Chapter IX: 229 (3)

In the meantime the news of the “Bloody Sunday” reached our village. With trembling hands I held the paper and read to the peasants how the working-men of St. Petersburg, led by Father Gapon, had gone to petition their Czar to better their conditions of life; how they had marched with their wives and children, carrying icons and the portrait of the Emperor, and singing patriotic hymns; how they had suddenly, without warning, been shot down, trampled by Cossack horses, and beaten with sabers and _nagáikas_;[18] how the streets of St. Petersburg had been turned into a battlefield where hundreds of dead and dying lay.... Here the peasants stopped me.

“Is it possible,” they asked, “that the czar, in whom we believe, could do that? Is it possible that he it is who takes our children and sends them to the Japanese to be killed? Is it possible that _he_ does all this, and not his ministers?”

They took the paper from me, turned it in their hands, and made me read it all over again, from the beginning. On that day their faith in the czar was shattered, and they openly showed their sympathy with me, a direct victim of his despotic rule.

To me the fact that the St. Petersburg working-men had gone to petition the czar for a better life had another significance. I saw in it the awakening of the toiling masses, and regarded it as the fore-runner of that great revolution which was to shake the throne from its foundation.

“It can not be that the blood of the innocent children slain in the streets of St. Petersburg on the ninth of January should remain unavenged,” I thought. I saw that the Russian people could no longer suffer the yoke of czarism, that Russia must be free, and I firmly decided to escape and join, weapon in hand, in the great struggle towards liberty and justice for my oppressed and down-trodden country.

III

The vólost scribe was an intelligent and kind man, and he openly showed his sympathy with me. I made up my mind to ask him to get from the uryádnik permission for me to go to Kansk. I hoped to find there comrades who would help me with money and a passport.

“Yes,” said the scribe in answer to my request, “I can get for you the desired permission. But if you should run away the responsibility would fall upon me, because I am sure the uryádnik will prove in some way or other that I conspired with you. You know that I am the father of four children,” he went on, “but if you give me your word of honor that you will return, I will persuade the uryádnik to let you go to Kansk for a few days.”

THE ENTRANCE TO THE AKATÚI PRISON
]

His proposal was difficult for me to accept. If I should give him my word of honor I would have to return, and my only aim in asking for leave was to escape. For two days I went about trying to find a way out of the difficulty, but finally decided to agree to his condition. It was absolutely necessary to go to Kansk and procure money and a passport, without which I could not even think of escaping.

We went to the uryádnik, and after considerable questioning he consented to let me go to Kansk for a few days.

On the first of February, 1905, I left the village, riding in the cart of a peasant who was going to town on business. I had no addresses, and did not even know if there were any political exiles in Kansk. The peasants of Aleksandrovskoye had assured me that there were many “nobles” there. As I found later, the politicals were known there as “nobles.”

After two days’ travel we reached Kansk. For the sum of two kopecks a ragged boy drove me to the blacksmith’s shop. A tall man in a blue blouse, his hands and face covered with soot, greeted me with a cordial smile. I told him my name, and he led me to his house. There I was met by a pale, frail-looking young woman who held a sickly baby wrapped in rags. Having overcome the feeling of embarrassment I experienced at the sight of their wretched poverty, I told them the object of my visit.

“I am very sorry,” said Mr. M——, the blacksmith, “but I don’t think you will get anything in this town. There are only six politicals here, and they are all starving. The only thing we can do for you is to give you letters of recommendation to our Irkutsk people. There are a great many of them there, and they will surely help you.”

A few hours later the whole exile colony of Kansk gathered at the house of Mr. M——. They held a consultation and decided that I must go directly to Irkutsk. They bought me a railroad ticket to that city out of their last money, and that very evening I boarded a train, carrying in my pocket a letter of recommendation. As I was dressed in a mixture of civil and convict garb, the passengers stared at me, and I did not feel quite at ease.

After two days’ travel I came to Irkutsk. When the cab stopped in front of a rich house on the main street of the city I hesitated for a few seconds. “What if they will not let me in?” I rang the bell. A beautiful young girl opened the door. I handed her the letter of recommendation, and she invited me to sit in the waiting-room. Directly an old man of short stature entered. He asked me who I was and what I wanted. Having convinced himself that I really was the person I claimed to be, he shook my hand and invited me to meet his wife and children.

This man, Mr. K——, was an old revolutionist, exiled to Irkutsk many years before. But notwithstanding his “past” he now held a high Government position. That same day he handed me a hundred rubles and a passport on which he wrote in his own hand that I was a “merchant’s daughter.” Such a passport was as good as a real one in Siberia, because the príestavs and the uryádniks who endorse them are so ignorant that they can hardly read Russian. Mrs. K—— helped me put on her daughter’s clothes, and presented a watch to me. In short, I was made unrecognizable.

It was necessary to return to Aleksandrovskoye. I knew that the scribe would feel uneasy about my long absence. I did not want to think how I would escape after my return: the difficulties seemed insurmountable, but I had given my word of honor, and had to return.

