position, was a gift indeed. She went to the _Ispravnik_ to get them,
but met with an unforeseen obstacle. Among the books sent to her was a
translation of the “Sociology” of Herbert Spencer, and the _Ispravnik_
mistook it for a work on _Socialism_, and would not on any account give
it up to her. In vain Olga pointed out to him that the incriminated
book had been published at St. Petersburg with the license of the
Censorship; that sociology and socialism were very different things,
etc. The _Ispravnik_ was stubborn. The discussion grew warm. Olga
could not restrain some sharp remarks upon the gross ignorance of her
opponent, and ended by telling him that his precautions were utterly
useless, as she had at home a dozen books like that of Herbert Spencer.
“Oh! you have books like this at home, have you?” exclaimed the
_Ispravnik_. “Very well; we’ll come and search the house this very day.”
“No,” exclaimed Olga, in a fury; “you will do nothing of the kind; you
have no right, and if you dare to come I will defend myself.”
With these words she left the place, thoroughly enraged.
War was declared, and the rumor spread throughout the town, and
everywhere excited a kind of timorous curiosity.
Directly Olga reached her home she shut herself up and barricaded
the door. The _Ispravnik_, on his side, prepared for the attack.
He mustered a band of policemen, with some _poniatye_, or
citizen-witnesses, and sent them to the enemy’s house.
Finding the entrance closed and the door barricaded, the valorous army
began to knock energetically, and ordered the inmate to open.
“I will not open the door,” replied the voice of Olga within.
“Open, in the name of the law.”
“I will not open the door. Break it in! I will defend myself.”
At this explicit declaration the band became perplexed. A council of
war was held. “We must break open the door,” they all said. But as all
these valiant folks had families, wives, and children whom they did
not wish to leave orphans, no one cared to face the bullets of this
mad-woman, whom they knew to be capable of anything. Each urged his
neighbor onward, but no one cared to go forward himself.
Recourse was had to diplomacy.
“Open the door, miss.”
No reply.
“Please to open the door, or you will repent it.”
“I will not open the door,” replied the firm voice of the besieged.
What was to be done? A messenger was sent to the _Ispravnik_ to inform
him that Olga Liubatovitch had shut herself up in her house, had
pointed a pistol at them, and had threatened to blow out the brains of
the first who entered.
The _Ispravnik_, considering that the task of leadership would fall
to him as supreme chief (and he also had a family), did not care
to undertake the perilous enterprise. His army, seeing itself thus
abandoned by its leader, was in dismay; it lost courage; demoralisation
set in, and after a few more diplomatic attempts, which led to nothing,
it beat a disgraceful retreat. A select corps of observation remained,
however, near the enemy’s citadel, intrenched behind the hedges of the
adjoining kitchen-gardens. It was hoped that the enemy, elated by the
victory in this first encounter, would make a sortie, and then would be
easily taken, in flank and rear, surrounded, and defeated.
But the enemy displayed as much prudence as firmness. Perceiving the
manœuvres of her adversaries, Olga divined their object, and did not
issue from the house all that day, or the day after, or even on the
third day. The house was provided with provisions and water, and Olga
was evidently prepared to sustain a long siege.
It was clear that if no one would risk his life, which naturally no
one was disposed to risk, nothing could be done save to reduce her by
hunger. But who, in that case, could tell how long the scandal of this
flagrant rebellion would last? And then, who could guarantee that this
Fury would not commit suicide instead of surrendering? And then, what
complaints, what reprimands from superiors!
In this perplexity, the _Ispravnik_ resolved to select the least among
many evils, and on the fourth day he raised the siege.
Thus ended the little drama of July 1878, known in Siberia as the
“Siege of Olga Liubatovitch.” The best of the joke was, however, that
she had no arms of a more warlike character than a pen-knife and some
kitchen utensils. She herself had not the slightest idea what would
have happened had they stormed her house, but that she would have
defended herself in some way or other is quite certain.
