OF MY IMPRISONMENT AT KIOW, AND MY DEPARTURE FOR SIBERIA.
THE FORTRESS AT KIOW--PRINCE BIBIKOV--EXAMINATION--A COMMISSION OF
INQUIRY--A BIBLE--FELLOW-PRISONERS--THE MANIAC--PREPARATIONS FOR
‘DEPORTATION’--THE SENTENCE.
Carried in the arms of several soldiers, I was first deposited in the
business room of the Commandant of the place. Here I was searched,
registered, and inscribed on the books; while they plied me with
questions, to which I know not what answers I made, for I had no
knowledge either of what I was doing or of what I was saying. They set
me upright at last, and I walked, supported by soldiers, through an
endless number of rooms and corridors. A door was opened, I entered
the cell, and I fell exhausted on a mattress. Two jailers and an
aide-de-camp entered along with them, and the latter asked me if I
wanted anything. I requested to have my fetters changed, or to have
the foot-rings opened and made wider. He replied that he had no power
to do so, but that he would report the request. I was then left
alone, and at the end of a very few minutes I fell asleep. I slept
twenty-five hours without turning, and was only awakened at the end
of that time by my keepers, whom this prolonged slumber had alarmed.
Soon after, the colonel in command was ushered in. He was covered with
orders, and addressing me in Polish, he asked how I was, and what might
be the cause of my indisposition. I thanked him, but I said nothing
of the accidents of my journey; for where was the use of making any
complaints? He promised that some broth should be sent to me, and took
leave of me with these words, ‘Try to regain your strength, you are
much weakened; and here, in our prisons, one has need of health to bear
one’s many sufferings.
I was indeed very weak, but I was no longer tormented by that terrible
pain in my head, of which I was more afraid than of anything else.
There remained the pains in my chest, elbows and knees, which were the
consequences of the accident, and from which I was yet to suffer for
several months to come. I looked round my cell; it was six feet by
five, pretty high in the roof, in very bad repair, very dirty, and lit
by a small window placed close to the ceiling, and grated with iron
bars both within and without. Over my head I could read several names
cut with some difficulty on the wall; among others that of Rabczynski,
whom I was to meet hereafter in Siberia. The only furniture was a
little table, a wooden chair, and a great stove in earthenware. Some
broth and some bread were brought to me, but the difficulty of eating
in handcuffs was so great and irritated me so much that I finished my
meal before my appetite was appeased. Suddenly, the sight of the bread
that remained suggested to me a providential idea. It certainly was not
the first time that I had thought of Konarski, whose sufferings were
fresh in every memory. I knew that hunger had been one of the engines
of torture tried upon him, and I had no security that I might not have
to pass through a similar ordeal. So I determined to lay up a fund
against this extremity, and I hid the bread in a hole behind the stove,
high up in the wall; and this I did on the following days with the
bread that was supplied to me. I was quite pleased with the store of
biscuit thus prepared against the time of famine.
Somewhat revived by the food and by sleep, I now became sensible of
an annoyance which I could not at first account for. Presently I
discovered that I was literally covered with vermin, the mattress,
and the room were filthy with them, and the handcuffs prevented my
even attempting to destroy them. I looked round and caught two eyes
fixed upon me; it was the sentry on guard in the corridor, who had
orders to watch all my movements through the aperture cut in my door;
in vain, however, did I call to him, he paid me not the slightest
attention; but happily for me on the following day the Commandant of
the fortress caused me to be moved into the opposite cell, and had my
room purified. He gave orders at the same time to have me shaved; an
officer assisted at the operation, and when I requested that they would
leave my whiskers, I received an answer which, all things considered,
was rather out of place: ‘No, no; we will leave you nothing but your
moustaches, and that will be quite in the Polish fashion; the ancient
Poles wore nothing but a moustache.’ I soon returned to my cell, now
a little cleaner than it had been; but what most moved my gratitude
towards the Commandant was that he had my handcuffs taken off; and with
the recovered liberty of my hands I recovered, strange to say, all the
freedom and former energy of my mind. I kept constantly stretching out
my arms, hardly daring to believe in my happiness, and I felt like a
child escaped from its swaddling bands.