With sorrow in my heart I bade good-by to those kind people. One of Mr. K——’s sons went with me to Kansk, as they were afraid that I might be arrested on the road.

In the railway compartment—we traveled in the second-class—were two army officers. They made friends with my companion and treated him to vódka and cigars. There was nothing in their appearance to arouse our suspicions.

When night came I lay down on my cot. I could not sleep. The thought that I was going back to that lonely village would not let me rest. Suddenly I felt that somebody was tugging at the chain which supported my watch. I opened my eyes, and to my great terror saw the same officer who had been so amiable with me several hours before. In one hand he held my bag which contained the hundred rubles and the passport. I emitted a terrible shriek. The officer seized me by the throat, and began to choke me. I became unconscious....

When I had regained consciousness my first thought was that the money and passport were gone. I heard people talking near me, but had no desire to look at them.

“Why didn’t they let me die?” I thought. “What will I do without the money and the passport?”

I could not move my head, and the fingers still seemed to be choking me.

At the first station I was carried into the gendarme office. The two officers were already there. They turned out to be escaped Sakhalien convicts masquerading as army officers.

“Why did you want to kill me?” I asked my assailant. “Didn’t you see that I am not rich?”

“Why did you cry out?” was his reply. “I had to save myself. After all I did not choke you to death.”

The bag with the money and the passport was returned to me. I owed my life to Mr. K——’s son, who was the first to reach my side when the robber choked me.

After an absence of ten days I returned to Aleksandrovskoye. The scribe and the uryádnik were delighted to see me.

“And we already thought that you would not come back,” said the uryádnik, smiling.

IV

The question how to escape did not leave me for a moment. The only people from whom I hoped to get the necessary information were the Orloffs, who lived in the village of Ribinskoye, the nearest to ours, and I decided to make my way in that direction. I was afraid to ask the peasants for aid, notwithstanding their sympathetic attitude. Besides, I knew that if the authorities found out that somebody had driven me to Ribinskoye the poor peasants would be held responsible for my escape. There was one way left to me, and that was to walk the distance of twenty-eight miles which separated the two villages. The road to Ribinskoye I knew well enough.

On the second day after my return from Irkutsk I got up at daybreak, dressed as warmly as I could, and with a few pieces of bread tied in a handkerchief set out in the direction of Ribinskoye. The whole village was fast asleep, but the very huts seemed to watch my steps. Every sound made my heart beat faster, and I looked around expecting to see somebody running in pursuit. Soon I came to the end of the village. The smooth, silvery road stretched before me. I straightened up, drew a full breath of clear, frosty air, and quickened my pace. My fear had disappeared. Calmly I looked at the snow-covered forest which stood on both sides of the road, and I walked faster and faster, dreaming of freedom for myself and my country.

I don’t know how long I walked thus. I only remember that a sharp pang of hunger interrupted my dreams, and I began to consume one piece of bread after another, without slackening my pace. Suddenly I heard the clatter of horse’s hoofs behind me. Without stopping to think for a second, I turned to the forest, but the sleigh was near me before I had time to get under the cover of the trees.

“Where are you going?” a voice called to me. I turned around. It was a peasant who lived in a neighboring village. He knew me well.

“I am going to Ribinskoye,” I replied indifferently, “and have no money to hire a sleigh.”

“Get in,” he said. “I am going there, too, and will give you a lift.”

A few hours later I was at the house of the Orloffs. The tiny arms of their child embraced me.

“I won’t let you go away from us no more,” he said, patting my cheek.

The cold in the house was fearful. The wretched poverty in which the Orloffs lived astonished even me. A rickety table, two broken chairs, and an ancient wooden bed which squeaked and lurched every time one sat down on it made up all their possessions.

When I told them that I had decided to escape they were glad for me.

“I don’t see how we can live here,” said Mrs. Orloff. “The child is growing; he will soon be three years old. We can not earn anything here. The money which I get from home is hardly sufficient to pay rent and buy fire-wood.”

She looked haggard and worn, and it seemed to me that tuberculosis had already laid its stamp on her beautiful face.

Mr. Orloff hastened to change the conversation.

“Yes,” he said, “now, after the ‘Bloody Sunday,’ we must give up the delusion that we can bring about better conditions by peaceful propaganda. We must fight tyranny with its own weapons. Such outrages of the Government can be responded to only by bombs and bullets. Eh, if we could only get out of here!”

He paced the room, hardly able to control his emotion.

“How can you escape with the child?” I said. “You will be recognized immediately.”

“Yes, this is the only thing which keeps us back,” answered Orloff dejectedly.

I looked sorrowfully at these young people who were deprived of everything in life and whose only child hindered them from making an attempt to regain their freedom. A slow death from hunger and cold awaited them. I looked at the innocent little child who was slowly wasting away before the very eyes of his parents, and a happy thought struck me.

“Listen,” I turned to the Orloffs. “I will take your child with me, and you will escape later. The police will look for me _alone_ and for you _with a child_, and this change of parts will save us all.”

For a moment their sad faces brightened with hope.

“Bória,” I said to the boy, “do you want to go to Grandma with me?”

