Memoirs of a Revolutionist | Project Gutenberg (2024)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 73882 ***

The Autobiographies which we owe to great minds havein former times generally been of one of three types: ‘Sofar I went astray, thus I found the true path’ (St. Augustine);or, ‘So bad was I, but who dares to consider himselfbetter!’ (Rousseau); or, ‘This is the way a geniushas slowly been evolved from within and by favourablesurroundings’ (Goethe). In these forms of self-representationthe author is thus mainly pre-occupied with himself.

In the nineteenth century the autobiographies of menof mark are more often shaped on lines such as these:‘So full of talent and attractive was I; such appreciationand admiration I won!’ (Johanne Louise Heiberg, ‘ALife lived once more in Reminiscence’); or, ‘I was full oftalent and worthy of being loved, but yet I was unappreciated,and these were the hard struggles I went throughbefore I won the crown of fame’ (Hans Christian Andersen,‘The Tale of a Life’). The main pre-occupation ofthe writer, in these two classes of life-records, is consequentlywith what his fellow-men have thought of himand said about him.

The author of the autobiography before us is not pre-occupiedwith his own capacities, and consequently describesno struggle to gain recognition, Still less does hecare for the opinions of his fellow-men about himself; whatothers have thought of him, he dismisses with a single word.

There is in this work no gazing upon one’s own image.The author is not one of those who willingly speak of(x)themselves; when he does so, it is reluctantly and witha certain shyness. There is here no confession thatdivulges the inner self, no sentimentality, and no cynicism.The author speaks neither of his sins nor of his virtues;he enters into no vulgar intimacy with his reader. Hedoes not say when he fell in love, and he touches so littleupon his relations with the other sex, that he even omitsto mention his marriage, and it is only incidentally welearn that he is married at all. That he is a father, anda very loving one, he finds time to mention just once inthe rapid review of the last sixteen years of his life.

He is more anxious to give the psychology of his contemporariesthan of himself; and one finds in his bookthe psychology of Russia: the official Russia and themasses underneath—Russia struggling forward and Russiastagnant. He strives to tell the story of his contemporariesrather than his own; and consequently, the recordof his life contains the history of Russia during his lifetime,as well as that of the labour movement in Europeduring the last half-century. When he plunges into hisown inner world, we see the outer world reflected in it.

There is, nevertheless, in this book an effect such asGoethe aimed at in ‘Dichtung und Wahrheit,’ the representationof how a remarkable mind has been shaped; andin analogy with the ‘Confessions’ of St. Augustine, wehave the story of an inner crisis which corresponds withwhat in olden times was called ‘conversion.’ In fact, thisinner crisis is the turning point and the core of the book.

There are at this moment only two great Russianswho think for the Russian people, and whose thoughtsbelong to mankind, Leo Tolstoy and Peter Kropotkin.Tolstoy has often told us, in poetical shape, parts of hislife. Kropotkin gives us here, for the first time, withoutany poetical recasting, a rapid survey of his whole career.

However radically different these two men are, there(xi)is one parallel which can be drawn between the lives andthe views on life of both. Tolstoy is an artist, Kropotkinis a man of science; but there came a period in the careerof each of them, when neither could find peace in continuingthe work to which he had brought great inborncapacities. Religious considerations led Tolstoy, socialconsiderations led Kropotkin, to abandon the paths theyhad first taken.

Both are filled with love for mankind; and they are atone in the severe condemnation of the indifference, thethoughtlessness, the crudeness and brutality of the upperclasses, as well as in the attraction they both feel towardsthe life of the downtrodden and ill-used man of the people.Both see more cowardice than stupidity in the world.Both are idealists and both have the reformer’s temperament.Both are peace-loving natures, and Kropotkin isthe more peaceful of the two—although Tolstoy alwayspreaches peace and condemns those who take right intotheir own hands and resort to force, while Kropotkinjustifies such action, and was on friendly terms with theTerrorists. The point upon which they differ most is intheir attitudes towards the intelligent educated man andtowards science altogether; Tolstoy, in his religious passion,disdains and disparages the man equally with the thing,while Kropotkin holds both in high esteem, although atthe same time he condemns men of science for forgettingthe people and the misery of the masses.

Many a man and many a woman have accomplisheda great life-work without having led a great life. Manypeople are interesting, although their lives may have beenquite insignificant and commonplace. Kropotkin’s life isboth great and interesting.

In this volume will be found a combination of allthe elements out of which an intensely eventful life is composed—idylland tragedy, drama and romance.

(xii)

The childhood in Moscow and in the country, theportraits of his mother, sister, and teachers, of the oldand trusty servants, together with the many pictures ofpatriarchal life, are done in such a masterly way thatevery heart will be touched by them. The landscapes,the story of the unusually intense love between the twobrothers—all this is pure idyll.

Side by side there is, unhappily, plenty of sorrow andsuffering: the harshness in the family life, the cruel treatmentof the serfs, and the narrow-mindedness and heartlessnesswhich are the ruling stars of men’s destinies.

There is variety and there are dramatic catastrophes:life at Court and life in prison; life in the highest Russiansociety, by the side of emperors and grand dukes, andlife in poverty, with the working proletariat, in Londonand in Switzerland. There are changes of costume as ina drama; the chief actor having to appear during the dayin fine dress in the Winter Palace, and in the evening inpeasant’s clothes in the suburbs, as a preacher of revolution.And there is, too, the sensational element thatbelongs to the novel. Although nobody could be simplerin tone and style than Kropotkin, nevertheless parts ofhis narrative, from the very nature of the events he hasto tell, are more intensely exciting than anything in thosenovels which aim only at being sensational. One readswith breathless interest the preparations for the escapefrom the hospital of the fortress of St. Paul and St. Peter,and the bold execution of the plan.

Few men have moved, as Kropotkin did, in all layersof society; few know all these layers as he does. Whata picture! Kropotkin as a little boy with curled hair, ina fancy-dress costume, standing by the Emperor Nicholas,or running after the Emperor Alexander as his page, withthe idea of protecting him. And then again—Kropotkinin a terrible prison, sending away the Grand Duke(xiii)Nicholas, or listening to the growing insanity of a peasantwho is confined in a cell under his very feet.

He has lived the life of the aristocrat and of theworker; he has been one of the Emperor’s pages and apoverty-stricken writer; he has lived the life of the student,the officer, the man of science, the explorer of unknownlands, the administrator, and the hunted revolutionist.In exile he has had at times to live upon bread and teaas a Russian peasant; and he has been exposed to espionageand assassination plots like a Russian emperor.

Few men have had an equally wide field of experience.Just as Kropotkin is able, as a geologist, to survey prehistoricevolution for hundreds of thousands of years past,so too he has assimilated the whole historical evolutionof his own times. To the literary and scientific educationwhich is won in the study and in the university (such asthe knowledge of languages, belles-lettres, philosophy,and higher mathematics), he added at an early stage ofhis life that education which is gained in the workshop,in the laboratory, and in the open field—natural science,military science, fortification, knowledge of mechanicaland industrial processes. His intellectual equipment isuniversal.

What must this active mind have suffered when he wasreduced to the inactivity of prison life! What a test ofendurance and what an exercise in stoicism! Kropotkinsays somewhere that a morally developed personalitymust be at the foundation of every organization. Thatapplies to him. Life has made of him one of the cornerstonesfor the building of the future.

The crisis in Kropotkin’s life has two turning pointswhich must be mentioned.

He approaches his thirtieth year—the decisive year ina man’s life. With heart and soul he is a man of science;he has made a valuable scientific discovery. He has found(xiv)out that the maps of Northern Asia are incorrect; thatnot only the old conceptions of the geography of Asia arewrong, but that the theories of Humboldt are also in contradictionwith the facts. For more than two years hehas plunged into laborious research. Then, suddenly, ona certain day, the true relations of the facts flash uponhim; he understands that the main lines of structure inAsia are not from north to south or from west to east,but from the south-west to the north-east. He submitshis discovery to test, he applies it to numerous separatedfacts, and—it holds its ground. Thus he knew the joy ofscientific revelation in its highest and purest form; he hasfelt how elevating is its action on the mind.

Then comes the crisis. The thought that these joysare the lot of so few, fills him now with sorrow. He askshimself whether he has the right to enjoy this knowledgealone—for himself. He feels that there is a higher dutybefore him—to do his part in bringing to the mass of thepeople the information already gained, rather than to workat making new discoveries.

For my part I do not think that he was right. Withsuch conceptions Pasteur would not have been the benefactorof mankind that he has been. After all, everything,in the long run, is to the benefit of the mass of the people.I think that a man does the utmost for the well-being ofall when he has given to the world the most intense productionof which he is capable. But this fundamentalnotion is characteristic of Kropotkin; it contains his veryessence.

And this attitude of mind carries him farther. InFinland, where he is going to make a new scientific discovery,as he comes to the idea—which was heresy at thattime—that in prehistoric ages all Northern Europe wasburied under ice, he is so much impressed with compassionfor the poor, the suffering, who often know hunger in their(xv)struggle for bread, that he considers it his highest, absoluteduty to become a teacher and helper of the great workingand destitute masses.

Soon after that a new world opens before him—-the lifeof the working classes—and he learns from those whomhe intends to teach.

Five or six years later this crisis appears in its secondphase. It happens in Switzerland. Already during hisfirst stay there Kropotkin had abandoned the group ofstate-socialists, from fear of an economical despotism, fromhatred of centralization, from love for the freedom of theindividual and the commune. Now, however, after hislong imprisonment in Russia, during his second stayamidst the intelligent workers of West Switzerland, theconception which floated before his eyes of a new structureof society, more distinctly dawns upon him in the shapeof a society of federated associations, co-operating in thesame way as the railway companies, or the postal departmentsof separate countries co-operate. He knows that hecannot dictate to the future the lines which it will haveto follow; he is convinced that all must grow out of theconstructive activity of the masses, but he compares, forthe sake of illustration, the coming structure with theguilds and the mutual relations which existed in mediævaltimes, and were worked out from below. He does notbelieve in the distinction between leaders and led; but Imust confess that I am old-fashioned enough to feel pleasedwhen Kropotkin, by a slight inconsistency, says once inpraise of a friend that he was ‘a born leader of men.’

The author describes himself as a Revolutionist, andhe is surely quite right in so doing. But seldom havethere been revolutionists so humane and mild. One feelsastounded when, in alluding on one occasion to the possibilityof an armed conflict with the Swiss police, thereappears in his character the fighting instinct which exists(xvi)in all of us. He cannot say precisely in this passagewhether he and his friends felt a relief at being spared afight, or a regret that the fight did not take place. Thisexpression of feeling stands alone. He has never beenan avenger, but always a martyr.

He does not impose sacrifices upon others; he makesthem himself. All his life he has done it, but in such away that the sacrifice seems to have cost him nothing.So little does he make of it. And with all his energy heis so far from being vindictive, that of a disgusting prisondoctor he only remarks: ‘The less said of him the better.’

He is a revolutionist without emphasis and withoutemblem. He laughs at the oaths and ceremonies withwhich conspirators bind themselves in dramas and operas.This man is simplicity personified. In character he willbear comparison with any of the fighters for freedom in alllands. None have been more disinterested than he, nonehave loved mankind more than he does.

But he would not permit me to say in the forefront ofhis book all the good that I think of him, and should Isay it, my words would outrun the limits of a reasonablePreface.

GEORGE BRANDES.

When the first edition of this book was brought out atthe end of 1899, it was evident to those who had followedthe development of affairs in Russia that, owing to theobstinacy of its rulers in refusing to make the necessaryconcessions in the way of political freedom, the country wasrapidly drifting towards a violent revolution. But everythingseemed to be so calm on the surface, that when afew of us expressed this idea, we were generally told thatwe merely took our desires for realities. At the presentmoment Russia is in full revolution. The old system isfalling to pieces, and amidst its ruins the new one is painfullymaking its way. Meanwhile the defenders of the pastare waging a war of extermination against the country—awar which may prolong their rule for a few additionalmonths, but which raises at the same time the passions ofthe people to a pitch that is full of menaces and danger.

Looked upon in the light of present events, the earlymovements for freedom which are related in this bookacquire a new meaning. They appear as the preparatoryphases of the great breakdown of a whole obsoleteworld—a breakdown which is sure to give a new life tonearly one hundred and fifty million people, and toexercise at the same time a deep and favourable influenceupon the march of progress in all Europe and Asia. Itseems necessary, therefore, to complete the record of(xviii)events given in this book by a rapid review of those whichhave taken place during the last seven years, and werethe immediate cause of the present revolution.

The thirteen years of the reign of Alexander III.,1881-1894, were perhaps the gloomiest portion in thenineteenth century history of Russia. Reaction had beengrowing worse and worse during the last few years of thereign of his father—with the result that a terrible warhad been waged against autocracy by the ExecutiveCommittee, which had inscribed on its banner politicalfreedom. After the tragic death of Alexander II., hisson considered it his duty to make no concessions whateverto the general demand of representative government,and a few weeks after his advent to the throne hesolemnly declared his intention of remaining an autocraticruler of his Empire. And then began a heavy, silent,crushing reaction against all the great, inspiring ideasof Liberty which our generation had lived through atthe time of the liberation of the serfs—a reaction, perhapsthe more terrible on account of its not being accompaniedby striking and revolting acts of violence, butslowly crushing down all the progressive reforms ofAlexander II., and the very spirit that bred these reforms,and turning everything, including education, intotools of a general reaction.

Sheer despair got hold of the generation of theRussian ‘intellectuals’ who had to live through thatperiod. The few survivors of the Executive Committeelaid down their arms, and there spread in Russian intellectualsociety that helpless despair, that loss of faith inthe forces of ‘the intellectual,’ that general invasion ofcommon-place vulgarity which Tchékhoff has picturedwith such a depressing sadness in his novels.

True, that Alexander III., since his advent to thethrone, had vaguely understood the importance of several(xix)economic questions concerning the welfare of the peasants,and had included them in his programme. Butwith the set of reactionary advisers whom he had summonedto his aid, and whom he retained throughout hisreign, he could accomplish nothing serious; the reactionarieswhom he trusted did not at all want to make thoseserious improvements in the conditions of the peasantswhich he considered it the mission of autocracy to accomplish;and he would not call in other men, because heknew that they would require a limitation of the powersof autocracy, which he would not admit. When he died,a general feeling of relief went through Russia and thecivilized world at large.

Never had a Tsar ascended the throne under morefavourable circ*mstances than Nicholas II. After thesethirteen years of reaction, the state of mind in Russia wassuch, that if Nicholas II. had only mentioned, in his adventmanifesto, the intention of taking the advice of his countryupon the great questions of inner policy which requiredan immediate solution, he would have been received withopen arms.

The smallest concession would have been gladly acceptedas an asset. In fact, the delegates of the Zemstvos,assembled to greet him, asked him only—and this in themost submissive manner—‘to establish a closer intercoursebetween the Emperor and the provincial representation ofthe land.’ But instead of accepting this modest invitation,Nicholas II. read before the Zemstvo representatives theinsolent speech of reprimand, which had been written forhim by Pobiedonostseff, and which expressed his intentionof remaining an autocratic ruler of his subjects.

A golden opportunity was thus lost. Distrust becamenow the dominating note in the relations between thenation and the Tsar, and it was striking to see how thisdistrust—in one of those indescribable ways in which(xx)popular feelings develop—rapidly spread from the WinterPalace to the remotest corners of Russia.

The results of that distrust soon became apparent.The great strikes which broke out at St. Petersburg in1895, at the time of the coronation of Nicholas II.,gave a measure of the depth of discontent which wasgrowing in the masses of the people. The seriousness ofthe discontent and the unity of action which this revealedwere quite unsuspected. What an immense distance wascovered since those times, of which I speak in this book,when we used to meet small groups of weavers in theViborg suburb of St. Petersburg, and asked them withdespair if it really was impossible to induce their comradesto join in a strike, so as to obtain a reduction of the hoursof labour, which were fourteen and sixteen at that time!Now, the same working-men combined all over St. Petersburg,and brought out of their ranks such speakers andsuch organisers, as if they had been trade-union hands forages.

Two years later, in 1897, there were serious disturbancesin all the Russian universities; but when a second series ofstudent disturbances began in 1901, they suddenly assumeda quite unexpected political significance. The studentsprotested this time against a law, passed by Nicholas II.,who had ordered—again on the advice of Pobiedonostseff—thatstudents implicated in academical disorders shouldbe sent to Port Arthur as soldiers. Hundreds of themwere treated accordingly. Formerly, such a movementwould have remained a university matter; now itassumed a serious political character and stirred variousclasses of society. At Moscow the working-men supportedthe students in their street demonstrations, and fought attheir side against the police. At St. Petersburg all sortsof people, including the workmen’s organizations, joined inthe street demonstrations, and serious fighting took place(xxi)in the streets. When the manifestations were dispersedby the lead-weighted horsewhips of the Cossacks, whocut open the faces of men and women assembled inthe streets, there was a strikingly unanimous outburst ofpublic indignation.

I have mentioned in this book how tragical was theposition of our youth in the seventies and eighties, onaccount of ‘the fathers’ having abandoned entirely totheir sons the terrible task of struggling against a powerfulgovernment. Now, ‘the fathers’ joined hands with ‘thesons.’ The ‘respectable’ Society of Authors issued astrongly worded protest. A venerated old member ofthe Council of the State, Prince Vyazemsky, did the same.Even the officers of the Cossacks of the Bodyguard notifiedtheir unwillingness to carry on such police duties.In short, discontent was so general and so openly expressed,that the Committee of Ministers, assuming forthe first time since its foundation the rôle of a ‘Ministry,’discussed the Imperial order concerning the students, andinsisted upon, and obtained, its withdrawal.

Something quite unexpected had thus happened. Arash and ill-tempered measure of the young autocrat hadthus set all the country on fire. It resulted in twoministers being killed; in bloodshed in the streets ofKharkoff, Moscow and St. Petersburg; and it would havebecome the cause of further disasters if Nicholas II. hadnot been prevented from declaring the state of siege inhis capital, which surely would have led to still morebloodshed.

All this was pointing to such a deep change in the mindof the nation, that already in the early spring of 1901—longbefore the declaration of war with Japan—it becameevident that the days of autocracy were already counted:‘Speaking plainly,’ I wrote in the ‘North American Review,’‘the fact is that Russia has outgrown the autocratic form(xxii)of government; and it may be said confidently that ifexternal complications do not disturb the peaceful developmentof Russia, Nicholas II. will soon be brought torealize that he is bound to take steps for meeting thewishes of the country. Let us hope that he will understandthe proper sense of the lesson which he has receivedduring the past two months’ (May 1901, p. 723).

Unfortunately, Nicholas II. understood nothing. Hedid, on the contrary, everything to bring about the revolution.He contributed to spread discontent everywhere:in Finland, in Poland, in Armenia (by confiscating theproperty of the Armenian Church), and in Russia itselfamongst the peasants, the students, the working-men, thedissenters, and so on. More than that. Efforts were made,on different sides, to induce Nicholas II. to adopt a betterpolicy; but always he himself—so weak for good—foundthe force to resist these influences. At a decisive momenthe always would find enough energy to turn the scales infavour of reaction, by his personal interference. It hasbeen said of him that obstinacy was a distinctive featureof his character, and this seems to be true enough; buthe displays it exclusively to oppose those progressivemeasures which the necessities of the moment renderimperative. Even if he occasionally yields to progressiveinfluences, he always manages very soon to counteractthem in secrecy. He displays, in fact, precisely thosefeatures which necessarily lead to a revolution.

In 1901 it was evident that the old order of thingswould soon have to be abandoned. The then Minister ofFinances, Witte, must have realized it, and he took a stepwhich certainly meant that he was preparing a transitionfrom autocracy to some sort of a half-constitutionalrégime. The ‘Commissions on the Impoverishment ofa*griculture in Central Russia,’ which he convoked inthirty-four provinces, undoubtedly meant to supply that(xxiii)intermediary step, and the country answered to his callin the proper way. Landlords and peasants alike saidand maintained quite openly in these Commissions thatRussia could not remain any longer under the system ofpolice rule established by Alexander III. Equal rightsfor all subjects, political liberties, and constitutional guaranteeswere declared to be an urgent necessity.

Again a splendid opportunity was offered to NicholasII. for taking a step towards constitutional rule. TheAgricultural Commissions had indicated how to do it.Similar committees had to be convoked in all provincesof the Empire, and they would name their representativeswho would meet at Moscow and work out the basis of anational representation. And once more Nicholas II.refused to accept that opening. He preferred to followthe counsels of his more intimate advisers, who betterexpressed his own will. He disowned Witte and calledat the head of the Ministry of Interior Von Plehwe—theworst produce of reaction that had been bred bypolice rule during the reign of Alexander III.!

Even that man did not undertake to maintain autocracyindefinitely; but he undertook to maintain it forten years more—provided full powers be granted to him,and plenty of money be given—which money he, a pupilof the school of Ignatieff, freely used, it is now known,for organizing the ‘pogroms’—the massacres of the Jews.More than that. Prince Meschersky, the well-knowneditor of the Grazhdanin—an old man, a Conservative ofold standing, and a devotee of the Imperial family—wrotelately in his paper that Plehwe, in order to give a furtherlease to autocracy, had decided to do his utmost to pushNicholas II. into that terrible war with Japan. Like theFranco-German conflict, the Japanese war was thus thelast trump of a decaying Imperial power.

I certainly do not mean that Plehwe’s will was(xxiv)the cause of that war. Its causes lie deeper than that.It became unavoidable the day that Russia got hold ofPort Arthur—and even much earlier than that. But thismove of Plehwe, and the support he found in his master,are deeply significant for the comprehension of thepresent events in Russia.

Plehwe was the trump card of autocracy. He wasinvested with unlimited powers, and used them for placingall Russia under police rule. The State police becamethe most demoralized and dangerous body in the State.More than 30,000 persons were deported by the policeto remote corners of the Empire. Fabulous sums ofmoney were spent for his own protection—but that didnot help; he was killed in July 1904, amidst the disastersof the war that he had been so eager to call upon hiscountry. And since that date the events took a new andrapid development. The system of police rule was defeated,and nobody in the Tsar’s surroundings wouldattempt to continue it.

For six weeks in succession nobody would agree tobecome the Tsar’s Minister of Interior; and when thePrince Svyatopolk-Mirsky was induced at last to acceptit, he did so under the condition that representatives ofall the Zemstvos would be convoked at once, to work outa scheme of national representation.

A great agitation spread thereupon in all Russia, whena Congress of the Zemstvos was allowed to come together‘unofficially’ at Moscow in December 1904. The Zemstvoswere quite outspoken in their demands for constitutionalguarantees, and their ‘Memorandum’ to the Tsar,signed by 102 representatives out of 104, was soon signedalso by numbers of representative persons of differentclasses in Russia. By-and-by similarly worded ‘Memoranda’were addressed to the Tsar by the barristers andmagistrates, the Assemblies of the Nobility in certain(xxv)provinces, some municipalities, and so on. The Zemstvomemorandum became thus a sort of ultimatum of theeducated portion of the nation, which rapidly organizeditself into a number of professional unions. The year1904 thus ended in a state of great excitement.

Then a new element—the working-men—came to throwthe weight of their intervention in favour of the liberatingmovement. The working-men of St. Petersburg—whomthat original personality, Father Gapon, had been mostenergetically organizing for the preceding twelve months—cameto the idea of an immense manifestation whichwould claim from the Tsar political rights for the workers.On January 22, 1905, they went out—a dense and unarmedcrowd of more than 100,000 persons, marchingfrom all the suburbs towards the Winter Palace. Up tothat date they had retained an unbroken faith in thegood intentions of Nicholas II., and they wanted to tellhim themselves of their needs. They trusted him as if hereally was their father. But a massacre of these faithfulcrowds had been prepared beforehand by the militarycommander of the capital, with all the precautions ofmodern warfare—local staffs, ambulances, and so on. Fora full week the manifestation was openly prepared byGapon and his aids, and nothing was done by the Governmentto dissuade the workers from their venture. Theymarched towards the Palace and crowded round it—surethat the Tsar would appear before them and receive theirpetition—when the firing began. The troops fired intothe dense, absolutely pacific and unarmed crowds, at arange of a few dozen yards, and more than a thousand—perhapstwo thousand—men, women and children fell thatday, the victims of the Tsar’s fears and obstinacy.

This was how the Russian revolution began, by theextermination of peaceful, trustworthy crowds, and thisdouble character of passive endurance from beneath, and(xxvi)of bloodthirsty extermination from above, it retains uptill now. A deep chasm is thus being dug, deeper anddeeper every day, between the people and the presentrulers, a chasm which—I am inclined to think—neverwill be filled.

If these massacres were meant to terrorize the masses,they utterly failed in their purpose. Five days after the‘bloody Vladimir Sunday’ a mass-strike began at Warsawand similar strikes soon spread all over Poland. Allclasses of Polish society joined more or less actively inthese strikes, which took a formidable extension in thefollowing May. In fact, all the fabric of the State wasshattered by these strikes, and the series of massacreswhich the Russian Government inaugurated in Polandin January and in May 1905, only led to an uninterruptedseries of retaliations in which all Polish society evidentlystands on the side of the terrorists. The result is, that atthe present time Poland is virtually lost to the Russianautocratic Empire. Unless it obtains as complete anautonomy as Finland obtained in 1905, it will not resumeits normal life.

Gradually, the revolts began to spread all over Russia.The peasant uprising now assumed serious proportions indifferent parts of the Empire, everywhere the peasantsshowing moderation in their demands, together with agreat capacity for organized action, but everywhere alsoinsisting upon the necessity of a move in the sense ofland nationalization. In the western portion of Georgia(in Transcaucasia) they even organized independent communities,similar to those of the old cantons of Switzerland.At the same time a race-war began in the Caucasus; thencame a great uprising at Odessa; the mutiny of the iron-cladsof the Black Sea; and a second series of general strikesin Poland, again followed by massacres. And onlythen, when all Russia was set into open revolt, Nicholas II.(xxvii)finally yielded to the general demands, and announced, ina manifesto issued on the 19th of August, that some sortof national representation would be given to Russia in theshape of a State’s Duma. This was the famous ‘BulyghinConstitution,’ which granted the right of voting to aninfinitesimal fraction only of the population (one man ineach 200, even in such wealthy cities as St. Petersburg andMoscow), and entirely excluded 4,000,000 working-menfrom any participation in the political life of the country.This tardy concession evidently satisfied nobody; it wasmet with disdain. Mignet, the author of a well-knownhistory of the French Revolution, was right when he wrotethat in such times the concessions must come from theGovernment before any serious bloodshed has taken place.If they come after it, they are useless; the Revolution willtake no heed of them and pursue its unavoidable, naturaldevelopment. So it happened in Russia.

A simple incident—a strike of the bakers at Moscow—wasthe beginning of a general strike, which soon spreadover all Moscow, including all its trades, and from Moscowextended all over Russia. The sufferings of the working-menduring that general strike were terrible, but they heldout. All traffic on the railways was stopped, and noprovisions, no fuel reached Moscow. No newspapers appeared,except the proclamations of the strike committees.Thousands of passengers, tons of letters, mountainsof goods accumulated at the stations. St. Petersburgsoon joined the strike, and there, too, the workersdisplayed wonderful powers of organization. No gas, noelectric light, no tramways, no water, no cabs, no post, notelegraphs! The factories were silent, the city wasplunged in darkness. Then, gradually, the enthusiasm ofthe poorer classes won the others as well. The shopassistants, the clerks in the banks, the teachers, the actors,the lawyers, the chemists—even the judges joined the(xxviii)strike. A whole country struck against its government,and the strikers kept so strict an order, that they offeredno opportunity for military intervention and massacres.Committees of Labour Representatives came into existence,and they were obeyed explicitly by the crowds,300,000 strong, which filled the streets of St. Petersburgand Moscow.

The panic in the Tsar’s entourage was at a climax.His usual Conservative advisers proved to be as unreliableas the talons rouges were in the surroundings of Louis XVI.Then—only then—Nicholas II. called in Count Witte andagreed on the 30th of October to sign a constitutionalmanifesto. He declared in it that it was his ‘inflexiblewill’ ‘to grant to the population the immutable foundationsof civic liberty, based on real inviolability of the person,conscience, speech, union, and association.’ For thatpurpose he ordered to elect a State’s Duma, and promised‘to establish it as an immutable rule that no law cancome into force without the approval of the State Duma,’and that the people’s representatives ‘should have a realparticipation in the supervision of the legality of the actsof the authorities appointed by the Crown.’

Two days later, as the crowds which filled the streetsof St. Petersburg were going to storm the two chiefprisons, Count Witte obtained from him also the grantingof an almost general amnesty for political offenders.

These promises produced a tremendous enthusiasm,but, alas, they were soon broken in many important points.

It appears now from an official document, just published—thereport of the Head of the Police Department,Lopukhin, to the Premier Minister Stolypin—that at thevery moment when the crowds were jubilating in the streets,the Monarchist party organized hired bands for theslaughter of the jubilating crowds. The gendarme officershurriedly printed with their own hands appeals calling for(xxix)the massacre ‘of the intellectuals and the Jews,’ and sayingthat they were the hirelings of the Japanese and theEnglish. Two bishops, Nikon and Nikander, in theirpastoral letters, called upon all the ‘true Russians’ ‘to putdown the intellectuals by force’; while from the footstepsof the Chapel of the Virgin of Iberia, at Moscow, improvisedorators tried to induce the crowds to kill all thestudents.

More than that. The same Prince Meschersky confessedin his paper—‘with horror’ as he said—that it wasa settled plan, hatched among some of the rulers of St.Petersburg, to provoke a serious insurrection, to drown itin blood, and thus ‘to let the Duma die before it wasborn, so as to return to the old régime.’ ‘Several highfunctionaries have confessed this to me,’ he adds in hispaper.

