CHAPTER VII

CHANGED CONDITIONS—A FRUSTRATED PLAN—THE MINISTER’S VISIT—A SECRET OF STATE—MY LITERARY NEIGHBOUR

When the officer of gendarmerie handed me over to the governor of the gaol, he pointed with his finger to a sentence in my charge-sheet, whereupon the governor looked at me sharply. It was clear his attention was being drawn to the warning of my former escapes, and the need for strict surveillance.

I saw from the first that prison rules were less strict here. My belongings, after examination, were brought into my cell. As soon as I could look them over, I sought for the hidden money and scissors, and behold, there they were! The careful scrutiny, both at the fortress and here, had been no more successful in detecting them than had previous examinations. The scissors I again concealed; but I wanted to change the German notes, so as to have at any rate part of my money available, and that was not a very simple matter. I began to observe the warders carefully; there were three of them on my corridor. The man who had searched my luggage seemed to me the most promising, and I determined to bribe him. When he came on duty I took the money out of its hiding-place, and called him into my cell.

“What do you want?” he asked, coming in and shutting the door behind him.

“Did you search my luggage properly when I arrived here?”

59“Yes, of course; is anything wrong?” he asked, quite alarmed.

“Oh, nothing much!” I said soothingly. “Only, I had better tell you that you don’t know how to search. Look here! you never found these!” and I held the bank-notes under his nose.

“Impossible!” he cried; “where were they hidden?”

“Well, that is my secret,” said I. “But listen! It is German money, and if changed would come to about fifty roubles.[28] Take it, and when you are off duty go to a money-changer—there are several on the Nevsky Prospekt—and get it changed for Russian money. Half shall be yours, and half mine. Is that agreed?”

“All right. I’ll see to it,” he said, and went off with the money.

“He bites,” I thought to myself; and at once began building castles in the air. I knew from experience that the great thing was to establish communication with the outer world, and this we revolutionists had often effected by bribing warders to take letters into and out of prison. In Ki?v and the south we called such warders “carrier-pigeons.” When I saw how easily this one fell in with my proposal, I immediately began to plan out further steps.

“After a few days,” I said to myself, “we will try him with a letter for the post; and next I shall send him to someone I know with a commission. When once things are in train, who knows? something may come of it.”

It was in the morning that I had given the warder my money, and I was in great excitement all day. Several times he looked through the peephole in my door, smiled and nodded at me, and of course I replied in similar fashion. Towards evening he came into my cell again, and laid my notes down on the table. “Take them back,” he said; “I am afraid of getting into trouble. See here; a little while ago one of the others had two watches given 60him, and they were found on him, and he was dismissed. You see, I’ve a good place here, and get twenty-five roubles[29] a month. I shouldn’t get so much again in a hurry. No, I’m afraid; take it back!”

Of course I did not press him, for I knew that without courage he would never make a “carrier-pigeon.” I saw no chance now of changing the notes secretly, so I told him to take them to the governor, that they might be added to the rest of my money.

“Tell him you found them in searching my luggage.”

“No, no, that won’t do. There would be no end of a fuss because I hadn’t given them up directly. I’d rather tell the truth, and say you had just given them to me.”

Thus did my visions end in smoke. The money was taken charge of, and no further inquiry made.

Soon after this my books were brought to me, and I could also use the prison library. After being for so long prevented from reading, this was a great boon; and as writing materials were also allowed me, I was altogether far better off here than in the Fortress of Peter and Paul. Still, the little cell with its stone floor became a perfect oven in the heat of summer, most unpleasantly stuffy and dusty; and the food was inferior both in quantity and quality. But the walks were what was most disagreeable. Imagine a huge circle, divided into sections by partitions running from centre to circumference. In these cattle-pens we were allowed to disport ourselves singly, carefully watched all the while by warders stationed on a raised platform at the centre of the circle, commanding all the “cattle-pens”; so that the prisoners had no chance of communicating with each other. One could see nothing but the wooden partitions, the back of the prison buildings, and a narrow strip of sky; but every day we had to breathe the air here for three-quarters of an hour, which seemed an endless time for such “recreation.”