“Yes, I do,” he replied with a determined look. “I shall go, and Mamma shall go, and Papa shall go. I don’t want to be here; it’s cold here.”

In a few hours the affair was settled. I was to take the child to its grandparents in Vilna, and the Orloffs were to escape after receiving word from me that everything was “all right.”

In the evening Mr. Orloff found a peasant who agreed to drive me to the next village, a distance of forty miles, for three rubles. The following day we spent in making warm clothes for the child and preparing for the long journey. As soon as it grew dark the driver came to call me.

The mother embraced her child and me for the last time.

“I entrust him to you,” she said, weeping bitterly. “He is all I have in this life.”

“_Mámotchka_, don’t cry. I don’t want you to cry. Better come with me to Grandma. I don’t want to leave you here.”

He brought his mother’s coat and tried to put it on her.

“Hurry up, hurry up,” urged the driver. Mr. Orloff took the child in his arms, kissed his weeping wife, and we went out. The night was still and cold. Heaps of snow covered the ground. We walked rapidly, and the frost squeaked under our feet. At the end of the village stood our sleigh. The horses impatiently dug the snow with their hoofs. I sat down, Mr. Orloff put the child in my lap, kissed him once more, gave my hand a tight squeeze, and we started.

The sleigh glided swiftly over the smooth road. The horses ran, and the driver hummed a tune. I pressed the child in my bosom, and listened to his regular breathing. Soon the driver got out of the sleigh and ran alongside the horses trying to warm himself. I did not move, being afraid to disturb the child, who was sound asleep.

At four o’clock in the morning we arrived in the village, and knocked on the door of a peasant hut. We were admitted. To all questions where I came from and where I was going, I replied in a plaintive voice that the child had been left an orphan and I was taking him to his grandparents in Russia.

After an hour’s stay in the hut, during which I warmed my frozen limbs and fed the child, I decided to go farther. My plan was to drive as far as Krasnoyarsk, to hide in that city so long as it was necessary for the hue and cry caused by my escape to subside, and then proceed to Vilna by railroad. My host readily consented to take me to the next village.

“Give three rubles, and I’ll drive fast,” he said.

At six o’clock I sat again with the child in my lap, and we renewed our journey over the endless road which ran through the Siberian _taigá_.[19] In the afternoon we came to the village. From there an old peasant drove me farther. He charged me only one ruble, saying that I was going far and needed the money.

For two days and three nights we rode thus, stopping only to warm ourselves and change horses. I hardly slept all this time. Sitting in the sleigh and listening to the roar of the wind in the taigá I wondered if we would ever reach Krasnoyarsk alive.

In the morning of the third day the child became sick. He cried, and complained of pain in his body. The severe cold, lack of warm food, and constant sitting in the sleigh had proved too much for him. I had to stop for a whole day. My anxiety knew no bounds. To the worry over the child’s sickness was added the fear that the police might overtake me. Toward evening the child felt better, and we set out again.

At last there remained only about ten miles to Krasnoyarsk. I was beginning to think myself out of danger, when in the middle of the day, on the road to Krasnoyarsk, I heard behind me the voice of our uryádnik. “Stop, stop! Whom are you driving?” he shouted to my driver. My blood grew cold. Instinctively I hid my face behind the child’s back. I heard the footsteps of people near me, but saw nothing.

“A woman with a child,” said one of them. “Go ahead!”

I hugged and kissed the child who had saved me from certain arrest. I promised the driver _na vódku_[20] and he let the horses go at full gallop.

Finally we arrived in Krasnoyarsk, and stopped at a hotel. I felt sick. All my body was aching from the long ride. The child had grown terribly thin, and his dear little face showed traces of hunger and cold. Both of us needed a good rest, but I had spent more money than I had intended, and owing to lack of funds, I could not stop at Krasnoyarsk for long. Having paid all the money I had for a second-class railroad ticket to Vilna, I left the city after a twenty-four hours’ stay at the hotel.

The long journey from Krasnoyarsk to Vilna passed without any serious incidents. The child proved the best protection from the searching eyes of the police and gendarmes. The spies who swarmed at every big station did not pay the least attention to me. They evidently could not think of such a combination. When we came to Chelyabinsk—the border line between Siberia and European Russia—and had to change trains, our car was suddenly locked, and the passengers were let out singly and their passports examined. I held the child in my arms, and the gendarmes passed me without a question.

On the fifth of March I came to Vilna, and delivered the child to its grandparents. I sent a telegraphic message to the Orloffs telling them that their child was safe. Being only a short distance from my home, I decided to see my parents. I ran a terrible risk, as my parents must have been shadowed by the secret police, but my love for them proved stronger than all considerations of prudence and safety. That very day I despatched a comrade with a letter to my parents, and in the evening they came to me. The joy of our meeting seemed to make us forget all the past sorrows and sufferings.

“I will not give you any more to _them_,” mother repeated over and again, without even attempting to dry the tears which ran in streams down her face.

Father took out fifty rubles and said to me:

“This money I borrowed. Take it and go abroad. There you will be safe from all the horrors which you have lived through.”