The _Ispravnik_ might have made her pay for her rebellion by several
years of confinement, but how could he confess to his superiors the
cowardice of himself and his subordinates? He preferred, therefore,
to leave her in peace. But he chafed in secret, for he saw that the
partisans of the young Socialist—and they were far from few—ridiculed
himself and his men behind their backs. He determined to vindicate his
offended dignity at all cost, and, being of a stubborn disposition, he
carried out his resolve in the following manner.
A fortnight after the famous siege, he sent a message to Olga to come
to his office at eight o’clock in the morning. She went. She waited an
hour; two hours; but no one came to explain what she was wanted for.
She began to lose patience, and declared that she would go away. But
the official in attendance told her that she must not go; that she must
wait; such were the orders of the _Ispravnik_. She waited until eleven
o’clock. No one came. At last a subaltern appeared, and Olga addressed
herself to him and asked what she was wanted for. The man replied that
he did not know, that the _Ispravnik_ would tell her when he came in.
He could not say, however, when the _Ispravnik_ would arrive.
“In that case,” said Olga, “I should prefer to return some other time.”
But the police officer declared that she must continue to wait in the
antechamber of the office, for such were the orders of the
_Ispravnik_. There could be no doubt that all this was a disgraceful
attempt to provoke her, and Olga, who was of a very irascible
disposition, replied with some observations not of the most respectful
character, and not particularly flattering to the _Ispravnik_ or his
deputy.
“Oh! that’s how you treat the representatives of the Government in the
exercise of their functions, is it?” exclaimed the deputy, as though
prepared for this. And he immediately called in another policeman as a
witness, and drew up a statement of the charge against her.
Olga went away. But proceedings were taken against her before the
district judge, the very man whom she had cured of _delirium tremens_,
who sentenced her to three days’ solitary confinement. It was
confinement in a dark, fetid hole, full of filth and vermin.
Merely in entering it, she was overcome with disgust. When she was
released, she seemed to have passed through a serious illness. It was
not, however, the physical sufferings she had undergone so much as the
humiliation she had endured which chafed her proud disposition.
From that time she became gloomy, taciturn, abrupt. She spent whole
days shut up in her room, without seeing anybody, or wandered away
from the town into the neighboring wood, and avoided people. She was
evidently planning something. Among the worthy citizens of Talutorovsk,
who had a compassionate feeling towards her, some said one thing, some
another, but no one foresaw such a tragic ending as that of which
rumors ran on July 27.
In the morning the landlady entered her room and found it empty. The
bed, undisturbed, clearly showed that she had not slept in it. She had
disappeared. The first idea which flashed through the mind of the old
dame was that Olga had escaped, and she ran in all haste to inform the
_Ispravnik_, fearing that any delay would be considered as a proof of
complicity.
The _Ispravnik_ did not lose a moment. Olga Liubatovitch being one of
the most seriously compromised women, he feared the severest censure,
perhaps even dismissal, for his want of vigilance. He immediately
hastened to the spot in order to discover if possible the direction the
fugitive had taken. But directly he entered the room he found upon the
table two letters signed and sealed, one addressed to the authorities,
the other to the sister of Olga, Vera Liubatovitch, who had also been
banished to another Siberian town. These letters were immediately
opened by the _Ispravnik_, and they revealed the mournful fact that the
young girl had not taken to flight, but had committed suicide. In the
letter addressed to the authorities she said, in a few lines, that she
died by her own hand, and begged that nobody might be blamed. To her
sister she wrote more fully, explaining that her life of continuous
annoyance, of inactivity, and of gradual wasting away, which is the
life of a political prisoner in Siberia, had become hateful to her,
that she could no longer endure it, and preferred to drown herself in
the Tobol. She finished by affectionately begging her sister to forgive
her for the grief she might cause her and her friends and companions in
misfortune.
Without wasting a moment, the _Ispravnik_ hastened to the Tobol, and
there he found the confirmation of the revelation of Olga. Parts of
her dress dangled upon the bushes, under which lay her bonnet, lapped
by the rippling water. Some peasants said that on the previous day
they had seen the young girl wandering on the bank with a gloomy and
melancholy aspect, looking fixedly at the turbid waters of the river.