I have endeavoured in this book to be fair towardsAlexander II., and I certainly should like to be equallyfair towards Nicholas II., the more as he, besides his ownfaults, pays for those of his father and grandfather. But Imust say that the cordial reception which he gave at thattime in his palace to the representatives of the above party,and his protection which they have enjoyed since, werecertainly an encouragement to continue on these lines ofbreeding massacres of innocent people—even if the encouragementbe unconscious.

But then came the insurrection at Moscow, in January1906, provoked to a great extent by the Governor-General,Admiral Dubassoff; the uprising of the peasants in theBaltic provinces against the tyranny of their Germanlandlords; the general strike along the Siberian railway;and a great number (over 1,600) of peasant uprisings inRussia itself; and in all these cases the military repressionwas accomplished in such terrible forms, including floggingto death, and with such a cruelty, that one could really(xxx)come to totally despair of civilization, if there were notby the side of these cruelties acts of sublime heroism onbehalf of the lovers of freedom.

It was under such conditions that the Duma met in May1905, to be dissolved after an existence of only seventydays. Its fate evidently had been settled at Peterhof,before it met. A powerful league of all the reactionaryelements, lead by Trépoff, who found strong support withNicholas II. himself, was formed with the firm intentionof not allowing the Duma, under any pretext, to exercisea real control upon the actions of the Ministers nominatedby the Tsar. And as the Duma strove to obtain thisright above all others, it was dissolved.

And now, the condition of Russia is simply beyonddescription. The items which we have for the first yearof ‘Constitutional rule,’ since October 30, 1905, tillthe same date in 1906, are as follows: Killed in themassacres, shot in the riots, etc., 22,721; condemned topenal servitude, 851 (to an aggregate of 7,138 years);executed, mostly without any semblance of judgment,men, women and youths, 1,518; deported without judgment,mostly to Siberia, 30,000. And the list increasesstill at the rate of from ten to eighteen every day.

These facts speak for themselves. They talk at Peterhofof maintaining ‘autocracy,’ but there is none left, exceptthat of the eighty governors of the provinces, each ofwhom is, like an African king, an autocrat in his owndomain, so long as his orders please his subordinates.Bloodshed, drumhead military courts, and rapine areflourishing everywhere. Famine is menacing thirtydifferent provinces. And Russia has to go through allthat, merely to maintain for a few additional monthsthe irresponsible rule of a camarilla standing round thethrone of the Tsar.

How long this state of affairs will last, nobody can(xxxi)foretell. During both the English and the French Revolutionsreaction also took for a time the upper hand; inFrance this lasted nearly two years. But the experience ofthe last few months has also shown that Russia possessessuch a reserve of sound, solid forces in those classes ofsociety upon whom depends the wealth of the country,that the present orgy of White Terror certainly will notlast long. The army, which has hitherto been a supportof reaction, shows already signs of a better comprehensionof its duties towards its mother country; and the crimesof the joined reactionists become too evident not to beunderstood by the soldiers. As to the revolutionists,after having first minimized the forces of the old régime,they realize them now and prepare for a struggle on amore solid and a broader basis; while the devotion ofthousands upon thousands of young men and women issuch, that virtually it seems to be inexhaustible. In suchconditions, the ultimate victory of those elements whichwork for the birth of a regenerated, free Russia, is notto be doubted for a moment, especially if they find, as Ihope they will, the sympathy and the support of the loversof Freedom all over the world. Regenerated Russia meansa body of some 150,000,000 persons—one-eighth part ofthe population of the globe, occupying one-sixth part of itscontinental parts—permitted at last to develop peacefully—apopulation which, owing to its very composition,is bound to become, not an Empire in the Roman senseof the word, but a Federation of nations combined for thepeaceful purposes of civilization and progress.

Bromley, Kent,
November, 1906.

I

Moscow is a city of slow historical growth, and downto the present time its different parts have wonderfullywell retained the features which have been stamped uponthem in the slow course of history. The Trans-MoskvaRiver district, with its broad, sleepy streets and itsmonotonous gray painted, low-roofed houses, of whichthe entrance-gates remain securely bolted day and night,has always been the secluded abode of the merchantclass, and the stronghold of the outwardly austere,formalistic, and despotic Nonconformists of the ‘OldFaith.’ The citadel, or Kreml is still the stronghold ofChurch and State; and the immense space in front of it,covered with thousands of shops and warehouses, hasbeen for centuries a crowded beehive of commerce, andstill remains the heart of a great internal trade whichspreads over the whole surface of the vast empire. TheTverskáya and the Smiths’ Bridge have been for hundredsof years the chief centres for the fashionable shops;while the artisans’ quarters, the Pluschíkha and theDorogomílovka, retain the very same features whichcharacterized their uproarious populations in the timesof the Moscow Tsars. Each quarter is a little world initself; each has its own physiognomy, and lives its ownseparate life. Even the railways, when they made anirruption into the old capital, grouped apart in special(2)centres on the outskirts of the old town their stores andmachine-works and their heavily loaded carts and engines.

However, of all parts of Moscow, none, perhaps, ismore typical than that labyrinth of clean, quiet, windingstreets and lanes which lies at the back of the Kreml,between two great radial streets, the Arbát and the Prechístenka,and is still called the Old Equerries’ Quarter—theStáraya Konyúshennaya.

Some fifty years ago, there lived in this quarter, andslowly died out, the old Moscow nobility, whose nameswere so frequently mentioned in the pages of Russianhistory before the time of Peter I., but who subsequentlydisappeared to make room for the new-comers, ‘the menof all ranks’—called into service by the founder of theRussian state. Feeling themselves supplanted at theSt. Petersburg court, these nobles of the old stock retiredeither to the Old Equerries’ Quarter in Moscow,or to their picturesque estates in the country round aboutthe capital, and they looked with a sort of contemptand secret jealousy upon the motley crowd of familieswhich came ‘from no one knew where’ to take possessionof the highest functions of the government, in thenew capital on the banks of the Nevá.

In their younger days most of them had tried theirfortunes in the service of the state, chiefly in the army;but for one reason or another they had soon abandonedit, without having risen to high rank. The more successfulones obtained some quiet, almost honorary positionin their mother city—my father was one of these—whilemost of the others simply retired from active service.But wheresoever they might have been shifted, in thecourse of their careers, over the wide surface of Russia,they always somehow managed to spend their old agein a house of their own in the Old Equerries’ Quarter,under the shadow of the church where they had beenbaptized, and where the last prayers had been pronouncedat the burial of their parents.

(3)

New branches budded from the old stocks. Someof them achieved more or less distinction in differentparts of Russia; some owned more luxurious houses inthe new style in other quarters of Moscow or at St.Petersburg; but the branch which continued to reside inthe Old Equerries’ Quarter, somewhere near to the green,the yellow, the pink, or the brown church which wasendeared through family associations, was considered asthe true representative of the family, irrespective of theposition it occupied in the family tree. Its old-fashionedhead was treated with great respect, not devoid, I mustsay, of a slight tinge of irony, even by those youngerrepresentatives of the same stock who had left theirmother city for a more brilliant career in the St. PetersburgGuards or in the court circles. He personified, forthem, the antiquity of the family and its traditions.

In these quiet streets, far away from the noise andbustle of the commercial Moscow, all the houses hadmuch the same appearance. They were mostly built ofwood, with bright green sheet-iron roofs, the exteriorsstuccoed and decorated with columns and porticoes; allwere painted in gay colours. Nearly every house hadbut one story, with seven or nine big, gay-lookingwindows facing the street. A second story was admittedonly in the back part of the house, which lookedupon a spacious yard, surrounded by numbers of smallbuildings, used as kitchens, stables, cellars, coach-houses,and as dwellings for the retainers and servants. A widegate opened upon this yard, and a brass plate on it usuallybore the inscription, ‘House of So-and-So, Lieutenant orColonel, and Commander’—very seldom ‘Major-General’or any similarly elevated civil rank. But if a moreluxurious house, embellished by a gilded iron railing andan iron gate, stood in one of those streets, the brass plateon the gate was sure to bear the name of ‘CommerceCounsel’ or ‘Honourable Citizen’ So-and-So. Thesewere the intruders, those who came unasked to settle in(4)this quarter, and were therefore ignored by their neighbours.

No shops were allowed in these select streets, exceptthat in some small wooden house, belonging to the parishchurch, a tiny grocer’s or greengrocer’s shop might havebeen found; but then, the policeman’s lodge stood onthe opposite corner, and in the daytime the policemanhimself, armed with a halberd, would appear at the doorto salute with his inoffensive weapon the officers passingby, and would retire inside when dusk came, to employhimself either as a cobbler or in the manufacture of somespecial stuff patronized by the elder servants of the neighbourhood.

Life went on quietly and peacefully—at least for theoutsider—in this Moscow Faubourg Saint-Germain. Inthe morning nobody was seen in the streets. Aboutmidday the children made their appearance under theguidance of French tutors and German nurses, who tookthem out for a walk on the snow-covered boulevards.Later on in the day the ladies might be seen in theirtwo-horse sledges, with a valet standing behind on asmall plank fastened at the end of the runners, or ensconcedin an old-fashioned carriage, immense and high,suspended on big curved springs and dragged by fourhorses, with a postillion in front and two valets standingbehind. In the evening most of the houses were brightlyilluminated, and, the blinds not being drawn down, thepasser-by could admire the card-players or the waltzersin the saloons. ‘Opinions’ were not in vogue in thosedays, and we were yet far from the years when in eachone of these houses a struggle began between ‘fathers andsons’—a struggle that usually ended either in a familytragedy or in a nocturnal visit of the state police. Fiftyyears ago nothing of the sort was thought of; all wasquiet and smooth—at least on the surface.

In this Old Equerries’ Quarter I was born in 1842,and here I passed the first fifteen years of my life. Even(5)after our father had sold the house in which our motherdied, and bought another, and when again he had soldthat house, and we spent several winters in hired houses,until he had found a third one to his taste within a stone’s-throwof the church where he had been baptized, we stillremained in the Old Equerries’ Quarter, leaving it onlyduring the summer to go to our country-seat.

II

A high, spacious bedroom, the corner room of our house,with a wide bed upon which our mother is lying, our babychairs and tables standing close by, and the neatly servedtables covered with sweets and jellies in pretty glass jars—aroom into which we children are ushered at a strangehour—-this is the first half-distinct reminiscence of mylife.

Our mother was dying of consumption; she was onlythirty-five years old. Before parting with us for ever,she had wished to have us by her side, to caress us, tofeel happy for a moment in our joys, and she had arrangedthis little treat by the side of her bed which shecould leave no more, I remember her pale thin face, herlarge, dark brown eyes. She looked at us with love, andinvited us to eat, to climb upon her bed; then suddenlyshe burst into tears and began to cough, and we were toldto go.

Some time after, we children—that is, my brotherAlexander and myself—were removed from the big houseto a small side house in the courtyard. The April sunfilled the little rooms with its rays, but our German nurseMadame Búrman and Uliána, our Russian nurse, told usto go to bed. Their faces wet with tears, they were sewingfor us black shirts fringed with broad white tassels.We could not sleep: the unknown frightened us, and welistened to their subdued talk. They said somethingabout our mother which we could not understand. We(6)jumped out of our beds, asking, ‘Where is mamma?Where is mamma?’

Both of them burst into sobs, and began to pat ourcurly heads, calling us ‘poor orphans,’ until Uliána couldhold out no longer, and said, ‘Your mother is gone there—tothe sky, to the angels.’

‘How to the sky? Why?’ our infantile imaginationin vain demanded.

This was in April 1846. I was only three and a halfyears old, and my brother Sásha not yet five. Whereour elder brother and sister, Nicholas and Hélène, hadgone I do not know: perhaps they were already atschool. Nicholas was twelve years old, Hélène waseleven; they kept together, and we knew them but little.So we remained, Alexander and I, in this little house, inthe hands of Madame Búrman and Uliána. The goodold German lady, homeless and absolutely alone in thewide world, took toward us the place of our mother.She brought us up as well as she could, buying us fromtime to time some simple toys, and overfeeding us withginger cakes whenever another old German, who used tosell such cakes—probably as homeless and solitary asherself—paid an occasional visit to our house. Weseldom saw our father, and the next two years passedwithout leaving any impression on my memory.

III

Our father was very proud of the origin of his family,and would point with solemnity to a piece of parchmentwhich hung on the wall of his study. It was decoratedwith our arms—the arms of the principality of Smolénskcovered with the ermine mantle and the crown of theMonomáchs—and there was written on it, and certifiedby the Heraldry Department, that our family originatedwith a grandson of Rostisláv Mstislávich the Bold (aname familiar in Russian history as that of a Grand(7)Prince of Kíeff), and that our ancestors had been GrandPrinces of Smolénsk.

‘It cost me three hundred roubles to obtain thatparchment,’ our father used to say. Like most peopleof his generation, he was not much versed in Russianhistory, and valued the parchment more for its cost thanfor its historical associations.

As a matter of fact, our family is of very ancientorigin indeed; but, like most descendants of Rurik whomay be regarded as representative of the feudal period ofRussian history, it was driven into the background whenthat period ended, and the Románoffs, enthroned atMoscow, began the work of consolidating the Russianstate. In recent times, none of the Kropótkins seem tohave had any special liking for state functions. Ourgreat-grandfather and grandfather both retired from themilitary service when quite young men, and hastened toreturn to their family estates. It must also be said thatof these estates the main one, Urúsovo, situated in thegovernment of Ryazán, on a high hill at the border offertile prairies, might tempt any one by the beauty ofits shadowy forests, its winding rivers, and its endlessmeadows. Our grandfather was only a lieutenant whenhe left the service, and retired to Urúsovo, devoting himselfto his estate, and to the purchase of other estates inthe neighbouring provinces.

Probably our generation would have done the same;but our grandfather married a Princess Gagárin, whobelonged to a quite different family. Her brother waswell known as a passionate lover of the stage. He kepta private theatre of his own, and went so far in his passionas to marry, to the scandal of all his relations, aserf—the genial actress Semyónova, who was one of thecreators of dramatic art in Russia, and undoubtedly oneof its most sympathetic figures. To the horror of ‘allMoscow,’ she continued to appear on the stage.

I do not know if our grandmother had the same(8)artistic and literary tastes as her brother—I rememberher when she was already paralyzed and could speakonly in whispers; but it is certain that in the nextgeneration a leaning toward literature became a characteristicof our family. One of the sons of the PrincessGagárin was a minor Russian poet, and issued a book ofpoems—a fact which my father was ashamed of andalways avoided mentioning; and in our own generationseveral of our cousins, as well as my brother and myself,have contributed more or less to the literature of ourperiod.

Our father was a typical officer of the time ofNicholas I. Not that he was imbued with a warlikespirit or much in love with camp life; I doubt whetherhe spent a single night of his life at a bivouac fire, ortook part in one battle. But under Nicholas I. that wasof quite secondary importance. The true military manof those times was the officer who was enamoured of themilitary uniform and utterly despised all other sorts ofattire; whose soldiers were trained to perform almostsuperhuman tricks with their legs and rifles (to break thewood of the rifle into pieces while ‘presenting arms’ wasone of those famous tricks); and who could show onparade a row of soldiers as perfectly aligned and asmotionless as a row of toy-soldiers, ‘Very good,’ theGrand Duke Mikhael said once of a regiment, after havingkept it for one hour presenting arms—‘only theybreathe!’ To respond to the then current conception ofa military man was certainly our father’s ideal.

True, he took part in the Turkish campaign of 1828;but he managed to remain all the time on the staff ofthe chief commander; and if we children, taking advantageof a moment when he was in a particularly goodtemper, asked him to tell us something about the war,he had nothing to tell but of a fierce attack of hundredsof Turkish dogs which one night assailed him and hisfaithful servant, Frol, as they were riding with despatches(9)through an abandoned Turkish village. They had touse swords to extricate themselves from the hungrybeasts. Bands of Turks would assuredly have bettersatisfied our imagination, but we accepted the dogs as asubstitute. When, however, pressed by our questions,our father told us how he had won the cross of SaintAnne ‘for gallantry,’ and the golden sword which hewore, I must confess we felt really disappointed. Hisstory was decidedly too prosaic. The officers of thegeneral staff were lodged in a Turkish village, when ittook fire. In a moment the houses were enveloped inflames, and in one of them a child had been left behind.Its mother uttered despairing cries. Thereupon, Frol,who always accompanied his master, rushed into theflames and saved the child. The chief commander, whosaw the act, at once gave father the cross for gallantry.

‘But, father,’ we exclaimed, ‘it was Frol who saved thechild!’

‘What of that?’ replied he, in the most naïve way.‘Was he not my man? It is all the same.’

He also took some part in the campaign of 1831, duringthe Polish Revolution, and in Warsaw he made the acquaintanceof, and fell in love with, the youngest daughterof the commander of an army corps, General Sulíma.The marriage was celebrated with great pomp, in theLazienki palace; the lieutenant-governor, Count Paskiéwich,acting as nuptial godfather on the bridegroom’sside. ‘But your mother,’ our father used to add, ‘broughtme no fortune whatever.’

Which was true. Her father, Nikolái SemyónovichSulíma, was not versed in the art of making a career or afortune. He must have had in him too much of the bloodof those Cossacks of the Dnyéper, who knew how to fightthe well-equipped, warlike Poles or armies of the Turks,three times more than themselves, but knew not how toavoid the snares of the Moscow diplomacy, and, afterhaving fought against the Poles in the terrible insurrection(10)of 1648, which was the beginning of the end for the Polishrepublic, lost all their liberties in falling under the dominionof the Russian Tsars. One Sulíma was captured bythe Poles and tortured to death at Warsaw, but the other‘colonels’ of the same stock only fought the more fiercelyon that account, and Poland lost Little Russia. As toour grandfather, he knew how, with his regiment of cuirassiersduring Napoleon I.’s invasion, to cut his way into aFrench infantry square bristling with bayonets, and torecover, after having been left for dead on the battlefield,with a deep cut in his head; but he could not become avalet to the favourite of Alexander I., the omnipotentArakchéeff, and was consequently sent into a sort ofhonorary exile, first as a governor-general of West Siberia,and later of East Siberia. In those times such aposition was considered more lucrative than a gold-mine,but our grandfather returned from Siberia as poor as hewent, and left only modest fortunes to his three sons andthree daughters. When I went to Siberia, in 1862, Ioften heard his name mentioned with respect. He wasalmost driven to despair by the wholesale stealing whichwent on in those provinces, and which he had no means torepress.

Our mother was undoubtedly a remarkable woman forthe times she lived in. Many years after her death Idiscovered, in a corner of a storeroom of our countryhouse, a mass of papers covered with her firm but prettyhandwriting: diaries in which she wrote with delight ofthe scenery of Germany, and spoke of her sorrows andher thirst for happiness; books which she had filled withRussian verses prohibited by censorship—among themthe beautiful historical ballads of Ryléeff, the poet, whomNicholas I. hanged in 1826; other books containing music,French dramas, verses of Lamartine, and Byron’s poemsthat she had copied; and a great number of water-colourpaintings.

Tall, slim, adorned with a mass of dark chestnut hair,(11)with dark brown eyes and a tiny mouth, she looks quitelifelike in a portrait in oils that was painted con amore bya good artist. Always lively and often careless, she wasfond of dancing, and the peasant women in our villagewould tell us how she would admire from a balcony theirring-dances—slow and full of grace—and how finally shewould herself join in them. She had the nature of anartist. It was at a ball that she caught the cold thatproduced the inflammation of the lungs which brought herto the grave.

All who knew her loved her. The servants worshippedher memory. It was in her name that Madame Búrmantook care of us, and in her name the Russian nurse bestowedupon us her love. While combing our hair, orsigning us with the cross in our beds, Uliána would oftensay, ‘And your mamma must now look upon you from theskies, and shed tears on seeing you, poor orphans.’ Ourwhole childhood is irradiated by her memory. How oftenin some dark passage, the hand of a servant would touchAlexander or me with a caress; or a peasant woman, onmeeting us in the fields, would ask, ‘Will you be as goodas your mother was? She took compassion on us. Youwill, surely.’ ‘Us’ meant, of course, the serfs. I do notknow what would have become of us if we had not foundin our house, amidst the serf servants, that atmosphere oflove which children must have around them. We wereher children, we bore likeness to her, and they lavishedtheir care upon us, sometimes in a touching form, as willbe seen later on.

Men passionately desire to live after death, but theyoften pass away without noticing the fact that the memoryof a really good person always lives. It is impressedupon the next generation, and is transmitted again to thechildren. Is not that an immortality worth striving for?

(12)

IV

Two years after the death of our mother our fathermarried again. He had already cast his eyes upon anice-looking young person, this time belonging to a wealthyfamily, when the fates decided another way. One morning,while he was still in his dressing-gown, the servantsrushed madly into his room, announcing the arrival ofGeneral Timoféeff, the commander of the sixth army corps,to which our father belonged. This favourite of NicholasI. was a terrible man. He would order a soldier to beflogged almost to death for a mistake made during aparade, or he would degrade an officer and send him as aprivate to Siberia because he had met him in the streetwith the hooks on his high, stiff collar unfastened. WithNicholas General Timoféeff’s word was all-powerful.

The general, who had never before been in our house,came to propose to our father to marry his wife’s niece, MademoiselleElisabeth Karandinó, one of several daughtersof an admiral of the Black Sea fleet—a young lady witha classical Greek profile, said to have been very beautiful.Father accepted, and his second wedding, like the first,was solemnized with great pomp.

‘You young people understand nothing of this kind ofthing,’ he said in conclusion, after having told me the storymore than once, with a very fine humour which I will notattempt to reproduce. ‘But do you know what it meantat that time, the commander of an army corps—above allthat one-eyed devil, as we used to call him—coming himselfto propose? Of course she had no dowry; only a bigtrunk filled with ladies’ finery, and that Martha, her oneserf, dark as a gypsy, sitting upon it.’

I have no recollection whatever of this event. I onlyremember a big drawing-room in a richly furnished house,and in that room a young lady, attractive but with a rathertoo sharp southern look, gambolling with us, and saying,‘You see what a jolly mamma you will have;’ to which(13)Sásha and I, sulkily looking at her, replied, ‘Our mammahas flown away to the sky.’ We regarded so much livelinesswith suspicion.

Winter came, and a new life began for us. Our housewas sold and another was bought and furnished completelyanew. All that could convey a reminiscence of ourmother disappeared—her portraits, her paintings, her embroideries.In vain Madame Búrman implored to be retainedin our house, and promised to devote herself to thebaby our stepmother was expecting as to her own child:she was sent away. ‘Nothing of the Sulímas in my house,’she was told. All connection with our uncles and auntsand our grandmother was broken. Uliána was marriedto Frol, who became a major-domo, while she was madehousekeeper; and for our education a richly paid Frenchtutor, M. Poulain, and a miserably paid Russian student,N. P. Smirnóff, were engaged.

Many of the sons of the Moscow nobles were educatedat that time by Frenchmen, who represented the débris ofNapoleon’s Grande Armée. M. Poulain was one of them.He had just finished the education of the youngest son ofthe novelist Zagóskin; and his pupil, Serge, enjoyed inthe Old Equerries’ Quarter the reputation of being so wellbrought up that our father did not hesitate to engage M.Poulain for the considerable sum of six hundred roubles ayear.

M. Poulain brought with him his setter, Trésor, hiscoffee-pot Napoléon, and his French text-books, and hebegan to rule over us and the serf Matvéi who was attachedto our service.

His plan of education was very simple. After havingwoke us up he attended to his coffee, which he used totake in his room. While we were preparing the morninglessons he made his toilet with minute care: he shampooedhis grey hair so as to conceal his growing baldness, put onhis tail-coat, sprinkled and washed himself with eau-de-cologne,(14)and then escorted us downstairs to say good-morningto our parents. We used to find our father andstepmother at breakfast, and on approaching them we recitedin the most ceremonious manner, ‘Bonjour, mon cherpapa,’ and ‘Bonjour, ma chère maman,’ and kissed theirhands. M. Poulain made a very complicated and elegantobeisance in pronouncing the words, ‘Bonjour, monsieurle prince,’ and ‘Bonjour, madame la princesse,’ after whichthe procession immediately withdrew and retired upstairs.This ceremony was repeated every morning.

Then our work began. M. Poulain changed his tail-coatfor a dressing-gown, covered his head with a leathercap, and dropping into an easy-chair said ‘Recite thelesson.’

We recited it ‘by heart’ from one mark which wasmade in the book with the nail to the next mark. M.Poulain had brought with him the grammar of Noël andChapsal, memorable to more than one generation of Russianboys and girls; a book of French dialogues; a history ofthe world, in one volume; and a universal geography, alsoin one volume. We had to commit to memory the grammar,the dialogues, the history, and the geography.

The grammar, with its well-known sentences, ‘What isgrammar?’ ‘The art of speaking and writing correctly,’went all right. But the history book, unfortunately, hada preface, which contained an enumeration of all the advantageswhich can be derived from a knowledge of history.Things went on smoothly enough with the firstsentences. We recited: ‘The prince finds in it magnanimousexamples for governing his subjects; the militarycommander learns from it the noble art of warfare.’ Butthe moment we came to law all went wrong. ‘The jurisconsultmeets in it’—but what the learned lawyer meets inhistory we never came to know. That terrible word ‘jurisconsult’spoiled all the game. As soon as we reached itwe stopped.

‘On your knees, gros pouff!’ exclaimed Poulain. (That(15)was for me.) ‘On your knees, grand dada!’ (That wasfor my brother.) And there we knelt, shedding tearsand vainly endeavouring to learn all about the jurisconsult.

It cost us many pains, that preface! We were alreadylearning all about the Romans, and used to put our sticksin Uliána’s scales when she was weighing rice, ‘just likeBrennus;’ we jumped from our table and other precipicesfor the salvation of our country, in imitation of Curtius;but M. Poulain would still from time to time return to thepreface, and again put us on our knees for that very samejurisconsult. Was it strange that later on both my brotherand I should entertain an undisguised contempt for jurisprudence?

I do not know what would have happened with geographyif M. Poulain’s book had had a preface. But happilythe first twenty pages of the book had been torn away(Serge Zagóskin, I suppose, rendered us that notable service),and so our lessons commenced with the twenty-firstpage, which began, ‘of the rivers which water France.’

It must be confessed that things did not always endwith kneeling. There was in the class-room a birch rod,and Poulain resorted to it when there was no hope of progresswith the preface or with some dialogue on virtueand propriety; but one day sister Hélène, who by thistime had left the Catherine Institut des Demoiselles, andnow occupied a room underneath ours, hearing our cries,rushed, all in tears, into our father’s study, and bitterly reproachedhim with having handed us over to our stepmother,who had abandoned us to ‘a retired Frenchdrummer.’ ‘Of course,’ she cried, ‘there is no one totake their part, but I cannot see my brothers being treatedin this way by a drummer!’

Taken thus unprepared, our father could not make astand. He began to scold Hélène, but ended by approvingher devotion to her brothers. Thereafter the birchrod was reserved for teaching the rules of propriety tothe setter, Trésor.

(16)

No sooner had M. Poulain discharged himself of hisheavy educational duties than he became quite anotherman—a lively comrade instead of a gruesome teacher.After lunch he took us out for a walk, and there was noend to his tales: we chattered like birds. Though wenever went with him beyond the first pages of syntax, wesoon learned, nevertheless, ‘to speak correctly;’ we usedto think in French; and when he had dictated to us halfthrough a book of mythology, correcting our faults bythe book, without ever trying to explain to us why aword must be written in a particular way, we had learned‘to write correctly.’

After dinner we had our lesson with the Russianteacher, a student of the faculty of law in the MoscowUniversity. He taught us all ‘Russian’ subjects—grammar,arithmetic, history, and so on. But in those yearsserious teaching had not yet begun. In the meantimehe dictated to us every day a page of history, and in thatpractical way we quickly learned to write Russian quitecorrectly.

Our best time was on Sundays, when all the family,with the exception of us children, went to dine withMadame la Générale Timoféeff. It would also happenoccasionally that both M. Poulain and N. P. Smirnóffwould be allowed to leave the house, and when this occurredwe were placed under the care of Uliána. Aftera hurriedly eaten dinner we hastened to the great hall, towhich the younger housemaids soon repaired. All sortsof games were started—blind man, vulture and chickens,and so on; and then, all of a sudden, Tíkhon, the Jack-of-all-trades,would appear with a violin. Dancing began;not that measured and tiresome dancing, under thedirection of a French dancing-master ‘on india-rubberlegs,’ which made part of our education, but free dancingwhich was not a lesson, and in which a score of couplesturned round any way; and this was only preparatory tothe still more animated and rather wild Cossack dance.(17)Tíkhon would then hand the violin to one of the oldermen, and would begin to perform with his legs suchwonderful feats that the doors leading to the hall wouldsoon be filled by the cooks and even the coachmen, whocame to see the dance so dear to the Russian heart.

About nine o’clock the big carriage was sent to fetchthe family home. Tíkhon, brush in hand, crawled onthe floor, to make it shine with its virgin glance, andperfect order was restored in the house. And if, nextmorning, we two had been submitted to the most severecross-examination, not a word would have been droppedconcerning the previous evening’s amusem*nts. Wenever would have betrayed any one of the servants, norwould they have betrayed us. One Sunday, my brotherand I, playing alone in the wide hall, ran against abracket which supported a costly lamp. The lamp wasbroken to pieces. Immediately a council was held bythe servants. No one scolded us; but it was decidedthat early next morning Tíkhon should at his risk andperil slip out of the house and run to the Smiths’ Bridgein order to buy another lamp of the same pattern. Itcost fifteen roubles—an enormous sum for the servants;but it was done, and we never heard a word of reproachabout it.

When I think of it now, and all these scenes comeback to my memory, I notice that we never heard coarselanguage in any of the games, nor saw in the dances anythinglike the kind of dancing which children are nowtaken to admire in the theatres. In the servants’ house,among themselves, they assuredly used coarse expressions;but we were children—her children—and thatprotected us from anything of the sort.

