‘Kropótkin must always have his joke!’ he cried. ‘Did I not tell you
that the list must be sent to the grand duke to-day?’
I had some difficulty in making him believe that the list really stated
my intention.
However, next day my resolution almost gave way when I saw how
Klasóvsky took my decision. He had hoped to see me in the university,
and had given me lessons in Latin and Greek for that purpose; and I
did not dare to tell him what really prevented me from entering the
university: I knew that if I told him the truth he would offer to share
with me the little that he had.
Then my father telegraphed to the director that he forbade my going to
Siberia, and the matter was reported to the grand duke, who was the
chief of the military schools. I was called before his assistant, and
talked about the vegetation of the Amúr and like things, because I
had strong reasons for believing that if I said I wanted to go to the
university and could not afford it, a bursary would be offered to me by
some one of the imperial family--an offer which by all means I wished
to avoid.
It is impossible to say how all this would have ended, but an event of
much importance--the great fire at St. Petersburg--brought about in an
indirect way a solution to my difficulties.
On the Monday after Trinity--the day of the Holy Ghost, which was
that year on May 26, O.S.--a terrible fire broke out in the so-called
Apráxin Dvor. The Apráxin Dvor was an immense space, nearly half a mile
square, which was entirely covered with small shops--mere shanties of
wood--where all sorts of second- and third-hand goods were sold. Old
furniture and bedding, second-hand dresses and books, poured in from
every quarter of the city, and were stored in the small shanties, in
the passages between them, and even on their roofs. This accumulation
of inflammable materials had at its back the Ministry of the Interior
and its archives, where all the documents concerning the liberation
of the serfs were kept; and in the front of it, which was lined by a
row of shops built of stone, was the State Bank. A narrow lane, also
bordered with stone shops, separated the Apráxin Dvor from a wing of
the Corps of Pages, which was occupied by grocery and oil shops in
its lower story and with the apartments of the officers in its upper
story. Almost opposite the Ministry of the Interior, on the other side
of a canal, there were extensive timber yards. This labyrinth of small
shanties and the timber yards opposite took fire almost at the same
moment, at four o’clock in the afternoon.
If there had been wind on that day, half the city would have perished
in the flames, including the Bank, several Ministries, the Gostínoi
Dvor (another great block of shops on the Nevsky Perspective), the
Corps of Pages, and the National Library.
I was that afternoon at the Corps, dining at the house of one of our
officers, and we dashed to the spot as soon as we noticed from the
windows the first clouds of smoke rising in our close neighbourhood.
The sight was terrific. Like an immense snake, rattling and whistling,
the fire threw itself in all directions, right and left, enveloped the
shanties, and suddenly rose in a huge column, darting out its whistling
tongues to lick up more shanties with their contents. Whirlwinds of
smoke and fire were formed; and when the whirls of burning feathers
from the bedding shops began to sweep about the space, it became
impossible to remain any longer inside the burning market. The whole
had to be abandoned.
* * * * *
The authorities had entirely lost their heads. There was not, at that
time, a single steam fire-engine in St. Petersburg, and it was workmen
who suggested bringing one from the iron works of Kólpino, situated
twenty miles by rail from the capital. When the engine reached the
railway station, it was the people who dragged it to the conflagration.
Of its four lines of hose, one was damaged by an unknown hand, and the
other three were directed upon the Ministry of the Interior.
The grand dukes came to the spot and went away again. Late in the
evening, when the Bank was out of danger, the emperor also made his
appearance, and said, what everyone knew already, that the Corps of
Pages was now the key of the battle, and must be saved by all means. It
was evident that if the Corps had taken fire, the National Library and
half of the Nevsky Perspective would have perished in the flames.
It was the crowd, the people, who did everything to prevent the fire
from spreading further and further. There was a moment when the Bank
was seriously menaced. The goods cleared from the shops opposite
were thrown into the Sadóvaya street, and lay in great heaps upon
the walls of the left wing of the Bank. The articles which covered
the street itself continually took fire, but the people, roasting
there in an almost unbearable heat, prevented the flames from being
communicated to the piles of goods on the other side. They swore at
all the authorities, seeing that there was not a pump on the spot.
