OF MY ARREST AND IMPRISONMENT AT BRAÇLAW.
ARREST--EXAMINATION--MAJOR POLOUTKOVSKÏ--JOURNEY TO BRAÇLAW--AN
ACCIDENT--THE PRISON AT BRAÇLAW--A RUSSIAN SCENE--KIOW.
On December 31st, 1843, and just at the late dawning of the day, I
felt myself shaken by the arm, and I was addressed in a loud voice by
my assumed name. Though awake, I was in no hurry to reply; I wished
to gain time to compose myself for my part. When at last I opened my
eyes, I beheld in my room the Director of Police, Colonel Grunfield;
a Commissary; and Major Poloutkovskoï, of the Council of Prince
Bibikov, Governor-General of Volhynia, Podolia, and the Ukraine; the
Major having come from Kiow to take steps for my arrest. I expressed
my surprise at so early a visit, and my astonishment was naturally
redoubled at the intelligence that I must be taken, under escort,
before the Governor. I did not, of course, fail to represent my rights
as a British subject, or to remind them of the grave results that were
likely to accrue to themselves for this inconceivable conduct towards
me. After having thus gone through all the formalities necessary to
keep up my character, I asked permission to go into the next room, to
perform my toilet. While I was dressing, the Commissary took possession
of my papers and effects, and we were soon on our way to the house of
the Governor Radistchev, with whom I had been personally acquainted for
some time.
This first interview was both short and indecisive. The Governor
entered the room abruptly, and addressed me in Russian. I pretended not
to understand what he said, and requested that I might be interrogated
in French; above all I begged that he would explain the cause of my
being arrested. ‘You will learn that presently;’ and, at a signal given
by his hand, I was then hustled out of the room. I was conducted to
the house of the Director of Police, and there installed in a room
which opened into a saloon. The doors were locked, and the official in
uniform left to keep me company strictly observed the rule that he was
not to speak to me.
Up to this time I had preserved my presence of mind, and I had even
been astonished at my own perfect calmness at the moment of my
awakening; but now, when alone or nearly so, I suddenly felt a great
sinking of my heart. The thought of the many sufferings in store for
me, in store also for so many of my brothers, seemed to set my brain on
fire, and tears forced themselves into my eyes. To hide this dangerous
emotion, I turned to the wall, and leant my forehead against it; but
through the walls I fancied that sighs and moans were audible, the
voices of the companions of my unhappy fate. Determined to distract my
thoughts as much as I could, I took up a pack of playing cards that lay
on the round table. A child of the Ukraine, I was by nature a little
superstitious; I began to draw the cards, and they promised ... my
deliverance! Shall I say it? This fortunate augury only increased my
irritation, and I was almost obliged to the head official who entered
the room at this instant, and who, after enquiring into my wants,
carried away with him The tempting game.
A few minutes later a distraction of a more important kind took the
place of the childish consolation which I had found in the cards.
Another officer had been sent to join the one already in charge of
me, and between them a conversation soon began which certainly was
not devoid of interest for me. I was so well known in Kaminieç, and
everyone was so thoroughly convinced of my ignorance of the two
languages used in the country, that even now these two officials still
thought me a foreigner, and they put no restraint on the remarks which
they made to each other in Russian and in a loud tone of voice. I need
not say that I lost nothing from want of attention to such a colloquy.
‘It is a serious matter,’ said the one; ‘a political business. They
have arrested twenty people in the town already this morning (he gave
the names), and orders have been sent out to the country, and all on
account of this foreigner, who, they say, is come here to intrigue
against the Tzar, and who is accredited by some other power, England
or France--the devil knows which! They do not speak very well either
of President Abaza; if anything happens to him it will be a pity,
for he is an honest man; but I must say that at _his_ age it _was_
an odd idea to wish to learn French! Much he is like to make by his
French lessons!’... ‘What a pity! what a pity to be sure!’ answered
the other one; ‘when this gentleman came here nine months ago I was
ordered to watch him, as we do every new comer. I dogged his steps, I
compassed him about on every side; but his conduct was so very open,
his relations with both Russians and Poles so frank, and he appeared
to me to be so really inoffensive, that at last I lost sight of him;
and it seems he was a very pretty fellow after all, and now another
man has been down upon him, and will claim the reward! Now I call
_that_ having no luck! Scoundrel that he is! bah! what a pity, what a
pity to be sure!’... I could not help being amused at the strange way
in which this poor wretch condoled with himself for having lost the
opportunity of bringing about my ruin; but the rest of the information
which I extracted from their talk gave, if possible, a graver turn
to my thoughts. I could no longer doubt that many persons had been
arrested on my account; but the names which I had just heard repeated
belonged to such different classes of my acquaintances that I discerned
in them at least one source of hope. They were evidently groping in the
dark as yet, and arresting right and left, while suspicions reached as
far, or rather were as far astray, as Monsieur Abaza! In another point
of view I imitated the naive cynicism of my police official, and was
quite ready to rejoice at the trouble in which I had landed the worthy
President of the Chamber of Finance. If indeed the Russians whom I knew
were to be implicated in the trial, the affair would get into a strange
confusion, and who knows then whether my accomplices might not benefit
by the perfect innocence of the others, which would certainly soon be
made manifest?