A week, or nearly a week, now elapsed without bringing any notable
change in my position. My food was wholesome and plentiful, the room
was cleansed every day, but the want of air and of exercise had
completely enervated me. My chains prevented my walking, or even
standing. I remained almost always lying on my paillasse, rising in
general only in the morning to kneel and repeat the Lord’s Prayer. The
nights were long and without any light, and their quiet was only broken
by the sound of the hammers, when they fitted or unfitted the fetters
of some of the prisoners. Although it was forbidden to the sentries
and keepers to speak to me, I soon managed to learn that all my accused
friends from Kaminieç were in the same prison with myself, though
lodged in different corridors.
One day, about noon, a great noise was heard at the entrance of my
cell, the door opened, and a man appeared before me in the undress of
a general officer, surrounded by generals and aides-de-camp, all in
full uniform, who stood back respectfully in the corridor. The man had
a tall figure, grey hair cut like a brush, an oval face without any
moustaches, and very piercing eyes: his left sleeve was fastened up to
one of the breast buttons of his coat, and the loss of an arm which
this indicated convinced me that I now beheld no less a person than
the Governor-General of Volhynia, Podolia, and the Ukraine, Prince
Bibikov.[3] He took off his cap, pushed the door close, without however
shutting it, sat down on the chair, and made me a sign to reseat myself
on the mattress from which I had risen. During the conversation which
followed he seemed very much annoyed at the bad air of the cell, and
turned mechanically to the high window several times, as if to breathe
freely. He addressed me in French.
‘You probably guess who I am?’
‘I believe that I have the honour of speaking to the Governor-General,
Prince Bibikov.’
‘Your name is Piotrowski; you are a native of the Ukraine; you took
part in the revolt of 1831, you emigrated to France. You afterwards
returned to Kaminieç under the name of Catharo.’
‘Yes, your Excellency.’
‘You pretend that your return had no other object than that of
revisiting your native land; but when after 1831 the Emperor granted an
amnesty, why did you not avail yourself of it?’
‘I do not wish to say anything that might be displeasing to your
Excellency, but at the same time the manner in which this amnesty
was drawn up was not of the nature to encourage us. Furthermore, the
amnesty only applied to subjects of the kingdom, the inhabitants of the
detached and outlying provinces were deprived of it; and to conclude,
before asking pardon, one must feel that one has been guilty.’
‘Who gave you that English passport?’
‘I found it in the street.’
‘You spent more than a month in Hungary; you see that I am well
informed about you. Why did you go there?’
‘To make my traces more difficult to follow, and to shorten the
journey.’
‘Oh! but you had some other reasons; you are a member of the Democratic
Society.’
‘I once formed a part of it, but I have withdrawn from it a long time
ago.’
‘You are an emissary of that society?’
‘No.’
‘Then in coming here you had no political mission?’
‘Certainly, I had none.’
‘Such assertions are not likely to improve your situation; I do not
hide from you that it is a very unpleasant one; and only a sincere and
complete confession can diminish your troubles, and above all make you
worthy of the indulgence of the Emperor. You knew Konarski?’[4]
‘No.’
‘But you have heard of him?’
‘Certainly, above all of the tortures inflicted upon him.’
‘Your case is similar to that of Konarski, and only the sincerity of
your confession can lessen its consequences. I do not wish to judge of
your sentiments, I only wish to know whom you have known at Kaminieç,
and in the provinces; I do not ask you to tell me what were your mutual
plans, tell me only with whom were you acquainted.’
‘Why, your Excellency, I knew almost everybody in Kaminieç, and in its
neighbourhood.’
‘That is not the question, and you know that it is not; the point is,
who were your intimates?’
‘I had none; it is true I was able to reveal my nationality to a few,
and to ask their help and counsel; but your Excellency must fully
understand why I ought not to name them.’
After some moments of silence, Prince Bibikov replied, ‘I do not
understand why the Poles and the Russians should hate and hurt each
other for ever; we are all Slaves, brought together by origin,
language, and manners, we ought to be united, and to march on together;
and he who thinks otherwise does not understand the true interests of
the two nations.’
‘I am quite of your Excellency’s way of thinking, and we indeed have
no feeling of ill-will towards the Russian nation; but we aspire to be
free, and as regards the government....’
‘I have no time to discuss this with you. I repeat it, your situation
is a most critical one, but you can improve it sensibly by making a
sincere avowal; I do not promise you complete or immediate liberty, for
I never promise that which I am not sure of being able to perform, but
I can intercede with the Emperor that he would give you permission to
serve for the future in the army of the Caucasus. The Poles, like all
the Slaves, are brave and courageous; you are still young, you are not
wanting in intellect, you would very soon become an officer, and then
your career would depend only on yourself.’