“Father, I can not do that. The thing which was done to me and thousands of others can not go unpunished. I can not let it go.”

My father took my head in his hands and looked with his soft eyes straight into mine.

“O, God! what have they made of you? You do not even cry, and there is so much hatred in your eyes, even at the sight of your old parents.”

“I can not, I can not,” I kept saying. The hands of my father tenderly pressed me closer and closer to his breast.

“Look,” he said with tears in his voice, “how gray the three years of your imprisonment have made me. What will become of us if you are imprisoned again?”

“Father, dear Father, listen to me. It is beyond my strength to endure the suffering and persecution to which you and millions like you are subjected. I can not bear it. And to put an end to it we must be strong, and must fight. I will go and _kill_ the murderers and tyrants, and hundreds will follow my example. And if I die....”

My father drew back, and stood staring at me in speechless terror. My mother ceased crying. Unable to stand the ordeal any longer, I threw myself on the bed, hid my face in a pillow, and wept for a long, long time, sobbing like a child.

On the next day Father and Mother went to the railroad station to see me off. I boarded a train for Minsk. From there a Jewish contrabandist directed me to the Austrian border. After hiding for three days in a small frontier town, I safely crossed the border into Brody.

-----

Footnote 9:

Overcoat.

Footnote 10:

Provision-money.

Footnote 11:

Cell.

Footnote 12:

Convicts who are being transported.

Footnote 13:

_Siberia and the Exile System_, Vol. I, p. 87.

Footnote 14:

Sleeping-platforms.

Footnote 15:

Springless wooden carts.

Footnote 16:

Chief of village police.

Footnote 17:

Head-man.

Footnote 18:

Cossack whips.

Footnote 19:

Forest.

Footnote 20:

Drink-money.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

V

I HAD decided to go abroad, because I had learned that the leading spirits of the “fighting league” of our party were just then living at Geneva. It was my intention to join the league and become a terrorist. My own life and that of my friends had taught me that peaceful methods of struggle with tyranny were no longer possible. Terrorism at that time was not only the mood of individuals in Russia, but all classes of society were pervaded with the spirit of active struggle. The masses were waiting only for a signal to rise in open revolt against the despotic régime.

To become a member of the terrorist organization was a matter of considerable difficulty. Only people with an established revolutionary reputation were admitted. With doubt in my heart I arrived in Geneva. Luckily, I found there Comrade Nicholai, who had escaped from Siberia a few weeks before me, and had already succeeded in forming the acquaintance of people who stood close to the league. Thanks to his efforts, I obtained an interview with the leaders of the organization several days after my arrival in the city.

By their keen sympathy and thoughtful attitude these people made a profound impression upon me. With great circumspection they tried to dissuade me from the course I had chosen, but it was of no avail. I knew too much about the life of my unhappy country to change my resolution and turn from the path to which I had been driven.

The executive committee finally decided to admit me into the organization. My first mission was to be the assassination of General Trepov. He was the St. Petersburg Governor-General. He it was who issued the famous order to the local garrison “not to spare cartridges.”

The first and foremost condition of the life of a terrorist is the complete severance of all intercourse with relatives and friends. A terrorist may not even correspond with anybody. The sole purpose of this is to safeguard innocent people against governmental persecution in the event of arrest of a member of the organization. There have been cases when people were exiled to Siberia or sentenced to long terms at hard labor for having written to or received a note from a terrorist.

This isolation and constant dwelling on one thought have a very peculiar effect upon one. The whole universe no longer existed for me. Trepov’s photograph represented to me a symbol of all of Russia’s ills, and his death the only cure for them. Now, when I think of the weary weeks which I passed in a little village, I know that only fanatical faith gave me the moral strength to prepare myself for such an act. My thoughts could not clearly picture that to which I was inevitably drawn. The fact that I was going to sacrifice my own life had absolutely no influence whatever upon me. I never even thought of my own death. But _his_ death, the death of one whom I considered the cause of thousands of deaths, was constantly in my mind.

At last, after a month of weary solitude, a comrade brought the disappointing news that General Trepov had found out in some way about the intention of the “fighting league” and had taken extraordinary precautions: he did not receive anybody and scarcely left his house. The committee deemed it best to postpone the attempt until another way was found.

The “fighting league” always had a list of high government officials whose activity was most injurious to the liberal movement, and upon such officials the league, in conjunction with the central committee of the Socialist-Revolutionists’ party, pronounced sentences of death. Next on the list was Governor-General Kleigels at Kief, who by indiscriminate suppression of all manifestation of dissatisfaction among peasants, students, and workingmen and cruel persecution of the Jews had made himself hateful to all who had the welfare of Russia at heart. General Kleigels was warned by the Kief committee of the party that he would be assassinated if he did not cease his atrocities; but he continued his policy of suppression, and took measures to guard against an attempt on his life.

Comrade Nicholai and I undertook to execute the sentence pronounced upon Governor-General Kleigels. It was planned that we should settle at Kief, Comrade Nicholai as a street peddler and I as a flower-girl. These occupations gave us the possibility of being in the street all the time without arousing suspicion.