‘What are they all doing at the Ministry of the Interior, when the Bank
and the Foundlings’ House are going to take fire? They have all lost
their heads! Where is the chief of police that he cannot send a fire
brigade to the Bank?’ they said. I knew the chief, General Annenkoff,
personally, as I had met him once or twice at our sub-inspector’s
house, whereto he came with his brother the well-known literary
critic, and I volunteered to find him. I found him, indeed, walking
aimlessly in a street; and when I reported to him the state of affairs,
incredible though it may seem, it was to me, a boy, that he gave the
order to move one of the fire brigades from the Ministry to the Bank.
I exclaimed, of course, that the men would never listen to me, and I
asked for a written order; but General Annenkoff had not, or pretended
not to have, a scrap of paper, so that I asked one of our officers, L.
L. Gosse, to come with me to transmit the order. We at last prevailed
upon the captain of one fire brigade--who swore at all the world and at
his chiefs--to move his men and engines to the Bank.
The Ministry itself was not on fire; it was the archives which were
burning, and many boys, chiefly cadets and pages, together with a
number of clerks, carried bundles of papers out of the burning building
and loaded them into cabs. Often a bundle would fall out, and the wind,
taking possession of its leaves, would strew them about the square.
Through the smoke a sinister fire could be seen raging in the timber
yards on the other side of the canal.
The narrow lane which separated the Corps of Pages from the Apráxin
Dvor was in a deplorable state. The shops which lined it were full of
brimstone, oil, turpentine, and the like, and immense tongues of fire
of many hues, thrown out by explosions, licked the roofs of the wing
of the Corps, which bordered the lane on its other side. The windows
and the pilasters under the roof began already to smoulder, while
the pages and some cadets, after having cleared the lodgings, pumped
water through a small fire engine, which received at long intervals
scanty supplies from old-fashioned barrels, which had to be filled
with ladles. A couple of firemen who stood on the hot roof continually
shouted out, ‘Water! Water!’ in tones which were heartrending. I could
not stand these cries, and rushed into the Sadóvaya street, where, by
sheer force, I compelled the driver of one of the barrels belonging
to a police fire brigade to enter our yard and to supply our pump
with water. But when I attempted to do the same once more, I met with
an absolute refusal from the driver, ‘I shall be court-martialled,’
he said, ‘if I obey you.’ On all sides my comrades urged me, ‘Go and
find somebody--the chief of the police, the grand duke, anyone--and
tell them that without water we shall have to abandon the Corps to the
fire.’ ‘Ought we not to report to our director?’ somebody would remark.
‘Bother the whole lot! you won’t find them with a lantern. Go and do it
yourself.’
I went once more in search of General Annenkoff, and was at last told
that he must be in the yard of the Bank. Several officers stood there,
indeed, around a general in whom I recognized the Governor-General
of St. Petersburg, Prince Suvóroff. The gate, however, was locked,
and a Bank official who stood at it refused to let me in. I insisted,
menaced, and finally was admitted. Then I went straight up to Prince
Suvóroff, who was writing a note on the shoulder of his aide-de-camp.
When I reported to him the state of affairs, his first question was,
‘Who has sent you?’ ‘Nobody--the comrades,’ was my reply. ‘So you
say the Corps will soon be on fire?’ ‘Yes.’ He started at once, and
seizing in the street an empty hatbox, covered his head with it, in
order to protect himself from the scorching heat that came from the
burning shops of the Apráxin Dvor and ran full speed to the lane.
Empty barrels, straw, wooden boxes, and the like covered the lane,
between the flames of the oil shops on the one side and the buildings
of our Corps, of which the window frames and the pilasters were
smouldering, on the other side. Prince Suvóroff acted resolutely.
‘There is a company of soldiers in your garden,’ he said to me: ‘take a
detachment and clear that lane--at once. A hose from the steam engine
will be brought here immediately. Keep it playing. I trust it to you
personally.’
It was not easy to move the soldiers out of our garden. They had
cleared the barrels and boxes of their contents, and with their pockets
full of coffee, and with conical lumps of sugar concealed in their
_képis_, they were enjoying the warm night under the trees, cracking
nuts. No one cared to move till an officer interfered. The lane was
cleared, and the pump kept going. The comrades were delighted, and
every twenty minutes we relieved the men who directed the jet of water,
standing by their side in an almost unbearable heat.
About three or four in the morning it was evident that bounds had been
put to the fire; the danger of its spreading to the Corps was over, and
after having quenched my thirst with half a dozen glasses of tea, in
a small ‘white inn’ which happened to be open, I fell, half dead from
fatigue, on the first bed that I found unoccupied in the hospital of
the corps.