The _Ispravnik_, through whose hands all the correspondence passed of
the political prisoners banished to his district, recalled certain
expressions and remarks that had struck him in the last letters of Olga
Liubatovitch, the meaning of which now became clear.
There could no longer be any doubt. The _Ispravnik_ sent for all the
fishermen near, and began to drag the river with poles, casting in
nets to recover the body. This, however, led to nothing. Nor was it
surprising: the broad river was so rapid that in a single night it must
have carried a body away—who knows how many leagues? For three days
the _Ispravnik_ continued his efforts, and stubbornly endeavored to
make the river surrender its prey. But at last, after having worn out
all his people and broken several nets against the stones and old
trunks which the river mocked him with, he had to give up the attempt
as unavailing.
II.
The body of Olga, her heart within it throbbing with joy and
uncertainty, had meanwhile been hurried away, not by the yellow waters
of the Tobol, but by a vehicle drawn by two horses galloping at full
speed.
Having made arrangements with a young rustic whom, in her visits to
the neighboring cottages in a medical capacity, she had succeeded in
converting to Socialism, Olga disposed everything so as to make it be
believed that she had drowned herself, and on the night fixed secretly
left her house and proceeded to the neighboring forest, where, at a
place agreed upon, her young disciple was awaiting her. The night was
dark. Beneath the thick foliage of that virgin forest nothing could
be seen, nothing could be heard but the hootings of the owls, and
sometimes, brought from afar, the howling of the wolves, which infest
the whole of Siberia.
As an indispensable precaution, the meeting-place was fixed at a
distance of about three miles, in the interior of the forest. Olga
had to traverse this distance in utter darkness, guided only by the
stars, which occasionally pierced through the dense foliage. She was
not afraid, however, of the wild beasts, or of the highwaymen and
vagrants who are always prowling round the towns in Siberia. It was
the cemetery-keeper’s dog she was afraid of. The cemeteries are always
well looked after in that country, for among the horrible crimes
committed by the scum of the convicts one of the most common is that
of disinterring and robbing the newly buried dead. Now the keeper of
the cemetery of Talutorovsk was not to be trifled with; his dog still
less so. It was a mastiff, as big as a calf, ferocious and vigilant,
and could hear the approach of any one a quarter of a mile off.
Meanwhile the road passed close to the cottage of the solitary keeper.
It was precisely for the purpose of avoiding it that Olga, instead of
following the road, had plunged into the forest, notwithstanding the
great danger of losing her way.
Stumbling at every step against the roots and old fallen trunks,
pricked by the thorny bushes, her face lashed by boughs elastic as
though moved by springs, she kept on for two hours with extreme
fatigue, sustained only by the hope that she would shortly reach the
place of meeting, which could not be far off. At last indeed, the
darkness began to diminish somewhat and the trees to become thinner,
and a moment afterwards she entered upon open ground. She suddenly
stopped, looked around, her blood freezing with terror, and recognised
the keeper’s cottage. She had lost her way in the forest, and, after so
many windings, had gone straight to the point she wished to avoid.
Her first impulse was to run away as fast as her remaining strength
would enable her, but a moment afterwards a thought flashed through
her mind which restrained her. No sound came from the cottage; all
was silent. What could this indicate but the absence of the occupant?
She stood still and listened, holding her breath. In the cottage not
a sound could be heard, but in another direction she heard, in the
silence of the night, the distant barking of a dog, which seemed,
however, to be approaching nearer. Evidently the keeper had gone out,
but at any moment might return, and his terrible dog was perhaps
running in front of him, as though in search of prey. Fortunately from
the keeper’s house to the place of appointment there was a path which
the fugitive had no need to avoid, and she set off and ran as fast as
the fear of being seized and bitten by the ferocious animal would allow
her. The barking, indeed, drew nearer, but so dense was the forest that
not even a dog could penetrate it. Olga soon succeeded in reaching the
open ground, breathless, harassed by the fear of being followed and
the doubt that she might not find any one at the place of appointment.
Great was her delight when she saw in the darkness the expected
vehicle, and recognised the young peasant.
To leap into the vehicle and to hurry away was the work of an instant.