At four o’clock in the afternoon I had a visit from the Governor, and
from Major Poloutkovskoï. They represented to me that my position was
an alarming one, and that it would be best for my own interest if I
made the most complete confession. I persisted in my resolution. I
declared I did not understand in the least what they wanted with me,
and I spoke of writing to the English ambassador in St. Petersburg, and
of claiming his protection. ‘You are then in a great hurry to leave
Kaminieç?’ replied the Governor, ironically; ‘but keep yourself easy,
I will furnish you with all the means for it.’ The same questions were
repeated on the following days, either in the house of the Director of
Police, where I was still detained, or in that of the Governor, who
had me brought to him under an escort; the same arguments were urged,
on the one side, to make me confess my real character, and there was,
on the other side, the same obstinacy in keeping up the part which
I had assumed. The manners of the Governor were generally cold but
polite, sometimes however they were ironical, and even vehement. ‘It is
in vain to say that you are a Maltese, and to play this comedy,’ cried
he, in one of his examinations; ‘we know very well that you belong to
the Ukraine, and so-and-so have already confessed that they have talked
with you in Polish.’ He named to me two of the co-accused, the least
initiated into my sayings and doings, and also the least firm. Twice
over I was confronted with them. These interviews were most painful,
and in spite of the flat denials which I opposed to those who thus
denounced me, I saw the impossibility of persisting any longer in the
line which I had hitherto followed. Every day more abundant and more
precise information arrived about me, and it became clear that in
prolonging a useless game I ran the risk of aggravating the situation
of my accomplices; but I determined to collect the greatest possible
number of the accused, and to make them witnesses to my confession,
so that they might know its limits and follow my suit. I waited to
be confronted with them in a body. I had not long to wait, and one
evening when summoned to the Governor’s residence, I perceived in
the hall a great number of my fellow-prisoners arranged along the two
walls, and all standing up--they presented a moving spectacle, I might
almost say a fantastic one. Many of them were persons with whom I had
but a very slight acquaintance, others had been in my secret, all bore
upon their faces the marks of suffering and fatigue. After a certain
time spent as usual in pressing questions and in absolute denials, I
exclaimed, as if out of patience, in a loud voice, and in my native
tongue, ‘Well then, yes, I am not a British subject, I am a Pole; I
was born in the Ukraine, I emigrated after the revolution of 1831,
and I came back here. I came back into this country because a life of
exile was no longer endurable to me, and because I wished to revisit
Poland. I came here under a feigned name, because I was perfectly
aware that bearing my own name I should not be suffered to remain; I
was ready at any price to be quiet and inoffensive, asking nothing but
to breathe my native air. I have confided my secret to a few of my
fellow-countrymen, I have asked their help and their advice, I have
asked them for nothing else, and I have nothing else to say to them.’
In spite of the certainty as to my identity which they must now have
possessed for some time, the Governor and Major Poloutkovskoï could not
suppress an exclamation of surprise at hearing me thus suddenly speak
out in Polish; and while I was speaking I could see the Governor’s face
expand; he rubbed his hands, walked up and down the room with long
steps, and when I ceased came up to me with a benevolent air, as if
he felt obliged to me for having put an end to a situation which was
really untenable. After a few insignificant questions, he gave orders
to have me removed.
On my return to the house where I was detained, being still under
the influence of the late excitement, I took every one strangely by
surprise by suddenly beginning to talk in Polish. In this language
I addressed the director, the officials, and my keepers. I took a
childish and feverish pleasure in making use of a freedom which had
been so long denied me; and I behaved in the same way on the following
day, though, from an obstinacy which had its root in repugnance, rather
than in any calculation whatever, I pretended, as before, that I did
not understand Russian. As to my native speech I used it to my heart’s
content; it was as if I wished to make amends to myself by the liberty
of a few hours for having had to abstain from it during an entire year.
Thus ended the preliminaries of my trial, and on the morrow Major
Poloutkovskoï came to desire me to hold myself in readiness to depart
on that very evening for Kiow.
It was on a fine but cold winter’s night that I quitted Kaminieç. I
took my seat in a roomy open carriage alongside of Major Poloutkovskoï.