Next morning I woke up early and went to see the site of the
conflagration, when on my return to the corps I met the Grand Duke
Michael, whom I accompanied, as was my duty, on his round. The pages,
with their faces quite black from the smoke, with swollen eyes and
inflamed lids, some of them with their hair burned, raised their heads
from the pillows. It was hard to recognize them. They were proud,
though, of feeling that they had not been merely ‘white hands,’ and had
worked as hard as anyone else.
This visit of the grand duke settled my difficulties. He asked me why
did I conceive that fancy of going to the Amúr--whether I had friends
there? whether the Governor-General knew me? and, learning that I had
no relatives in Siberia and knew nobody there, he exclaimed, ‘But how
are you going, then? They may send you to a lonely Cossack village.
What will you be doing there? I had better write about you to the
Governor-General, to recommend you.’
After such an offer I was sure that my father’s objection would be
removed; and so it was. I was free to go to Siberia.
* * * * *
This great conflagration became a turning-point not only in the policy
of Alexander II., but also in the history of Russia in that part of
the century. That it was not a mere accident was self-evident. Trinity
and the day of the Holy Ghost are great holidays in Russia, and there
was nobody inside the market except a few watchmen; besides, the
Apráxin market and the timber yards took fire at the same time, and the
conflagration at St. Petersburg was followed by similar disasters in
several provincial towns. The fire was lit by somebody, but by whom?
This question remains unanswered to the present time.
Katkóff, the ex-Whig, who was inspired with personal hatred of Hérzen,
and especially of Bakúnin, with whom he had once to fight a duel,
on the very day after the fire accused the Poles and the Russian
revolutionists of being the cause of it; and that opinion prevailed at
St. Petersburg and Moscow.
Poland was preparing then for the revolution which broke out in
the following January, and the secret revolutionary government had
concluded an alliance with the London refugees, and had its men in
the very heart of the St. Petersburg administration. Only a short
time after the conflagration occurred, the Lord Lieutenant of Poland,
Count Lüders, was shot at by a Russian officer; and when the grand
duke Constantine was nominated in his place (with intention, it was
said, of making Poland a separate kingdom for Constantine) he also was
immediately shot at, on June 26. Similar attempts were made in August
against the Marquis Wielepólsky, the Polish leader of the pro-Russian
Union party. Napoleon III. maintained among the Poles the hope of an
armed intervention in favour of their independence. In such conditions,
judging from the ordinary narrow military standpoint, to destroy the
Bank of Russia and several Ministries, and to spread a panic in the
capital might have been considered a good plan of warfare; but there
never was the slightest scrap of evidence forthcoming to support this
hypothesis.
On the other side, the advanced parties in Russia saw that no hope
could any longer be placed in Alexander’s reformatory initiative: he
was clearly drifting into the reactionary camp. To men of forethought
it was evident that the liberation of the serfs, under the conditions
of redemption which were imposed upon them, meant their certain ruin,
and revolutionary proclamations were issued in May at St. Petersburg
calling the people and the army to a general revolt, while the
educated classes were asked to insist upon the necessity of a National
Convention. Under such circumstances, to disorganize the machine of the
government might have entered into the plans of some revolutionists.
Finally, the indefinite character of the emancipation had produced
a great deal of fermentation among the peasants, who constitute a
considerable part of the population in all Russian cities; and through
all the history of Russia, every time such a fermentation has begun it
has resulted in anonymous letters foretelling fires, and eventually in
incendiarism.
It was possible that the idea of setting the Apráxin market on fire
might occur to isolated men in the revolutionary camp, but neither the
most searching inquiries nor the wholesale arrests which began all over
Russia and Poland immediately after the fire revealed the slightest
indication showing that such was really the case. If anything of the
sort had been found, the reactionary party would have made capital
out of it. Many reminiscences and volumes of correspondence from those
times have since been published, but they contain no hint whatever in
support of this suspicion.
On the contrary, when similar conflagrations broke out in several towns
on the Vólga, and especially at Sarátoff, and when Zhdánoff, a member
of the Senate, was sent by the Tsar to make a searching inquiry, he
returned with the firm conviction that the conflagration at Sarátoff
was the work of the reactionary party. There was among that party
a general belief that it would be possible to induce Alexander II.
to postpone the final abolition of serfdom, which was to take place
on February 19, 1863. They knew the weakness of his character, and
immediately after the great fire at St. Petersburg they began a violent
campaign for postponement, and for the revision of the emancipation
law in its practical applications. It was rumoured in well-informed
legal circles that Senator Zhdánoff was in fact returning with positive
proofs of the culpability of the reactionaries at Sarátoff; but he died
on his way back, his portfolio disappeared, and it has never been found.