In comparison with the uncanny stillness of the fortress, 61things here seemed full of life and bustle. The windows of the corridor looked into the street, and its noises could be heard in the cells—the rumbling of carriages, the cries of street-hawkers, or the dulcet music of an organ-grinder. One felt so near freedom that the burden of prison life was the heavier.

One day I heard unusually lively sounds in the corridor—scrubbing, sweeping, and a general tidying-up. Some important visit seemed to be expected, and I soon learned that the Minister of Justice, Nabòkov, was coming to inspect the prison. Shortly after, he appeared in my cell, accompanied by a numerous suite; and when my name was pronounced, he greeted me and said—

“I have read your deposition, and was much pleased with its frankness. I hope you will speak out in the same way before the court.”

I replied that, as I have already said, it was my object to state the exact historical truth.

He went, but came back again, and put one or two unimportant questions to me, looking, however, as though there were something else he would have liked to say. He bent forward a little in speaking, and held his hand to his ear. His whole bearing was simple and unaffected.

Kotliarèvsky was among the suite. He remained behind a moment, and told me he wanted to speak to me when the minister had gone. Some time after I was taken to him in a room that served as the prison schoolroom.

“I am not here on business,” said he, “but I should like to have a chat with you about old times.”

So we sat down on a school-form and talked. Following a remark of mine, Kotliarèvsky touched on the question I had raised before as to the reason for my confinement in the Fortress of Peter and Paul.

“Why, you see, there were very important interests of State to consider,” he said. “It was like this: if you were brought before an ordinary tribunal and only prosecuted on the Gorinòvitch count, you might be merely 62condemned to seven or eight years in Siberia; and that would not be agreeable in high quarters.” He accented the last words.

“But they cannot try me otherwise,” I cried. “Germany only extradited me on that stipulation.”

“Well, that remains to be seen,” said he. “We are at present on very good terms with Bismarck, and he would not mind at all giving us this little proof of his friendship. Or, if necessary, it could easily be made out that you had committed some offence after your extradition. Which reminds me—the Germans have sent us on all the notes that you made in Freiburg gaol.”

I was utterly astonished. I remembered that from sheer ennui I had now and then written down odds and ends of notes, plans, etc., while I was at Freiburg, but I could not conceive how those scraps could have come into the hands of the Russian Government, for I had destroyed all my manuscripts before leaving. I could only suppose that when I was out of my cell for exercise some single sheets might have been abstracted. Even then it seemed impossible that they could afford any foundation for a fresh accusation sufficient to set aside the extradition treaty with Germany. But Kotliarèvsky reassured me on that head.

“Oh, never fear! they would soon manage that. Nothing would be easier than to get Germany’s consent, and then they would sentence you according to your deserts. People who have had far less against them than you—Malìnka, Drebyàsgin, Maidànsky—have long ago been executed. And you—you broke out of prison just when you were at last to be brought up for judgment in the Gorinòvitch case. Then for quite eight years you were engaged in conspiracies; and then you were the instigator, along with Stefanòvitch, of the Tchigirìn affair, and so on, and so on. That all this should only let you in for a few years’ hard labour did not at all suit the views of Government. So when you were extradited a special council was held in high circles. Of course, I was not there. I am 63not numbered among the elect; but this is what I have been told. At first they were all unanimous in declaring that a modification of the extradition treaty must be arranged, so that you might be brought before a special tribunal. Then, as you can easily imagine, they would have made short work with you! But one of these great personages had a qualm, and he urged, ‘Germany might fall in with our views. Well and good! But is that really a good precedent? They have caught Deutsch for us now. To-morrow a still more important capture might be made in some other country, and then it might be hard for us to get an extradition. The Press would make a hubbub; they would say, Russia never respects treaties, and would point to the case of Deutsch as an example.’ This consideration influenced the majority, and it was consequently resolved to proceed against you in the Gorinòvitch case only. This is why you were put into the Fortress of Peter and Paul until a decision was arrived at.”

It is quite possible that Kotliarèvsky betrayed this secret of state to me with the object of loosening my tongue; but perhaps he really had no afterthought, and told tales out of school just for the joke of it.

In the further course of our conversation he touched on many subjects, among others on political prosecutions in Russia. I remarked to him how often perfectly harmless persons were condemned to fearful punishments.