From seven o’clock in the morning till eight in the evening I sat on a stone at the corner of the street where the general lived. Comrade Nicholai had a stand on the opposite corner. A week passed, and then another, then a third, but Kleigels would not leave his house. One day two Cossacks galloped past me, followed by a closed carriage with two Cossacks riding in the rear. The carriage stopped before a church. I hid myself around the corner. At last Kleigels appeared, but his wife and son were with him. My eyes fell at that moment on my comrade, who stood at the entrance of the church. Despair was written on his face. I understood his thoughts. Had this cowardly general heard that Kalyáev had twice risked his life, but would not kill the Grand Duke Sergius because the duchess was with him, and so used his family as a shield? To us they proved an insurmountable barrier. It was no part of our policy to shed the innocent blood of women and children. We strictly adhered to this rule, sometimes at great cost to ourselves.

So my second mission was doomed to failure. Soon after my last unsatisfactory conference with M. Azeff, a prime mover in the league (whom I later knew as an infamous traitor to our sacred cause), a bomb hurled by Ivan Kalyáev ended the life of Grand Duke Sergius, then governor-general at Moscow.

Crazed with fear, the czar locked himself in his palace, which was filled with soldiers. But the revolutionary propaganda in the army had weakened even this bulwark of czarism, and the soldiers could no longer be trusted.

In the meantime the political agitation in the country was assuming unheard-of proportions. Partial strikes on railroads and other public and private enterprises united into one country-wide general strike. The whole mechanism of the great empire came to a standstill. The authorities completely lost their heads, and for several days the very capital was virtually ruled by the “council of labor deputies” elected by the workmen of St. Petersburg.

This open and general revolt forced the czar to yield, and on the seventeenth of October, 1905, he issued the famous manifesto granting a constitution to Russia.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

VI

ON the day following the issue of the manifesto, the “black hundred,” which consisted chiefly of the riffraff of the city population, with an admixture of secret police agents, disguised gendarmes, and spies, took possession of Kief. They robbed and murdered the defenseless inhabitants of the city before the very eyes of the soldiers and police, and were even helped by these in their work of pillage and slaughter.

To resist the attacks of these hooligans, the young people formed self-defense leagues. I became a member of one of these leagues, and with a revolver in hand fought off the drunken mob. After two days of such activity my position in the city became insecure. I was under surveillance, and arrest threatened me at any moment. Then I decided to leave. I changed my appearance somewhat, and went to Moscow. I stayed in Moscow for some time, and, having learned that agitators were wanted in the province of Tchernigoff, went there. I had a letter to a certain Mr. B——, who was well known for his revolutionary propaganda among the peasants.

When I came to him and declared my intention of doing propaganda work in the villages, he said to me:

“I am very sorry you came to us at such a bad time. Governor Khvostoff has been ‘pacifying’ the peasants, and the village now presents a dreadful sight.”

He introduced me to two comrades, a middle-aged man and a young girl, and we three started out the next day. We were dressed in peasant garb, and in our wallets, which we carried on our backs, were prohibited pamphlets. Toward evening we came to the nearest village. We entered a hut, and the host welcomed us very cordially.

“Put up the samovar,” he said to his wife, who was rocking a baby in a cradle suspended from the ceiling.

“Well, Vania, why didn’t you come around to us for such a long time?” the host asked, turning to my comrade.

“I was in Moscow,” Vania answered.

“What have they decided there?” asked the host. But suddenly his cheerful, smiling face darkened, and not waiting for an answer, he said: “Did you hear what happened to us here?”

IVAN KALYÁEV

Born 1877, assassinated Grand Duke Sergius, sentenced
to death and executed in the fortress of
Shlússelburg in 1905
]

“Yes, I did,” my comrade replied; “but I want to hear the whole story from you.”

“Wait, the boys will come, and we will talk it over,” said the host. “Did you bring any books?” he asked.

We untied our wallets and laid out on the table all the pamphlets we had brought. The host reverently picked up every one of them and read the titles aloud.

Soon the hut filled with young and old peasants. There were even women with infants in their arms. They all knew Vania well, and greeted him in a friendly manner.

“See how many of our people are missing!” said an old peasant with a white beard. “That’s after the manifesto.”

“Tell Vania everything,” several voices said at once.

The old peasant laid his hands on the table, crossed them, and began:

“When we heard that the czar had issued a manifesto and had given us liberty,—and the year had been a bad one, and there was nothing in our barns,—we understood by the czar’s favor to us that we might take the superfluous grain from the landowners. We gathered the whole village, came to the house of the landowner, called him out, and said to him:

“‘The czar’s favor gave us a manifesto that we might take your grain, there being none in our barns. Give us the key. We will divide fairly, and shall not forget you.’

