s sake, don’t lend yourself to so
dreadful a deed! I could not bear to think of you as a murderer.”
Even as I made this appeal I saw that it was utterly useless. Sergius
had pushed his domino away from his face, and there was nothing to
hinder me from noting that he had blanched considerably and that his
eyes gathered an expression of mingled anger and anxiety.
“Dora,” he said firmly, “you are treading on ground that is more
dangerous than you dream of. Nina was a very foolish woman to make such
a wild assertion, and you are still more foolish to act upon her
information. Had I deemed it advisable, I would gladly have brought you
with me. As I did not think such a course wise, I overconfidently
imagined that my friends would have used some measure of discreetness. I
certainly did not give Nina the particulars of my mission to Moscow, and
even if I had done so, I should never have dreamed that she would betray
my confidence.”
“Indeed, Sergius,” I protested, “Nina is the last woman in the world to
betray her friends, and it was because she saw me tortured with all
sorts of conflicting fears that she showed me the purely political
nature of your sudden departure, which she no doubt knew without fresh
information from you. And she certainly never dreamed that I would
follow you, for I did not give her the slightest hint of my intention to
do so. It was surely better for her to enlighten me than to leave me a
prey to the misery of unexplained desertion.”
“Perhaps you are right, Dora. All the same, your arrival here will
certainly complicate matters for me. Still, I can understand your desire
to learn as much as possible—and, why, I do believe you must have been
suffering from jealousy! Tell me, is that so?”
“Well, I knew that you had seen a woman at Hyde Park Corner, whom you
would have liked to avoid while with me. She knew you, I could tell. And
she is so much handsomer than I am that you must own it was natural for
me to imagine her power to be of a different nature to what it has
proved.”
“How do you know yet that she had anything to do with my sudden
departure?”
“I don’t know. I can only conjecture.”
“Well, I will tell you. You have gone through such a bitter trial, and
have suffered so much, that I cannot be angry with you, even for
doubting my love. Vera Vassoffskoy is a member of our Fraternity. So
also is her husband. Both have sad reason to hate an oppressive
government, for it has robbed them both of kindred and fortune. But
Madame Vassoffskoy, though at one with us in all our general plans,
hates individual bloodshed. She was on a secret mission to London when
she saw me. Before she left Moscow, she knew that the ballot had fallen
upon me, with reversion to her husband in the event of my failure to
appear on the scene in time. I shrank back when I saw her, for I
regarded it as an evil omen to be confronted with my secret obligations
on my wedding-day. But she was determined not to lose sight of me, and
tracked us home by means of a cab which she called to her assistance.
Having found my address, her next proceeding was to have an official
message conveyed to me, commanding my instant return to Russia, to
fulfill the great plan for relieving the sufferings of our oppressed
country. Death is the reward of disobedience to the mandates of the
Executive Council, and my grief at leaving you at such a time showed me
that I could not have done my duty to my country if I had witnessed your
distress. Hark! there is the signal! Our time is up, and we seem to have
explained so little. And you still look so ill!”
“Indeed, I am quite recovered now, and will give you no trouble. To be
with you is all I want to make me happy and well.”
It was even so. I felt that, by his side, I could bid defiance to the
threatenings of fate. Sergius tightened his arms round me and kissed me
with all a young husband’s devotion. But his caresses were rather those
of one who is bidding a painful farewell than of one just reunited to
the idol of his heart, after a trying separation.
“You must trust me, darling, whatever befalls,” he whispered; and, could
it be true? were those tears of grief which trickled down his cheeks? I
stood up in suddenly returned alarm, but before I could question him at
all there was a much louder knock at the door than the first one had
been. Another second, and it was thrown open. Sergius hastily replaced
his domino, and, kissing me once more, said: “I am ready.”
The next moment I was standing alone in the little room. Sergius had
gone. The door was closed and bolted, and I was a prisoner once more.
Still I did not, for some time, realize that my isolation and detention
were to be of a prolonged nature. But when more than an hour passed
away, and I had listened to the gradual dying out of all sounds in the
outer room, I was seized by a species of panic. Was it possible that I
had really brought danger upon the head of Sergius, and that he had
already paid the penalty for my rashness?
I had seen with what little compunction the presumed spy had been
dispatched, and my despairing fancy pictured my dear one already
weltering in his blood, while I would perhaps be left to die in this
cell of cold and starvation. There was a little light available for me,
though not within my reach. It shone through an elevated grating which
communicated with the larger apartment, and after a time this
circumstance afforded me a little hope.