“What would you have?” he replied. “When trees are felled there must be chips. As the ancient Romans said: ‘Summum jus, summa injuria.’ Personally I do not approve of capital punishment at all. I say to myself that in a great state political offences are inevitable. With a population of many millions there must always be a few thousand malcontents, and, of course, examples must be made of any disturbers of the peace. But a strong Government ought to be able to render them innocuous without resorting to the death penalty.”

64In pursuance of this theme, he then asked me, to all appearance casually, how many Terrorists in my opinion there might be in Russia. I answered that I knew nothing at all about it, for I myself did not now belong to the Terrorists, but to the Social-Democratic party.

“Oh yes,” he said, “but as a ‘friendly power’ you must be able to judge as to the strength of the terrorist organisation. I think myself their numbers must be very small now.”

In point of fact there were indeed very few active Terrorists left in Russia. I did not, however, wish to strengthen Kotliarèvsky’s opinion about the “friendly powers,” so told him that according to my estimate there could be only a few thousand, not more.

“How can you make that out?” he asked. “It is quite impossible; I reckon at most some hundreds. They have been imprisoned in crowds just lately.”

I persisted in my opinion, and therewith we separated.

At this time, i.e. in the summer of 1881, there were in this House of Detention a number of prisoners accused of different political offences. One of these so-called offences, on account of which numberless persons had been sent to prison in Petersburg, Moscow, and many smaller towns, or even in Siberia, was what Kotliarèvsky called “the old clothes case.” He gave me the following account of this highly important affair of state. In some domiciliary visit the police had found a note containing the names of persons who were assisting the political prisoners by providing them with clothes and other necessaries. Thereupon a number of these persons were arrested; and he told me that an imposing case was being trumped up against this “secret society,” under the name of the “Red Cross League of the Naròdnaia Vòlya.” (Of course, Kotliarèvsky did not mind giving a sly hit at the gendarmerie, with whom the police officials have many little tiffs, each often putting a spoke in the other’s wheel.)

65A pretty conspiracy indeed—for providing prisoners with old clothes! I shall hereafter always allude to this case as the “old clothes affair,” and hope to show by it some of the little peculiarities of “administrative methods” in Russia. These “administrative methods” are sometimes extremely unpleasant for those treated by them. The gendarmerie can imprison people, and exile them to Siberia or the outlying provinces without trial, all by “administrative methods.”

Besides those implicated in the “old clothes affair,” there were at this time in the gaol many prisoners involved in other cases, among them several well-known literary men—Protopòpov, Krivènko, Stanyukòvitch, and Erthel. The first-named was my neighbour, and we were soon knocking to one another, though not without some misunderstanding at the outset. Directly I told him my name he left off replying to my taps, I could not imagine why. Several days passed. I could hear him going up and down in his cell, could catch his voice when he spoke to the warder, but he left all my signals unanswered; so concluding that he was afraid of being caught (though the officials of this prison did not seem to make much fuss over the knocking), I left off in despair. After a little, however, he began again. “Why do you hide your name from me?” he asked. I replied that I had told him my name at the very beginning, and repeated it; upon which he hastened to apologise: “I took you for a spy; for I could not make out what you said, and thought you seemed to be knocking confusedly on purpose, so that I might not decipher the name.”

We now conversed together freely. Our names were well known to each other, and we had many common friends. Of course, we were very anxious to know one another by sight, and we accomplished this in the following manner. From the windows of our cells, which were on the fifth floor, we could see into the “cattle-pens”; and though we were all supposed to take our exercise 66at the same time, we arranged together that each should manage to get out of it on different days, and that he who remained in his cell should recognise the other by a preconcerted signal. The next thing was to know one another’s voice, and this also we succeeded in effecting. We knew that in this prison, “politicals,” in the “Case of the 193,” not only spoke together, but even conveyed small objects to one another, by means of the water-closet pipes. The sanitary system here was so arranged that on all the six storeys each pair of cells was in communication, not only with one another, but also with those immediately above and below. Thus twelve prisoners could arrange together that they should simultaneously let the water run, so making a space in the pipes that acted as a speaking-tube; and if one spoke into the opening the voice could be heard perfectly in the connected cells, while the running water prevented any inconvenient odour. In this fashion we instituted a club of twelve members.