In those days children were not bewildered by a profusionof toys, as they are now. We had almost none,and were thus compelled to rely upon our own inventiveness.Besides, we both had early acquired a taste for(18)the theatre. The inferior carnival theatres, with thethieving and fighting shows, produced no lasting impressionupon us: we ourselves played enough at robbersand soldiers. But the great star of the ballet, FannyElssler, came to Moscow, and we saw her. When fathertook a box in the theatre, he always secured one of thebest, and paid for it well; but then he insisted that allthe members of the family should enjoy it to its fullvalue. Small though I was at that time, Fanny Elsslerleft upon me the impression of a being so full of grace,so light, and so artistic in all her movements, that eversince I have been unable to feel the slightest interest in adance which belongs more to the domain of gymnasticsthan to the domain of art.

Of course the ballet that we saw—‘Gitana,’ theSpanish Gypsy—had to be repeated at home; its substance,not the dances. We had a ready-made stage,as the doorway which led from our bedroom into theclass-room had a curtain instead of a door. A few chairsput in a half-circle in front of the curtain, with an easy-chairfor M. Poulain, became the hall and the imperialbox, and an audience could easily be mustered with theRussian teacher, Uliána, and a couple of maids from theservants’ rooms.

Two scenes of the ballet had to be represented bysome means or other: the one where the little Gitana isbrought by the gypsies into their camp in a wheelbarrow,and that in which Gitana makes her first appearance onthe stage, descending from a hill and crossing a bridgeover a brook which reflects her image. The audienceburst into frantic applause at this point, and the cheerswere evidently called forth—so we thought, at least—bythe reflection in the brook.

We found our Gitana in one of the youngest girls inthe maid-servants’ room. Her rather shabby blue cottondress was no obstacle to personifying Fanny Elssler.An overturned chair, pushed along by its legs, head(19)downwards, was an acceptable substitute for the wheelbarrow.But the brook! Two chairs and the longironing-board of Andréi, the tailor, made the bridge, anda piece of blue cotton made the brook. The image inthe brook, however, would not appear full size, do whatwe might with M. Poulain’s little shaving-glass. Aftermany unsuccessful endeavours we had to give it up, butwe bribed Uliána to behave as if she saw the image, andto applaud loudly at this passage, so that finally we beganto believe that perhaps something of it could be seen.

Racine’s ‘Phèdre,’ or at least the last act of it, alsowent off nicely; that is, Sásha recited the melodiousverses beautifully—

and I sat absolutely motionless and unconcerned duringthe whole length of the tragic monologue intended toapprise me of the death of my son, down to the placewhere, according to the book, I had to exclaim, ‘Odieux!’

But whatsoever we might impersonate, all our performancesinvariably ended with hell. All candles saveone were put out, and this one was placed behind atransparent paper to imitate flames, while my brotherand I, concealed from view, howled in the most appallingway as the condemned. Uliána, who did not liketo have any allusion to the evil one made at bedtime,looked horrified; but I ask myself now whether thisextremely concrete representation of hell, with a candleand a sheet of paper, did not contribute to free us bothat an early age from the fear of eternal fire. Our conceptionof it was too realistic to resist scepticism.

I must have been very much of a child when I sawthe great Moscow actors: Schépkin, Sadóvskiy, andShúmski, in Gógol’s Revisór and another comedy;still, I remember not only the salient scenes of the twoplays, but even the attitudes and expressions of these(20)great actors of the realistic school which is now soadmirably represented by Duse. I remembered themso well that when I saw the same plays given at St.Petersburg by actors belonging to the French declamatoryschool, I found no pleasure in their acting, alwayscomparing them with Schépkin and Sadóvskiy, by whommy taste in dramatic art was settled.

This makes me think that parents who wish to developartistic taste in their children ought to take themoccasionally to really well-acted, good plays, instead offeeding them on a profusion of so-called ‘children’spantomimes.’

V

When I was in my eighth year, the next step in mycareer was taken, in a quite unforeseen way. I do notknow exactly on what occasion it happened, but probablyit was on the twenty-fifth anniversary of Nicholas I.’sreign, when great festivities were arranged at Moscow.The imperial family were coming to the old capital, andthe Moscow nobility intended to celebrate this event bya fancy-dress ball in which children were to play an importantpart. It was agreed that the whole motleycrowd of nationalities of which the population of theRussian Empire is composed should be represented atthis ball to greet the monarch. Great preparations wenton in our house, as well as in all the houses of our neighbourhood.Some sort of remarkable Russian costumewas made for our stepmother. Our father, being amilitary man, had to appear, of course, in his uniform;but those of our relatives who were not in the militaryservice were as busy with their Russian, Greek, Caucasian,and Mongolian costumes, as the ladies themselves.When the Moscow nobility gives a ball to the imperialfamily, it must be something extraordinary. As for mybrother Alexander and myself, we were considered tooyoung to take part in so important a ceremonial.

(21)

And yet, after all, I did take part in it. Our motherwas an intimate friend of Madame Nazímoff, the wife ofthe general who was Governor of Wilno when the emancipationof the serfs began to be spoken of. MadameNazímoff, who was a very beautiful woman, was expectedto be present at the ball with her child, about ten yearsold, and to wear some wonderful costume of a Persianprincess in harmony with which the costume of a youngPersian prince, exceedingly rich, with a belt covered withjewels, was made ready for her son. But the boy fell illjust before the ball, and Madame Nazímoff thought thatone of the children of her best friend would be a goodsubstitute for her own child. Alexander and I weretaken to her house to try on the costume. It proved tobe too short for Alexander, who was much taller than I,but it fitted me exactly, and therefore it was decidedthat I should impersonate the Persian prince.

The immense hall of the House of the Moscownobility was crowded with guests. Each of the childrenreceived a standard bearing at its top the arms of one ofthe sixty provinces of the Russian Empire. I had aneagle floating over a blue sea, which represented, as Ilearned later on, the arms of the government of Astrakhan,on the Caspian Sea. We were then ranged at theback of the great hall, and slowly marched in two rowstoward the raised platform upon which the Emperorand his family stood. As we reached it we went rightand left, and thus stood aligned in one row before theplatform. At a given signal all standards were loweredbefore the Emperor. The apotheosis of autocracy wasmade most impressive: Nicholas was enchanted. Allprovinces of the Empire worshipped the supreme ruler.Then we children slowly retired to the rear of the hall.

But here some confusion occurred. Chamberlains intheir gold-embroidered uniforms were running about, andI was taken out of the ranks; my uncle, Prince Gagárin,dressed as a Tungus (I was dizzy with admiration of his(22)fine leather coat, his bow, and his quiver full of arrows),lifted me up in his arms, and planted me on the imperialplatform.

Whether it was because I was the tiniest in the rowof boys, or that my round face, framed in curls, lookedfunny under the high Astrakhan fur bonnet I wore, Iknow not, but Nicholas wanted to have me on the platform;and there I stood amidst generals and ladies lookingdown upon me with curiosity. I was told later onthat Nicholas I., who was always fond of barrack jokes,took me by the arm, and, leading me to Marie Alexándrovna(the wife of the heir to the throne), who was thenexpecting her third child, said in his military way, ‘Thatis the sort of boy you must bring me’—a joke whichmade her blush deeply. I well remember, at any rate,Nicholas asking me whether I would have sweets; but Ireplied that I should like to have some of those tinybiscuits which were served with tea (we were never overfedat home), and he called a waiter and emptied a fulltray into my tall bonnet. ‘I will take them to Sásha,’ Isaid to him.

However, the soldier-like brother of Nicholas, Mikhael,who had the reputation of being a wit, managed to makeme cry. ‘When you are a good boy,’ he said, ‘theytreat you so,’ and he passed his big hand over my facedownwards; ‘but when you are naughty, they treat youso,’ and he passed the hand upwards, rubbing my nose,which already had a marked tendency toward growingin that direction. Tears, which I vainly tried to stop,came into my eyes. The ladies at once took my part,and the good-hearted Marie Alexándrovna took me underher protection. She set me by her side, in a high velvetchair with a gilded back, and our people told me afterwardthat I very soon put my head in her lap and wentto sleep. She did not leave her chair during the wholetime the ball was going on.

I remember also that, as we were waiting in the(23)entrance-hall for our carriage, our relatives petted andkissed me, saying, ‘Pétya, you have been made a page;’but I answered, ‘I am not a page; I will go home,’ andwas very anxious about my bonnet which contained thepretty little biscuits that I was taking home for Sásha.

I do not know whether Sásha got many of thosebiscuits, but I recollect what a hug he gave me when hewas told about my anxiety concerning the bonnet.

To be inscribed as a candidate for the corps of pageswas then a great favour, which Nicholas seldom bestowedon the Moscow nobility. My father was delighted, andalready dreamed of a brilliant court career for his son.Our stepmother, every time she told the story, neverfailed to add, ‘It is all because I gave him my blessingbefore he went to the ball.’

Madame Nazímoff was delighted too, and insistedupon having her portrait painted in the costume in whichshe looked so beautiful, with me standing at her side.

My brother Alexander’s fate, also, was decided nextyear. The jubilee of the Izmáylovsk regiment, to whichmy father had belonged in his youth, was celebratedabout this time at St. Petersburg. One night, while allthe household was plunged in deep sleep, a three-horsecarriage, ringing with the bells attached to the harnesses,stopped at our gate. A man jumped out of it, loudlyshouting, ‘Open! An ordinance from his Majesty theEmperor.’

One can easily imagine the terror which this nocturnalvisit spread in our house. My father, trembling,went down to his study. ‘Court-martial, degradationas a soldier,’ were words which rang then in the earsof every military man; it was a terrible epoch. ButNicholas simply wanted to have the names of the sonsof all the officers who had once belonged to the regiment,in order to send the boys to military schools, if that hadnot yet been done. A special messenger had been dispatched(24)for that purpose from St. Petersburg to Moscow,and now he called day and night at the houses of theex-Izmáylovsk officers.

With a shaking hand my father wrote that his eldestson, Nicholas, was already in the first corps of cadetsat Moscow; that his youngest son, Peter, was a candidatefor the corps of pages; and that there remained onlyhis second son, Alexander, who had not yet entered themilitary career. A few weeks later came a paper informingfather of the ‘monarch’s favour.’ Alexander wasordered to enter a corps of cadets in Orel, a small provincialtown. It cost my father a deal of trouble and alarge sum of money to get Alexander sent to a corpsof cadets at Moscow. This new ‘favour’ was obtainedonly in consideration of the fact that our elder brotherwas in that corps.

And thus, owing to the will of Nicholas I., we hadboth to receive a military education, though, before wewere many years older, we simply hated the militarycareer for its absurdity. But Nicholas I. was watchfulthat none of the sons of the nobility should embraceany other profession than the military one, unless theywere of infirm health; and so we had all three to beofficers, to the great satisfaction of my father.

VI

Wealth was measured in those times by the numberof ‘souls’ which a landed proprietor owned. So many‘souls’ meant so many male serfs: women did not count.My father, who owned nearly twelve hundred souls,in three different provinces, and who had, in additionto his peasants’ holdings, large tracts of land which werecultivated by these peasants, was accounted a rich man.He lived up to his reputation, which meant that hishouse was open to any number of visitors, and that hekept a very large household.

(25)

We were a family of eight, occasionally of ten ortwelve; but fifty servants at Moscow, and half as manymore in the country, were considered not one too many.Four coachmen to attend a dozen horses, three cooksfor the masters and two more for the servants, a dozenmen to wait upon us at dinner-time (one man, plate inhand, standing behind each person seated at the table),and girls innumerable in the maid-servants’ room,—howcould anyone do with less than this?

Besides, the ambition of every landed proprietor wasthat everything required for his household should bemade at home by his own men.

‘How nicely your piano is always tuned! I supposeHerr Schimmel must be your tuner?’ perhaps a visitorwould remark.

To be able to answer, ‘I have my own piano-tuner,’was in those times the correct thing.

‘What beautiful pastry!’ the guests would exclaim,when a work of art, composed of ices and pastry, appearedtoward the end of the dinner. ‘Confess, prince,that it comes from Tremblé’ (the fashionable pastry-cook).

‘It is made by my own confectioner, a pupil ofTremblé, whom I have allowed to show what he cando,’ was a reply which elicited general admiration.

To have embroideries, harnesses, furniture—in fact,everything—made by one’s own men was the ideal of therich and respected landed proprietor. As soon as thechildren of the servants attained the age of ten, they weresent as apprentices to the fashionable shops, where theywere obliged to spend five or seven years chiefly insweeping, in receiving an incredible number of thrashings,and in running about town on errands of all sort. I mustown that few of them became masters of their respectivearts. The tailors and the shoemakers were found onlyskilful enough to make clothes or shoes for the servants,and when a really good pastry was required for a dinner-party(26)it was ordered at Tremblé’s, while our own confectionerwas beating the drum in the music band.

That band was another of my father’s ambitions, andalmost every one of his male servants, in addition to otheraccomplishments, was a bass-viol or a clarinet in the band.Makár, the piano-tuner, alias under-butler, was also aflutist; Andréi, the tailor, played the French horn; theconfectioner was first put to beat the drum, but hemisused his instrument to such a deafening degree that atremendous trumpet was bought for him, in the hope thathis lungs would not have the power to make the samenoise as his hands; when, however, this last hope had tobe abandoned, he was sent to be a soldier. As to ‘spottedTíkhon,’ in addition to his numerous functions in thehousehold as lamp-cleaner, floor-polisher, and footman,he made himself useful in the band—to-day as a trombone,to-morrow as a bassoon, and occasionally as secondviolin.

The two first violins were the only exceptions to therule: they were ‘violins,’ and nothing else. My fatherhad bought them, with their large families, for a handsomesum of money, from his sisters (he never bought serfsfrom nor sold them to strangers). In the evenings whenhe was not at his club, or when there was a dinner or anevening party at our house, the band of twelve to fifteenmusicians was summoned. They played very nicely,and were in great demand for dancing-parties in theneighbourhood; still more when we were in the country.This was, of course, a constant source of gratification tomy father, whose permission had to be asked to get theassistance of his band.

Nothing, indeed, gave him more pleasure than to beasked for help, either in the way mentioned or in anyother: for instance, to obtain free education for a boy, orto save somebody from a punishment inflicted upon himby a law court. Although he was liable to fall into fitsof rage, he was undoubtedly possessed of a natural instinct(27)toward leniency, and when his patronage was requestedhe would write scores of letters in all possible directions,to all sorts of persons of high standing, in favour of hisprotégé. At such times, his mail, which was alwaysheavy, would be swollen by half a dozen special letters,written in a most original, semi-official, and semi-humorousstyle; each of them sealed, of course, with his arms, in abig square envelope, which rattled like a baby rattle onaccount of the quantity of sand it contained—the use ofblotting-paper being then unknown. The more difficultthe case, the more energy he would display, until hesecured the favour he asked for his protégé, whom inmany cases he never saw.

My father liked to have plenty of guests in his house.Our dinner-hour was four, and at seven the family gatheredround the samovár (tea-urn) for tea. Everyone belongingto our circle could drop in at that hour, and from thetime my sister Hélène was again with us there was nolack of visitors, old and young, who took advantage ofthe privilege. When the windows facing the street showedbright light inside that was enough to let people knowthat the family was at home and friends would bewelcome.

Nearly every night we had visitors. The green tableswere opened in the hall for the card-players, while theladies and the young people stayed in the reception-roomor around Hélène’s piano. When the ladies had gone,card-playing continued sometimes till the small hours ofthe morning, and considerable sums of money changedhands among the players. Father invariably lost. Butthe real danger for him was not at home: it was at theEnglish Club, where the stakes were much higher than inprivate houses, and especially when he was induced tojoin a party of ‘very respectable’ gentlemen, in one ofthe aristocratic houses of the Old Equerries’ Quarter,where gambling went on all night. On an occasion ofthis kind his losses were sure to be heavy.

(28)

Dancing-parties were not infrequent, to say nothingof a couple of obligatory balls every winter. Father’sway, in such cases, was to have everything done in a goodstyle, whatever the expense. But at the same time suchnigg*rdliness was practised in our house in daily life thatif I were to recount it, I should be accused of exaggeration.It is said of a family of pretenders to the throneof France, renowned for their truly regal hunting-parties,that in their everyday life even the tallow candles areminutely counted. The same sort of miserly economyruled in our house with regard to everything; so muchso that when we, the children of the house, grew up, wedetested all saving and counting. However, in the OldEquerries’ Quarter such a mode of life only raised myfather in public esteem. ‘The old prince,’ it was said,‘seems to be sharp over money at home; but he knowshow a nobleman ought to live.’

In our quiet and clean lanes that was the kind of lifewhich was most in respect. One of our neighbours,General D——, kept his house up in very grand style;and yet the most comical scenes took place every morningbetween him and his cook. Breakfast over, the oldgeneral, smoking his pipe, would himself order thedinner.

‘Well, my boy,’ he would say to the cook, who appearedin snow-white attire, ‘to-day we shall not be many:only a couple of guests. You will make us a soup, youknow, with some spring delicacies—green peas, Frenchbeans, and so on. You have not given us any yet, andmadam, you know, likes a good French spring soup.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Then, anything you like as an entrée.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Of course, asparagus is not yet in season, but I sawyesterday such nice bundles of it in the shops.’

‘Yes, sir; eight shillings the bundle.’

‘Quite right! Then, we are sick of your roasted(29)chickens and turkeys; you ought to get something for achange.’

‘Some venison, sir?’

‘Yes, yes, anything for a change.’

And when the six courses of dinner had been decidedon, the old general would ask, ‘Now how much shall Igive you for to-day’s expenses? Six shillings will do, Isuppose?’

‘One pound, sir.’

‘What nonsense, my boy! Here is six shillings; Iassure you that’s quite enough.’

‘Eight shillings for asparagus, five for the vegetables.’

‘Now, look here, my dear boy, be reasonable. I’llgo as high as seven-and-six, and you must be economical.’

And the bargaining would go on thus for half anhour, until the two would agree upon fourteen shillingsand sixpence, with the understanding that the morrow’sdinner should not cost more than three shillings. Whereuponthe general, quite happy at having made such a goodbargain, would take his sledge, make a round of thefashionable shops, and return quite radiant, bringing forhis wife a bottle of exquisite perfume, for which he hadpaid a fancy price in a French shop, and announcing tohis only daughter that a new velvet mantle—‘somethingvery simple’ and very costly—would be sent for her totry on that afternoon.

All our relatives, who were numerous on my father’sside, lived exactly in the same way: and if a new spiritoccasionally made its appearance, it usually took the formof some religious passion. Thus a Prince Gagárin joinedthe Jesuit order, again to the scandal of ‘all Moscow,’another young prince entered a monastery, while severalolder ladies became fanatic devotees.

There was a single exception. One of our nearestrelatives, Prince—let me call him Mírski—had spent hisyouth at St. Petersburg as an officer of the Guards. Hetook no interest in keeping his own tailors and cabinet-makers,(30)for his house was furnished in a grand modernstyle, and his wearing apparel was all made in the bestSt. Petersburg shops. Gambling was not his propensity—heplayed cards only when in company with ladies;but his weak point was his dinner-table, upon which hespent incredible sums of money.

Lent and Easter were his chief epochs of extravagance.When the Great Lent came, and it would nothave been proper to eat meat, cream, or butter, he seizedthe opportunity to invent all sorts of delicacies in theway of fish. The best shops of the two capitals wereransacked for that purpose; special emissaries were dispatchedfrom his estate to the mouth of the Vólga, tobring back on post-horses (there was no railway at thattime) a sturgeon of great size or some extraordinarily curedfish. And when Easter came, there was no end to hisinventions.

Easter, in Russia, is the most venerated and also thegayest of the yearly festivals. It is the festival of spring.The immense heaps of snow which have been lyingduring the winter along the streets rapidly thaw, androaring streams run down the streets; not like a thiefwho creeps in by insensible degrees, but frankly andopenly spring comes—every day bringing with it achange in the state of the snow and the progress of thebuds on the trees; the night frosts only keep the thawwithin reasonable bounds. The last week of the GreatLent, Passion Week, was kept in Moscow, in my childhood,with extreme solemnity; it was a time of generalmourning, and crowds of people went to the churches tolisten to the impressive reading of those passages of theGospels which relate the sufferings of the Christ. Notonly were meat, eggs, and butter not eaten, but even fishwas refused; some of the most rigorous taking no food atall on Good Friday. The more striking was the contrastwhen Easter came.

On Saturday everyone attended the night service(31)which began in a mournful way. Then, suddenly, atmidnight, the resurrection news was announced. Allthe churches were at once illuminated, and gay peals ofbells resounded from hundreds of bell towers. Generalrejoicing began. All the people kissed one another thriceon the cheeks, repeating the resurrection words, and thechurches, now flooded with light, shone with the gaytoilettes of the ladies. The poorest woman had a newdress; if she had only one new dress a year, she wouldget it for that night.

At the same time, Easter was, and is still, the signalfor a real debauch in eating. Special Easter creamcheeses (páskha) and Easter bread (koolích) are prepared;and everyone, no matter how poor he or she maybe, must have a small páskha and a small koolích, withat least one egg painted red, to be consecrated in thechurch, and to be used afterward to break the Lent.With most old Russians, eating began at night, after ashort Easter mass, immediately after the consecratedfood had been brought from church; but in the housesof the nobility the ceremony was postponed till Sundaymorning, when a table was covered with all sorts ofviands, cheeses, and pastry, and all the servants came toexchange with their masters three kisses and a red-paintedegg. Throughout Easter week a table spread with Easterfood stood in the great hall, and every visitor was invitedto partake.

On this occasion Prince Mírski surpassed himself.Whether he was at St. Petersburg or at Moscow, messengersbrought to his house, from his estate, a speciallyprepared cream cheese for the páskha, and his cookmanaged to make out of it a piece of artistic confectionery.Other messengers were dispatched to the provinceof Nóvgorod to get a bear’s ham, which was cured for theprince’s Easter table. And while the princess, with hertwo daughters, visited the most austere monasteries, inwhich the night service would last three or four hours in(32)succession, and spent all Passion Week in the mostmournful condition of mind, eating only a piece of drybread between the visits she paid to Russian, Roman, andProtestant preachers, her husband made every morningthe tour of the well-known Milútin shops at St. Petersburg,where all possible delicacies are brought from theends of the earth. There he used to select the mostextravagant dainties for his Easter table. Hundreds ofvisitors came to his house, and were asked ‘just to taste’this or that extraordinary thing.

The end of it was that the prince managed literallyto eat up a considerable fortune. His richly furnishedhouse and beautiful estate were sold, and when he andhis wife were old they had nothing left, not even a home,and were compelled to live with their children.

No wonder that when the emancipation of the serfscame, nearly all these families of the Old Equerries’Quarter were ruined. But I must not anticipate events.

VII

To maintain such numbers of servants as were kept in ourhouse would have been ruinous if all provisions had to bebought at Moscow; but in those times of serfdom thingswere managed very simply. When winter came, fathersat at his table and wrote the following:—

‘To the manager of my estate, Nikólskoye, situated inthe government of Kalúga, district of Meschóvsk, on theriver Siréna, from the Prince Alexéi Petróvich Kropótkin,Colonel and Commander of various orders.

‘On receipt of this, and as soon as winter communicationis established, thou art ordered to send to my house,situated in the city of Moscow, twenty-five peasant-sledges,drawn by two horses each, one horse from each house, andone sledge and one man from each second house, and toload them with [so many] quarters of oats, [so many] ofwheat, and [so many] of rye, as also with all the poultry(33)and geese and ducks, well frozen, which have to be killedthis winter, well packed and accompanied by a completelist, under the supervision of a well-chosen man;’ and soit went on for a couple of pages, till the next full-stop wasreached. After this there followed an enumeration of thepenalties which would be inflicted in case the provisionsshould not reach the house situated in such a street,number so-and-so, in due time and in good condition.

Some time before Christmas the twenty-five peasant-sledgesreally entered our gates, and covered the surfaceof the wide yard.

‘Frol!’ shouted my father, as soon as the report of thisgreat event reached him. ‘Kiryúshka! Yegórka! Whereare they? Everything will be stolen! Frol, go andreceive the oats! Uliána, go and receive the poultry!Kiryúshka, call the princess!’

All the household was in commotion, the servants runningwildly in every direction, from the hall to the yard,and from the yard to the hall, but chiefly to the maid-servants’room, to communicate there the Nikólskoye news:‘Pásha is going to marry after Christmas. Aunt Annahas surrendered her soul to God,’ and so on. Letters hadalso come from the country, and very soon one of themaids would steal upstairs into my room.

‘Are you alone? The teacher is not in?’

‘No, he is at the university.’

‘Well, then, be kind and read me this letter frommother.’

And I would read to her the naïve letter, which alwaysbegan with the words, ‘Father and mother send you theirblessing for ages not to be broken.’ After this came thenews: ‘Aunt Eupraxie lies ill, all her bones aching; andyour cousin is not yet married, but hopes to be afterEaster; and aunt Stepanída’s cow died on All Saints’day.’ Following the news came the greetings, two pagesof them: ‘Brother Paul sends you his greetings, and thesisters Mary and Dária send their greetings, and then(34)uncle Dmítri sends his many greetings,’ and so on. However,notwithstanding the monotony of the enumeration,each name awakened some remarks: ‘Then she is stillalive, poor soul, if she sends her greetings; it is nine yearssince she has lain motionless.’ Or, ‘Oh, he has notforgotten me; he must be back, then, for Christmas; sucha nice boy. You will write me a letter, won’t you? and Imust not forget him then.’ I promised, of course, andwhen the time came I wrote a letter in exactly the samestyle.

When the sledges had been unloaded, the hall filledwith peasants. They had put on their best coats overtheir sheepskins, and waited until father should call theminto his room to have a talk about the snow and theprospects of the next crops. They hardly dared to walkin their heavy boots on the polished floor. A few venturedto sit down on the edge of an oak bench; they emphaticallyrefused to make use of chairs. So they waited forhours, looking with alarm upon everyone who enteredfather’s room or issued from it.

Some time later on, usually next morning, one of theservants would run slyly upstairs to the class-room.

‘Are you alone?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then go quickly to the hall. The peasants want tosee you; something from your nurse.’

When I went down to the hall, one of the peasantswould give me a little bundle containing perhaps a few ryecakes, half a dozen hard-boiled eggs, and some apples, tiedin a motley coloured cotton kerchief. ‘Take that: it isyour nurse, Vasilísa, who sends it to you. Look if theapples are not frozen. I hope not: I kept them all thejourney on my breast. Such a fearful frost we had.’And the broad, bearded face, covered with frost-bites,would smile radiantly, showing two rows of beautifulwhite teeth from beneath quite a forest of hair.

‘And this is for your brother, from his nurse Anna,’(35)another peasant would say, handing me a similar bundle.‘“Poor boy,” she says, “he can never have enough atschool.”’

Blushing and not knowing what to say, I wouldmurmur at last, ‘Tell Vasilísa that I kiss her, and Annatoo, for my brother.’ At which all faces would becomestill more radiant.

‘Yes, I will, to be sure.’

Then Kiríla, who kept watch at father’s door, wouldwhisper suddenly, ‘Run quickly upstairs; your fathermay come out in a moment. Don’t forget the kerchief;they want to take it back.’

As I carefully folded the worn kerchief, I mostpassionately desired to send Vasilísa something. But Ihad nothing to send, not even a toy, and we never hadpocket-money.

Our best time, of course, was in the country. Assoon as Easter and Whitsuntide had passed, all ourthoughts were directed towards Nikólskoye. However,time went on—the lilacs must be past blooming atNikólskoye—and father had still thousands of affairs tokeep him in town. At last, five or six peasant-cartsentered our yard: they came to take all sorts of thingswhich had to be sent to the country house. The greatold coach and the other coaches in which we were goingto make the journey were taken out and inspected oncemore. The boxes began to be packed. Our lessonsmade slow progress; at every moment we interruptedour teachers, asking whether this or that book shouldbe taken with us, and long before all others we beganpacking our books, our slates, and our toys, which wereof our own making.

Everything was ready: the peasant-carts stood heavilyloaded with furniture for the country house, boxes containingthe kitchen utensils, and almost countless empty glassjars which were to be brought back in the autumn filled(36)with all kinds of preserves. The peasants waited everymorning for hours in the hall; but the order for leavingdid not come. Father continued to write all the morningin his room, and disappeared at night. Finally, ourstepmother interfered, her maid having ventured to reportthat the peasants were very anxious to return, as haymakingwas near.

Next afternoon, Frol, the major-domo, and MikhaelAléeff, the first violin, were called into father’s room. Asack containing the ‘food money’—that is, a few coppersa day—for each of the forty or fifty souls who were toaccompany the household to Nikólskoye, was handed toFrol, with a list. All were enumerated in that list: theband in full; then the cooks and the under-cooks, thelaundresses, the under-laundress, who was blessed witha family of six mites, ‘Polka Squinting,’ ‘Domna theBig One,’ ‘Domna the Small One,’ and the rest of them.

The first violin received an ‘order of march.’ I knewit well, because father, seeing that he never would be ready,had called me to copy it into the book, in which he usedto copy all ‘outgoing papers’:—

‘To my house servant, Mikhael Aléeff, from PrinceAlexéi Petróvich Kropótkin, Colonel and Commander.

‘Thou art ordered, on May 29, at six A.M., to marchout with my loads, from the city of Moscow, for myestate, situated in the government of Kalúga, district ofMeschóvsk, on the river Siréna, representing a distanceof one hundred and sixty miles from this house; tolook after the good conduct of the men entrusted tothee, and if any one of them proves to be guilty ofmisconduct, or of drunkenness, or of insubordination,to bring the said man before the commander of thegarrison detachment of the separate corps of the interiorgarrisons, with the inclosed circular letter, and to askthat he may be punished by flogging [the first violinknew who was meant], as an example to the others.