“The landowner began to yell at us, and went back into the house. We waited, but he didn’t come out. Then we decided that he had heard nothing about the czar’s manifesto. So we broke the lock, divided the grain among ourselves, and went home. That was in the morning. Toward evening we heard a noise, and the dogs were barking. We went out and saw an important official coming. All about him were Cossacks. We thought that he came to read to us the czar’s manifesto, so we fetched bread and salt and met him, bowing low. He ordered us to gather in the village square. We came in good order, and he swore at us in the worst language. Then he shouted:

”‘Those of you who first thought of rioting and going against the landowner step out.’

“We all answered in chorus:

“‘Your high Nobility, we did not riot, but there was a manifesto from the czar that we might take the grain from the landowner, there being none in our barns.’

“‘I’ll show you!’ he shouted, striking us with a nagáika. ‘I’ll show you what the czar’s manifesto means! Let us have rods, rods!’

“They seized Andrei first, and flogged the poor fellow so that he remained lying on the spot. His hapless wife was weeping, and the Cossacks hit her in the face with their nagáikas and swore at her. The women and children began to cry. The Cossacks surrounded us on all sides and did not let us get away. They flogged ten people, and after that the official—it was the governor—said:

“‘And now take the grain back to the landowner’s barn.’

“‘That, your high Nobility, we cannot do,’ we answered. ‘There was a manifesto from the czar that we might take the grain for ourselves.’

“‘Shoot these dogs!’ he shouted to his Cossacks, and they fired a volley. Eight were killed and many wounded. After that the Cossacks went to the houses and began to rob us. They insulted our wives and daughters, and Savitch’s girl they crippled for life.”

As he spoke his white head was shaking, and his withered hands were trembling. Every word of his sounded terrible in the dimly lighted hut. He finished, and rested his head on his hands. For a long time no one dared to disturb the silence which reigned in the room. It seemed to me that a whole eternity had passed since he began his woeful tale.

About ten o’clock the gathering broke up. We remained there for the night. I did not sleep. That night a resolution ripened in my mind. In the morning I refused to go farther and returned to the city. I went to a member of a local committee of the Socialist-Revolutionists’ party. He was a well-known revolutionist who had spent a great many years in prison and in Siberian exile. To this man I confided my secret.

“Very well,” he said; “I will communicate with the committee.”

On the same day he delivered to me the following decision:

“The committee deems the assassination of Governor Khvostoff necessary at this moment, as a response to all the atrocities he has committed in the villages. It has also become known to the committee that the governor is trying to organize a Jewish pogróm in the city of Tchernigoff. In consideration of all this the committee accepts your proposal, and authorizes you to make the attempt.”

Mr. V—— also gave me money for necessary expenses and some information about the governor.

He lived at one end of Tchernigoff. His house stood on a hill, and was surrounded by a garden. Fortunately, the third house from his was vacant, and I immediately rented it. The house was rather too large for one person, and to avert suspicion I told the landlady that I expected my mother and sister from Warsaw. I sent my passport—that of a Polish school-teacher—to the police station, and in a few days it came back safely. Then I telegraphed to Comrade Nicholai. He had shortly before left the hospital, having been wounded during a pogróm that occurred on the day after the issue of the manifesto. Comrade Nicholai arrived in Tchernigoff in a few days, and took lodgings opposite the Noblemen’s Assembly. As we had learned, the governor sometimes visited there.

Sitting at my window, I studied the governor’s daily routine. I learned when he got up and when he went to sleep. I learned when he received and whom. I even knew his dinner-hour.

For a whole week the governor did not leave his house except for a walk in his garden. Slowly the days and sleepless nights dragged by. Alone with my thoughts, I paced the deserted house. I spent most of the time making up a list of the governor’s victims. I treasured the names of those who had been shot or flogged to death by him. I read and re-read for the thousandth time the simple narratives of the peasants about his terrible crimes, and my heart bled for them. Hopefully I looked in the direction of the shelf on which the bomb lay.

Finally it became positively known to us that the governor would drive on New-Year’s day, at twelve o’clock, to the Noblemen’s Assembly, and we decided to assassinate him on his way back.

* * * * *

It was New-Year’s eve. I sat near the window and looked at the snow-covered road. There was only one thought in my mind: he must die. All doubts had disappeared. I knew, I felt that it was going to happen.

At midnight I carefully removed the tube from the bomb, dried the powder, and reloaded the bomb. I put the four-pound tin box in a fine hand-bag specially bought for the occasion, and again read over the list of the peasants murdered by the governor. I set everything in order, wrote a letter, and left money for the landlady. Then I went to bed.

“I must sleep,” I repeated to myself, and I actually fell asleep.

A knock at the door roused me. I opened my eyes, and the consciousness of what was going to happen on that day filled my soul. My heart began to beat faster and faster. There was another knock at the door. I slipped on a morning gown, and looked out of the window. A group of masked children stood at the door. I understood that they must have come to congratulate me, and, according to custom, throw millet-seeds all over the house. For this they get a few kopecks.

I admitted them, and in feverish haste began to hand to them anything I could lay my hands on. An uncontrollable desire to remain a little longer with these innocent children seized me, and I begged them to take off their masks and have tea with me. They hesitated; but when one of the elder boys took off his mask, all followed his example. I made tea, and seated the children about the table. They were becoming bolder and bolder, and soon they were chatting carelessly and curiously regarding me and everything in the house.