Be it as it may, the Apráxin fire had the most deplorable consequences.
After it Alexander II. surrendered to the reactionaries, and--what
was still worse--the public opinion of that part of society at St.
Petersburg, and especially at Moscow, which carried most weight
with the government suddenly threw off its liberal garb, and turned
against not only the more advanced section of the reform party, but
even against its moderate wing. A few days after the conflagration I
went on Sunday to see my cousin, the aide-de-camp of the emperor, in
whose apartment I had often heard the Horse Guard officers expressing
sympathy with Chernyshévsky; my cousin himself had been up till then
an assiduous reader of ‘The Contemporary’ (the organ of the advanced
reform party). Now he brought several numbers of ‘The Contemporary,’
and, putting them on the table I was sitting at, said to me: ‘Well,
now, after this I will have no more of that incendiary stuff; enough
of it’--and these words expressed the opinion of ‘all St. Petersburg.’
It became improper to talk of reforms. The whole atmosphere was laden
with a reactionary spirit. ‘The Contemporary’ and other similar reviews
were suppressed; the Sunday schools were prohibited under any form;
wholesale arrests began. The capital was placed under a state of siege.
* * * * *
A fortnight later, on June 13 (25), the time which we pages and
cadets had so long looked for came at last. The emperor gave us a
sort of military examination in all kinds of evolutions--during
which we commanded the companies and I paraded on a horse before the
battalion--and we were promoted to be officers.
When the parade was over, Alexander II. loudly called out, ‘The
promoted officers to me!’ and we gathered round him. He remained on
horseback.
Here I saw him in a quite new light. The man who the next year appeared
in the _rôle_ of a bloodthirsty and vindictive suppressor of the
insurrection in Poland rose now, full size, before my eyes, in the
speech he addressed to us.
He began in a quiet tone. ‘I congratulate you: you are officers.’ He
spoke about military duty and loyalty as they are usually spoken of on
such occasions. ‘But if any one of you,’ he went on, distinctly shouting
out every word, his face suddenly contorted with anger, ‘but if any one
of you--which God preserve you from--should under any circumstances
prove disloyal to the Tsar, the throne, and the fatherland--take heed
of what I say--he will be treated with all the se-ve-ri-ty of the laws,
without the slightest com-mi-se-ra-tion!’
His voice failed; his face was peevish, full of that expression of
blind rage which I saw in my childhood on the faces of landlords when
they threatened their serfs ‘to skin them under the rods.’ He violently
spurred his horse, and rode out of our circle. Next morning, June 14,
by his orders three officers were shot at Módlin in Poland, and one
soldier, Szur by name, was killed under the rods.
‘Reaction, full speed backwards,’ I said to myself as we made our way
back to the corps.
* * * * *
I saw Alexander II. once more before leaving St. Petersburg. Some
days after our promotion, all the newly appointed officers were at
the palace, to be presented to him. My more than modest uniform, with
its prominent gray trousers, attracted universal attention, and every
moment I had to satisfy the curiosity of officers of all ranks, who
came to ask me what was the uniform that I wore. The Amúr Cossacks
being then the youngest regiment of the Russian army, I stood somewhere
near the end of the hundreds of officers who were present. Alexander
II. found me and asked, ‘So you go to Siberia? Did your father consent
to it, after all?’ I answered in the affirmative. ‘Are you not afraid
to go so far?’ I warmly replied: ‘No, I want to work. There must be so
much to do in Siberia to apply the great reforms which are going to be
made.’ He looked straight at me; he became pensive; at last he said,
‘Well, go; one can be useful everywhere;’ and his face took on such an
expression of fatigue, such a character of complete surrender, that I
thought at once, ‘He is a used-up man; he is going to give it all up.’
St. Petersburg had assumed a gloomy aspect. Soldiers marched in the
streets. Cossack patrols rode round the palace, the fortress was filled
with prisoners. Wherever I went I saw the same thing--the triumph of
the reaction. I left St. Petersburg without regret.
I went every day to the Cossack administration to ask them to make
haste and deliver me my papers, and as soon as they were ready I
hurried to Moscow to join my brother Alexander.