Opposite us sat two soldiers, with loaded muskets, and we were followed
by a second carriage, in which were two officers of the secret
Police. Owing to the season, and the lateness of the hour, which was
midnight, the town was dark, and the streets were deserted; but as
I passed before certain houses which I knew well, and of which the
inhabitants were united in the same lot with myself, I looked up, and I
saw lights still burning. Was it as a message of farewell? or did they
bear witness to vigils full of anguish which were being held within?
The plaintive tinkling of bells, fastened, after the Russian fashion,
to the shafts of the vehicle, which was drawn by three horses, alone
broke the mournful silence of the night, and I sank into a reverie of
indulged sadness. I was obliged to my companion for not interrupting
the current of my thoughts by words; he did not speak even when we
stopped to change horses, and it was not till the day began to break
that he commenced a conversation. It turned at first only on France;
her administration, her commercial arrangements, her agriculture, her
commerce, these were all subjects in which he seemed to take a great
interest. By degrees we began to talk of politics, even of emigration,
and I had the opportunity of convincing myself how perfect was the
knowledge which my interlocutor had been able to collect of our
means, our men, and even of our smallest publications. I expressed my
astonishment at this to him; he smiled and replied, ‘We are obliged
to learn all these things, and the means of learning them are never
wanting.’ In general, the Major, whom I had had the opportunity of
studying during the examination that had taken place at Kaminieç,
and whom I was to meet again later in the Commission of Inquiry at
Kiow, showed himself, though cold and almost indifferent, to be a
well-educated man. He was polite and courteous in his demeanour to me,
and in all my interviews with the Governor of Kaminieç he had never
failed to call General Radistchev to reason, whenever he gave vent to
any burst of violence. A spring of my _calèche_ having given way on the
evening of our arrival at Mohilow, I had to be put into a _kibitka_
with the two soldiers, while the Major in another preceded us, along
with the officers of the secret Police; and we were carried along
with a rapidity of which no one who has not seen a Russian convoy of
this kind can form any idea. There it was that I met with an accident
the nature of which I am still far from understanding and which I
despair of describing to my readers. At one of those jolts of which
the _kibitka_ at its furious pace bestows so many on the traveller, I
felt something snap in the tendons which attach the head, and a sharp
and terrible pain made me give vent to such a savage cry of distress
that I was heard in the accompanying carriage. The Major called a halt,
and asked what was the matter with me. I was not able to reply, I was
simply sobbing; he ordered them to go at a walk to the post-house,
which relieved me much, but at the least jar the same frightful
suffering recurred, and I screamed while I tried to steady my head
between my hands. Arrived at the station I was not able to leave the
carriage, and to my shame and distress I was crying like a child. Then
the Major, who was obliged to press on in person to Braçlaw, left me
in charge of one of the police officials and of the two soldiers, and
desired them to go at a foot’s pace. Thus we continued our journey,
but, at the end of some hours, my companion, wearied by the slowness
of our march, ordered them to go quicker. Hardly had the horses broken
into a gallop when the pain became really insupportable. I felt I was
becoming mad, and warned by my piercing cries, my guardian called to
the driver to stop. ‘You must go slowly; if you won’t, blow my brains
out at once; believe me, if you continue to gallop, I shall not be
able to support it more than five minutes; I shall be dead, and what
will be your position then?’ I did not exaggerate in any way, and my
words gaining force by my strong conviction, made an impression upon
those who had the charge of me. We continued all that night walking
slowly, and when at daybreak we reached a posting-house, they put
me into a sledge, for the road, though not all covered with snow,
was deep in mud. Finally, at one o’clock we reached Braçlaw, where
Major Poloutkovskoï was in waiting for us. My deplorable condition
touched him visibly; he put his hand on my arm, and looking at me with
attention, he questioned me on the pain which I felt. It was the first
and the only time that he showed me any true compassion. He told me
that the wants of the service summoned him imperatively to Kiow, but
that I should remain here until I had recovered my strength a little;
he soon afterwards took leave of me, and after having pushed on a
little longer, my sledge stopped in the town before a vast and sombre
building. They bid me get out, the heavy gates grated on their hinges,
and after having traversed several dim corridors, I found myself in
the middle of a little room, which was tolerably clean, and of which
the window was furnished with strong iron bars. I flung myself on the
paillasse, which I saw in one corner, and covered myself with my cloak.
A few moments afterwards I received a visit from the _sous préfet_,
and from the doctor, a Pole, who examined me with much interest,
prescribed repose, and some medicines; and I was again left alone with
the two soldiers. Repose was in truth the only remedy for my pain, of
which I felt nothing as long as I remained quiet and lying down. Thus
long hours passed away, when all of a sudden breaking through the deep
silence I heard a strange clinking which I was not able to explain;
but I soon distinguished the sound of chains, both behind the wall and
in the corridors. I was then in one of those great prisons, called
Krepost; but who might my companions be? Simple criminals perhaps;
or, it may be political prisoners, countrymen of my own? My doubts
were soon cleared up; I heard a song rise, sonorous, choral, and only
broken by the sound of fetters; the words were Polish, the melody a
familiar one:--
In a cradle sleeping, the Babe Divine, ...