‘Thou art ordered, moreover, to look especially after(37)the integrity of the goods entrusted to thy care, and tomarch according to the following order: First day,stay at village So-and-So, to feed the horses; secondday, spend the night at the town of Podólsk;’ and soon for all the seven or eight days that the journey wouldlast.

Next day, at ten instead of at six—punctuality isnot a Russian virtue (‘Thank God, we are not Germans,’true Russians used to say), the carts left the house. Theservants had to make the journey on foot; only thechildren were accommodated with a seat in a bath-tubor basket, on the top of a loaded cart, and some of thewomen might find an occasional resting-place on theledge of a cart. The others had to walk all the hundredand sixty miles. As long as they were marchingthrough Moscow, discipline was maintained: it wasperemptorily forbidden to wear top-boots or to pass abelt over the coat. But when they were on the road,and we overtook them a couple of days later, andespecially when it was known that father would stay afew days longer at Moscow, the men and the women—dressedin all sorts of impossible coats, belted withcotton handkerchiefs, burned by the sun or drippingunder the rain, and helping themselves along with stickscut in the woods—certainly looked more like a wanderingband of gypsies than the household of a wealthylandowner. Similar peregrinations were made by everyhousehold in those times, and when we saw a file ofservants marching along one of our streets, we at onceknew that the Apúkhtins or the Pryánishnikoffs weremigrating.

The carts were gone, yet the family did not move.All of us were sick of waiting; but father still continued towrite interminable orders to the managers of his estates,and I copied them diligently into the big ‘outgoingbook.’ At last the order to start was given. We werecalled downstairs. My father read aloud the order of(38)march, addressed to ‘the Princess Kropótkin, wife ofPrince Alexéi Petróvich Kropótkin, Colonel and Commander,’in which the halting-places during the five days’journey were duly enumerated. True, the order waswritten for May 30, and the departure was fixed for nineA.M., though May was gone, and the departure tookplace in the afternoon: this upset all calculations. But,as is usual in military marching-orders, this circ*mstancehad been foreseen, and was provided for in the followingparagraph:—

‘If, however, contrary to expectation, the departure ofyour highness does not take place at the said day andhour, you are requested to act according to the best ofyour understanding, in order to bring the said journey toits best issue.’

Then, all present, the family and the servants, satdown for a moment, signed themselves with the cross,and bade my father good-bye. ‘I entreat you, Alexis,don’t go to the club,’ our stepmother whispered to him.The great coach, drawn by four horses, with a postillion,stood at the door, with its little folding ladder tofacilitate climbing in; the other coaches also were there.Our seats were enumerated in the marching-orders, butour stepmother had to exercise ‘the best of her understanding’even at that early stage of the proceedings,and we started to the great satisfaction of all.

The journey was an inexhaustible source of enjoymentfor us children. The stages were short, and westopped twice a day to feed the horses. As the ladiesscreamed at the slightest declivity of the road, it wasfound more convenient to alight each time the roadwent up or down hill, which it did continually, and wetook advantage of this to have a peep into the woodsby the roadside, or a run along some crystal brook.The beautifully kept high road from Moscow to Warsaw,which we followed for some distance, was covered, moreover,with a variety of interesting objects: files of loaded(39)carts, groups of pilgrims, and all sorts of people. Twicea day we stopped in large, animated villages, and aftera good deal of bargaining about the prices to be chargedfor hay and oats, as well as for the samovárs, we dismountedat the gates of an inn. Cook Andréi bought achicken and made the soup, while we ran in the meantimeto the next wood, or examined the farmyard, thegardens, the inner life of the inn.

At Máloyaroslávetz, where a battle was fought in1812, when the Russian army vainly attempted to stopNapoleon in his retreat from Moscow, we usually spentthe night. M. Poulain, who had been wounded in theSpanish campaign, knew, or pretended to know, everythingabout the battle at Máloyaroslávetz. He took usto the battlefield, and explained how the Russians triedto check Napoleon’s advance, and how the GrandeArmée crushed them and made its way through theRussian lines. He explained it as well as if he himselfhad taken part in the battle. Here the Cossacks attemptedun mouvement tournant, but Davout, or someother marshal, routed them and pursued them just beyondthese hills on the right. There the left wing ofNapoleon crushed the Russian infantry, and hereNapoleon himself, at the head of the Old Guard, chargedKutúzoff’s centre, and covered himself and his Guardwith undying glory.

We once took the old Kalúga route, and stopped atTarútino; but here M. Poulain was much less eloquent.For it was at this place that Napoleon, who intended toretreat by a southern route, was compelled, after a bloodybattle, to abandon his plan, and was forced to take theSmolénsk route, which his army had laid waste duringits march on Moscow. However, in M. Poulain’s narrative,Napoleon did not lose the battle: he was onlydeceived by his marshals; otherwise he would havemarched straight upon Kíeff and Odéssa, and his eagleswould have floated over the Black Sea.

(40)

Beyond Kalúga we had to cross for a stretch of fivemiles a beautiful pine forest, which remains connectedin my memory with some of the happiest reminiscencesof my childhood. The sand in that forest was as deepas in an African desert, and we went all the way onfoot, while the horses, stopping every moment, slowlydragged the carriages in the sand. When I was in myteens, it was my delight to leave the family behind, andto walk the whole distance by myself. Immense redpines, centuries old, rose on every side, and not a soundreached the ear except the voices of the lofty trees. Ina small ravine a fresh crystal spring murmured, and apasser-by had left in it, for the use of those who shouldcome after him, a small funnel-shaped ladle, made ofbirch bark, with a split stick for a handle. Noiselessly asquirrel ran up a tree, and the underwood was as full ofmysteries as were the trees. In that forest my first loveof Nature and my first dim perception of its incessantlife were born.

Beyond the forest, and past the ferry which took usover the Ugrá, we left the high road and entered narrowcountry lanes, where green ears of rye bent toward thecoach, and the horses managed to bite mouthfuls of grasson either side of the way, as they ran, closely pressed toone another in the narrow, trenchlike road. At last wesaw the willows which marked the approach to ourvillage, and suddenly we caught sight of the elegant,pale-yellow bell tower of the Nikólskoye church.

For the quiet life of the landlords of those timesNikólskoye was admirably suited. There was nothingin it of the luxury which is seen in richer estates; butan artistic hand was visible in the planning of the buildingsand gardens, and in the general arrangement ofthings. Besides the main house, which father had recentlybuilt, there were, round a spacious and well-keptyard, several smaller houses, which gave a greater degree(41)of independence to their inhabitants, without destroyingthe close intercourse of the family life. An immense‘upper garden’ was devoted to fruit-trees, and throughit the church was reached. The southern slope of theland, which led to the river, was entirely given up toa pleasure garden, where flower-beds were intermingledwith alleys of lime-trees, lilacs, and acacias. From thebalcony of the main house there was a beautiful view ofthe Siréna, with the ruins of an old earthen fortresswhere the Russians had offered a stubborn resistanceduring the Mongol invasion, and farther on, the boundlessyellow grain-fields, with copses of woods on thehorizon.

In the early years of my childhood we occupied withM. Poulain one of the separate houses entirely by ourselves;and after his method of education was softenedby the intervention of our sister Hélène, we were on thebest possible terms with him. Father was invariablyabsent from home in the summer, which he spent inmilitary inspections, and our stepmother did not paymuch attention to us, especially after her own child,Pauline, was born. We were thus always with M.Poulain, who thoroughly enjoyed the stay in the country,and let us enjoy it. The woods; the walks along theriver; the climbing over the hills to the old fortress,which M. Poulain made alive for us as he told how itwas defended by the Russians, and how it was capturedby the Tartars; the little adventures, in one ofwhich he became our hero by saving Alexander fromdrowning; an occasional encounter with wolves—therewas no end of new and delightful impressions. Largeparties were also organized in which all the family tookpart, sometimes picking mushrooms in the woods, andafterward having tea in the midst of the forest, where aman a hundred years old lived alone with his little grandson,taking care of the bees. At other times we went toone of father’s villages where a big pond had been dug,(42)in which golden carp were caught by the thousand—partof them being taken for the landlord and the remainderbeing distributed among all the peasants. My formernurse, Vasilísa, lived in that village. Her family wasone of the poorest; besides her husband, she had only asmall boy to help her, and a girl, my foster-sister, whobecame later on a preacher and a ‘Virgin’ in the Nonconformistsect to which they belonged. There was nobound to her joy when I came to see her. Cream, eggs,apples, and honey were all that she could offer; but theway in which she offered them, in bright wooden plates,after having covered the table with a fine snow-whitelinen tablecloth of her own making (with the RussianNonconformists absolute cleanliness is a matter of religion),and the fond words with which she addressed me,treating me as her own son, left the warmest feelings inmy heart. I must say the same of the nurses of myelder brothers, Nicholas and Alexander, who belongedto prominent families of two other Nonconformist sectsin Nikólskoye. Few know what treasuries of goodnesscan be found in the hearts of Russian peasants, evenafter centuries of the most cruel oppression, which mightwell have embittered them.

On stormy days M. Poulain had an abundance oftales to tell us, especially about the campaign in Spain.Over and over again we induced him to tell us how hewas wounded in a battle, and every time he came to thepoint when he felt warm blood streaming into his boot,we jumped to kiss him and gave him all sorts of petnames.

Everything seemed to prepare us for the militarycareer: the predilection of our father (the only toysthat I remember his having bought for us were a rifleand a real sentry-box); the war tales of M. Poulain;nay, even the library which we had at our disposal. Thislibrary, which had once belonged to General Repnínsky,our mother’s grandfather, a learned military man of the(43)eighteenth century, consisted exclusively of books onmilitary warfare, adorned with rich plates and beautifullybound in leather. It was our chief recreation, on wetdays, to look over the plates of these books, representingthe weapons of warfare since the times of the Hebrews,and giving plans of all the battles that had been foughtsince Alexander of Macedonia. These heavy books alsooffered excellent materials for building out of them strongfortresses which would stand for some time the blows ofa battering-ram and the projectiles of an Archimedeancatapult (which, however, persisted in sending stones intothe windows, and was soon prohibited). Yet neitherAlexander nor I became military men. The literatureof the sixties wiped out the teachings of our childhood.

M. Poulain’s opinions about revolutions were those ofthe Orleanist ‘Illustration Française,’ of which he receivedback numbers, and of which we knew all thewoodcuts. For a long time I could not imagine a revolutionotherwise than in the shape of Death riding ona horse, the red flag on one hand and a scythe in theother, mowing down men right and left. So it waspictured in the ‘Illustration.’ But I now think that M.Poulain’s dislike was limited to the uprising of 1848, forone of his tales about the Revolution of 1789 deeply impressedmy mind.

The title of prince was used in our house with andwithout occasion. M. Poulain must have been shockedby it, for he began once to tell us what he knew of thegreat Revolution, I cannot now recall what he said, butone thing I remember, namely, that ‘Count Mirabeau’and other nobles one day renounced their titles, and thatCount Mirabeau, to show his contempt for aristocraticpretensions, opened a shop decorated with a signboardwhich bore the inscription, ‘Mirabeau, tailor.’ (I tell thestory as I had it from M. Poulain.) For a long timeafter that I worried myself thinking what trade I shouldtake up, so as to write, ‘Kropótkin, such and such a(44)handicraft man.’ Later on, my Russian teacher, NikoláiPávlovich Smirnóff, and the general Republican tone ofRussian literature influenced me in the same way; andwhen I began to write novels—that is, in my twelfthyear—I adopted the signature P. Kropótkin, which Inever have departed from, notwithstanding the remonstrancesof my chiefs when I was in the military service.

VIII

In the autumn of 1852 my brother Alexander was sentto the corps of cadets, and from that time we saweach other only during the holidays and occasionally onSundays. The corps of cadets was six miles from ourhouse, and although we had a dozen horses, it alwayshappened that when the time came to send the sledge tothe corps there was no horse free for that purpose. Myeldest brother, Nicholas, came home very seldom. Therelative freedom which Alexander found at school, andespecially the influence of two of his teachers in literature,developed his intellect rapidly, and later on I shall haveample occasion to speak of the beneficial influence thathe exercised upon my own development. It is a greatprivilege to have had a loving, intelligent elder brother.

In the meantime I remained at home. I had to waittill my turn to enter the corps of pages should come, andthat did not happen until I was nearly fifteen years ofa*ge. M. Poulain was dismissed, and a German tutor wasengaged instead. He was one of those idealistic menwho are not uncommon among Germans, but I rememberhim chiefly on account of the enthusiastic way in whichhe used to recite Schiller’s poetry, accompanying it by amost naïve kind of acting that delighted me. He stayedwith us only one winter.

The next winter I was sent to attend the classes ata Moscow gymnasium; and finally I remained with ourRussian teacher, Smirnóff. We soon became friends,(45)especially after my father took both of us for a journeyto his Ryazán estate. During this journey we indulgedin all sorts of fun, and we used to invent humorous storiesin connection with the men and the things that we saw;while the impression produced upon me by the hillytracts we crossed added some new and fine touches tomy growing love of nature. Under the impulse givenme by Smirnóff, my literary tastes also began to grow,and during the years from 1854 to 1857 I had full opportunityto develop them. My teacher, who had by thistime finished his studies at the university, obtaineda small clerkship in a law court, and spent his morningsthere. I was thus left to myself till dinner-time, andafter having prepared my lessons and taken a walk, Ihad plenty of leisure for reading and writing. In theautumn, when my teacher returned to his office atMoscow, while we remained in the country, I was leftagain to myself, and though in continual intercourse withthe family, and spending part of the day in playing withmy little sister Pauline, I could in fact dispose of mytime as I liked.

Serfdom was then in the last years of its existence.It is recent history—it seems to be only of yesterday;and yet, even in Russia, few realize what serfdom was inreality. There is a dim conception that the conditionswhich it created were very bad; but how these conditionsaffected human beings bodily and mentally is onlyvaguely understood. It is amazing, indeed, to see howquickly an institution and its social consequences areforgotten when the institution has ceased to exist, andwith what rapidity men and things change after that.I will try to recall the conditions of serfdom by telling,not what I heard, but what I saw.

Uliána, the housekeeper, stands in the passage leadingto father’s room, and crosses herself; she dares neitherto advance nor to retreat. At last, after having recited(46)a prayer, she enters the room, and reports, in a hardlyaudible voice, that the store of tea is nearly at an end,that there are only twenty pounds of sugar left, and thatthe other provisions will soon be exhausted.

‘Thieves, robbers!’ shouts my father. ‘And you, youare in league with them!’ His voice thunders throughoutthe house. Our stepmother leaves Uliána to facethe storm. But father cries, ‘Frol, call the princess!Where is she?’ And when she enters, he receives herwith the same reproaches.

‘You also are in league with this progeny of Ham;you are standing up for them;’ and so on, for half anhour or more.

Then he commences to verify the accounts. At thesame time, he thinks about the hay. Frol is sent toweigh what is left of that, and our stepmother is sentto be present during the weighing, while father calculateshow much of it ought to be in the barn. A considerablequantity of hay appears to be missing, and Uliána cannotaccount for several pounds of such and such provisions.Father’s voice becomes more and more menacing; Uliánais trembling; but it is the coachman who now enters theroom, and is stormed at by his master. Father springsat him, strikes him, but he keeps repeating, ‘Your highnessmust have made a mistake.’

Father repeats his calculations, and this time it appearsthat there is more hay in the barn than there oughtto be. The shouting continues; he now reproaches thecoachman with not having given the horses their dailyrations in full; but the coachman calls on all the saintsto witness that he gave the animals their due, and Frolinvokes the Virgin to confirm the coachman’s appeal.

But father will not be appeased. He calls in Makár,the piano-tuner and sub-butler, and reminds him of allhis recent sins. He was drunk last week, and must havebeen drunk yesterday, for he broke half a dozen plates.In fact, the breaking of these plates was the real cause(47)of all the disturbance: our stepmother had reported thefact to father in the morning, and that was why Uliánawas received with more scolding than was usually thecase, why the verification of the hay was undertaken, andwhy father now continues to shout that ‘this progeny ofHam’ deserve all the punishments on earth.

Of a sudden there is a lull in the storm. My fathertakes his seat at the table and writes a note. ‘TakeMakár with this note to the police station, and let ahundred lashes with the birch rod be given to him.’

Terror and absolute muteness reign in the house.

The clock strikes four, and we all go down to dinner;but no one has any appetite, and the soup remains in theplates untouched. We are ten at table, and behind eachof us a violinist or a trombone-player stands, with a cleanplate in his left hand; but Makár is not among them.

‘Where is Makár?’ our stepmother asks. ‘Call himin.’

Makár does not appear, and the order is repeated.He enters at last, pale, with a distorted face, ashamed,his eyes cast down. Father looks into his plate, whileour stepmother, seeing that no one has touched the soup,tries to encourage us.

‘Don’t you find, children,’ she says, ‘that the soup isdelicious?’

Tears suffocate me, and immediately after dinner isover I run out, catch Makár in a dark passage and try tokiss his hand; but he tears it away, and says, either as areproach or as a question, ‘Let me alone; you, too, whenyou are grown up, will you not be just the same?’

‘No, no, never!’

Yet father was not among the worst of landowners.On the contrary, the servants and the peasants consideredhim one of the best. What we saw in our housewas going on everywhere, often in much more cruel forms.The flogging of the serfs was a regular part of the dutiesof the police and of the fire brigade.

(48)

A landowner once made the remark to another, ‘Whyis it, general, that the number of the souls on your estateincreases so slowly? You probably do not look aftertheir marriages.’

A few days later the general ordered that a list of allthe inhabitants of his village should be brought him. Hepicked out from it the names of the boys who had attainedthe age of eighteen, and of the girls just pastsixteen—these are the legal ages for marriage in Russia.Then he wrote, ‘John to marry Anna, Paul to marryParáshka,’ and so on with five couples. The five weddings,he added, must take place in ten days, the next Sundaybut one.

A general cry of despair rose from the village.Women, young and old, wept in every house. Annahad hoped to marry Gregory; Paul’s parents had alreadyhad a talk with the Fedótoffs about their girl, who wouldsoon be of age. Moreover, it was the season for ploughing,not for weddings; and what wedding can be preparedin ten days? Dozens of peasants came to see the landowner;peasant women stood in groups at the backentrance of the mansion, with pieces of fine linen for thelandowner’s spouse, to secure her intervention. All invain. The master had said that the wedding should takeplace at such a date, and so it must be.

At the appointed time, the nuptial processions, in thiscase more like burial processions, went to the church.The women cried with loud voices, as they are wont tocry during burials. One of the house valets was sent tothe church, to report to the master as soon as the weddingceremonies were over; but soon he came running back,cap in hand, pale and distressed.

‘Paráshka,’ he said, ‘makes a stand; she refuses tobe married to Paul. Father’ (that is, the priest) ‘askedher, “Do you agree?” but she replied in a loud voice,“No, I don’t.”’

The landowner grew furious. ‘Go and tell that long-maned(49)drunkard’ (meaning the priest; the Russian clergywear their hair long) ‘that if Paráshka is not married atonce, I will report him as a drunkard to the archbishop.How dares he, clerical dirt, disobey me? Tell him heshall be sent to rot in a monastery, and I shall exile Paráshka’sfamily to the steppes.’

The valet transmitted the message. Paráshka’s relativesand the priest surrounded the girl; her motherweeping, fell on her knees before her, entreating her notto ruin the whole family. The girl continued to say ‘Iwon’t,’ but in a weaker and weaker voice, then in a whisper,until at last she stood silent. The nuptial crown was puton her head; she made no resistance, and the valet ranfull speed to the mansion to announce, ‘They are married.’

Half an hour later, the small bells of the nuptial processionsresounded at the gate of the mansion. The fivecouples alighted from the cars, crossed the yard andentered the hall. The landlord received them, offeringthem glasses of wine, while the parents, standing behindthe crying daughters, ordered them to bow to the earthbefore their lord.

Marriages by order were so common that amongst ourservants, each time a young couple foresaw that they mightbe ordered to marry, although they had no mutual inclinationfor each other, they took the precaution of standingtogether as godfather and godmother at the christeningof a child in one of the peasant families. This renderedmarriage impossible, according to Russian Church law.The stratagem was usually successful, but once it ended ina tragedy. Andréi, the tailor, fell in love with a girl belongingto one of our neighbours. He hoped that myfather would permit him to go free, as a tailor, in exchangefor a certain yearly payment, and that by working hard athis trade he could manage to lay aside some money and tobuy freedom for the girl. Otherwise, in marrying one of myfather’s serfs she would have become the serf of her husband’smaster. However, as Andréi and one of the maids(50)of our household foresaw that they might be ordered tomarry, they agreed to unite as god-parents in the christeningof a child. What they had feared happened: one daythey were called to the master, and the dreaded order wasgiven.

‘We are always obedient to your will,’ they replied,‘but a few weeks ago we acted as godfather and godmotherat a christening.’ Andréi also explained his wishes andintentions. The result was that he was sent to the recruitingboard to become a soldier.

Under Nicholas I. there was no obligatory militaryservice for all, such as now exists. Nobles and merchantswere exempt, and when a new levy of recruits was ordered,the landowners had to supply a certain number of men fromtheir serfs. As a rule, the peasants, within their villagecommunities, kept a roll amongst themselves; but thehouse servants were entirely at the mercy of their lord,and if he was dissatisfied with one of them, he sent him tothe recruiting board and took recruit acquittance, whichhad a considerable money value, as it could be sold toany one whose turn it was to become a soldier.

Military service in those times was terrible. A manwas required to serve twenty-five years under the colours,and the life of a soldier was hard in the extreme. To becomea soldier meant to be torn away for ever from one’snative village and surroundings, and to be at the mercyof officers like Timoféeff, whom I have already mentioned.Blows from the officers, flogging with birch rods and withsticks, for the slightest fault, were normal affairs. Thecruelty that was displayed surpasses all imagination.Even in the corps of cadets, where only noblemen’ssons were educated, a thousand blows with birch rodswere sometimes administered, in the presence of all thecorps, for a cigarette—the doctor standing by the torturedboy, and ordering the punishment to end only when heascertained that the pulse was about to stop beating.The bleeding victim was carried away unconscious to the(51)hospital. The Grand Duke Mikhael, commander of themilitary schools, would quickly have removed the directorof a corps in which one or two such cases did not occurevery year. ‘No discipline,’ he would have said.

With common soldiers it was far worse. When oneof them appeared before a court-martial, the sentence wasthat a thousand men should be placed in two ranks facingeach other, every soldier armed with a stick of the thicknessof the little finger (these sticks were known under theirGerman name of Spitzruthen), and that the condemnedman should be dragged three, four, five, and seven timesbetween these two rows, each soldier administering a blow.Sergeants followed to see that full force was used. Afterone or two thousand blows had been given, the victim,spitting blood, was taken to the hospital and attended to,in order that the punishment might be finished as soonas he had more or less recovered from the effects of thefirst part of it. If he died under the torture, the executionof the sentence was completed upon the corpse. NicholasI. and his brother Mikhael were pitiless; no remittance ofthe punishment was ever possible. ‘I will send youthrough the ranks; you shall be skinned under the sticks,’were threats which made part of the current language.

A gloomy terror used to spread through our housewhen it became known that one of the servants was to besent to the recruiting board. The man was chained andplaced under guard in the office to prevent suicide. Apeasant cart was brought to the office door, and thedoomed man was taken out between two watchmen. Allthe servants surrounded him. He made a deep bow askingeveryone to pardon him his willing or unwillingoffences. If his father and mother lived in our village,they came to see him off. He bowed to the groundbefore them, and his mother and his other female relativesbegan loudly to sing out their lamentations—a sortof half-song and half-recitative: ‘To whom do youabandon us? Who will take care of you in the strange(52)lands? Who will protect me from cruel men?’—exactlyin the same way in which they sang their lamentationsat a burial, and with the same words.

Thus Andréi had now to face for twenty-five yearsthe terrible fate of a soldier: all his schemes of happinesshad come to a violent end.

The fate of one of the maids, Pauline, or Pólya, as sheused to be called, was even more tragical. She had beenapprenticed to make fine embroidery, and was an artistat the work. At Nikólskoye her embroidery frame stoodin sister Hélène’s room, and she often took part in theconversations that went on between our sister and a sisterof our stepmother who stayed with Hélène. Altogether,by her behaviour and talk Pólya was more like an educatedyoung person than a housemaid.

A misfortune befell her: she realized that she wouldsoon be a mother. She told all to our stepmother, whoburst into reproaches: ‘I will not have that creature inmy house any longer! I will not permit such a shamein my house! oh, the shameless creature!’ and so on.The tears of Hélène made no difference. Pólya had herhair cut short, and was exiled to the dairy; but as shewas just embroidering an extraordinary skirt, she had tofinish it at the dairy, in a dirty cottage, at a microscopicalwindow. She finished it, and made many more fine embroideries,all in the hope of obtaining her pardon. Butpardon did not come.

The father of her child, a servant of one of ourneighbours, implored permission to marry her; but ashe had no money to offer, his request was refused.Pólya’s ‘too gentlewoman-like manners’ were taken asan offence, and a most bitter fate was kept in reserve forher. There was in our household a man employed as apostillion, on account of his small size; he went underthe name of ‘bandy-legged Fílka.’ In his boyhood ahorse had kicked him terribly, and he did not grow.(53)His legs were crooked, his feet were turned inward, hisnose was broken and turned to one side, his jaw wasdeformed. To this monster it was decided to marryPólya—and she was married by force. The couple weresent to become peasants at my father’s estate in Ryazán.

Human feelings were not recognized, not even suspected,in serfs, and when Turguéneff published hislittle story ‘Mumú,’ and Grigoróvich began to issue histhrilling novels, in which he made his readers weep overthe misfortunes of the serfs, it was to a great number ofpersons a startling revelation. ‘They love just as we do;is it possible?’ exclaimed the sentimental ladies whocould not read a French novel without shedding tearsover the troubles of the noble heroes and heroines.

The education which the owners occasionally gave tosome of their serfs was only another source of misfortunefor the latter. My father once picked out in a peasanthouse a clever boy, and sent him to be educated as adoctor’s assistant. The boy was diligent, and after a fewyears’ apprenticeship made a decided success. When hereturned home, my father bought all that was requiredfor a well-equipped dispensary, which was arranged verynicely in one of the side houses of Nikólskoye. Insummer time Sásha the Doctor—that was the familiarname under which this young man went in the household—wasbusy gathering and preparing all sorts of medicalherbs, and in a short time he became most popular inthe region round Nikólskoye. The sick people amongthe peasants came from the neighbouring villages, andmy father was proud of the success of his dispensary.But this condition of things did not last. One winter,my father came to Nikólskoye, stayed there for a fewdays, and left. That night Sásha the Doctor shot himself—byaccident, it was reported; but there was a lovestory at the bottom of it. He was in love with a girl whomhe could not marry, as she belonged to another landowner.

(54)

The case of another young man, Gherásim Kruglóff,whom my father educated at the Moscow AgriculturalInstitute, was almost equally sad. He passed his examinationsmost brilliantly, getting a gold medal, andthe director of the Institute made all possible endeavoursto induce my father to give him freedom and to let himgo to the university—serfs not being allowed to enterthere. ‘He is sure to become a remarkable man,’ thedirector said, ‘perhaps one of the glories of Russia, andit will be an honour for you to have recognized his capacitiesand to have given such a man to Russian science.’

‘I need him for my own estate,’ my father replied tothe many applications made on the young man’s behalf.In reality, with the primitive methods of agriculturewhich were then in use, and from which my fatherwould never have departed, Gherásim Kruglóff was absolutelyuseless. He made a survey of the estate, butwhen that was done he was ordered to sit in the servants’room and to stand with a plate at dinner-time. Of courseGherásim resented it very much; his dreams carriedhim to the university, to scientific work. His looks betrayedhis discontent, and our stepmother seemed to findan especial pleasure in offending him at every opportunity.One day in the autumn, a rush of wind having openedthe entrance gate, she called out to him, ‘Garáska, goand shut the gate.’

That was the last drop. He answered, ‘You have aporter for that,’ and went his way.

My stepmother ran into father’s room, crying, ‘Yourservants insult me in your house!’

Immediately Gherásim was put under arrest, andchained, to be sent away as a soldier. The parting ofhis old father and mother with him was one of the mostheartrending scenes I ever saw.

This time, however, fate took its revenge. NicholasI. died, and military service became more tolerable.Gherásim’s great ability was soon remarked, and in a few(55)years he was one of the chief clerks, and the real workingforce in one of the departments of the Ministry ofWar. Meanwhile, my father, who was absolutely honest,and, at a time when almost every one was receivingbribes and making fortunes, had never let himself bebribed, departed once from the strict rules of the servicein order to oblige the commander of the corps to whichhe belonged, and consented to allow an irregularity ofsome kind. It nearly cost him his promotion to therank of general; the only object of his thirty-five years’service in the army seemed on the point of beinglost. My stepmother went to St. Petersburg to removethe difficulty, and one day, after many applications, shewas told that the only way to obtain what she wantedwas to address herself to a particular clerk in a certaindepartment of the ministry. Although he was a mereclerk, he was the real head of his superiors, and could doeverything. This man’s name was Gherásim IvánovichKruglóff.

‘Imagine, our Garáska!’ she said to me afterward.‘I always knew that he had great capacity. I went tosee him, and spoke to him about this affair, and he said,“I have nothing against the old prince, and I will do allI can for him.”’

Gherásim kept his word: he made a favourable report,and my father got his promotion. At last he couldput on the long-coveted red trousers and the red-linedovercoat, and could wear the plumage on his helmet.