He pronounced these words in a loud and firm voice; then rising, he
added, with a certain gentleness: ‘For the rest, I do not ask for your
secrets; tell me only the names of the persons by whom you were known.
I have no wish to know what you said to them--their names are all that
is required; and I do not even exact from you that you should give them
in immediately. You are weak, and under impressions still too recent
and too lively. When you wish to speak to me, send to say so by the
orderly of the day; in the meantime, let me have a note from you, and
put your biography on paper.’ He made me a slight bow, and, as he went
out, stopped at the door, and said, ‘Have his chains taken off.’
Some minutes afterwards, the Commandant of the place came with a
farrier to see me delivered from my chains; and this was the first and
last benefit which I derived from the visit of the Governor-General;
but it was a very great advantage, and I was truly grateful to him for
it, for since my departure from Kaminieç I had not been able to take
my boots off once. My legs were much bruised, yet I walked up and down
my room the whole of that day; and I had almost a pleasure in the pain
which the exercise gave me, for it proved that my feet were free.
Some weeks passed; and one evening, at a pretty late hour of the night,
I saw a thing which had never yet entered my cell--it was a light. An
aide-de-camp, followed by four soldiers, bid me rise, and follow him.
Is the moment of execution arrived? I thought, as I threw round my cell
a glance which had in it something of a farewell. Supported under my
arms by the soldiers, I traversed the great court of the prison. The
snow creaked under our feet, the night was very dark; but the keen and
pure air, to which I was not accustomed, while it cut my breath, did
me an indescribable amount of good; and while I believed that I was on
the way to meet my fate, I felt, if I may so express it, a bitter-sweet
delight in inhaling the fresh gusts of wind. I was led into a large
room, which was feebly illuminated, and where officers of different
ranks were seated at a large round table covered with green cloth; they
smoked their cigars, talked in a loud voice, and laughed between times.
This was the Commission of Inquiry.
Among these gentlemen it was with real joy that I recognised the face
of Major Poloutkovskoï, and yet he it was who had arrested me! The
person who presided, and who seemed to be chairman of the commission,
was dressed in a plain black coat. He was a member of the third
division of the Imperial Cabinet (the secret Police) and a Privy
Councillor--in short, it was Pissarev, the _alter ego_ of Prince
Bibikov, a man of whom the remembrance is too terrible to be soon
effaced in the detached provinces. He made a sign to me to approach,
allowed me to be seated near him, and began his questions in French,
and in a very affable tone. Although with more of detail, they were
identical with those which had been put to me by Prince Bibikov. I made
the same answers--and such was the character of the many examinations
which I underwent before the Commission of Inquiry.
As I was of noble birth, I found, one day, at one of the sittings
of the Commission, the Marshal of the nobility of the province. His
presence was demanded by the laws; but he seemed to suffer from his
office, and evidently only went through a painful formality, while he
addressed me in Polish and put a few questions as to my family and
connections. On the whole, these gentlemen seldom failed to treat me
with consideration, in spite of the silence and the negatives with
which I met their demands. One day, the president even said to me, ‘You
must find the time in prison pass very slowly; my library is at your
disposal, if you wish to have some books. Do you prefer travels or
novels?’
‘Will you have the kindness to let me have a Bible?’
‘A Bible!’ he replied, looking at me with an odd expression; ‘upon my
word, I have not got such a thing; but I can procure one for you.’ And
he did send me a Bible, after which time I no longer felt that I was
alone.
Those of my fellow-countrymen to whom the very names of Prince Bibikov
and of M. Pissarev recall the sorrows of so many families, the blood
and tears of so many noble victims, and of three provinces all outraged
and oppressed under the pressure of the most haughty and rapacious of
tyrannies, will no doubt be astonished--it may be, shocked--at what
I have just related. Yet such undoubtedly was the conduct of these
two men towards myself. I ought also here to declare that no attempt
was ever made to inflict on me any of the tortures to which so many
Poles have been subjected in Russian prisons--more than one of my
fellow-accused being, alas! among the number. It is true that I was
several times threatened with such measures, but the threat was never
put into execution.