I concluded that, though the meeting was probably over, the place could
not be entirely deserted. Otherwise the lights, feeble as they were,
would most likely be extinguished. Then a new horror seized me. How many
murders might have been committed on these premises! And how many
corpses might be buried within a few yards of me!
I am not superstitious, in the general acceptation of the term. But I
always had a horror of the near presence of death, and even the most
strong-minded among those who may become acquainted with my history will
admit that my circumstances and surroundings were uncanny enough to
raise the hair of a much less nervous individual than myself.
My watch told me that I had been immured in this underground room for
two hours, and I was feeling faint and sick with hunger; for it was now
verging on dawn, and I had had very little food all the previous day,
being too much engrossed in watching for Sergius to attend properly to
my own bodily needs. Sleep refused me its refreshing aid, though I would
gladly have welcomed the temporary oblivion of my surroundings which it
might have given me.
After a time I fell into a species of semi-stupor, from which I was
roused by the entrance of Sergius into my prison.
I am not sure that coherency of thought was not banished from me even
after my husband had pressed wine and food upon my acceptance. I know
now that I mechanically availed myself of the refreshment brought to me,
but I cannot recall what transpired for a while, until a flood of tears
relieved my brain from the pressure which the strength of my emotions
exercised upon it.
Then I was able to comprehend all that Sergius had to tell me, and to
realize how very nearly I had compassed his ruin, though I did not know
until afterward what a battle he had had with the sterner members of the
Society, whose motto was “Death to everything through which our plans
may risk betrayal.”
Briefly, the position was this.
Sergius had been strictly cross-examined concerning me, and had been
able to convince his interrogators that I was really his wife. They were
also satisfied as to my fidelity and attachment to him. But they
declined to trust my discretion at a time when a word might betray their
plans, and ruin their hopes of revolutionizing the country. It was
therefore decreed that I was to be kept a close prisoner until such time
as Sergius should have fulfilled the obligations that the Society
demanded of him.
“In other words,” I said, with a shudder, “I am never to recover my
freedom until you have committed a hideous crime that would haunt us all
our lives. I would rather die at once.”
“My poor child! you speak out of the ignorance born of residence in a
free and happy country,” said Sergius sadly. “Could you but faintly
realize the horror and misery that oppress the subjects of the czar, you
would pray with us for the abolition of such a monstrous anomaly as a
fabulously wealthy ruler at the head of a nation that is ground down to
the lowest depths of poverty and degradation. While incredible sums are
exacted for the support of a prodigal court, each year sees a huge
holocaust of the victims of starvation and oppression! Our rulers revel
in costly frivolities, while famine depopulates our country by tens of
thousands! No other European state can show such a perfect system of
barbaric misgovernment and corrupt officialism as Russia. If any of the
czar’s subjects show symptoms of originality or strivings after a better
state of things, they are promptly consigned either to the state prison
or to banishment, and all national reform has to be made the subject of
secret plottings by a handful of men and women into whom patriotism or
special provocation have instilled a greater amount of bravery than is
possessed by their downtrodden and broken-spirited compatriots. The
scoundrels whom despotism has put in office abuse their privileges to a
brutal extent that would be tolerated nowhere else in Europe, and must
come to an end even here some day. Our newspaper press is a dead letter,
for it is so supervised and gagged that nothing even approaching a hint
of discontent at the existing state of things is allowed to appear. A
strict supervision is also exercised upon all our literature, and even
that which is imported from other countries is examined so jealously
that any article or paragraph which can be construed into disapproval of
Russian politics is promptly detected and blocked out. Police spies
intrude in our innermost sanctums, and true domestic privacy is
practically unknown among us. Nor is this all. Physical oppression has
been the heritage of us Russians for ages, and the slightest excuse is
good enough to justify the confiscation of our property and the
deprivation of our liberty. Liberty! why, even liberty of conscience is
not allowed us, and we are asked to believe that God has gifted our
cursed tyrants with the knowledge of the only true way in which to
worship him. Whether it be Stundist or Jew, it is all the same. The
Orthodox priests, who insult Christ by calling themselves Christians,
are ever ready to instigate an ignorant mob into deeds of violence which
are a disgrace to humanity. Dare to differ from them in creed, and you
find yourself singled out for additional outrage. Your house will be
wrecked, your home destroyed; your work taken from you, and all manner
of vile insult heaped upon you. If you have wives and daughters, God
might help them, but you can’t, and the priest won’t raise voice or
finger to save them from the atrocities of the mob, which must be
allowed to reward itself somehow for its readiness to support the
Orthodox Church.”