These were things which I myself saw in my childhood.If, however, I were to relate what I heard of inthose years it would be a much more gruesome narrative:stories of men and women torn from their familiesand their villages, and sold, or lost in gambling, or exchangedfor a couple of hunting dogs, and then transportedto some remote part of Russia for the sake ofcreating a new estate; of children taken from theirparents and sold to cruel or dissolute masters; of flogging(56)‘in the stables,’ which occurred every day with unheard-ofcruelty; of a girl who found her only salvationin drowning herself; of an old man who had grown grey-hairedin his master’s service, and at last hanged himselfunder his master’s window; and of revolts of serfs, whichwere suppressed by Nicholas I.’s generals by flogging todeath each tenth or fifth man taken out of the ranks,and by laying waste the village, whose inhabitants, aftera military execution, went begging for bread in theneighbouring provinces, as if they had been the victimsof a conflagration. As to the poverty which I saw duringour journeys in certain villages, especially in those whichbelonged to the imperial family, no words would be adequateto describe the misery to readers who have notseen it.

To become free was the constant dream of the serfs—adream not easily realized, for a heavy sum of moneywas required to induce a landowner to part with a serf.‘Do you know,’ my father said to me once, ‘that yourmother appeared to me after her death? You youngpeople do not believe in these things, but it was so. Isat one night very late in this chair, at my writing-table,and slumbered, when I saw her enter from behind, all inwhite, quite pale, and with her eyes gleaming. Whenshe was dying she begged me to promise that I wouldgive liberty to her maid, Másha, and I did promise; butthen what with one thing and another, nearly a wholeyear passed without my having fulfilled my intention.Then she appeared, and said to me in a low voice,“Alexis, you promised me to give liberty to Másha:have you forgotten it?” I was quite terrified: I jumpedout of my chair, but she had vanished. I called theservants, but no one had seen anything. Next morningI went to her grave and had a litany sung, and immediatelygave liberty to Másha.’

When my father died, Másha came to his burial, and I(57)spoke to her. She was married, and quite happy in herfamily life. My brother Alexander, in his jocose way,told her what my father had said, and we asked her whatshe knew of it.

‘These things,’ she replied, ‘happened a long time ago,so I may tell you the truth. I saw that your father hadquite forgotten his promise, so I dressed up in white andspoke like your mother. I recalled the promise he hadmade to her—you won’t bear a grudge against me, willyou?’

‘Of course not!’

Ten or twelve years after the scenes described in theearly part of this chapter, I sat one night in my father’sroom, and we talked of things past. Serfdom had beenabolished, and my father complained of the new conditions,though not very severely; he had accepted them withoutmuch grumbling.

‘You must agree, father,’ I said, ‘that you often punishedyour servants cruelly, and without any reason.’

‘With the people,’ he replied, ‘it was impossible to dootherwise;’ and, leaning back in his easy-chair, he remainedplunged in thought. ‘But what I did was nothingworth speaking of,’ he said after a long pause. ‘Takethat same Sábleff: he looks so soft, and talks in such ameek voice; but he was really terrible with his serfs.How many times they plotted to kill him! I, at least,never took advantage of my maids, whereas that old devilTónkoff went on in such a way that the peasant womenwere going to inflict a terrible punishment upon him....Good-bye; bonne nuit!’

IX

I well remember the Crimean war. At Moscow it affectedpeople but little. Of course, in every house lint andbandages for the wounded were made at evening parties;(58)not much of it, however, reached the Russian armies, immensequantities being stolen and sold to the armies ofthe enemy. My sister Hélène and other young ladiessang patriotic songs, but the general tone of life in societywas hardly influenced by the great struggle that was goingon. In the country, on the contrary, the war causedmuch gloominess. The levies of recruits followed oneanother rapidly, and we continually heard the peasantwomen singing their funereal songs. The Russian peoplelook upon war as a calamity which is being sent uponthem by Providence, and they accepted this war with asolemnity that contrasted strangely with the levity I sawelsewhere under similar circ*mstances. Young though Iwas, I realized that feeling of solemn resignation whichpervaded our villages.

My brother Nicholas was smitten like many others bythe war fever, and before he had ended his course at thecorps he joined the army in the Caucasus. I never sawhim again.

In the autumn of 1854 our family was increased by thearrival of two sisters of our stepmother. They had hadtheir own house and some vineyards at Sebastopol, butnow they were homeless, and came to stay with us.When the allies landed in the Crimea, the inhabitantsof Sebastopol were told that they need not be afraid, andhad only to stay where they were; but after the defeatat the Alma, they were ordered to leave with all haste, asthe city would be invested within a few days. Therewere few conveyances, and there was no way of movingalong the roads in face of the troops which were marchingsouthward. To hire a cart was almost impossible, andthe ladies, having abandoned all they had on the road,had a very hard time of it before they reached Moscow.

I soon made friends with the younger of the twosisters, a lady of about thirty, who used to smoke onecigarette after another, and to tell me of all the horrorsof their journey. She spoke with tears in her eyes of the(59)beautiful battle-ships which had to be sunk at the entranceof the harbour of Sebastopol, and she could not understandhow the Russians would be able to defend Sebastopolfrom the land; there was no wall even worth speakingof.

I was in my thirteenth year when Nicholas I. died.It was late in the afternoon of February 18 (March 2),that the policemen distributed in all the houses ofMoscow a bulletin announcing the illness of the Tsar,and inviting the inhabitants to pray in the churches forhis recovery. At that time he was already dead, andthe authorities knew it, as there was telegraphic communicationbetween Moscow and St. Petersburg; butnot a word having been previously uttered about hisillness, they thought that the people must be graduallyprepared for the announcement of his death. We allwent to church and prayed most piously.

Next day, Saturday, the same thing was done, andeven on Sunday morning bulletins about the Tsar’s healthwere distributed. The news of the death of Nicholasreached us only about midday, through some servantswho had been to the market. A real terror reigned inour house and in the houses of our relatives, as the informationspread. It was said that the people in the marketbehaved in a strange way, showing no regret, but indulgingin dangerous talk. Full-grown people spoke inwhispers, and our stepmother kept repeating, ‘Don’t talkbefore the men;’ while the servants whispered amongthemselves, probably about the coming ‘freedom.’ Thenobles expected at every moment a revolt of the serfs—anew uprising of Pugachóff.

At St. Petersburg, in the meantime, men of theeducated classes, as they communicated to one anotherthe news, embraced in the streets. Everyone felt thatthe end of the war and the end of the terrible conditionswhich prevailed under the ‘iron despot’ were near athand. Poisoning was talked about, the more so as the(60)Tsar’s body decomposed very rapidly, but the truereason only gradually leaked out: a too strong dose ofan invigorating medicine that Nicholas had taken.

In the country, during the summer of 1855, the heroicstruggle which was going on in Sebastopol for every yardof ground and every bit of its dismantled bastions wasfollowed with a solemn interest. A messenger was sentregularly twice a week from our house to the districttown to get the papers; and on his return, even beforehe had dismounted, the papers were taken from his handsand opened. Hélène or I read them aloud to the family,and the news was at once transmitted to the servants’ room,and thence to the kitchen, the office, the priest’s house,and the houses of the peasants. The reports which cameof the last days of Sebastopol, of the awful bombardment,and finally of the evacuation of the town by our troopswere received with tears. In every country house roundabout, the loss of Sebastopol was mourned over with asmuch grief as the loss of a near relative would have been,although everyone understood that now the terrible warwould soon come to an end.

X

It was in August 1857, when I was nearly fifteen, thatmy turn came to enter the corps of pages and I wastaken to St. Petersburg. When I left home I was stilla child; but human character is usually settled in adefinite way at an earlier age than is generally supposed,and it is evident to me that under my childish appearanceI was then very much what I was to be lateron. My tastes, my inclinations, were already determined.

The first impulse to my intellectual development wasgiven, as I have said, by my Russian teacher. It is anexcellent habit in Russian families—a habit now, unhappily,(61)on the decline—to have in the house a studentwho aids the boys and the girls with their lessons, evenwhen they are at a gymnasium. For a better assimilationof what they learn at school, and for a widening oftheir conceptions about what they learn, his aid is invaluable.Moreover, he introduces an intellectual elementinto the family and becomes an elder brother to theyoung people—often something better than an elderbrother, because the student has a certain responsibilityfor the progress of his pupils; and as the methods ofteaching change rapidly, from one generation to another,he can assist his pupils much better than the besteducated parents could.

Nikolái Pávlovich Smirnóff had literary tastes. Atthat time, under the wild censorship of Nicholas I., manyquite inoffensive works by our best writers could not bepublished; others were so mutilated as to deprivemany passages in them of any meaning. In the genialcomedy by Griboyédoff, ‘Misfortune from Intelligence,’which ranks with the best comedies of Molière, ColonelSkalozúb had to be named ‘Mr. Skalozúb,’ to the detrimentof the sense and even of the verses; for the representationof a colonel in a comical light would have beenconsidered an insult to the army. Of so innocent a bookas Gógol’s ‘Dead Souls’ the second part was not allowedto appear, nor the first part to be reprinted, although ithad long been out of print. Numerous verses of Púshkin,Lérmontoff, A. K. Tolstóy, Ryléeff, and other poets werenot permitted to see the light; to say nothing of suchverses as had any political meaning or contained acriticism of the prevailing conditions. All these circulatedin manuscript, and my teacher used to copy wholebooks of Gógol and Púshkin for himself and his friends,a task in which I occasionally helped him. As a truechild of Moscow he was also imbued with the deepestveneration for those of our writers who lived in Moscow—someof them in the Old Equerries’ Quarter. He(62)pointed out to me with respect the house of the CountessSaliás (Eugénie Tour), who was our near neighbour, whilethe house of the noted exile Alexander Hérzen alwayswas associated with a certain mysterious feeling of respectand awe. The house where Gógol lived was for usan object of deep respect, and though I was not ninewhen he died (in 1851), and had read none of his works,I remember well the sadness his death produced atMoscow. Turguéneff well expressed that feeling in anote, for which Nicholas I. ordered him to be put underarrest and sent into exile to his estate.

Pushkin’s great poem, ‘Evghéniy Onyéghin,’ madebut little impression upon me, and I still admire themarvellous simplicity and beauty of his style in thatpoem more than its contents. But Gógol’s works, whichI read when I was eleven or twelve, had a powerful effecton my mind, and my first literary essays were in imitationof his humorous manner. An historical novelby Zagóskin, ‘Yúriy Miloslávskiy,’ about the times ofthe great uprising of 1612, Púshkin’s ‘The Captain’sDaughter,’ dealing with the Pugachóff uprising, andDumas’ ‘Queen Marguerite’ awakened in me a lastinginterest in history. As to other French novels, I haveonly begun to read them since Daudet and Zola came tothe front. Nekrásoff’s poetry was my favourite fromearly years: I knew many of his verses by heart.

Nikolái Pávlovich Smirnóff early began to make mewrite, and with his aid I wrote a long ‘History of a Sixpence,’for which we invented all sorts of characters, intowhose possession the sixpence fell.

My brother Alexander had at that time a much morepoetical turn of mind. He wrote most romantic stories,and began early to make verses, which he did with wonderfulfacility and in a most musical and easy style. If hismind had not subsequently been taken up by naturalhistory and philosophical studies, he undoubtedly wouldhave become a poet of mark. In those years his favourite(63)resort for finding poetical inspiration was the gently slopingroof underneath our window. This aroused in me aconstant desire to tease him. ‘There is the poet sittingunder the chimney-pot, trying to write his verses,’ I usedto say; and the teasing ended in a fierce scrimmage,which brought our sister Hélène to a state of despair.But Alexander was so devoid of revengefulness thatpeace was soon concluded, and we loved each other immensely.Among boys, scrimmage and love seem to gohand in hand.

I had even then taken to journalism. In my twelfthyear I began to edit a daily journal. Paper was not tobe had at will in our house, and my journal was of aLilliputian size. As the Crimean war had not yet brokenout, and the only newspaper which my father used toreceive was the Gazette of the Moscow Police, I hadnot a great choice of models. As a result my ownGazette consisted merely of short paragraphs announcingthe news of the day: as, ‘Went out to the woods. N. P.Smirnóff shot two thrushes,’ and the like.

This soon ceased to satisfy me, and in 1855 I starteda monthly review which contained Alexander’s verses,my novelettes, and some sort of ‘varieties.’ The materialexistence of this review was fully guaranteed, for it hadplenty of subscribers; that is, the editor himself andSmirnóff, who regularly paid his subscription, of so manysheets of paper, even after he had left our house. Inreturn, I accurately wrote out for my faithful subscribera second copy.

When Smirnóff left us, and a student of medicine,N. M. Pávloff, took his place, the latter helped me in myeditorial duties. He obtained for the review a poem byone of his friends, and—still more important—the introductorylecture on physical geography by one of theMoscow professors. Of course this had not been printedbefore: a reproduction would never have found its wayinto so serious a publication.

(64)

Alexander, I need not say, took a lively interest inthe review, and its renown soon reached the corps ofcadets. Some young writers on the way to fame undertookthe publication of a rival. The matter was serious:in poems and novels we could hold our own; but theyhad a ‘critic,’ and a ‘critic’ who writes, in connectionwith the characters of some new novel, all sorts of thingsabout the conditions of life, and touches upon a thousandquestions which could not be touched upon anywhereelse, makes the soul of a Russian review. They had acritic, and we had none! Happily enough, the articlehe wrote for the first number was shown to my brother.It was rather pretentious and weak, and Alexander atonce wrote an anti-criticism, ridiculing and demolishingthe critic in a violent manner. There was great consternationin the rival camp when they learned that thisanti-criticism would appear in our next issue; they gaveup publishing their review and their best writers joinedour staff. We triumphantly announced the future ‘exclusivecollaboration’ of so many distinguished writers.

In August 1857 the review had to be suspended,after nearly two years’ existence. New surroundingsand a quite new life were before me. I went awayfrom home with regret, the more so because the wholedistance between Moscow and St. Petersburg would bebetween me and Alexander, and I already considered ita misfortune that I had to enter a military school.

I

The long-cherished ambition of my father was thusrealized. There was a vacancy in the corps of pageswhich I could fill before I had got beyond the age towhich admission was limited, and I was taken to St.Petersburg and entered the school. Only a hundredand fifty boys—mostly children of the nobility belongingto the court—received education in this privileged corps,which combined the character of a military school endowedwith special rights and of a court institutionattached to the imperial household. After a stay offour or five years in the corps of pages, those who hadpassed the final examinations were received as officersin any regiment of the Guard or of the army they chose,irrespective of the number of vacancies in that regiment;and each year the first sixteen pupils of the highest formwere nominated pages de chambre: that is, they werepersonally attached to the several members of the imperialfamily—the emperor, the empress, the grandduch*esses, and the grand dukes. That was considered,of course, a great honour; and, moreover, the youngmen upon whom this honour was bestowed becameknown at the court, and had afterward every chance ofbeing nominated aides-de-camp of the emperor or ofone of the grand dukes, and consequently had everyfacility for making a brilliant career in the service of the(66)State. Fathers and mothers took due care, therefore,that their boys should not miss entering the corps ofpages, even though entrance had to be secured at theexpense of other candidates who never saw a vacancyopening for them. Now that I was in the select corpsmy father could give free play to his ambitious dreams.

The corps was divided into five forms, of which thehighest was the first, and the lowest the fifth, and theintention was that I should enter the fourth form. However,as it appeared at the examinations that I was notsufficiently familiar with decimal fractions, and as thefourth form contained that year over forty pupils, whileonly twenty had been mustered for the fifth form, I wasenrolled in the latter.

I felt extremely vexed at this decision. It was withreluctance that I entered a military school, and now Ishould have to stay in it five years instead of four.What should I do in the fifth form, when I knew alreadyall that would be taught in it? With tears in my eyesI spoke of it to the inspector (the head of the educationaldepartment), but he answered me with a joke. ‘Youknow,’ he told me, ‘what Cæsar said—better to be thefirst in a village than the second in Rome.’ To whichI warmly replied that I should prefer to be the verylast if only I could leave the military school as soon aspossible. ‘Perhaps, after some time, you will like theschool,’ he remarked, and from that day he becamefriendly to me.

To the teacher of arithmetic, who also tried to consoleme, I gave my word of honour that I would nevercast a glance into his text-book; ‘and nevertheless youwill have to give me the highest marks.’ I kept myword; but thinking now of this scene, I fancy that thepupil was not of a very docile disposition.

And yet, as I look back upon that remote past, Icannot but feel grateful for having been put in the lowerform. Having only to repeat during the first year what(67)I already knew, I got into the habit of learning my lessonsby merely listening to what the teachers said in the class-room;and, the lessons over, I had plenty of time to readand to write to my heart’s content. I never prepared forthe examinations, and used to spend the time which wasallowed for that in reading aloud to a few friends thedramas of Shakespeare or of Ostróvskiy. When I reachedthe higher ‘special’ forms, I was also better prepared tomaster the variety of subjects we had to study. Besides,I spent more than half of the first winter in the hospital.Like all children who are not born at St. Petersburg, Ihad to pay a heavy tribute to ‘the capital on the swampsof Finland,’ in the shape of several attacks of local cholera,and finally one of typhoid fever.

When I entered the corps of pages, its inner life wasundergoing a profound change. All Russia awakenedat that time from the heavy slumber and the terriblenightmare of Nicholas I.’s reign. Our school also feltthe effects of that revival. I do not know, in fact, whatwould have become of me, had I entered the corps ofpages one or two years sooner. Either my will wouldhave been totally broken, or I should have been excludedfrom the school with no one knows what consequences.Happily, the transition period was already in full swayin the year 1857.

The director of the corps was an excellent old man,General Zheltúkhin. But he was the nominal head only.The real master of the school was ‘the Colonel,’—ColonelGirardot, a Frenchman in the Russian service. Peoplesaid he was a Jesuit, and so he was, I believe. His ways,at any rate, were thoroughly imbued with the teachingsof Loyola, and his educational methods were those of theFrench Jesuit colleges.

Imagine a short, extremely thin man, with dark,piercing, and furtive eyes, wearing short-clipped moustaches,which gave him the expression of a cat; very(68)quiet and firm; not remarkably intelligent, but exceedinglycunning; a despot at the bottom of his heart, whowas capable of hating—intensely hating—the boy whowould not fall under his fascination, and of expressingthat hatred, not by silly persecutions, but unceasingly byhis general behaviour—by an occasionally dropped word,a gesture, a smile, an interjection. His walk was morelike gliding along, and the exploring glances he used tocast round without turning his head completed the illusion.A stamp of cold dryness was impressed on his lips,even when he tried to look well disposed, and that expressionbecame still more harsh when his mouth wascontorted by a smile of discontent or of contempt. Withall this there was nothing of a commander in him; youwould rather think, at first sight, of a benevolent fatherwho talks to his children as if they were full-grown people.And yet, you soon felt that everyone and everything hadto bend before his will. Woe to the boy who would notfeel happy or unhappy according to the degree of gooddisposition shown towards him by the Colonel.

The words ‘the Colonel’ were continually on all lips.Other officers went by their nicknames, but no one daredto give a nickname to Girardot. A sort of mystery hungabout him, as if he were omniscient and everywherepresent. True, he spent all the day and part of thenight in the school. Even when we were in the classeshe prowled about, visiting our drawers, which he openedwith his own keys. As to the night, he gave a goodportion of it to the task of inscribing in small books—ofwhich he had quite a library—in separate columns,by special signs and in inks of different colours, all thefaults and virtues of each boy.

Play, jokes, and conversations stopped when we sawhim slowly moving along through our spacious rooms,hand in hand with one of his favourites, balancing hisbody forward and backward; smiling at one boy, keenlylooking into the eyes of another, casting an indifferent(69)glance upon a third, and giving a slight contortion to hislip as he passed a fourth: and from these looks everyoneknew that he liked the first boy, that to the secondhe was indifferent, that he intentionally did not noticethe third, and that he disliked the fourth. This dislikewas enough to terrify most of his victims—the more soas no reason could be given for it. Impressionable boyshad been brought to despair by that mute, unceasinglydisplayed aversion and those suspicious looks; in othersthe result had been a total annihilation of will, as one of theTolstóys—Theodor, also a pupil of Girardot—has shownin an autobiographic novel, the ‘Diseases of the Will.’

The inner life of the corps was miserable under therule of the Colonel. In all boarding-schools the newlyentered boys are subjected to petty persecutions. The‘greenhorns’ are put in this way to a test. What arethey worth? Are they not going to turn ‘sneaks?’And then the ‘old hands’ like to show to new-comersthe superiority of an established brotherhood. So it isin all schools and in prisons. But under Girardot’s rulethese persecutions took on a harsher aspect, and theycame, not from the comrades of the same form, but fromthe first form—the pages de chambre, who were non-commissionedofficers, and whom Girardot had placed ina quite exceptional, superior position. His system wasto give them carte blanche; to pretend that he didnot know even the horrors they were enacting; and tomaintain through them a severe discipline. To answera blow received from a page de chambre would havemeant, in the times of Nicholas I., to be sent to a battalionof soldiers’ sons, if the fact became public; and to revoltin any way against the mere caprice of a page de chambremeant that the twenty youths of the first form, armedwith their heavy oak rulers, would assemble in a room,and, with Girardot’s tacit approval, administer a severebeating to the boy who had shown such a spirit of insubordination.

(70)

Accordingly, the first form did what they liked; andnot farther back than the preceding winter one of theirfavourite games had been to assemble the ‘greenhorns’at night in a room, in their night-shirts, and to makethem run round, like horses in a circus, while the pagesde chambre, armed with thick india-rubber whips, standingsome in the centre and the others on the outside,pitilessly whipped the boys. As a rule the ‘circus’ended in an Oriental fashion, in an abominable way.The moral conceptions which prevailed at that time, andthe foul talk which went on in the school concerningwhat occurred at night after a circus, were such that theleast said about them the better.

The Colonel knew all this. He had a perfectlyorganized system of espionage, and nothing escaped hisknowledge. But so long as he was not known to knowit, all was right. To shut his eyes to what was done bythe first form was the foundation of his system of maintainingdiscipline.

However, a new spirit was awakened in the school,and only a few months before I entered it a revolutionhad taken place. That year the third form was differentfrom what it had hitherto been. It contained anumber of young men who really studied, and read agood deal; some of them became, later, men of mark.My first acquaintance with one of them—let me call himvon Schauff—was when he was reading Kant’s ‘Critiqueof Pure Reason.’ Besides, they had amongst them someof the strongest youths of the school. The tallest memberof the corps was in that form, as also a very strongyoung man, Kóshtoff, a great friend of von Schauff.

This third form did not bear the yoke of the pagesde chambre with the same docility as their predecessors;they were disgusted with what was going on, and in consequenceof an incident, which I prefer not to describe,a fight took place between the third and the first form,(71)with the result that the pages de chambre got a severethrashing from their subordinates. Girardot hushed upthe affair, but the authority of the first form was brokendown. The india-rubber whips remained, but werenever again brought into use. The circuses and the likebecame things of the past.

That much was won; but the lowest form, the fifth,composed almost entirely of very young boys who hadjust entered the school, had still to obey the pettycaprices of the pages de chambre. We had a beautifulgarden, filled with old trees, but the boys of the fifthform could enjoy it little; they were forced to run aroundabout, while the first form boys sat in it andchattered, or to send back the balls when these gentlemenplayed nine-pins. A couple of days after I had enteredthe school, seeing how things stood in the garden, I didnot go there, but remained upstairs. I was reading,when a page de chambre, with carroty hair and a facecovered with freckles, came upon me, and ordered meto go at once to the garden to run the roundabout.

‘I sha’n’t; don’t you see I am reading,’ was myreply.

Anger disfigured his never too pleasant face. Hewas ready to jump upon me. I took the defensive.He tried to give me blows on the face with his cap. Ifenced as best I could. Then he flung his cap on thefloor.

‘Pick it up.’

‘Pick it up yourself.’

Such an act of disobedience was unheard of in theschool. Why he did not beat me unmercifully on thespot I do not know. He was much older and strongerthan I was.

Next day and the following days I received similarcommands, but obstinately remained upstairs. Thenbegan the most exasperating petty persecutions at everystep—enough to drive a boy to desperation. Happily,(72)I was always of a jovial disposition, and answered themwith jokes, or took little heed of them.

Moreover, it all soon came to an end. The weatherturned rainy, and we spent most of our time indoors.In the garden the first form smoked freely enough, butwhen we were indoors the smoking club was ‘the tower.’It was kept beautifully clean, and a fire was alwaysburning there. The pages de chambre severely punishedany of the other boys whom they caught smoking, butthey themselves sat continually at the fireside chatteringand enjoying cigarettes. Their favourite smoking timewas after ten o’clock at night, when all were supposed tohave gone to bed; they kept up their club till half-pasteleven, and, to protect themselves from an unexpectedinterruption by Girardot, they ordered us to be on thewatch. The small boys of the fifth form were taken outof their beds in turn, two at a time, and they had toloiter about the staircase till half-past eleven, to givenotice of the approach of the Colonel.

We decided to put an end to these night watches.Long were the discussions, and the higher forms wereconsulted as to what was to be done. At last thedecision came: ‘Refuse, all of you, to keep the watch;and when they begin to beat you, which they are sure todo, go, as many of you as you can, in a block, and call inGirardot. He knows it all, but then he will be bound tostop it.’ The question whether that would not be ‘reporting’was settled in the negative by experts in mattersof honour: the pages de chambre did not behave towardsthe others like comrades.

The turn to watch fell that night to a Prince Shahovskóy,an old hand, and to Selánoff, a new-comer, an extremelytimid boy, who even spoke in a girlish voice.The old hand was called upon first, but refused to go,and was left alone. Then two pages de chambre wentto the timid new-comer, who was in bed; and as he refusedto obey, they began to flog him brutally with(73)heavy leather braces. Shahovskóy woke up severalcomrades who were near at hand, and they all ran tofind Girardot.

I was also in bed when the two came upon me, orderingme to take the watch. I refused. Thereupon, seizingtwo pairs of braces—we always used to put ourclothes in perfect order on a bench by the bedside,braces uppermost, and the necktie across them—theybegan to flog me. Sitting up in bed, I fenced with myhands, and had already received several heavy blows,when a command resounded, ‘The first form to theColonel!’ The fierce fighters became tame at once, andhurriedly put my things in order.

‘Don’t say a word,’ they whispered.

‘The necktie across, in good order,’ I said to them,while my shoulders and arms burned from the blows.

What Girardot’s talk with the first form was we didnot know; but next day, as we stood in the ranks beforemarching downstairs to the dining-room, he addressed usin a minor key, saying how sad it was that pages dechambre should have fallen upon a boy who was right inhis refusal. And upon whom? A new-comer, and sotimid a boy as Selánoff was! The whole school was disgustedat this Jesuitic speech.

It surely was also a blow to Girardot’s authority, andhe resented it very much. He regarded our form, and meespecially, with great dislike (the roundabout affair hadbeen reported to him), and he manifested it at every opportunity.

During the first winter I was a frequent inmate of thehospital. After suffering from typhoid fever, duringwhich the director and the doctor bestowed on me a reallyparental care, I had very bad and persistently recurringgastric attacks. Girardot, as he made his daily rounds ofthe hospital, seeing me so often there, began to say to meevery morning, half-jokingly, in French, ‘Here is a young(74)man who is as healthy as the New Bridge, and loiters inthe hospital.’ Once or twice I replied jestingly, but atlast, seeing malice in this constant repetition, I lostpatience and grew very angry.

‘How dare you say that?’ I exclaimed. ‘I shall askthe doctor to forbid your entering this room,’ and so on.

Girardot recoiled two steps; his dark eyes glittered,his thin lip became still thinner. At last he said, ‘I haveoffended you, have I? Well, we have in the hall twoartillery guns: shall we have a duel?’

‘I don’t make jokes, and I tell you that I shall bearno more of your insinuations’, I continued.

He did not repeat his joke, but regarded me with evenmore dislike than before.

Happily enough, there was little opportunity for punishingme. I did not smoke; my clothes were alwayshooked and buttoned, and properly folded at night. Iliked all sorts of games, but, plunged as I was in readingand in a correspondence with my brother, I could hardlyfind time to play a laptá match (a sort of cricket) in thegarden, and always hurried back to my books. But whenI was caught in fault, it was not I that Girardot punished,but the page de chambre who was my superior. Once,for instance, at dinner, I made a physical discovery: Inoticed that the sound given out by a tumbler depends onthe amount of water it contains, and at once tried to obtaina chord with four glasses. But there stood Girardotbehind me, and without saying a word to me he orderedmy page de chambre under arrest. It so happened thatthis young man was an excellent fellow, a third cousin ofmine, who refused even to listen to my excuses, saying,‘All right. I know he dislikes you.’ His comrades,though, gave me a warning. ‘Take care, naughty boy; weare not going to be punished for you,’ they said; and ifreading had not been my all-absorbing occupation, theyprobably would have made me pay dearly for my physicalexperiment.

(75)

Everyone spoke of Girardot’s dislike for me; but Ipaid no attention to it, and probably increased it by myindifference. For full eighteen months he refused to giveme the epaulettes, which were usually given to newlyentered boys after one or two months’ stay at the school,when they had learned some of the rudiments of militarydrill; but I felt quite happy without that military decoration.At last, an officer—the best teacher of drill in theschool, a man simply enamoured of drill—volunteered toteach me; and when he saw me performing all the tricksto his entire satisfaction, he undertook to introduce me toGirardot. The Colonel refused again, twice in succession,so that the officer took it as a personal offence; and whenthe director of the corps once asked him why I had noepaulettes yet, he bluntly answered, ‘The boy is all right;it is the Colonel who does not want him;’ whereupon,probably after the remark of the director, Girardot himselfasked to examine me again, and gave me the epaulettesthat very day.