It was then Christmas time, and these poor prisoners, my compatriots,
were intoning at midnight, after our ancient custom, the venerable
hymn which hails the Saviour’s birth. Then followed other canticles in
common use:--
Thus to the shepherds did the angels say, ...
and
To Bethlehem running, &c....
Ah, those Christmas hymns!--songs which had rocked my childhood and
pleased me in youth, and which I had not heard for the last twelve
years--ever since I had emigrated to another land. How after twelve
years was I to hear them again? Chanted by captives, and accompanied by
the rattle of their chains!
On both the following days I was visited repeatedly by the _sous
préfet_, and by the doctor. I felt very weak, but quite free from the
pain in my head; and upon being asked by the official in charge whether
I was ready to continue my journey, I replied in the affirmative, for
I was anxious to reach Kiow. As we were stepping into our sledges, I
noticed in the courtyard a regiment of soldiers, whose bearing was so
fine and so soldierly that I made a remark upon it to the _sous préfet_
as he stood beside me. ‘They are,’ he said, ‘Polish soldiers of 1831,
incorporated now into the army of the South.’ Thus did I meet again
after such a lapse of years my former companions in arms. I could not
help uncovering my head to them, and calling out loudly in Polish, ‘All
hail, comrades!’ ‘Forward!’ shouted the _sous préfet_ immediately; and
the horses went off like an arrow from a bow. We had hardly gone two
or three leagues out of Braçlaw when we met a carriage driving at a
fast and furious pace, and which pulled up alongside of us. An officer
of the armed Police sprang out of it, who, after conversing for a few
minutes with my companion, came up to me, and announced that for the
future I should consider myself under his guardianship.
He seemed a young man of about twenty, or a little older; very tall,
very slight, very tight in his uniform, with a waist like a wasp, and
with a hard haughty manner. He was, as I afterwards learnt, a German
by birth, and the sight of him gave me a curious sense of uneasiness,
so that I began to regret Major Poloutkovskoï. At one place he made
us drive off the high road, and we got out at a solitary house, a
guard-house apparently, and there they fitted me with a pair of
handcuffs. I was then led down to a hut, which was underground, and
to a sort of forge, where a soldier farrier had with some difficulty
lit the furnace fires. The officer produced some chains from some
corner or another, and he now stood contemplating them with an
expression of face which was both curious and fierce. These irons
were the most detestable things that can be imagined; red with rust,
they were composed of two long bars fastened in the middle by a bit
of chain, and having a foot-ring at each end. Having finished all the
preparations, the soldier tried the rings on me above each ankle, but
they were so tight that I could not help shouting with the pain. The
officer simply said, ‘Come, come!’ but when they were to be soldered
up I pulled my feet out, and declared that I would lodge a complaint
before the Governor-General if they did not let the rings out. This
made the officer pause for a moment. He ordered them to attend to my
demand, and bolts were at last let into them with hammers and punches;
but I suffered a great deal from them still, and they remained always
too tight, while the rusty bit of chain hindered the long bars from
turning, and left me wholly unable to walk. They lifted me up, and
hoisted me, thus trussed, into the carriage. Late in the night, and
after we had left Bialocerkiew behind, the sleigh in which I was
reached the top of an incline, and, coming upon some stumbling-block,
it upset. The soldiers were thrown off, I don’t know what became of the
coachman; as for myself, pinioned and unable to move, I was flung out,
but my fetters hooked on in some way to the vehicle, and I was dragged
along through the snow and the mud by the horses, which continued their
maddened course; my knees, elbows, and chest were bruised, and I
finally lost consciousness. When I came to myself again, I found that
I had been reinstalled into my sledge, and that all was restored to
order. The young officer standing alongside of me asked if I was much
hurt? I made no answer; and now began a scene which was truly Russian
in its character. The officer struck with his fists at the two unhappy
soldiers on account of an accident in which no one had had any part
but himself, for he had been constantly calling out to go quicker. The
soldiers, as soon as we were again under way, paid off on the driver
the blows they had received from the officer; and he, in return,
revenged himself on his horses by flogging them so brutally that we
ran every risk of having a repetition of the adventure. More dead than
alive, I saw all that was done; and, such is the weakness of our human
nature, I had but one feeling, the fear of a second accident. At each
pitch and at the least jolt I shut my eyes and nearly swooned; and yet
I was not naturally timid, and my nerves were not precisely of the most
delicate order. The following day I arrived before the fortress of
Kiow.