The samovar was steaming merrily on the table, the children were laughing noisily, the sun shone brightly in my window. For a minute I forgot what was going to happen in a few hours. Suddenly a Cossack galloped past, followed by a carriage. I recognized the carriage. The children continued to laugh, but I no longer heard them.

“Go, go, children! it is time!” I exclaimed. “But first let us bid good-by.”

They looked at me in surprise. Their cheerful little faces clouded with regret, and their thin, unwashed hands extended to me.

“Don’t forget me, children!” I said.

They made the sign of the cross, wished me a happy New-Year, and quietly went away. I dressed hastily, took my hand-bag, and went into the street.

THE PRISON WALL FROM THE OUTSIDE
]

The day was bright and cold, the sky cloudless. The street was almost deserted, with only now and then an occasional passer-by hurrying to church. Four blocks from my house was a bridge on which a gorodovoi stood on fixed post. Holding the bag in my hand, I passed him, and he bowed low and wished me a happy New-Year. Soon, however, I came back, and began to walk up and down not far from my house. A few minutes later I saw from afar Comrade Nicholai walking with slow and measured steps toward me. In his hand he held a box tied with a red ribbon: that was a bomb. He crossed the bridge, and stopped about seventy or eighty feet from me. I knew then that he would throw the bomb from there. It was our understanding that he would throw the bomb from where he stopped. I continued to walk back and forth in the direction of the governor’s house. Comrade Nicholai overtook me, and whispered while passing:

“I saw him. Remember, keep farther away from me, lest an accident should happen to your bomb when mine explodes.”

“All right,” I whispered in reply.

“Good-by!” said Nicholai, and quickly went to his former place.

I followed him with my eyes, hardly moving. The street still remained deserted. Suddenly a mounted Cossack appeared, and behind him a carriage. Comrade Nicholai immediately stepped down from the curb. At that moment the carriage approached him. He raised his hand, and threw the bomb under the carriage. The bomb fell softly on the snow and did not explode. A police officer who was riding behind the governor sprang at Nicholai, and I heard the report of a pistol. The carriage stopped for an instant; but evidently taking in the situation, the coachman began to whip the horses, and drove at full gallop straight in my direction. I stepped into the middle of the road, and with all my might hurled the bomb against the carriage window. A terrific force instantly stunned me. I felt that I was lifted into the air.

When I regained consciousness and opened my eyes there was nobody around. I lay on the road amid a heap of debris. Blood was streaming down my face and hands. I tried to lift my head, and lost consciousness.

When I came to the second time I was standing near a cab, supported by a strange woman. She was telling something to the cabman, but I could not hear her. She put me into the cab, and the driver started. He drove past my house, across the bridge, where a gorodovoi had always stood, but where there was none now. We rode through the whole length of the street without meeting a human being.

“What does this mean? Where are all the people?” I thought to myself.

The cab turned into some street, and stopped in front of a house. The name of a hospital at once brought me to my senses. I understood that through some miracle I had been saved from destruction, and that I had been brought, not to the prison, but to a private hospital. I paid the cabman, waited until he disappeared around the corner, and then went. At every step blood streamed down my face, blinding me. I walked and walked, utterly unaware of where I was and where I was going. I felt that my strength was leaving me, and that I would soon fall in the middle of the street. I chanced to see an open gate. I went into the yard, and sat down on the snow. The thought that I was saved did not console me. I knew that whoever should undertake to hide me would perish together with me.

“Where, where shall I go?”

To stop the flow of blood, I put some snow in my handkerchief and applied it to my head. This refreshed me a little. Then I took off my fur coat and lay down on it. Gradually my hands and feet began to grow numb with cold. The snow about me became red. Drops of blood froze on my face and hands. It grew dark. I felt a strange weakness in my whole body, and a deadly drowsiness seized my benumbed limbs. I do not know how long I had lain thus when I felt that some one was tugging at my sleeve. With difficulty I opened my eyes. A youth stood near me. He bent down close to my ear, and I distinctly heard: “Is that you who killed the governor—you?”

His words lighted up my dying consciousness.

“Yes, it is I.”

The youth straightened up, looked once more at me and the blood-stained snow, and went away without saying another word. Hardly five minutes had passed when he came back, followed by a hunchbacked old man. They raised me in their arms, and carried me into a house. The warm air and cold water applied to my head brought me to full consciousness. I realized that these poor Hebrews were imperiling their lives.

“I must go away from here,” I said to the old hostess who was coaxing me to lie down on their only bed.

“But the young man asked us to take care of you,” she replied.

The youth returned from somewhere greatly agitated, and said that the police were following me by the blood trail, and would probably soon be there.

“Oh, oh!” groaned the old woman, and in great terror began to circle about the room. I ran to the door, intending to go out, but the woman cried to me:

“What are you doing? They will see you, and we shall perish.”