But the Colonel’s influence was rapidly vanishing. Thewhole character of the school was changing. For twentyyears Girardot had realized his ideal, which was to havethe boys nicely combed, curled, and girlish looking, andto send to the court pages as refined as courtiers of LouisXIV. Whether they learned or not, he cared little; hisfavourites were those whose clothes-basket was best filledwith all sorts of nail-brushes and scent-bottles, whose‘private’ uniform (which could be put on when we wenthome on Sundays) was of the best make, and who knewhow to make the most elegant salut oblique. Formerly,when Girardot had held rehearsals of court ceremonies,wrapping up a page in a striped red cotton cover takenfrom one of our beds, in order that he might representthe Empress at a baisemain, the boys almost religiouslyapproached the imaginary Empress, seriously performedthe ceremony of kissing the hand, and retired with a mostelegant oblique bow; but now, though they were very elegant(76)at court, they would perform at the rehearsals suchbearlike bows that all roared with laughter, while Girardotwas simply raging. Formerly, the younger boys who hadbeen taken to a court levee, and had been curled for thatpurpose, used to keep their curls as long as they wouldlast; now, on returning from the palace, they hurried toput their heads under the cold water tap, to get rid of thecurls. An effeminate appearance was laughed at. To besent to a levee, to stand there as a decoration, was nowconsidered a drudgery rather than a favour. And whenthe small boys who were occasionally taken to the palaceto play with the little grand dukes remarked that one ofthe latter used, in some game, to make a hard whip out ofhis handkerchief, and use it freely, one of our boys didthe same, and so whipped the grand duke that he cried.Girardot was terrified, while the old Sebastopol admiralwho was tutor of the grand duke only praised our boy.

A new spirit, studious and serious, developed in thecorps, as in all other schools. In former years, the pages,being sure in one way or another that they would get thenecessary marks for being promoted officers of the Guard,spent the first years in the school hardly learning at all,and only began to study more or less in the last twoforms; now the lower forms learned very well. Themoral tone also became quite different from what it wasa few years before. Oriental amusem*nts were lookedupon with disgust, and an attempt or two to revert to oldmanners resulted in scandals which reached the St. Petersburgdrawing-rooms. Girardot was dismissed. He wasonly allowed to retain his bachelor apartment in thebuilding of the corps, and we often saw him afterward,wrapped in his long military cloak, pacing along, plungedin reflections—sad, I suppose, because he could not butcondemn the new spirit which rapidly developed in thecorps of pages.

(77)

II

All over Russia people were talking of education. Assoon as peace had been concluded at Paris, and theseverity of censorship had been slightly relaxed, educationalmatters began to be eagerly discussed. The ignoranceof the masses of the people, the obstacles that hadhitherto been put in the way of those who wanted tolearn, the absence of schools in the country, the obsoletemethods of teaching, and the remedies for these evils becamefavourite themes of discussion in educated circles,in the press, and even in the drawing-rooms of the aristocracy.The first high schools for girls had been openedin 1857, on an excellent plan and with a splendid teachingstaff. As by magic a number of men and womencame to the front who have not only devoted their livesto education, but have proved to be remarkable practicalpedagogists: their writings would occupy a place ofhonour in every civilized literature, if they were knownabroad.

The corps of pages also felt the effect of that revival.Apart from a few exceptions, the general tendency ofthe three younger forms was to study. The head ofthe educational department, the inspector, Winkler, whowas a well-educated colonel of artillery, a good mathematician,and a man of progressive opinions, hit uponan excellent plan for stimulating that spirit. Insteadof the indifferent teachers who formerly used to teachin the lower forms, he endeavoured to secure the bestones. In his opinion, no professor was too good to teachthe very beginnings of a subject to the youngest boys.Thus, to teach the elements of algebra in the fourth formhe invited a first-rate mathematician and a born teacher,Captain Sukhónin, and the form took at once to mathematics.By the way, it so happened that this captainwas a tutor of the heir of the throne (Nikolái Alexándrovich,who died at the age of twenty-two), and the(78)heir-apparent was brought once a week to the corps ofpages to be present at the algebra lessons of CaptainSukhónin. The Empress Marie Alexándrovna, who wasan educated woman, thought that perhaps the contactwith studious boys would stimulate her son to learning.He sat among us, and had to answer questions like allthe others. But he managed mostly, while the teacherspoke, to make drawings, very nicely, or to whisper allsorts of droll things to his neighbours. He was good-naturedand very gentle in his behaviour, but superficialin learning and still more so in his affections.

For the fifth form the inspector secured two remarkablemen. He entered our class-room, one day, quiteradiant, and told us that we should have a rare chance.Professor Klasóvsky, a great classical scholar and expertin Russian literature, had consented to teach us Russiangrammar, and would take us through all the five formsin succession, shifting with us every year to the nextform. Another university professor, Herr Becker, librarianof the imperial (national) library, would do thesame in German. Professor Klasóvsky, he added, wasin weak health that winter, but the inspector was surethat we would be very quiet in his class. The chanceof having such a teacher was too good to be lost.

He had thought aright. We became very proud ofhaving university professors for teachers, and althoughthere came voices from the Kamchátka (in Russia, theback benches of each class bear the name of that remoteand uncivilized peninsula) to the effect that ‘the sausage-maker’—thatis, the German—must be kept by all meansin obedience, public opinion in our form was decidedlyin favour of the professors.

‘The sausage-maker’ won our respect at once. Atall man, with an immense forehead and very kind, intelligenteyes, slightly veiled by his spectacles, came intoour class, and told us in quite good Russian that heintended to divide our form into three sections. The(79)first section would be composed of Germans, who alreadyknew the language, and from whom he would requiremore serious work; to the second section he would teachgrammar, and later on German literature, in accordancewith the established programmes; and the third section,he concluded with a charming smile, would be theKamchátka, ‘From you,’ he said, ‘I shall only requirethat at each lesson you copy four lines which I willchoose for you from a book. The four lines copied, youcan do what you like; only do not hinder the rest. AndI promise you that in five years you will learn somethingof German and German literature. Now, who joins theGermans? You, Stackelberg? You, Lamsdorf? Perhapssome one of the Russians? And who joins theKamchátka?’ Five or six boys, who knew not a word ofGerman, took residence in the peninsula. They mostconscientiously copied their four lines—a dozen or a scoreof lines in the higher forms—and Becker chose the linesso well, and bestowed so much attention upon the boysthat by the end of the five years they really knew somethingof the language and its literature.

I joined the Germans. My brother Alexander insistedso much in his letters upon my acquiring German,which possesses so rich a literature and into which everybook of value is translated, that I set myself assiduouslyto learn it. I translated and studied most thoroughlyone page of a rather difficult poetical description of athunderstorm; I learned by heart, as the professor hadadvised me, the conjugations, the adverbs, and the prepositions—andbegan to read. A splendid method itis for learning languages. Becker advised me, moreover,to subscribe to a cheap illustrated weekly, and its illustrationsand short stories were a continual inducement toread a few lines or a column. I soon mastered thelanguage.

Toward the end of the winter I asked Herr Beckerto lend me a copy of Goethe’s ‘Faust.’ I had read it(80)in a Russian translation; I had also read Turguéneff’sbeautiful novel, ‘Faust’; and I now longed to read thegreat work in the original. ‘You will understand nothingin it; it is too philosophical,’ Becker said, with his gentlesmile; but he brought me, nevertheless, a little squarebook, with the pages yellowed by age, containing theimmortal drama. He little knew the unfathomable joythat that small square book gave me. I drank in thesense and the music of every line of it, beginning withthe very first verses of the ideally beautiful dedication,and soon knew full pages by heart. Faust’s monologuein the forest, and especially the lines in which he speaksof his understanding of nature,

simply put me in ecstasy, and till now it has retained itspower over me. Every verse gradually became a dearfriend. And then, is there a higher æsthetic delight thanto read poetry in a language which one does not quitethoroughly understand? The whole is veiled with a sortof slight haze, which admirably suits poetry. Words, thetrivial meanings of which, when one knows the languagecolloquially, sometimes interfere with the poetical imagethey are intended to convey, retain but their subtle,elevated sense; while the music of the poetry is only themore strongly impressed upon the ear.

Professor Klasóvsky’s first lesson was a revelation tous. He was a small man, about fifty years of age, veryrapid in his movements, with bright, intelligent eyes, aslightly sarcastic expression, and the high forehead of apoet. When he came in for his first lesson, he said in alow voice that, suffering from a protracted illness, hecould not speak loud enough, and asked us, therefore, tosit closer to him. He placed his chair near the first row(81)of tables, and we clustered round him like a swarm ofbees.

He was to teach us Russian grammar; but, instead ofthe dull grammar lesson, we heard something quite differentfrom what we expected. It was grammar: buthere came in a comparison of an old Russian folkloreexpression with a line from Homer or from the SanskritMahabharata, the beauty of which was rendered inRussian words; there, a verse from Schiller was introduced,and was followed by a sarcastic remark aboutsome modern society prejudice; then solid grammaragain, and then some wide poetical or philosophicalgeneralization.

Of course, there was much in it that we did not understand,or of which we missed the deeper sense. But donot the bewitching powers of all studies lie in that theycontinually open up to us new and unsuspected horizons,not yet understood, which entice us to proceed fartherand farther in the penetration of what appears at firstsight only in vague outline? Some with their handsplaced on one another’s shoulders, some leaning acrossthe tables of the first row, others standing close behindKlasóvsky, we all hung on his lips. As toward the endof the hour his voice fell, the more breathlessly welistened. The inspector opened the door of the class-room,to see how we behaved with our new teacher; buton seeing that motionless swarm he retired on tiptoe.Even Daúroff, a restless spirit, stared at Klasóvsky as ifto say, ‘That is the sort of man you are?’ Even vonKleinau, a hopelessly obtuse Circassian with a Germanname, sat motionless. In most of the others somethinggood and elevated simmered at the bottom of theirhearts, as if a vision of an unsuspected world was openingbefore them. Upon me Klasóvsky had an immense influence,which only grew with years. Winkler’s prophecy,that, after all, I might like the school, was fulfilled.

In western Europe, and probably in America, this(82)type of teacher seems not to be widely spread; but inRussia there is not a man or woman of mark, in literatureor in political life, who does not owe the first impulsetoward a higher development to his or her teacher ofliterature. Every school in the world ought to have sucha teacher. Each teacher in a school has his own subject,and there is no link between the different subjects. Onlythe teacher of literature, guided by the general outlinesof the programme, but left free to treat it as he likes, canbind together the separate historical and humanitariansciences, unify them by a broad philosophical and humaneconception, and awaken higher ideas and inspirations inthe brains and hearts of young people. In Russia, thatnecessary task falls quite naturally upon the teacher ofRussian literature. As he speaks of the developmentof the language, of the contents of the early epic poetry,of popular songs and music, and, later on, of modernfiction, of the scientific, political, and philosophical literatureof his own country, and the divers æsthetical, political,and philosophical currents it has reflected, he isbound to introduce that generalized conception of thedevelopment of the human mind which lies beyond thescope of each of the subjects that are taught separately.

The same thing ought to be done for the naturalsciences as well. It is not enough to teach physics andchemistry, astronomy and meteorology, zoology andbotany. The philosophy of all the natural sciences—ageneral view of nature as a whole, something on the linesof the first volume of Humboldt’s ‘Cosmos’—must beconveyed to the pupils and the students, whatsoever maybe the extension given to the study of the natural sciencesin the school. The philosophy and the poetry of nature,the methods of all the exact sciences, and an inspiredconception of the life of nature must make part of education.Perhaps the teacher of geography might provisionallyassume this function; but then we shouldrequire quite a different set of teachers of this subject,(83)and a different set of professors of geography in the universitieswould be needed. What is now taught underthis name is anything you like, but it is not geography.

Another teacher conquered our rather uproarious formin a quite different manner. It was the teacher of writing,the last one of the teaching staff. If the ‘heathen’—thatis, the German and the French teachers—were regardedwith little respect, the teacher of writing, Ebert, who wasa German Jew, was a real martyr. To be insolent withhim was a sort of chic amongst the pages. His povertyalone must have been the reason why he kept to hislesson in our corps. The old hands, who had stayed fortwo or three years in the fifth form without moving higherup, treated him very badly; but by some means or otherhe had made an agreement with them: ‘One frolic duringeach lesson, but no more’—an agreement which, I amafraid, was not always honestly kept on our side.

One day, one of the residents of the remote peninsulasoaked the blackboard sponge with ink and chalk andflung it at the caligraphy martyr. ‘Get it, Ebert!’ heshouted, with a stupid smile. The sponge touchedEbert’s shoulder, the grimy ink spirted into his face anddown on to his white shirt.

We were sure that this time Ebert would leave theroom and report the fact to the inspector. But he onlyexclaimed, as he took out his cotton handkerchief andwiped his face, ‘Gentlemen, one frolic—no more to-day!The shirt is spoiled,’ he added in a subdued voice, andcontinued to correct someone’s book.

We looked stupefied and ashamed. Why, instead ofreporting, he had thought at once of the agreement!The feelings of the whole class turned in his favour.‘What you have done is stupid,’ we reproached ourcomrade. ‘He is a poor man, and you have spoiled hisshirt! Shame!’ somebody cried.

The culprit went at once to make excuses. ‘One must(84)learn, sir,’ was all that Ebert said in reply, with sadnessin his voice.

All became silent after that, and at the next lesson, asif we had settled it beforehand, most of us wrote in ourbest possible handwriting, and took our books to Ebert,asking him to correct them. He was radiant, he felthappy that day.

This fact deeply impressed me, and was never wipedout from my memory. To this day I feel grateful to thatremarkable man for his lesson.

With our teacher of drawing, who was named Ganz,we never arrived at living on good terms. He continuallyreported those who played in his class. This, in ouropinion, he had no right to do, because he was only ateacher of drawing, but especially because he was not anhonest man. In the class he paid little attention to mostof us, and spent his time in improving the drawings ofthose who took private lessons from him, or paid him inorder to show at the examinations a good drawing andto get a good mark for it. Against the comrades whodid so we had no grudge. On the contrary, we thoughtit quite right that those who had no capacity for mathematicsor no memory for geography, should improve theirtotal of marks by ordering from a draughtsman a drawingor a topographical map for which they would get ‘afull twelve.’ Only for the first two pupils of the form itwould not have been fair to resort to such means, whilethe remainder could do it with untroubled consciences.But the teacher had no business to make drawings toorder; and if he chose to act in this way, he ought tobear with resignation the noise and the tricks of hispupils. These were our ethics. Instead of this, no lessonpassed without his lodging complaints, and each time hegrew more arrogant.

As soon as we were moved to the fourth form, andfelt ourselves naturalized citizens of the corps, we decidedto tighten the bridle upon him. ‘It is your own fault,’(85)our elder comrades told us, ‘that he takes such airs withyou; we used to keep him in obedience.’ So we decidedto bring him into subjection.

One day, two excellent comrades of our form approachedGanz with cigarettes in their mouths, andasked him to oblige them with a light. Of course, thatwas only meant for a joke—no one ever thought ofsmoking in the class-rooms—and, according to our rulesof propriety, Ganz had merely to send the two boysaway; but he inscribed them in the journal, and theywere severely punished. That was the last drop. Wedecided to give him a ‘benefit night.’ That meant thatone day all the form, provided with rulers borrowed fromthe upper forms, would start an outrageous noise by strikingthe rulers against the tables, and send the teacherout of the class. However, the plot offered many difficulties.We had in our form a lot of ‘goody’ boys whowould promise to join in the demonstration, but at thelast moment would grow nervous and draw back, andthen the teacher would name the others. In such enterprisesunanimity is the first requisite, because the punishment,whatsoever it may be, is always lighter when itfalls on the whole class instead of on a few.

The difficulties were overcome with a truly Machiavelliancraft. At a given signal all were to turn theirbacks to Ganz, and then, with the rulers laid in readinesson the desks of the next row, they would produce therequired noise. In this way the goody boys would notfeel terrified at Ganz staring at them. But the signal?Whistling, as in robbers’ tales, shouting, or even sneezingwould not do: Ganz would be capable of naming anyoneof us as having whistled or sneezed. The signal mustbe a silent one. One of us who drew nicely, would takehis drawing to show it to Ganz, and the moment hereturned and took his seat—that was to be the time!

All went on admirably. Nesádoff took up his drawing,and Ganz corrected it in a few minutes, which seemed(86)to us an eternity. He returned at last to his seat; hestopped for a moment, looking at us, he sat down....All the form turned suddenly on their seats, and therulers rattled merrily within the desks, while some of usshouted amidst the noise, ‘Ganz out! Down with him!’The noise was deafening; all the forms knew that Ganzhad got his benefit night. He stood there, murmuringsomething, and finally went out. An officer ran in—thenoise continued; then the sub-inspector dashed in,and after him the inspector. The noise stopped. Scoldingbegan.

‘The elder under arrest, at once!’ the inspector commanded;and I, who was the first in the form, and consequentlythe elder, was marched to the black cell. Thatspared me seeing what followed. The director came;Ganz was asked to name the ringleaders, but he couldname nobody. ‘They all turned their backs to me, andbegan the noise,’ was his reply. Thereupon the formwas taken downstairs, and although flogging had beencompletely abandoned in our school, this time the twowho had been reported because they asked for a lightwere flogged with the birch rod, under the pretext thatthe benefit night was a revenge for their punishment.

I learned this ten days later, when I was allowed toreturn to the class. My name, which had been inscribedon the red board in the class, was wiped off. To this Iwas indifferent; but I must confess that the ten days inthe cell, without books, seemed to me rather long, so thatI composed (in horrible verses) a poem, in which thedeeds of the fourth form were duly glorified.

Of course our form became now the heroes of theschool. For a month or so we had to tell and retell allabout the affair to the other forms, and received congratulationsfor having managed it with such unanimity thatnobody was caught separately. And then came the Sundays—allthe Sundays down to Christmas—that the formhad to remain at the school, not being allowed to go(87)home. Being all kept together, we managed to makethose Sundays very gay. The mammas of the goodyboys brought them heaps of sweets; those who hadsome money spent it in buying mountains of pastry—substantialbefore dinner, and sweet after it—while in theevenings the friends from the other forms smuggled inquantities of fruit for the brave fourth form.

Ganz gave up inscribing anyone; but drawing wastotally lost for us. No one wanted to learn drawing fromthat mercenary man.

III

My brother Alexander was at that time at Moscow, in acorps of cadets, and we maintained a lively correspondence.As long as I stayed at home this was impossible,because our father considered it his prerogative to readall letters addressed to our house, and he would soonhave put an end to any but a commonplace correspondence.Now we were free to discuss in our letters whateverwe liked. The only difficulty was to get money forstamps; but we soon learned to write in so small a handthat we could convey an incredible amount of matterin each letter. Alexander, whose handwriting was beautiful,contrived to get four printed pages on one single pageof notepaper, and his microscopic lines were as legible asthe best small type print. It is a pity that these letters,which he kept as precious relics, have disappeared. TheState police, during one of their raids, robbed him even ofthese treasures.

Our first letters were mostly about the little details ofmy new surroundings, but our correspondence soon tooka more serious character. My brother could not writeabout trifles. Even in society he became animated onlywhen some serious discussion was engaged in, and complainedof feeling ‘a dull pain in the brain’—a physical(88)pain, as he used to say—when he was with people whocared only for small talk. He was very much in advanceof me in his intellectual development and he urged meforward, raising new scientific and philosophical questionsone after another, and advising me what to read or tostudy. What a happiness it was for me to have such abrother!—a brother who, moreover, loved me passionately.To him I owe the best part of my development.

Sometimes he would advise me to read poetry, andwould send me in his letters quantities of verses andwhole poems, which he wrote from memory. ‘Readpoetry,’ he wrote: ‘poetry makes men better.’ Howoften, in my after life, I realized the truth of this remarkof his! Read poetry: it makes men better! He himselfwas a poet, and had a wonderful facility for writingmost musical verses; indeed, I think it a great pity thathe abandoned poetry. But the reaction against art, whicharose among the Russian youth in the early sixties, andwhich Turguéneff has depicted in ‘Bazároff’ (Fathers andSons), induced him to look upon his verses with contempt,and to plunge headlong into the natural sciences. I mustsay, however, that my favourite poet was none of thosewhom his poetical gift, his musical ear, and his philosophicalturn of mind made him like best. His favouriteRussian poet was Venevítinoff, while mine was Nekrásoff,whose verses were very often unmusical, but appealedmost to my heart by their sympathy for ‘the down-troddenand ill-treated.’

‘One must have a set purpose in his life,’ he wroteme once. ‘Without an aim, without a purpose, life isnot life.’ And he advised me to get a purpose in mylife worth living for. I was too young then to find one;but something undetermined, vague, ‘good’ altogether,already rose under that appeal, even though I could notsay what that ‘good’ would be.

Our father gave us very little spending money, andI never had any to buy a single book; but if Alexander(89)got a few roubles from some aunt, he never spent a pennyof it for pleasure, but bought a book and sent it to me.He objected, though, to indiscriminate reading. ‘Onemust have some question,’ he wrote, ‘addressed to thebook one is going to read.’ However, I did not thenappreciate this remark, and cannot think now withoutamazement of the number of books, often of a quitespecial character, which I read, in all branches, butparticularly in the domain of history. I did not wastemy time upon French novels, since Alexander, yearsbefore, had characterized them in one blunt sentence:‘They are stupid and full of bad language.’

The great questions concerning the conception weshould form of the universe—our Weltanschauung, asthe Germans say—were, of course, the dominant subjectsin our correspondence. In our childhood we had neverbeen religious. We were taken to church; but in aRussian church, in a small parish or in a village, thesolemn attitude of the people is far more impressive thanthe Mass itself. Of all that I ever had heard in churchonly two things had impressed me: the twelve passagesfrom the Gospels, relative to the sufferings of the Christ,which are read in Russia at the night service on the eve ofGood Friday, and the short prayer condemning the spirit ofdomination, which is recited during the Great Lent, and isreally beautiful by reason of its simple, unpretentious wordsand feeling, Púshkin has rendered it into Russian verse.

Later on, at St. Petersburg, I went several times to aRoman Catholic church, but the theatrical character ofthe service and the absence of real feeling in it shockedme, the more so when I saw there with what simplefaith some retired Polish soldier or a peasant womanwould pray in a remote corner. I also went to a Protestantchurch; but coming out of it I caught myselfmurmuring Goethe’s words:—-

(90)

Alexander, in the meantime, had embraced with hisusual passion the Lutheran faith. He had read Michelet’sbook on Servetus, and had worked out for himself areligion on the lines of that great fighter. He studiedwith enthusiasm the Augsburg declaration, which hecopied out and sent me, and our letters now became fullof discussions about grace, and of texts from the apostlesPaul and James. I followed my brother, but theologicaldiscussions did not deeply interest me. Since I had recoveredfrom the typhoid fever I had taken to quitedifferent reading.

Our sister Hélène, who was now married, was at St.Petersburg, and every Saturday night I went to visit her.Her husband had a good library, in which the Frenchphilosophers of the last century and the modern Frenchhistorians were well represented, and I plunged into them.Such books were prohibited in Russia, and evidentlycould not be taken to school; so I spent most of thenight, every Saturday, in reading the works of the encyclopædists,the ‘Philosophical Dictionary’ of Voltaire,the writings of the Stoics, especially Marcus Aurelius,and so on. The infinite immensity of the universe, thegreatness of nature, its poetry, its ever throbbing life,impressed me more and more; and that never-ceasinglife and its harmonies gave me the ecstasy of admirationwhich the young soul thirsts for, while my favourite poetssupplied me with an expression in words of that awakeninglove of mankind and faith in its progress which makethe best part of youth and impress man for a life.

Alexander, by this time, had gradually come to aKantian agnosticism, and the ‘relativity of perceptions,’‘perceptions in time and space, and time only,’ and soon, filled pages and pages in our letters, the writing ofwhich became more and more microscopical as the subjectsunder discussion grew in importance. But neitherthen nor later on, when we used to spend hours andhours in discussing Kant’s philosophy, could my brother(91)convert me to become a disciple of the Königsbergphilosopher.

Natural sciences—that is, mathematics, physics, andastronomy—were my chief studies. In the year 1858,before Darwin had brought out his immortal work, aprofessor of zoology at the Moscow University, Roulier,published three lectures on transformism, and my brothertook up at once his ideas concerning the variability ofspecies. He was not satisfied, however, with approximateproofs only, and began to study a number of special bookson heredity and the like, communicating to me in hisletters the main facts, as well as his ideas and his doubts.The appearance of the ‘Origin of Species’ did not settlehis doubts on several special points, but only raised newquestions and gave him the impulse for further studies.We afterward discussed—and that discussion lasted formany years—various questions relative to the origin ofvariations, their chances of being transmitted and beingaccentuated; in short, those questions which have beenraised quite lately in the Weismann-Spencer controversy,in Galton’s researches, and in the works of the modernNeo-Lamarckians. Owing to his philosophical and criticalmind, Alexander had noticed at once the fundamentalimportance of these questions for the theory of variabilityof species, even though they were so often overlookedthen by many naturalists.

I must also mention a temporary excursion into thedomain of political economy. In the years 1858 and1859 everyone in Russia spoke of political economy;lectures on free trade and protective duties attractedcrowds of people, and my brother, who was not yet absorbedby the variability of species, took a lively thoughtemporary interest in economical matters, sending me forreading the ‘Political Economy’ of Jean Baptiste Say.I read a few chapters only: tariffs and banking operationsdid not interest me in the least; but Alexandertook up these matters so passionately that he even wrote(92)letters to our stepmother, trying to interest her in theintricacies of the customs duties. Later on, in Siberia,as we were re-reading some of the letters of that period,we laughed like children when we fell upon one of hisepistles in which he complained of our stepmother’s incapacityto be moved even by such burning questions, andraged against a greengrocer whom he had caught in thestreet, and who, ‘would you believe it,’ he wrote withsigns of exclamation, ‘although he was a tradesman,affected a pig-headed indifference to tariff questions!’

Every summer about one-half of the pages were takento a camp at Peterhof. The lower forms, however, weredispensed from joining the camp, and I spent the firsttwo summers at Nikólskoye. To leave the school, totake the train to Moscow, and there to meet Alexanderwas such a happy prospect that I used to count the daysthat had to pass till that glorious one should arrive.But on one occasion a great disappointment awaited meat Moscow. Alexander had not passed his examinations,and was left for another year in the same form. He was,in fact, too young to enter the special classes; but ourfather was very angry with him, nevertheless, and wouldnot permit us to see each other. I felt very sad. Wewere not children any more, and had so much to say toeach other. I tried to obtain permission to go to ouraunt Sulíma, at whose house I might meet Alexander,but it was absolutely refused. After our father remarriedwe were never allowed to see our mother’s relations.

That spring our Moscow house was full of guests.Every night the reception-rooms were flooded with lights,the band played, the confectioner was busy making icesand pastry, and card-playing went on in the great halltill a late hour. I strolled aimlessly about in the brilliantlyilluminated rooms, and felt unhappy.

One night, after ten, a servant beckoned me, tellingme to come out to the entrance hall. I went. ‘Come(93)to the coachmen’s house,’ the old major-domo Frol whisperedto me. ‘Alexander Alexéievich is here.’

I dashed across the yard, up the flight of steps leadingto the coachmen’s house, and into a wide, half-dark room,where, at the immense dining-table of the servants, I sawAlexander.

‘Sásha, dear, how did you come?’ and in a momentwe rushed into each other’s arms, hugging each otherand unable to speak from emotion.

‘Hush, hush! they may overhear you,’ said theservants’ cook, Praskóvia, wiping away her tears withher apron. ‘Poor orphans! If your mother were onlyalive——’

Old Frol stood, his head deeply bent, his eyes alsotwinkling.

‘Look here, Pétya, not a word to anyone; to no one,’he said, while Praskóvia placed on the table an earthenwarejar full of porridge for Alexander.

He, glowing with health, in his cadet uniform, alreadyhad begun to talk about all sorts of matters, while he rapidlyemptied the porridge pot. I could hardly make him tellme how he came there at such a late hour. We livedthen near the Smolénsky boulevard, within a stone’sthrow of the house where our mother died, and the corpsof cadets was at the opposite outskirts of Moscow, fullfive miles away.

He had made a doll out of bedclothes, and had put itin his bed, under the blankets; then he went to the tower,descended from a window, came out unnoticed, andwalked the whole distance.

‘Were you not afraid at night in the deserted fieldsround your corps?’ I asked.

‘What had I to fear? Only lots of dogs were uponme; I had teased them myself. To-morrow I shall takemy sword with me.’

The coachmen and other servants came in and out;they sighed as they looked at us, and took seats at a distance,(94)along the walls, exchanging words in a subduedtone so as not to disturb us; while we two, in each other’sarms, sat there till midnight, talking about nebulæ andLaplace’s hypothesis, the structure of matter, the strugglesof the papacy under Boniface VIII. with the imperialpower, and so on.

From time to time one of the servants would hurriedlyrun in, saying, ‘Pétinka, go and show thyself in the hall;they may ask for thee.’

I implored Sásha not to come next night; but hecame, nevertheless—not without having had a scrimmagewith the dogs, against whom he had taken his sword. Iresponded with feverish haste, when, earlier than the daybefore, I was called once more to the coachmen’s house.Alexander had made part of the journey in a cab. Theprevious night, one of the servants had brought him whathe had got from the card-players and asked him to takeit. He took some small coin to hire a cab, and so hecame earlier than on his first visit.

He intended to come next night, too, but for somereason it would have been dangerous for the servants,and we decided to part till the autumn. A short ‘official’note made me understand next day that his nocturnal escapadeshad passed unnoticed. How terrible would havebeen the punishment, if they had been discovered. It isawful to think of it: flogging before the corps till he wascarried away unconscious on a sheet, and then degradationto a soldiers’ sons’ battalion—anything was possible,in those times.

What our servants would have suffered for hiding us,if information of the affair had reached our father’s ears,would have been equally terrible; but they knew how tokeep secrets and not to betray one another. They allknew of the visits of Alexander, but none of themwhispered a word to anyone of the family. They and Iwere the only ones in the house who ever knew anythingabout it.

(95)

IV

That same year I made my first start as an explorer ofpopular life, and this little work brought me one stepnearer to our peasants, making me see them under a newlight; it also helped me later on a great deal in Siberia.