The inquest dragged out its length however, and I soon received
the blessed permission to walk in the corridors every day for one
hour--care being taken to clear them at that time of every living soul,
except the two sentries. The corridor was narrow, dark, and damp; but
at least I could satisfy the imperious necessity for exercise which I
had felt, and I could also talk in secret from time to time with the
sentries. If these soldiers chanced to be Poles--which they very often
were, being even men who had served with us in our army of 1831--they
always showed me more compassion, while they maintained also a far
greater show of reserve. The Russian soldiers acted I think more from
curiosity; but what surprised me most was the frequency with which
I was asked whether I had never met, in foreign countries, with the
Grand Duke Constantine, whom they firmly believed to be living in
France or in England, and who should one day return to deliver them
from Nicholas. I found however that I must renounce the real pleasure
which I felt in talking to my sentries. One day the jailer surprised
one of them in conversation with me. He was led off to receive sixty
blows with the rods, and the cries of the unhappy man under punishment
presently reached my ears.
I ought to say something in this place of my neighbours, viz. of those
who inhabited the cells opposite my prison. Those who were implicated
in my affair were lodged in another part of the fortress, and I
never had any communication with them. Once only I caught a glimpse
of the judge, Zawadzki, and I hardly recognised him again, for the
man formerly so strong and very corpulent was reduced to a perfect
skeleton. My neighbours in the corridor were not political criminals.
One of them, a soldier named Toumanov, awaited in irons the execution
of his sentence of four thousand blows with the rods, which had been
passed on him for some insubordination to his superiors. He had no
fear, counted on the ‘toughness of his hide,’ as he expressed it,
cursed the Tzar, his officers, and his fate, and sang a great deal,
especially an air of which the words began, ‘March to the sacking of
Poland!’ When the moment of his execution arrived, his jailers made
many brutal jests at his expense. ‘Now then, Toumanov, the devil will
get your soul to-day; you will never live through the thing.’ The
unhappy wretch replied, with coarser oaths, ‘I tell you I mean to live
through it, and we will have a glass together yet before I am off
to Siberia! I shall be better there than serving the Tzar.’ I heard
afterwards from these same jailers that after two of the four thousand
blows he fell senseless on the snow, which was red with his blood, and
was carried back to prison. If he survived he was liable to receive, at
some future day, the other half of his sentence!
The next of my neighbours was a peasant of the district of Poitava,
short in stature, but of immense strength. He had deserted from the
army, taken to the woods and a wild life among them, where he had
killed several men. He also, when led away to punishment (for his
sentence was the knout and penal servitude for life), replied to the
hideous comments of his keepers, that he was not afraid. The third
prisoner, like the two first, was also in chains, a young handsome
soldier, who, while on a march with his battalion, had stopped at a
village and loitered behind for a whole week, being ‘bewitched by a
woman.’ The poor boy had then come of his own accord to give himself
up, and he now expected his trial. His character seemed to be both good
and gentle, and he was in the habit of singing an air of which the
melody, though slightly monotonous, was so sweet and plaintive that I
could not listen to him without emotion--such sweet tones could hardly
have come from a vicious heart. When he left our prison I never was
able to hear what became of him, but I regretted him and that plaintive
strain which had so often charmed my ears. His cell was soon occupied
again--by a subaltern convicted of having set fire to a magazine of
forage which was under his care, the motive being the wish to conceal a
certain deficit which had occurred. He had now gone mad, but in general
his mania was of the inoffensive and quiet kind. He talked constantly,
prepared for death, and exhorted his absent mistress to place over his
remains a black cross, of which he described the shape and ornaments
with the greatest exactness. Another day he complained that a gnat had
stung him--that all the blood had been sucked out of his body, and
that only water had been left. A _pope_ was sent for, who recited a
great number of prayers by way of exorcising him; but at last one day
the prisoner would not permit him to leave the cell. A psalter in one
hand and a crucifix in the other, the madman repeated, without ceasing,
‘Little father (_batiouchka_), _I_ will break your head for you if you
do not immediately give me the holy communion.’ The pope manœuvred
cleverly so as to reach the door, assuring him that he was going to
fetch the pyx; he then saved himself by making a rush, abandoning his
crucifix and his psalter. On the following day the governor of the
citadel had the maniac’s cell opened, though he took care himself to
remain in the corridor. The prisoner, standing at the threshold, made
him a sign to enter. ‘Come, your Excellency, I have a secret to whisper
in your ear;’ but his Excellency was more prudent than the _pope_. Some
soldiers soon advanced; they garotted and bound the poor fool, and they
carried him off to the hospital.