In rather more than five hours of hard driving they reached Tumen, a
town of about 18,000 inhabitants, fifty miles distant from Talutorovsk.
A few hundred yards from the outskirts the vehicle turned into a
dark lane and very quietly approached a house where it was evidently
expected. In a window on the first floor a light was lit, and the
figure of a man appeared. Then the window was opened, and the man,
having recognised the young girl, exchanged a few words in a low tone
with the peasant who was acting as driver. The latter, without a word,
rose from his seat, took the young girl in his arms, for she was small
and light, and passed her on like a baby into the robust hands of the
man, who introduced her into his room. It was the simplest and safest
means of entering unobserved. To have opened the door at such an
unusual hour would have awakened people, and caused gossip.
The peasant went his way, wishing the young girl all success, and
Olga was at last able to take a few hours rest. Her first step had
succeeded. All difficulties were far indeed, however, from being
overcome; for in Siberia it is not so much walls and keepers as
immeasurable distance which is the real gaoler.
In this area, twice as large as all Europe, and with a total population
only twice that of the English capital, towns and villages are
only imperceptible points, separated by immense deserts absolutely
uninhabitable, in which if any one ventured he would die of hunger,
or be devoured by wolves. The fugitive thus has no choice, and must
take one of the few routes which connect the towns with the rest of
the world. Pursuit is therefore extremely easy, and thus, while the
number of the fugitives from the best-guarded prisons and mines amounts
to hundreds among the political prisoners, and to thousands among the
common offenders, those who succeed in overcoming all difficulties and
in escaping from Siberia itself may be counted on the fingers.
There are two means of effecting an escape. The first, which is very
hazardous, is that of profiting, in order to get a good start, by the
first few days, when the police furiously scour their own district
only, without giving information of the escape to the great centres, in
the hope, which is often realised, of informing their superiors of
the escape and capture of the prisoner at the same time. In the most
favorable cases, however, the fugitive gains only three or four days
of time, while the entire journey lasts many weeks, and sometimes many
months. With the telegraph established along all the principal lines
of communication, and even with mere horse patrols, the police have
no difficulty whatever in making up for lost time, and exceptional
cleverness or good fortune is necessary in order to keep out of their
clutches. But this method, as being the simplest and comparatively
easy, as it requires few preparations and but little external
assistance, is adopted by the immense majority of the fugitives, and it
is precisely for this reason that ninety-nine per cent. of them only
succeed in reaching a distance of one or two hundred miles from the
place of their confinement.
Travelling being so dangerous, the second mode is much more safe—that
of remaining hidden in some place of concealment, carefully prepared
beforehand, in the province itself, for one, two, three, six months,
until the police, after having carried on the chase so long in vain,
come to the conclusion that the fugitive must be beyond the frontiers
of Siberia, and slacken or entirely cease their vigilance. This was the
plan followed in the famous escape of Lopatin, who remained more than
a month at Irkutsk, and of Debagorio Mokrievitch, who spent more than
a year in various places in Siberia before undertaking his journey to
Russia.
Olga Liubatovitch did not wish, however, to have recourse to the latter
expedient, and selected the former. It was a leap in the dark. But
she built her hopes upon the success of the little stratagem of her
supposed suicide, and the very day after her arrival at Tumen she set
out towards Europe by the postal and caravan road to Moscow.
To journey by post in Russia, a travelling passport (_podorojna_) must
be obtained, signed by the governor. Olga certainly had none, and could
not lose time in procuring one. She had, therefore, to find somebody in
possession of this indispensable document whom she could accompany. As
luck would have it, a certain Soluzeff, who had rendered himself famous
a few years before by certain forgeries and malversations on a grand
scale, had been pardoned by the Emperor and was returning to Russia.
He willingly accepted the company of a pretty countrywoman, as Olga
represented herself to him to be, who was desirous of going to Kazan,
where her husband was lying seriously ill, and consented to pay her
share of the travelling expenses. But here another trouble arose. This
Soluzeff, being on very good terms with the gendarmes and the police,
a whole army of them accompanied him to the post-station. Now Olga had
begun her revolutionary career at sixteen, she was arrested for the
first time at seventeen, and during the seven years of that career had
been in eleven prisons, and had passed some few months in that of Tumen
itself. It was little short of a miracle that no one recognised the
celebrated Liubatovitch in the humble travelling companion of their
common friend.