Suddenly she opened the wardrobe, pushed me in, and locked it. Humiliated and exhausted, I leaned against the door of the wardrobe, not daring to breathe. A far-away noise reached my ear. It came nearer and nearer. I heard the tramping of many feet near my hiding-place. My knees bent under me, and I lost consciousness.

Late at night I found myself sitting at a table. The room was lighted by a candle. The old woman was whispering in my ear:

“Thanks to God! I succeeded in fooling them.”

I could not understand what she was saying. I felt sharp pain in my head, and my whole body was burning. I cared about nothing, and wished only for quiet and rest.

The youth came in, holding in his hands a soldier’s coat and cap. They put it on me, and holding me under the arms led me into the yard. They seated me in a sleigh, with the youth beside me, and we drove away. We rode aimlessly through the city, passing everywhere patrols of soldiers and police. This eighteen-year-old youth evidently did not know where he was taking me. Bewildered by his discovery, and not wishing to deliver me into the hands of the infuriated authorities, he tried to save me at the risk of his own life.

At last we safely got out of the city, and after driving the whole night came to the town of Gorodnia. In this little town, where the youth hoped to put me on a train, we were stopped by a police captain with a group of soldiers. They took us to the police station and kept us there until a company of Cossacks arrived. I was separated from the youth, put in a closed carriage, and rushed back to Tchernigoff. We came there toward evening.

There was no furniture whatever in the filthy cell at the police station where they first put me, and I lay down on the floor. I was so weak from the loss of blood that I could not stand on my feet. A gendarme with a drawn saber stood near me. The door was not locked.

For several days I was in a semiconscious state. I remember only that my cell was always crowded with officials, high and low, who came to look at me. Whenever I began to fall asleep, the gendarme roused me and demanded:

“Who are your accomplices? What are their names?”

Weak and exhausted as I was, this question always brought me back to consciousness. I knew perfectly well why the gendarme asked me this, and silence was my only answer.

This inofficial torture continued for two weeks, but the consciousness of duty was so strong in me that all the physical pain and misery they inflicted upon me did not produce the desired effect, and all the subtle contrivances of the gendarmes to wring a confession from me were futile. All that they could think of doing to me was in a vast degree milder than what I had done to myself. My tormentors understood this, and seeing that their inhuman methods did not bring the desired results, they often let me sleep. During these two weeks the procurator and the examining magistrate came to see me a couple of times. But as I did not at all think of denying that I had thrown the bomb at Governor Khvostoff, they lost all interest in the case, and conducted the investigation with cold indifference. They did not even succeed in learning my real name, and I appeared before the court as “Unknown.” By not revealing my identity I hoped to spare my parents the cruel agony for a daughter who must die on the gallows.

On the sixteenth of January, late at night, I was transferred to the military prison, and told there that I would be tried by court-martial the next day. At ten o’clock in the morning Comrade Nicholai, the youth who was guilty of nothing but not having betrayed me to the police, and I appeared before the military court. When we were led into the court-room it was crowded with gendarmes and police. In a corner sat the unfortunate old parents of the youth. They were the only outsiders.

The ceremony of the trial lasted about half an hour, because we did not deny the fact, and there remained only to render the verdict, which they as well as we knew beforehand. We were offered to say our “last word.”[21] Comrade Nicholai rose and said:

“Gentlemen of the court: I went openly to fight the enemies of the people. I knew beforehand that for this death awaited me. But the belief that only by this means we can free Russia gave me the strength to sacrifice my young life. And now, before my death, I swear to you, my enemies, that this youth is innocent, and that I see him for the first time in my life.”

A GROUP OF POLITICAL WOMEN PRISONERS

In the yard of the Akatúi prison.
Miss Sukloff is seventh from the left
]

“Gentlemen of the court,” said the youth, “I do not ask for clemency for myself, although I do not consider myself guilty. But I beg you to look at my old parents and take pity on them.”

It was my turn to say my “last word,” and I rose.

“Gentlemen of the court: I swear to you by my sacred belief that Russia will be free, for in this belief I went to my death; I swear to you by the name of the ‘fighting league,’ to which I have the honor of belonging, that this boy is innocent. Look at me. I am young, and I love life. I never knew Khvostoff, and had nothing against him personally. I went to assassinate him for the terrible atrocities committed by him in the villages, and after he had proved to be a real enemy of the people. I knew beforehand that I should die for this, but the thought of death did not terrify me. I went openly to my aim, and never lied even to my enemies. Perhaps I have only twenty-four hours to live, and you are the only people I see before my death. At this minute I want to forget that you are my enemies, and, as before God, I swear that this youth is innocent.”

I sat down, and the procurator rose and said:

“Gentlemen of the court: Although the accused produce a favorable impression, I, in the name of the law, must demand a death-sentence for all three.”

After this the court retired to deliberate upon the verdict, and we were taken to our cells.

Terror seized me at the thought that they might hang this strange eighteen-year-old boy. I paced my cell for hours. The sun set, it grew dark, and the judges were still deliberating. Oh, if only they would not hang him!

The clock struck midnight. Some one stealthily opened my door.

“To the court-room, please!”