Every year in July, on the day of ‘the Holy Virginof Kazán’ which was the fête of our church, a prettylarge fair was held in Nikólskoye. Tradesmen camefrom the neighbouring towns, and many thousands ofpeasants flocked from thirty miles round to our village,which for a couple of days had a most animated aspect.A remarkable description of the village fairs of SouthRussia had just been published that year by the SlavophileAksákoff, and my brother, who was then at theheight of his politico-economical enthusiasm, advised meto make a statistical description of our fair, and to determinethe return of goods brought in and sold. I followedhis advice, and to my great amazement I reallysucceeded: my estimate of returns, so far as I can judgenow, was not more unreliable than many similar estimatesin books of statistics.

Our fair lasted only a little more than twenty-fourhours. On the eve of the fête, the great open space givento it was full of life and animation. Long rows of stalls, tobe used for the sale of cottons, ribbons, and all sorts ofpeasant women’s attire, were hurriedly built. The restaurant,a substantial stone building, was furnished with tables,chairs and benches, and its floor was strewn over withbright yellow sand. Three wine-shops were erected inthree different places, and freshly cut brooms, planted onhigh poles, rose high in the air to attract the peasantsfrom a distance. Rows and rows of light shops for thesale of crockery, boots, stoneware, ginger-bread, and allsorts of small things, rose as if by a magic wand; whilein a special corner holes were dug in the ground to receiveimmense cauldrons in which bushels of millet and sarrasin(96)and whole sheep were boiled, for supplying the thousandsof visitors with hot schi and kásha (soup and porridge).In the afternoon, the four roads leading to the fair wereblocked by hundreds of peasant carts, and cattle, corn,casks filled with tar, and heaps of pottery were exhibitedalong the roadsides.

The night service on the eve of the fête was performedin our church with great solemnity. Half a dozen priestsand deacons from the neighbouring villages took part init, and their chanters, reinforced by young tradespeople,sang in the choir with such ritornellos as could only beheard at the bishop’s in Kalúga. The church wascrowded; all prayed fervently. The tradespeople viedwith each other in the number and sizes of the waxcandles which they lighted before the ikons, as offeringsto the local saints for the success of their trade; and thecrowd being so thick as not to allow the last comers toreach the altar, candles of all sizes—thick and thin, whiteand yellow, according to the offerer’s wealth—were transmittedfrom the back of the church through the crowd,with whispers: ‘To the Holy Virgin of Kazán, our Protector,’‘To Nicholas the Favourite,’ ‘To Frol and Laur’(the horse saints—that was from those who had horses tosell), or simply ‘the Saints’ without a further specification.

Immediately after the night service was over, the‘fore-fair’ began, and I had now to plunge headlong intomy work of asking hundreds of people what was thevalue of the goods they had brought in. To my greatastonishment my task went on admirably. Of course, Iwas myself asked questions: ‘Why do you do this?’‘Is it not for the old prince, who intends increasing themarket dues?’ But the assurance that the ‘old prince’knew and would know nothing of it (he would havefound it a disgraceful occupation) settled all doubts atonce. I soon caught the proper way of asking questions,and after I had taken half a dozen cups of tea in therestaurant with some tradespeople (oh, horror, if my(97)father had learned that!), all went on very well. VasílyIvánoff, the elder of Nikólskoye, a beautiful young peasantwith a fine intelligent face and a silky fair beard, took aninterest in my work. ‘Well, if thou wantest it for thylearning, get at it; thou wilt tell us later on what thouhast found out’—was his conclusion, and he told some ofthe people that it was ‘all right.’ Everyone knew him formiles round, and the word passed round the fair that noharm would ensue to the peasants by giving me the information.

In short, the ‘imports’ were determined very nicely.But next day, the ‘sales’ offered certain difficulties, chieflywith the dry goods’ merchants, who did not themselvesyet know how much they had sold. On the day of thefête the young peasant women simply stormed the shops,each of them having sold some linen of her own makingand now buying some cotton print for a dress and abright kerchief for herself, a coloured handkerchief forher husband, perhaps some neck lace, a ribbon or two,and a number of small gifts to grandmother, grandfather,and the children who had remained at home. As to thepeasants who sold crockery, or ginger-cakes, or cattle andhemp, they at once determined their sales, especially theold women. ‘Good sale, grandmother?’ I would ask.‘No need to complain, my son. Why should I angerGod? Nearly all is sold.’ And out of their small itemsthe tens of thousand roubles grew in my note-book.One point only remained unsettled. A wide space wasgiven up to many hundreds of peasant women who stoodin the burning sun, each with her piece of handwovenlinen, sometimes exquisitely fine, which she had broughtfor sale—scores of buyers, with gypsy faces and shark-likelooks, moving about in the crowd and buying. Onlyrough estimates of these sales could evidently be made.

I made no reflections at that time about this new experienceof mine; I was simply happy to see that it wasnot a failure. But the serious good sense and sound(98)judgment of the Russian peasants which I witnessed duringthis couple of days, left upon me a lasting impression.Later on, when we were making socialist propagandaamong the peasants, I could not but wonder why someof my friends, who had received a seemingly far moredemocratic education than myself, did not know how totalk to the peasants or to the factory workers from thecountry. They tried to imitate the ‘peasants’ talk,’ byintroducing into it lots of so-called ‘popular phrases,’ andonly rendered it the more incomprehensible.

Nothing of this sort is needed, either in talking topeasants or in writing for them. The Great Russianpeasant perfectly well understands the educated man’stalk, provided that it is not stuffed with words takenfrom foreign languages. What the peasant does notunderstand is abstract notions when they are not illustratedby concrete examples. But when you speak tothe Russian peasant plainly, and start from concrete facts—andthe same is true with regard to village-folk of allnationalities—my experience is that there is no generalizationfrom the whole world of science, social or natural,which could not be conveyed to the averagely intelligentman if you yourself understand it concretely. The chiefdifference between the educated and the uneducated manis, I should say, in the latter not being able to follow achain of conclusions. He grasps the first of them, andmaybe the second, but he gets tired at the third, if hedoes not see what you are driving at. But, how often dowe meet with the same difficulty in educated people!

One more impression I gathered from that work ofmy boyhood—an impression which I formulated butlater on, and which will probably astonish many a reader.It is the spirit of equality which is highly developed inthe Russian peasant and, in fact, in the rural populationeverywhere. The Russian peasant is capable of muchservile obedience to the landlord or to the police officer;he will bend before their will in a servile manner; but he(99)does not consider them superior men, and if the nextmoment that same landlord or officer talks to the samepeasant about hay or ducks, the latter will converse withthem as an equal to an equal. I never saw in a Russianpeasant that servility, grown to be a second nature, withwhich a small functionary talks to a highly placed one, ora valet to his master. The peasant much too easily submitsto force, but he does not worship it.

I returned that summer from Nikólskoye to Moscowin a new fashion. There being then no railway betweenKalúga and Moscow, a man, Buck by name, kept somesort of carriages running between the two towns. Ourpeople never thought of travelling in such a way: theyhad their own horses and conveyances; but when myfather, in order to save my stepmother a double journey,offered me, half in joke, to travel alone in that way, I acceptedhis offer with delight.

An old and very stout tradesman’s wife and myself onthe back seats, and a small tradesman or artisan on thefront seat, were the only occupants of the carriage. Ifound the journey very pleasant—first of all because Itravelled by myself (I was not yet sixteen), and nextbecause the old lady, who had brought with her for athree days’ journey a colossal hamper full of provisions,treated me to all sorts of home-made delicacies. All thesurroundings during that journey were delightful. Oneevening especially is still vivid in my memory. We cameat night to one of the great villages and stopped at someinn. The old lady ordered a samovár for herself, while Iwent out in the street, walking about anywhere. Asmall ‘white inn’ at which only food is served, but nodrinks, attracted my attention and I went in. Numbersof peasants sat round the small tables, covered withwhite napkins, and enjoyed their tea. I did the same.

All was so new for me in these surroundings. It wasa village of ‘Crown peasants’—that is, peasants who hadnot been serfs and enjoyed a relative well-being, probably(100)owing to the weaving of linen which they carried on asa home industry. Slow, serious conversations, with occasionallaughter, were going on at those tables, andafter the usual introductory questions, I soon found myselfengaged in a conversation with a dozen peasantsabout the crops in our neighbourhood, and answeringall sorts of questions. They wanted to know all aboutSt. Petersburg, and most of all about the rumours concerningthe coming abolition of serfdom. And a feelingof simplicity and of the natural relations of equality,as well as of hearty good-will, which I always felt afterwardswhen among peasants or in their houses, tookpossession of me at that inn. Nothing extraordinaryhappened that night, so that I even ask myself if theincident is worth mentioning at all; and yet that warm,dark night in the village, that small inn, that talk withthe peasants, and the keen interest they took in hundredsof things lying far beyond their habitual surroundings,have made ever since a poor ‘white inn’ more attractiveto me than the best restaurant in the world.

V

Stormy times came now in the life of our corps. WhenGirardot was dismissed, his place was taken by one ofour officers, Captain B——. He was rather good-naturedthan otherwise, but he had got into his head that he wasnot treated by us with due reverence, corresponding tothe high position which he now occupied, and he tried toenforce upon us more respect and awe toward himself.He began by quarrelling about all sorts of petty thingswith the upper form, and—what was still worse—heattempted to destroy our ‘liberties,’ the origin of whichwas lost in the darkness of time, and which, insignificantin themselves, were perhaps on that same account onlythe dearer to us.

(101)

The result of it was that the school broke for severaldays into an open revolt, which ended in wholesalepunishment, and the exclusion from the corps of twoof our favourite pages de chambre.

Then, the same captain began to intrude in the class-rooms,where we used to spend one hour in the morningin preparing our lessons before the classes began. Wewere considered to be there under our teaching staff, andwere happy to have nothing to do with our militarychiefs. We resented that intrusion very much, and oneday I loudly expressed our discontent, saying to thecaptain that this was the place of the inspector of theclasses, not his. I spent weeks under arrest for thatfrankness, and perhaps should have been excluded fromthe school, were it not that the inspector of the classes,his assistant, and even our old director, judged that afterall I had only expressed aloud what they all used to sayto themselves.

No sooner all these troubles were over, than thedeath of the Dowager-Empress—the widow of NicholasI.—brought a new interruption in our work.

The burial of crowned heads is always so arrangedas to produce a deep impression on the crowds, and itmust be owned that this object is attained. The bodyof the empress was brought from Tsárkoye Seló, whereshe died, to St. Petersburg, and here, followed by theimperial family, all the high dignitaries of the state, andscores of thousands of functionaries and corporations,and preceded by hundreds of clergy and choirs, it wastaken from the railway station through the main thoroughfaresto the fortress, where it had to lie in state for severalweeks. A hundred thousand men of the Guard wereplaced along the streets, and thousands of people, dressedin the most gorgeous uniforms, preceded, accompanied,and followed the hearse in a solemn procession. Litanieswere sung at every important crossing of the streets,and here the ringing of the bells on the church towers,(102)the voices of vast choirs, and the sounds of the militarybands united in the most impressive way, so as to makepeople believe that the immense crowds really mournedthe loss of the empress.

As long as the body lay in state in the cathedral ofthe fortress, the pages, among others, had to keep thewatch round it, night and day. Three pages de chambreand three maids of honour always stood close by thecoffin, placed on a high pedestal, while some twenty pageswere stationed on the platform upon which litanies weresung twice every day, in the presence of the emperor andall his family. Consequently, every week nearly one-halfof the corps was taken in turns to the fortress, tolodge there. We were relieved every two hours, and inthe daytime our service was not difficult; but when wehad to rise in the night, to dress in our court uniforms,and then to walk through the dark and gloomy innercourts of the fortress to the cathedral, to the sound ofthe gloomy chime of the fortress bells, a cold shiver seizedme at the thought of the prisoners who were immuredsomewhere in this Russian Bastille. ‘Who knows,’thought I, ‘whether in my turn I shall not also haveto join them one day or other?’

The burial did not pass without an accident whichmight have had serious consequences. An immensecanopy had been erected under the dome of the cathedralover the coffin. A huge gilded crown rose aboveit, and from this crown an immense purple mantle linedwith ermine hung towards the four thick pilasters whichsupport the dome of the cathedral. It was impressive,but we boys soon made out that the crown was made ofgilded cardboard and wood, the mantle was of velvet onlyin its lower part, while higher up it was red cotton, andthat the ermine lining was simply cotton flannelette orswansdown to which black tails of squirrels had beensewn, while the escutcheons which represented the armsof Russia, veiled with black crêpe, were simple cardboard.(103)But the crowds which were allowed at certain hours ofthe night to pass by the coffin, and to kiss in a hurry thegold brocade which covered it, surely had no time toclosely examine the flannelette ermine or the cardboardescutcheons, and the desired theatrical effect was obtainedeven by such cheap means.

When a litany is sung in Russia all the people presenthold lighted wax candles, which have to be put out aftercertain prayers have been read. The Imperial familyalso held such candles, and one day the young son of thegrand duke Constantine, seeing that the others put outtheir candles by turning them upside down, did the same.The black gauze which hung behind him from an escutcheontook fire, and in a second the escutcheon and thecotton stuff were ablaze. An immense tongue of fire ranup the heavy folds of the supposed ermine mantle.

The service was stopped. All looks were directedwith terror towards the tongue of fire, which went higherand higher towards the cardboard crown and the woodworkwhich supported the whole structure. Bits of burningstuff began to fall down, threatening to set fire to theblack gauze veils of the ladies present.

Alexander II. lost his presence of mind for a coupleof seconds only, but he recovered immediately and saidin a composed voice: ‘The coffin must be taken!’ Thepages de chambre at once covered it with the thick goldbrocade, and we all advanced to lift the heavy coffin; butin the meantime the big tongue of flame had broken intoa number of smaller ones, which now slowly devouredonly the fluffy outside of the cotton stuff and, meetingmore and more dust and soot in the upper part of thestructure, gradually died out in the folds.

I cannot say what I looked most at: the creepingfire or the stately slender figures of the three ladies whostood by the coffin, the long trains of their black dressesspreading over the steps which led to the upper platform,and their black lace veils hanging down their shoulders.(104)None of them had made the slightest movement: theystood like three beautiful carved images. Only in thedark eyes of one of them, Mdlle. Gamaléya, tears glitteredlike pearls. She was a daughter of South Russia, andwas the only really handsome lady amongst the maids ofhonour at the Court.

At the corps, in the meantime, everything was upsidedown. The classes were interrupted; those of us whor*turned from the fortress were lodged in temporaryquarters, and, having nothing to do, spent the whole dayin all sorts of frolics. In one of them we managed toopen a cupboard which stood in the room and containeda splendid collection of models of all kinds of animalsfor the teaching of natural history. That was its officialpurpose; but it was never even so much as shown to us,and now that we got hold of it we utilized it in our ownway. With the human skull which made part of thecollection we made a ghostly figure wherewith to frightenat night other comrades and the officers. As to theanimals, we placed them in the most unappropriate positionsand groups: monkeys were seen riding on lions,sheep were playing with leopards, the giraffe danced withthe elephant, and so on. The worst was that a few dayslater one of the Prussian princes who had come to assistat the burial ceremony (it was the one, I think, who becamelater on the Emperor Frederick) visited our school,and was shown all that concerned our education. Ourdirector did not fail to boast of the excellent educationalappliances which we had at the school, and brought himto that same unfortunate cupboard.... When the Germanprince caught a glimpse of our zoological classification,he drew a long face and quickly turned away. Ourold director looked horrified; he had lost the power ofspeech, and only pointed repeatedly with his hand atsome star-fishes which were placed in glass boxes on thewalls by the sides of the cupboard. The suite of theprince tried to look as if they had noticed nothing, and(105)only threw rapid glimpses at the cause of so much disturbance,while we wicked boys made all sorts of faces inorder not to burst with laughter.

VI

The school years of a Russian youth are so very differentfrom what they are in West European schools that Imust dwell upon my school life. Russian youths, as arule, while they are yet at a lyceum or in a militaryschool, already take an interest in a wide circle of social,political, and philosophical matters. It is true that thecorps of pages was, of all schools, the least congenialmedium for such a development; but in those years ofgeneral revival, broader ideas penetrated even into ourmidst and carried some of us away, without, however,preventing us from taking a very lively part in ‘benefitnights’ and all sorts of frolics.

While I was in the fourth form I took an interest inhistory, and with the aid of notes made during the lessons—Iknew that university students do it that way—andhelping myself with reading, I wrote quite a course ofearly mediæval history for my own use. Next year thestruggle between Pope Boniface VIII. and the Imperialpower attracted my special attention, and now it becamemy ambition to gain admission to the Imperial library asa reader, in order thoroughly to study that great struggle.This was contrary to the rules of the library, pupils ofsecondary schools not being admitted; our good HerrBecker, however, smoothed the way out of the difficulty,and I was allowed one day to enter the sanctuary and totake a seat at one of the readers’ small tables, on one ofthe red velvet sofas with which the reading-room was thenfurnished.

From various text-books and some books from ourown library, I soon got to the sources. Knowing no(106)Latin, I discovered nevertheless a rich supply of originalsources in Old Teutonic and Old French, and found animmense æsthetic enjoyment in the quaint structure andexpressiveness of the latter in the Chronicles. Quite anew structure of society and quite a world of complicatedrelations opened before me; and from that time I learnedto value far more the original sources of history thanworks in which it is generalized in accordance with modernviews—the prejudices of modern politics, or even merecurrent formulæ being substituted for the real life of theperiod. Nothing gives more impetus to one’s intellectualdevelopment than some sort of independent research,and these studies of mine immensely helped me afterwards.

Unhappily, I had to abandon them when we reachedthe second form (the last but one). The pages had tostudy during the last two years nearly all that wastaught in other military schools in three ‘special’ forms,and we had an immense amount of work to do for theschool. Natural sciences, mathematics, and militarysciences necessarily relegated history to the background.

In the second form we began seriously to studyphysics. We had an excellent teacher—a very intelligentman with a sarcastic turn of mind, who hatedlearning from memory, and managed to make us thinkinstead of merely learning facts. He was a good mathematician,and taught us physics on a mathematicalbasis, admirably explaining at the same time the leadingideas of physical research and physical apparatus. Someof his questions were so original and his explanations sogood that they have engraved themselves for ever on mymemory.

Our text-book of physics was pretty good (most text-booksfor the military schools had been written by thebest men at the time), but it was rather old, and our(107)teacher, who followed his own system in teaching, beganto prepare a short summary of his lessons—a sort ofaide-mémoire—for the use of our form. However, aftera few weeks it so happened that the task of writing thissummary fell upon me, and our teacher, acting as a truepedagogist, trusted it entirely to me, only reading theproofs. When we came to the chapters of heat, electricity,and magnetism, they had to be written entirelyanew, and this I did, thus preparing a nearly completetext-book of physics, which was printed for the use ofthe school.

In the second form we also began to study chemistry,and we also had a first-rate teacher—a passionate loverof the subject who had himself made valuable originalresearches. The years 1859-61 were years of a universalrevival of taste in the exact sciences: Grove, Clausius,Joule, and Séguin showed that heat and all physicalforces are but divers modes of motion; Helmholtz beganabout that time his epoch-making researches in sound;and Tyndall, in his popular lectures, made one touch,so to say, the very atoms and molecules. Gerhardt andAvogadro introduced the theory of substitutions, andMendeléoff, Lothar Meyer, and Newlands discoveredthe periodical law of elements; Darwin, with his ‘Originof Species,’ revolutionized all biological sciences; whileKarl Vogt and Moleschott, following Claude Bernard,laid the foundations of true psychology in physiology.It was a great time of scientific revival, and the currentwhich directed men’s minds towards natural science wasirresistible. Numbers of excellent books were publishedat that time in Russian translations, and I soon understoodthat whatever one’s subsequent studies might be,a thorough knowledge of the natural sciences and familiaritywith their methods must lie at the foundation.

Five or six of us joined together to get some sort oflaboratory for ourselves. With the elementary apparatusrecommended for beginners in Stöckhardt’s excellent(108)text-book we started our laboratory in a small bedroomof two of our comrades, the brothers Zasétsky. Theirfather, an old retired admiral, was delighted to see hissons engaged in so useful a pursuit, and did not objectto our coming together on Sundays and during the holidaysin that room by the side of his own study. WithStöckhardt’s book as a guide, we systematically made allexperiments. I must say that once we nearly set thehouse on fire, and that more than once we poisoned allthe rooms with chlorine and similar stuffs. But theold admiral, when we related the adventure at dinnertime, took it very nicely, and told us how he and hiscomrades also nearly set a house on fire in the far lessuseful pursuit of punch making; while the mother onlysaid, amidst her paroxysms of coughing: ‘Of course, ifit is necessary for your learning to handle such nastysmelling things, then there’s nothing to be done!’

After dinner she usually took her seat at the piano,and till late at night we would go on singing duos,trios, and choruses from the operas. Or else we wouldtake the score of some Italian or Russian opera and gothrough it from the beginning to the end, recitativesand all—the mother and her daughter taking the partsof the prime donne, while we managed more or ratherless successfully to maintain all other parts. Chemistryand music thus went hand in hand.

Higher mathematics also absorbed a great deal ofmy time. Four or five of us had already decided thatwe should not enter a regiment of the Guards, whereall our time would be given to military drill and parades,and we intended to enter, after promotion, one of themilitary academies—artillery or engineering. In orderto do so we had to prepare in higher geometry, thedifferential and the beginnings of the integral calculus,and we took private lessons for that purpose. At thesame time, elementary astronomy being taught to us(109)under the name of mathematical geography, I plungedinto astronomical reading, especially during the last yearof my stay at school. The never-ceasing life of the universe,which I conceived as life and evolution, became forme an inexhaustible source of higher poetical thought,and gradually the sense of man’s oneness with Nature,both animate and inanimate—the poetry of Nature—becamethe philosophy of my life.

If the teaching in our school were only limited to thesubjects I have mentioned, our time would already bepretty well occupied. But we also had to study in thedomain of humanitarian science, history, law (that is,the main outlines of the Russian Code), and politicaleconomy in its essential leading principles, including acourse of comparative statistics; and we had to masterformidable courses of military sciences: tactics, militaryhistory (the campaigns of 1812 and 1815 in all their details),artillery, and field fortification. Looking now backupon this education I think that apart from the subjectsrelative to military warfare, which might have been advantageouslysubstituted by more detailed studies in theexact sciences, the variety of subjects which we weretaught was not beyond the capacities of the averageyouth. Owing to a pretty good knowledge of elementarymathematics and physics, which we gained in the lowerforms, nearly all of us managed to master all thesesubjects. Some subjects were neglected by most of us,especially law, as also modern history, for which we hadunfortunately an old wreck of a master who was only keptat his post in order to give him his full old age pension.Moreover, some latitude was given to us in the choice ofthe subjects we liked best, and, while we underwentsevere examinations in these chosen subjects, we weretreated rather leniently in the remainder. But the chiefcause of the relative success which was obtained in theschool was that the teaching was rendered as concreteas possible. As soon as we had learned elementary(110)geometry on paper, we re-learned it in the field withpoles and the surveyor’s chain, and next with theastrolabe, the compass, and the surveyor’s table. Aftersuch a concrete training, elementary astronomy offeredno difficulties, while the surveys themselves were anendless source of enjoyment.

The same system of concrete teaching was appliedto fortification. In the winter we solved such problemsas, for instance, the following: ‘Having a thousand menand a fortnight at your disposal, build the strongestfortification you can build to protect that bridge for aretreating army;’ and we hotly discussed our schemeswith the teacher when he criticized them. In thesummer we applied that knowledge in the field. Tothese practical and concrete exercises I entirely attributethe easiness with which most of us mastered such avariety of subjects at the age of seventeen and eighteen.

With all that, we had plenty of time for amusem*nt.Our best time was when the examinations were over,and we had three or four weeks quite free before goingto camp; or when we returned from the camp, and hadanother three weeks free before the beginning of thelessons. The few of us who remained then in the schoolwere allowed, during the vacations, to go out just as weliked, always finding bed and food at the school. Iworked then in the library, or visited the picture galleriesof the Hermitage, studying one by one all the bestpictures of each school separately; or I went to thedifferent Crown factories and works of playing cards,cottons, iron, china and glass, which are open to thepublic. Or we went out rowing on the Nevá, spendingthe whole night on the river, sometimes in the Gulf ofFinland with fishermen—a melancholy northern night,during which the morning dawn meets the afterglow ofthe setting sun, and a book can be read in the open airat midnight. For all this we found plenty of time.

Since those visits to the factories I took a liking to(111)strong and perfect machinery. Seeing how a giganticpaw, coming out of a shanty, grasps a log floating in theNevá, pulls it inside, and puts it under the saws whichcut it into boards; or how a huge red-hot iron bar istransformed into a rail after it has passed between twocylinders, I understood the poetry of machinery. Inour present factories, machinery work is killing for theworker, because he becomes a lifelong servant to a givenmachine and never is anything else. But this is a matterof bad organization, and has nothing to do with themachine itself. Over-work and lifelong monotony areequally bad whether the work is done with the hand,with plain tools, or with a machine. But, apart fromthese, I fully understand the pleasure that man can derivefrom the consciousness of the might of his machine,the intelligent character of its work, the gracefulness ofits movements, and the correctness of what it is doing,and I think that William Morris’s hatred of machinesonly proved that the conception of the machine’s powerand gracefulness was missing in his great poetical genius.

Music also played a very great part in my development.From it I borrowed even greater joys andenthusiasm than from poetry. The Russian operahardly existed in those times; but the Italian opera,which had a number of first-rate stars in it, was the mostpopular institution at St. Petersburg. When the primadonna Bósio fell ill, thousands of people, chiefly of theyouth, stood till late at night at the door of her hotel toget news of her. She was not beautiful, but was so muchso when she sang that young men madly in love withher could be counted by the hundred; and when shedied she had a burial which no one before had ever hadat St. Petersburg. ‘All Petersburg’ was then dividedinto two camps: the admirers of the Italian opera andthose of the French stage, which already then was showingin germ the putrid Offenbachian current which a fewyears later infected all Europe. Our form was also(112)divided, half and half, between these two currents, and Ibelonged to the former. We were not permitted to goto the pit or to the balcony, while all the boxes in theItalian opera were always taken months in advance bysubscription, and even transmitted in certain families asan hereditary possession. But we gained admission, onSaturday nights, to the passages in the uppermost gallery,and had to stand there on our legs in a Turkish bathatmosphere; while to conceal our showy uniforms weused to wear, in that Turkish bath, our black overcoats,lined with wadding and with a fur collar, tightlybuttoned. It is a wonder that none of us got pneumoniain this way, especially as we came out overheated withthe ovations which we used to make to our favouritesingers, and stood afterwards at the stage door to catchonce more a glimpse of our favourites, and to cheer them.The Italian opera in those years was in some strangeway intimately connected with the Radical movement,and the revolutionary recitatives in ‘Wilhelm Tell’ and‘The Puritans’ were always met with stormy applauseand vociferations which went straight to the heart ofAlexander II.; while in the sixth story galleries, in thesmoking-room of the opera, and at the stage door thebest part of the St. Petersburg youth came together ina common idealist worship of a noble art. All this mayseem childish; but many higher ideas and pure inspirationswere kindled in us by this worship of our favouriteartists.

VII

Every summer we went out camping at Peterhóf, withthe other military schools of the St. Petersburg district.All things considered, our life there was very pleasant,and certainly was excellent for our health: we slept inspacious tents, we bathed in the sea, and spent all the sixweeks in open-air exercise.

(113)

In military schools the main purpose of camp life wasevidently military drill, which we all disliked very much,but the dulness of which was occasionally relieved bymaking us take part in manœuvres. One night, as wewere already going to bed, Alexander II. aroused thecamp by having the alert sounded. In a few minutes allthe camp was alive—several thousand boys gatheringround their colours, and the guns of the artillery schoolbooming in the stillness of the night. All military Peterhófwas galloping to our camp, but, owing to some misunderstanding,the emperor remained on foot. Orderlieswere sent in all directions to get a horse for him, but therewas none, and he, not being a good rider, would not rideany horse but one of his own. Alexander II. was veryangry, and freely ventilated his anger. ‘Imbecile (durák),have I only one horse?’ I heard him shout to an orderlywho reported that his horse was in another camp.

What with the increasing darkness, the booming ofthe guns, and the rattling of the cavalry, we boys grewvery much excited, and when Alexander ordered charging,our column charged straight upon him. Tightlypacked in the ranks, with lowered bayonets, we must havehad a menacing aspect, for I saw Alexander II. who wasstill on foot, clearing the way for the column in three formidablejumps. I understood then the meaning of acolumn which is marching in serried ranks under the excitementof the music and the march itself. There stoodbefore us the emperor—our commander, whom we allvenerated very much; but I felt that in this moving massnot one page or cadet would have moved an inch aside,or stopped awhile, to make room for him. We werethe marching column—he was but an obstacle—and thecolumn would have marched over him. ‘Why should hebe in our way?’ the pages said afterwards. Boys, riflein hand, are even more terrible in such cases than oldsoldiers.

Next year, when we took part in the great manœuvres(114)of the St. Petersburg garrison, I got an insight into thesidelights of warfare. For two days in succession we didnothing but march up and down on a space of sometwenty miles, without having the slightest idea of whatwas going on round us or for what purpose we weremarched. Cannon boomed now in our neighbourhoodand now far away: sharp musketry fire was heard somewherein the hills and the woods; orderlies galloped upand down bringing the order to advance and next theorder to retreat—and we marched, marched, and marched,seeing no sense in all these movements and counter-movements.Masses of cavalry had passed along the sameroad, making out of it a deep mass of movable sand;and we had to advance and retreat several times alongthe same road, till at last our column broke all disciplineand represented an incoherent mass of pilgrims ratherthan a military unit. The colours alone remained in theroad; the remainder slowly paced along the sides of theroad, in the wood. The orders and supplications of theofficers were of no avail.