At last, however, the vehicle set out amid the shouts and cheers of the
company. Olga breathed more freely. Her tribulations were not, however,
at an end.
I need not relate the various incidents of her long journey. Her
companion worried her. He was a man whom long indulgence in luxury had
rendered effeminate, and at every station said he was utterly worn out,
and stopped to rest himself and take some tea with biscuits, preserves,
and sweets, an abundance of which he carried with him. Olga, who was
in agonies, as her deception might be found out at any moment, and
telegrams describing her be sent to all the post-stations of the line,
had to display much cunning and firmness to keep this poltroon moving
on without arousing suspicions respecting herself. When, however, near
the frontier of European Russia, she was within an ace of betraying
herself. Soluzeff declared that he was incapable of going any farther,
that he was thoroughly knocked up by this feverish hurry-skurry, and
must stop a few days to recover himself. Olga had some thought of
disclosing everything, hoping to obtain from his generosity what she
could not obtain from his sluggish selfishness. There is no telling
what might have happened if a certain instinct, which never left Olga
even when she was most excited, had not preserved her from this very
dangerous step.
A greater danger awaited her at Kazan. No sooner had she arrived than
she hastened away to take her ticket by the first steamboat going up
the Volga towards Nijni-Novgorod. Soluzeff, who said he was going
south, would take the opposite direction. Great, therefore, was her
surprise and bewilderment when she saw her travelling companion upon
the same steamer. She did everything she could to avoid him, but in
vain. Soluzeff recognised her, and, advancing towards her, exclaimed in
a loud voice:—
“What! you here? Why, you told me your husband was lying ill in the
Kazan Hospital.”
Some of the passengers turned round and looked, and among them the
gendarme who was upon the boat. The danger was serious. But Olga,
without losing her self-possession, at once invented a complete
explanation of the unexpected change in her itinerary. Soluzeff took it
all in, as did the gendarme who was listening.
At Moscow she was well known, having spent several months in its
various prisons. Not caring to go to the central station, which is
always full of gendarmes on duty, she was compelled to walk several
leagues, to economise her small stock of money, and take the train at a
small station, passing the night in the open air.
Many were the perils from which, thanks to her cleverness, she escaped.
But her greatest troubles awaited her in the city she so ardently
desired to reach, St. Petersburg.
When a Nihilist, after a rather long absence, suddenly reaches some
city without previously conferring with those who have been there
recently, his position is a very singular one. Although he may know he
is in the midst of friends and old companions in arms, he is absolutely
incapable of finding any of them. Being “illegal” people, or outlaws,
they live with false passports, and are frequently compelled to change
their names and their places of abode. To inquire for them under their
old names is not to be thought of, for these continuous changes are not
made for mere amusement, but from the necessity, constantly recurring,
of escaping from some imminent danger, more or less grave. To go to the
old residence of a Nihilist and ask for him under his old name would be
voluntarily putting one’s head into the lion’s mouth.
Under such circumstances, a Nihilist is put to no end of trouble,
and has to wander hither and thither in order to find his friends.
He applies to old acquaintances among people who are “legal” and
peaceful—that is to say, officials, business men, barristers, doctors,
etc., who form an intermediate class, unconsciously connecting the
most active Nihilists with those who take the least interest in public
affairs. In this class there are people of all ranks. Some secretly
aid the Nihilists more or less energetically. Others receive them into
their houses, simply as friends, without having any “serious” business
with them. Others, again, see them only casually, but know from whom
more or less accurate information is to be obtained; and so on. All
these people being unconnected with the movement, or almost so, run
little risk of being arrested, and living as they do “legally”—that is
to say, under their own names—they are easy to be found, and supply
the Ariadne’s thread which enables any one to penetrate into the
Nihilist labyrinth who has not had time, or who has been unable, to
obtain the addresses of the affiliated.