“But surely the government would not refuse to punish those guilty of
such shameful deeds?”
“My dear child, the government and the Church will never fight each
other, and the only reward which a complaint against the latter would
bring forth would be the ruin of the man who ventured to make the
complaint.”
“But the czar. He is so powerful that a word from him would put an end
to many of these evils. Surely if he knew—”
“The czar! He must know. He has been appealed to too often to be able to
plead ignorance. But if he, who is nominally at the head of so huge a
nation as ours, and who receives imperial emoluments for doing his duty
to that nation, will not take the trouble to make himself acquainted
with the needs of the subjects whom he is paid to govern and protect,
then it is high time that he be made to give place to some one who will
be honest enough to do the work for which he is paid. We want peace and
prosperity at home, while our rulers neglect us in order to annex other
provinces and enlarge an empire that is already too unwieldy.”
“Yet if this emperor is removed by violence, he will be succeeded by his
son, who will probably govern just as he is doing, so that his murder
would only prove a fruitless crime.”
“Not so. If his violent death does not frighten his successor into more
humane methods of government, he will be removed in his turn. And so it
will go on, until the rights of an oppressed people win the recognition
that is demanded. You feel horrified at the idea of one man being turned
over to avenging justice. How can you put his life in the scale against
the lives and souls of the thousands who are the daily victims of
governmental oppression and official cruelty? ‘Vox Populi, vox Dei’ is
our watchword, and God and the People shall not always lift up their
voice in vain!”
Oh, how noble my husband looked as he thus eloquently vindicated the
right of the people to insist upon justice! And how strange it was that
I, who had come to Russia fully resolved upon converting my husband to
my own peaceable ways of thinking, should end by sharing his enthusiasm
and by believing as he did. Yet so it was, and in defiance of possible
subsequent conscience pricks, I began to look upon my husband’s
contemplated act as that of a brave, self-sacrificing hero, rather than
as the assassination against which my soul had revolted. Since that
eventful night a reaction has set in, and I often thank God that, after
all, no bloodshed stains my husband’s hands.
“You will feel your isolation very much, I am afraid,” said Sergius,
after we had, by tacit consent, tabooed further conversation anent the
czar.
“If I can see you often, I will try to be as patient as possible. But I
cannot help being anxious for your safety while you are away from me.”
“My dear girl you need not worry at all on my account. You have seen for
yourself how carefully I am guarded.”
“Yes, that is true. But I also know that your position must be a
precarious one, or you would not be under the necessity of maintaining
the disguise in which I saw you. You are, too, quite aware that you may
be discovered and arrested at any moment.”
“How do you come to that conclusion?”
“Without much difficulty. Your manner, after leaving the hotel where I
first saw you, showed that you feared to be tracked. Even the fact that
your associates had mounted guard over you, and saved you from the
government spy who was following you, is proof of the great danger you
are in. How thankful I shall be when we are safe in England again!”
“So shall I, my darling. Meanwhile, we must make the best of the
situation, which will perhaps not be quite so dreary for you as you
imagine. You are to exchange this comfortless place for a room in
another part of the building, where you will have every indulgence but
that of perfect freedom until it is deemed safe to permit you to go
abroad again. Ah! there is the signal. Your fresh quarters are ready.
Come, Dora, but remember that you must not speak by the way.”
A few seconds later the door opened, and Sergius led me past two figures
holding lighted candles, and in the wake of another, who pushed aside a
heavy curtain, beyond which was a narrow, tortuous staircase, up which
we climbed until my weary limbs found it almost impossible to go
further. Fortunately, we had nearly reached the top, and Sergius half
carried me into a room which was the picture of warmth and comfort.
A bright fire burned in the stove, and its enlivening rays made me
suddenly conscious of the fact that I was shivering with cold. I sank
quite exhausted upon a comfortable lounge, and it was like a transition
to Paradise to find myself housed again in a haven of warmth and
comfort, with the grateful odors of daintily prepared food assailing me.
Yet I could neither eat nor drink of that which was set before me, and,
so fatigued was I by my experiences, that I yielded to the languor which
overpowered me, and was just conscious of being kissed affectionately by
my husband, and covered over with multitudinous wraps, when I sank into
a sound and refreshing slumber, from which I did not awake for several
hours.
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