In his place arrived a Circassian--a free lance of the Caucasus, who,
having been taken prisoner and employed in the works of the fortress,
had tried to make good his escape along with two countrymen of his own,
his fellow-sufferers. Pursued by the troops, they defended themselves
for a long time with their spades, which were their only weapons. One
succeeded in escaping, one was killed by a thrust with a bayonet,
the third fell into the hands of the soldiers and became my opposite
neighbour. He was called ‘a mountain prince,’ and, with hands and feet
in fetters, he was almost always to be seen seated on his couch, gloomy
and silent, and with a proud look on his face. I never failed to make
him a respectful bow when, in walking up and down the corridor, I
passed the loophole in his cell.
In the meantime, weeks grew to months, and as the months succeeded
each other, the cold of winter had given place to the heats of July.
The stifling air of my prison reduced me to a state of extreme nervous
irritability, which broke out over every trifle, and at night I could
not sleep. I had forgotten to notice one permanent suffering in my
captivity, of which the intensity can never be appreciated, except by
those who may have made a personal trial of it: I mean the order given
to the sentry to watch all my actions through the window in my door.
No one can imagine what an indescribable torture it is to a man to see
and to know that a watch is kept upon every movement. That strange eye,
impassable and implacable, which meets yours at every moment--that
eye which follows you everywhere and at all times--becomes to you a
sort of infernal providence; and I abandon the task of making any one
understand what it is that the prisoner feels who from the instant
that he wakes in the morning sees from his bed those two eyes pointed
towards him like two stilettos. Will it be believed, from the earliest
dawn I longed for the night, even after a night which had been already
very long and rayless; for then at least I was protected from those
two eyes. Sometimes, impatient and distracted, I would go up to the
loophole and oppose my feverish glare to those two persecuting eyes;
and then I laughed like a savage, when I obliged the man to turn away
for a moment.
It was in this state of extreme irritation that I received one day a
visit from an aide-de-camp, accompanied by another official, by the
jailer, and by some soldiers. He desired me to rise, and to undress.
‘But I am already undressed!’
‘No; but you must be stripped.’
‘Why?’
‘I have orders to take a complete description of you, and to note down
any marks you may have about your person.’
‘But that is something barbarous and savage! the description of my
features ought to suffice!’
‘My orders are precise, and I beg of you to undress.’
So there was no help for it.
If I had been better acquainted with the usages and customs in Russian
proceedings of the sort, this notification ought to have enlightened
me as to the nature of the punishment to which I was going to be
condemned, as well as upon the fact that my sentence was imminent, such
examinations being a preliminary to deportation. However, I was so far
from having any idea of this, that when some days later I was again
summoned before the Commission of Inquiry, I anticipated nothing more
than one of those interminable examinations which had already become
so familiar to me; but the unaccustomed solemnity of those who were
present soon gave me a presentiment that something extraordinary was
coming, and before long my sentence was read out. This sentence, which
was long and minutely drawn up, finished with ‘the pain of death,’
commuted, however, by Prince Bibikov, for that of penal servitude in
Siberia for the term of my natural life. I was, in addition, degraded
from the ranks of the nobility, and I was to make the journey in
fetters. After having heard this document, I was ordered to write at
the bottom of the paper the following words: ‘Rufin Piotrowski heard
this sentence on the 29th of July, O. S. 1844.’
I was immediately conducted to the dwelling of the commandant, where I
was to take my old travelling clothes, and have my feet put in irons.
To my horror, they presented me with the same rusty bars which had
caused my torment all the way to Kiow. In vain I besought and implored
the commandant to give me another set of chains, he would not consent
to do so; and all that I could obtain from him was an order given to
the gendarmes who were to be my convoy, that the tight foot-rings were
to be enlarged at one of the nearest stations. I was not permitted
either to revisit my cell or my companions in the corridor; I was
marched down into the courtyard, where a _kibitka_ with three horses
was in waiting, and I took my seat there between two gendarmes whose
muskets were loaded. The doors of the fortress closed behind the
_kibitka_, and before me opened the way to Siberia.
FOOTNOTES:
[3] Prince Bibikov had his arm carried away at the battle of Borodino:
all over Poland the answer is current, which he once made to a Polish
lady, who on her knees implored a pardon for her son: ‘The hand which
signs pardons, madam, I left at Borodino.’
[4] A celebrated emissary, executed at Wilna, in 1841, after a long and
cruel detention.