Suddenly a shout came from behind: ‘The emperoris coming! The emperor!’ The officers ran about supplicatingus to gather in the ranks: no one listened tothem.

The emperor came and ordered to retreat once more—‘Turnround!’ the words of command resounded.‘The emperor is behind us, please turn round,’ the officerswhispered; but the battalion hardly took any noticeof the command, and none whatever of the presence ofthe emperor. Happily, Alexander II. was no fanatic ofmilitarism, and, after having said a few words to cheer uswith a promise of rest, he galloped off.

I understood then how much depends in warfare uponthe state of mind of the troops, and how little can bedone by mere discipline when more than an average effortis required from the soldiers. What can discipline dowhen tired troops have to make a supreme effort to reach(115)the field of battle at a given hour? It is absolutelypowerless. Only enthusiasm and confidence can at suchmoments induce the soldiers to do ‘the impossible’—andit is the impossible that continually must be accomplishedto secure success. How often, later on in Siberia,I recalled to memory that object lesson when we also hadto do the impossible during our scientific expeditions!

Comparatively little of our time was, however, givenduring our stay in the camp to military drill and manœuvres.A good deal of it was given to practical exercisesin surveys and fortification. After a few preliminary exerciseswe were given a reflecting compass and told: ‘Goand make a plan of, say, this lake or those roads, or thatpark, measuring the angles with the compass and the distanceswith your pace.’ And early in the morning, after ahurriedly swallowed breakfast, the boy would fill his spaciousmilitary pockets with slices of rye bread, and would goout for four or five hours every day in the parks, milesaway, mapping with his compass and paces the beautifulshady roads, the rivulets, and the lakes. His work waslater on compared with accurate maps, and prizes in opticaland drawing instruments at the boy’s choice were awarded.For me these surveys were a deep source of enjoyment.That independent work, that isolation under the centuries-oldtrees, that life of the forest which I could enjoy undisturbed,while there was at the same time the interestin the work—all these left deep traces in my mind; andif I later on became an explorer of Siberia and severalof my comrades became explorers in Central Asia, theground for it was prepared in these surveys.

And finally, in the last form, parties of four boys weretaken every second day to some villages at a considerabledistance from the camp, and there they had to make adetailed survey of several square miles with the aid of thesurveyor’s table and a telescopic ruler. Officers of theGeneral Staff came from time to time to verify their workand to advise them. This life amidst the peasants in(116)the villages had the best effect upon the intellectual andmoral development of many boys.

At the same time, exercises were made in the constructionof natural-sized cross-sections of fortifications.We were taken out by an officer in the open field, andthere we had to make the cross-sections of a bastion, orof a bridge head, nailing poles and battens together inexactly the same way as railway engineers do in tracinga railway. When it came to embrasures and barbettes,we had to calculate a great deal to obtain the inclinationsof the different planes, and after that geometry in thespace ceased to be difficult to understand.

We delighted in such work, and once, in town, findingin our garden a heap of clay and gravel, we at once beganto build a real fortification on a reduced scale, withwell-calculated straight and oblique embrasures andbarbettes. All was done very neatly, and our ambitionnow was to obtain some planks for making the platformsfor the guns, and to place upon them the model gunswhich we had in our class-rooms.

But, alas, our trousers wore an alarming aspect.‘What are you doing there?’ our captain exclaimed.‘Look at yourselves! You look like navvies’ (that wasexactly what we were proud of). ‘What if the GrandDuke comes and finds you in such a state!’

‘We will show him our fortifications and ask him toget us tools and boards for the platforms.’

All protests were vain. A dozen workers were sentnext day to cart away our beautiful work, as if it were amere heap of mud!

I mention this to show how children and youths longfor real applications of what they learn at school inabstract, and how stupid are the educators who areunable to see what a powerful aid they could find inconcrete applications for helping their pupils to graspthe real sense of the things they learn.

In our school all was directed towards training us(117)for warfare. But we should have worked with the sameenthusiasm at tracing a railway, at building a log-house,or at cultivating a garden or a field. But all this longingof the children and youths for real work is wasted simplybecause our idea of the school is still the mediæval scholasticism,the mediæval monastery!

VIII

The years 1857-61 were years of rich growth in theintellectual forces of Russia. All that had been whisperedfor the last decade, in the secrecy of friendly meetings,by the generation represented in Russian literature byTurguéneff, Tolstóy, Hérzen, Bakúnin, Ogaryóff, Kavélin,Dostoévsky, Grigoróvich, Ostróvsky, and Nekrásoff, begannow to leak out in the press. Censorship was still veryrigorous; but what could not be said openly in politicalarticles was smuggled in under the form of novels,humorous sketches, or veiled comments on West Europeanevents, and everyone read between the lines andunderstood.

Having no acquaintances at St. Petersburg apart fromthe school and a narrow circle of relatives, I stood outsidethe radical movement of those years—miles, in fact,away from it. And yet this was, perhaps, the mainfeature of the movement—that it had the power topenetrate into so ‘well meaning’ a school as our corpswas, and to find an echo in such a circle as that of myMoscow relatives.

I used at that time to spend my Sundays and holidaysat the house of my aunt, mentioned in a previous chapterunder the name of Princess Mírski. Prince Mírskithought only of extraordinary lunches and dinners, whilehis wife and their young daughter led a very gay life.My cousin was a beautiful girl of nineteen, of a mostamiable disposition, and nearly all her male cousins were(118)madly in love with her. She, in turn, fell in love withone of them, and wanted to marry him. But to marry acousin is considered a great sin by the Russian Church,and the old princess tried in vain to obtain a specialpermission from the high ecclesiastical dignitaries. Nowshe brought her daughter to St. Petersburg, hoping that shemight choose among her many admirers a more suitablehusband than her own cousin. It was labour lost, I mustadd; but their fashionable apartment was full of brilliantyoung men from the Guards and from the diplomaticservice.

Such a house would be the last to be thought of inconnection with revolutionary ideas; and yet it was inthat house that I made my first acquaintance with therevolutionary literature of the times. The great refugee,Hérzen, had just begun to issue at London his review,‘The Polar Star, which made a commotion in Russia, evenin the palace circles, and was widely circulated secretlyat St. Petersburg. My cousin got it in some way, andwe used to read it together. Her heart revolted againstthe obstacles which were put in the way of her happiness,and her mind was the more open to the powerful criticismswhich the great writer launched against the Russianautocracy and all the rotten system of misgovernment.With a feeling near to worship I used to look on themedallion which was printed on the paper cover of ‘ThePolar Star,’ and which represented the noble heads of thefive ‘Decembrists’ whom Nicholas I. had hanged after therebellion of December 14, 1825—Bestúzheff, Kahóvskiy,Péstel, Ryléeff, and Muravióv-Apóstol.

The beauty of the style of Hérzen—of whom Turguéneffhas truly said that he wrote in tears and blood,and that no other Russian had ever so written—thebreadth of his ideas, and his deep love of Russia tookpossession of me, and I used to read and re-read thosepages, even more full of heart than of brain.

In 1859, or early in 1860, I began to edit my first(119)revolutionary paper. At that age, what could I bebut a constitutionalist?—and my paper advocated thenecessity of a constitution for Russia. I wrote aboutthe foolish expenses of the Court, the sums of moneywhich were spent at Nice to keep quite a squadron of thenavy in attendance on the dowager Empress, who diedin 1860; I mentioned the misdeeds of the functionarieswhich I continually heard spoken of, and I urged thenecessity of constitutional rule. I wrote three copies ofmy paper, and slipped them into the desks of threecomrades of the higher forms, who, I thought, might beinterested in public affairs. I asked my readers to puttheir remarks behind the Scotch grandfather clock in ourlibrary.

With a throbbing heart, I went next day to see ifthere was something for me behind the clock. Two noteswere there, indeed. Two comrades wrote that they fullysympathized with my paper, and only advised me not torisk too much. I wrote my second number, still morevigorously insisting upon the necessity of uniting all forcesin the name of liberty. But this time there was no replybehind the clock. Instead the two comrades came to me.

‘We are sure,’ they said, ‘that it is you who edit thepaper, and we want to talk about it. We are quite agreedwith you, and we are here to say, “Let us be friends.”Your paper has done its work—it has brought us together;but there is no need to continue it. In all theschool there are only two more who would take anyinterest in such matters, while if it becomes known thatthere is a paper of this kind the consequences will beterrible for all of us. Let us constitute a circle and talkabout everything; perhaps we shall put something intothe heads of a few others.’

This was so sensible that I could only agree, and wesealed our union by a hearty shaking of hands. Fromthat time we three became firm friends, and used to reada great deal together and discuss all sorts of things.

(120)

The abolition of serfdom was the question which thenengrossed the attention of all thinking men.

The Revolution of 1848 had had its distinct echo inthe hearts of the Russian peasant folk, and from the year1850 the insurrections of revolted serfs began to takeserious proportions. When the Crimean war broke out,and militia was levied all over Russia, these revolts spreadwith a violence never before heard of. Several serf-ownerswere killed by their serfs, and the peasant uprisingsbecame so serious that whole regiments, with artillery,were sent to quell them, whereas in former times smalldetachments of soldiers would have been sufficient toterrorize the peasants into obedience.

These outbreaks on the one side, and the profoundaversion to serfdom which had grown up in the generationwhich came to the front with the advent of Alexander II.to the throne, rendered the emancipation of the peasantsmore and more imperative. The emperor, himself averseto serfdom, and supported, or rather influenced, in hisown family by his wife, his brother Constantine, and thegrand duch*ess Hélène Pávlovna, took the first steps in thatdirection. His intention was that the initiative of thereform should come from the nobility, the serf-ownersthemselves. But in no province of Russia could thenobility be induced to send a petition to the Tsar to thateffect. In March 1856 he himself addressed the Moscownobility on the necessity of such a step; but a stubbornsilence was all their reply to his speech, so that AlexanderII., growing quite angry, concluded with those memorablewords of Hérzen: ‘It is better, gentlemen, that it shouldcome from above than to wait till it comes from beneath.’Even these words had no effect, and it was to the provincesof Old Poland—Gródno, Wílno, and Kóvno—whereNapoleon I. had abolished serfdom (on paper) in1812, that recourse was had. The Governor-General ofthose provinces, Nazímoff, managed to obtain the desiredaddress from the Polish nobility. In November 1857 the(121)famous ‘rescript’ to the Governor-General of the Lithuanianprovinces, announcing the intention of the emperorto abolish serfdom, was launched, and we read, with tearsin our eyes, the beautiful article of Hérzen, ‘Thou hastconquered, Galilean,’ in which the refugees in Londondeclared that they would no more look upon AlexanderII. as an enemy, but would support him in the great workof emancipation.

The attitude of the peasants was very remarkable.No sooner had the news spread that the liberation longsighed for was coming than the insurrections nearly stopped.The peasants waited now, and during a journey whichAlexander made in Middle Russia they flocked aroundhim as he passed, beseeching him to grant them liberty—apetition, however, which Alexander received with greatrepugnance. It is most remarkable—so strong is theforce of tradition—that the rumour went among thepeasants that it was Napoleon III. who had required ofthe Tsar, in the treaty of peace, that the peasants shouldbe freed. I frequently heard this rumour; and on thevery eve of the emancipation they seemed to doubt thatit would be done without pressure from abroad. ‘Nothingwill be done unless Garibaldi comes,’ was the reply whicha peasant made at St. Petersburg to a comrade of minewho talked to him about ‘freedom coming.’

But after these moments of general rejoicing years ofincertitude and disquiet followed. Specially appointedcommittees in the provinces and at St. Petersburg discussedthe proposed liberation of the serfs, but the intentionsof Alexander II. seemed unsettled. A check wascontinually put upon the press, in order to prevent it fromdiscussing details. Sinister rumours circulated at St.Petersburg and reached our corps.

There was no lack of young men amongst the nobilitywho earnestly worked for a frank abolition of the oldservitude; but the serfdom party drew closer and closerround the emperor, and got power over his mind. They(122)whispered into his ears that the day serfdom was abolishedthe peasants would begin to kill the landlords wholesale,and Russia would witness a new Pugachóff uprising, farmore terrible than that of 1773. Alexander, who was aman of weak character, only too readily lent his ear tosuch predictions. But the huge machine for working outthe emancipation law had been set to work. The committeeshad their sittings; scores of schemes of emancipation,addressed to the emperor, circulated in manuscriptor were printed in London. Hérzen, seconded by Turguéneff,who kept him well informed about all that was goingon in government circles, discussed in his ‘Bell’ and his‘Polar Star’ the details of the various schemes, andChernyshévsky in the ‘Contemporary’ (Sovreménnik).The Slavophiles, especially Aksákoff and Bélyáeff, hadtaken advantage of the first moments of relative freedomallowed the press, to give the matter a wide publicity inRussia, and to discuss the features of the emancipationwith a thorough understanding of its technical aspects.All intellectual St. Petersburg was with Hérzen, andparticularly with Chernyshévsky, and I remember howthe officers of the Horse Guards, whom I saw on Sundays,after the church parade, at the home of my cousin (DmítriNikoláevich Kropótkin, who was aide-de-camp of thatregiment and aide-de-camp of the emperor), used to sidewith Chernyshévsky, the leader of the advanced party inthe emancipation struggle. The whole disposition of St.Petersburg, in the drawing-rooms and in the street, wassuch that it was impossible to go back. The liberation ofthe serfs had to be accomplished; and another importantpoint was won—the liberated serfs would receive, besidestheir homesteads, the land that they had hitherto cultivatedfor themselves.

However, the party of the old nobility were not discouraged.They centred their efforts on obtaining apostponement of the reform, on reducing the size of theallotments, and on imposing upon the emancipated serfs(123)so high a redemption tax for the land that it wouldrender their economical freedom illusory; and in thisthey fully succeeded. Alexander II. dismissed the realsoul of the whole business, Nikolái Milútin (brother ofthe minister of war), saying to him, ‘I am so sorry topart with you, but I must: the nobility describe you asone of the Reds.’ The first committees, which hadworked out the scheme of emancipation, were dismissedtoo, and new committees revised the whole work in theinterest of the serf-owners; the press was muzzled oncemore.

Things assumed a very gloomy aspect. The questionwhether the liberation would take place at all wasnow asked. I feverishly followed the struggle, andevery Sunday, when my comrades returned from theirhomes, I asked them what their parents said. By theend of 1860 the news became worse and worse. ‘TheValúeff party has got the upper hand.’ ‘They intendto revise the whole work.’ ‘The relatives of the PrincessX. [a friend of the Tsar] work hard upon him,’‘The liberation will be postponed: they fear a revolution.’

In January 1861 slightly better rumours began tocirculate, and it was generally hoped that somethingwould be heard of the emancipation on the day of theemperor’s accession to the throne, February 19.

The 19th came, but it brought nothing with it. Iwas on that day at the palace. There was no grandlevée, only a small one; and pages of the second formwere sent to such levées in order to get accustomed tothe palace ways. It was my turn that day; and as Iwas seeing off one of the grand duch*esses who came tothe palace to assist at the Mass, her husband did notappear and I went to fetch him. He was called out ofthe emperor’s study, and I told him, in a half jocose way,of the perplexity of his wife, without having the slightest(124)suspicion of the important matters that may have beentalked of in the study at that time. Apart from a fewof the initiated, no one in the palace suspected that themanifesto had been signed on February 19, and waskept back for a fortnight only because the next Sunday,the 26th, was the beginning of the carnival week, and itwas feared that, owing to the drinking which goes on inthe villages during the carnival, peasant insurrectionsmight break out. Even the carnival fair, which used tobe held at St. Petersburg on the square near the winterpalace, was removed that year to another square, fromfear of a popular insurrection in the capital. Mostsanguinary instructions had been issued to the army asto the ways of repressing peasant uprisings.

A fortnight later, on the last Sunday of the carnival(March 5, or rather March 17, new style), I was at thecorps, having to take part in the military parade at theriding-school. I was still in bed, when my soldier servant,Ivánoff, dashed in with the tea-tray, exclaiming,‘Prince, freedom! The manifesto is posted on theGostínoi Dvor’ (the shops opposite the corps).

‘Did you see it yourself?’

‘Yes. People stand round; one reads, the otherslisten. It is freedom!’

In a couple of minutes I was dressed and out. Acomrade was coming in.

‘Kropótkin, freedom!’ he shouted. ‘Here is themanifesto. My uncle learned last night that it wouldbe read at the early Mass at the Isaac Cathedral; sowe went. There were not many people there; peasantsonly. The manifesto was read and distributed after theMass. They well understood what it meant: when Icame out of the church, two peasants, who stood in thegateway, said to me in such a droll way, “Well, sir?now—all gone?”’ And he mimicked how they hadshown him the way out. Years of expectation were inthat gesture of sending away the master.

(125)

I read and re-read the manifesto. It was written inan elevated style by the old metropolitan of Moscow,Philarète, but with a useless mixture of Russian and oldSlavonian which obscured the sense. It was liberty;but it was not liberty yet, the peasants having to remainserfs for two years more, till February 19, 1863. Notwithstandingall this, one thing was evident: serfdomwas abolished, and the liberated serfs would get theland and their homesteads. They would have to payfor it, but the old stain of slavery was removed. Theywould be slaves no more; the reaction had not got theupper hand.

We went to the parade; and when all the militaryperformances were over, Alexander II., remaining onhorseback, loudly called out, ‘The officers to me!’ Theygathered round him, and he began, in a loud voice, aspeech about the great event of the day.

‘The officers ... the representatives of the nobilityin the army’—these scraps of sentences reached our ears—‘anend has been put to centuries of injustice.... Iexpect sacrifices from the nobility ... the loyal nobilitywill gather round the throne’ ... and so on. Enthusiastichurrahs resounded amongst the officers as heended.

We ran rather than marched back on our way to thecorps—hurrying to be in time for the Italian opera, ofwhich the last performance in the season was to be giventhat afternoon; some manifestation was sure to takeplace then. Our military attire was flung off with greathaste, and several of us dashed, lightfooted, to the sixth-storygallery. The house was crowded.

During the first entr’acte the smoking-room of theopera filled with excited young men, who all talked toone another, whether acquainted or not. We plannedat once to return to the hall, and to sing, with the wholepublic in a mass choir, the hymn ‘God save the Tsar.’

However, sounds of music reached our ears, and we(126)all hurried back to the hall. The band of the opera wasalready playing the hymn, which was drowned immediatelyin enthusiastic hurrahs coming from the galleries,the boxes, the pit. I saw Bavéri, the conductor, wavinghis stick, but not a sound could be heard from the powerfulband. Then Bavéri stopped, but the hurrahs continued.I saw the stick waved again in the air; I saw the fiddlebows moving and musicians blowing the brass instruments,but again the sound of voices overwhelmed theband. Bavéri began conducting the hymn once more,and it was only by the end of that third repetition thatisolated sounds of the brass instruments pierced throughthe clamour of human voices.

The same enthusiasm was in the streets. Crowds ofpeasants and educated men stood in front of the palace,shouting hurrahs, and the Tsar could not appear withoutbeing followed by demonstrative crowds running afterhis carriage. Hérzen was right when, two years later, asAlexander was drowning the Polish insurrection in blood,and ‘Muravióff the Hanger’ was strangling it on thescaffold, he wrote, ‘Alexander Nikoláevich, why did younot die on that day? Your name would have beentransmitted in history as that of a hero.’

Where were the uprisings which had been predictedby the champions of slavery? Conditions more indefinitethan those which had been created by the Polozhénie(the emancipation law) could not have been invented.If anything could have provoked revolts, it was preciselythe perplexing vagueness of the conditions created bythe new law. And yet—except in two places wherethere were insurrections, and a very few other spots wheresmall disturbances, entirely due to misunderstandings andimmediately appeased, took place—Russia remainedquiet, more quiet than ever. With their usual good sense,the peasants had understood that serfdom was done awaywith, that ‘freedom had come,’ and they accepted the(127)conditions imposed upon them, although these conditionswere very heavy.

I was in Nikólskoye in August 1861, and again in thesummer of 1862, and I was struck with the quiet intelligentway in which the peasants had accepted the newconditions. They knew perfectly well how difficult itwould be to pay the redemption tax for the land, whichwas in reality an indemnity to the nobles in lieu of theobligations of serfdom. But they so much valued theabolition of their personal enslavement that they acceptedthe ruinous charges—not without murmuring, but as ahard necessity—the moment that personal freedom wasobtained. For the first months they kept two holidaysa week, saying that it was a sin to work on Friday; butwhen the summer came they resumed work with evenmore energy than before.

When I saw our Nikólskoye peasants, fifteen monthsafter the liberation, I could not but admire them. Theirinborn good nature and softness remained with them, butall traces of servility had disappeared. They talked totheir masters as equals talk to equals, as if they neverhad stood in different relations. Besides, such men cameout from among them as could make a stand for their rights.The Polozhénie was a large and difficult book, which ittook me a good deal of time to understand; but whenVasíli Ivánoff, the elder of Nikólskoye, came one day toask me to explain to him some obscurity in it, I saw thathe, who was not even a fluent reader, had admirablyfound his way amongst the intricacies of the chaptersand paragraphs of the law.

The ‘household people’—that is, the servants—cameout the worst of all. They got no land, and would hardlyhave known what to do with it if they had. They gotfreedom, and nothing besides. In our neighbourhoodnearly all of them left their masters; none, for example,remained in the household of my father. They went insearch of positions elsewhere, and a number of them found(128)employment at once with the merchant class, who wereproud of having the coachman of Prince So-and-So, orthe cook of General So-and-So. Those who knew atrade found work in the towns: for instance, my father’sband remained a band, and made a good living at Kalúga,retaining amiable relations with us. But those who hadno trade had hard times before them, and yet the majoritypreferred to live anyhow rather than remain with theirold masters.

As to the landlords, while the larger ones made allpossible efforts at St. Petersburg to re-introduce the oldconditions under one name or another (they succeeded indoing so to some extent under Alexander III.), by farthe greater number submitted to the abolition of serfdomas to a sort of necessary calamity. The young generationgave to Russia that remarkable staff of ‘peacemediators’ and justices of the peace who contributed somuch to the peaceful issue of the emancipation. As tothe old generation, most of them had already discountedthe considerable sums of money they were to receivefrom the peasants for the land which was granted to theliberated serfs, and which was valued much above itsmarket price; they schemed as to how they wouldsquander that money in the restaurants of the capitals,or at the green tables in gambling. And they didsquander it, almost all of them, as soon as they got it.

For many landlords the liberation of the serfs wasan excellent money transaction. Thus, land which myfather, in anticipation of the emancipation, sold in parcelsat the rate of eleven roubles the Russian acre, was nowestimated at forty roubles in the peasants’ allotments—thatis, three and a half times above its market value—andthis was the rule in all our neighbourhood; while inmy father’s Tambóv estate, on the prairies, the mir—that is,the village community—rented all his land for twelve yearsat a price which represented twice as much as he used toget from that land by cultivating it with servile labour.

(129)

Eleven years after that memorable time I went tothe Tambóv estate, which I had inherited from myfather. I stayed there for a few weeks, and on the eveningof my departure our village priest—an intelligent manof independent opinions, such as one meets occasionallyin our southern provinces—went out for a walk round thevillage. The sunset was glorious; a balmy air came fromthe prairies. He found a middle-aged peasant—AntónSavélieff—sitting on a small eminence outside the villageand reading a book of psalms. The peasant hardly knewhow to spell in Old Slavonic, and often he would read abook from the last page, turning the pages backward; itwas the process of reading which he liked most, and thena word would strike him, and its repetition pleased him.He was reading now a psalm of which each verse beganwith the word ‘rejoice.’

‘What are you reading?’ he was asked.

‘Well, father, I will tell you,’ was his reply. ‘Fourteenyears ago the old prince came here. It was in thewinter. I had just returned home, quite frozen. Asnowstorm was raging. I had scarcely begun undressingwhen we heard a knock at the window: it was theelder, who was shouting, “Go to the prince! He wantsyou!” We all—my wife and our children—were thunderstricken.“What can he want of you?” my wife criedin alarm. I signed myself with the cross and went; thesnowstorm almost blinded me as I crossed the bridge.Well, it ended all right. The old prince was taking hisafternoon sleep, and when he woke up he asked me ifI knew plastering work, and only told me, “Come to-morrowto repair the plaster in that room.” So I wenthome quite happy, and when I came to the bridge Ifound my wife standing there. She had stood there allthe time in the snowstorm, with the baby in her arms,waiting for me. “What has happened, Savélich?” shecried. “Well,” I said, “no harm; he only asked me tomake some repairs.” That, father, was under the old(130)prince. And now, the young prince came here the otherday. I went to see him, and found him in the garden,at the tea table, in the shadow of the house; you, father,sat with him, and the elder of the canton, with hismayor’s chain upon his breast. “Will you have tea,Savélich?” he asks me. “Take a chair. Petr Grigórieff”—hesays that to the old one—“give us one more chair.”And Petr Grigórieff—you know what a terror for us hewas when he was the manager of the old prince—broughtthe chair, and we all sat round the tea table, talking, andhe poured out tea for all of us. Well, now, father, theevening is so beautiful, the balm comes from the prairies,and I sit and read, “Rejoice! Rejoice!”’

This is what the abolition of serfdom meant for thepeasants.

IX

In June 1861 I was nominated sergeant of the Corpsof Pages. Some of our officers, I must say, did not likethe idea of it, saying that there would be no disciplinewith me acting as a sergeant, but it could not be helped;it was usually the first pupil of the upper form who wasnominated sergeant, and I had been at the top of ourform for several years in succession. This appointmentwas considered very enviable, not only because thesergeant occupied a privileged position in the school andwas treated like an officer, but especially because he wasalso the page de chambre of the emperor for the timebeing; and to be personally known to the emperor wasof course considered as a stepping-stone to further distinctions.The most important point to me was, however,that it freed me from all the drudgery of the innerservice of the school, which fell on the pages de chambre,and that I should have for my studies a separate room(131)where I could isolate myself from the bustle of the school.True, there was also an important drawback to it: I hadalways found it tedious to pace up and down, many timesa day, the whole length of our rooms, and used thereforeto run the distance full speed, which was severely prohibited;and now I should have to walk very solemnly,with the service book under my arm, instead of running!A consultation was even held among a few friends ofmine upon this serious matter, and it was decided thatfrom time to time I could still find opportunities to takemy favourite runs; as to my relations with all the others,it depended upon myself to put them on a new comradelikefooting, and this I did.

The pages de chambre had to be at the palacefrequently, in attendance at the great and small levées,the balls, the receptions, the gala dinners, and so on.During Christmas, New Year, and Easter weeks we weresummoned to the palace almost every day, and sometimestwice a day. Moreover, in my military capacityof sergeant I had to report to the emperor every Sunday,at the parade in the riding-school, that ‘all was well atthe company of the Corps of Pages,’ even when one-thirdof the school was ill of some contagious disease.‘Shall I not report to-day that all is not quite well?’ Iasked the colonel on this occasion. ‘God bless you,’ washis reply, ‘you ought only to say so if there were aninsurrection!’

Court life has undoubtedly much that is picturesqueabout it. With its elegant refinement of manners—superficialthough it may be—its strict etiquette, andits brilliant surroundings, it is certainly meant to beimpressive. A great levée is a fine pageant, and eventhe simple reception of a few ladies by the empressbecomes quite different from a common call when ittakes place in a richly decorated drawing-room of thepalace—the guests ushered by chamberlains in gold-embroidereduniforms, the hostess followed by brilliantly(132)dressed pages and a suite of ladies, and everything conductedwith striking solemnity. To be an actor in theCourt ceremonies, in attendance upon the chief personages,offered something more than the mere interest ofcuriosity for a boy of my age. Besides, I then lookedupon Alexander II. as a sort of hero; a man whoattached no importance to the Court ceremonies, butwho, at this period of his reign, began his working dayat six in the morning, and was engaged in a hard strugglewith a powerful reactionary party in order to carrythrough a series of reforms in which the abolition ofserfdom was only the first step.

But gradually, as I saw more of the spectacular sideof Court life, and caught now and then a glimpse of whatwas going on behind the scenes, I realized not only thefutility of these shows and the things they were intendedto conceal, but also that these small things so much absorbedthe Court as to prevent consideration of mattersof far greater importance. The realities were often lostin the acting. And then from Alexander II. himselfslowly faded the aureole with which my imagination hadsurrounded him; so that by the end of the year, evenif at the outset I had cherished some illusions as to usefulactivity in the spheres nearest to the palace, I should haveretained none.

On every important holiday, as also on the birthdaysand name days of the emperor and empress, on thecoronation day, and on other similar occasions, a greatlevée was held at the palace. Thousands of generals andofficers of all ranks, down to that of captain, as well asthe high functionaries of the civil service, were arrangedin lines in the immense halls of the palace, to bow at thepassage of the emperor and his family, as they solemnlyproceeded to the church. All the members of the imperialfamily came on those days to the palace, meeting togetherin a drawing-room and merrily chatting till the momentarrived for putting on the mask of solemnity. Then the(133)column was formed. The emperor, giving his hand to theempress, opened the march. He was followed by hispage de chambre, and he in turn by the general aide-de-camp,the aide-de-camp on duty that day, and theminister of the imperial household; while the empress,or rather the immense train of her dress, was attendedby her two pages de chambre, who had to support thetrain at the turnings and to spread it out again in allits beauty. The heir-apparent, who was a young manof eighteen, and all the other grand dukes and duch*esses,came next, in the order of their right of succession tothe throne—each of the grand duch*esses followed byher page de chambre; then there was a long processionof the ladies in attendance, old and young, all wearingthe so-called Russian costume—that is, an evening dresswhich was supposed to resemble the costume worn bythe women of Old Russia.

As the procession passed I could see how each of theeldest military and civil functionaries, before making hisbow, would try to catch the eye of the emperor, and if hehad his bow acknowledged by a smiling look of the Tsar,or by a hardly perceptible nod of the head, or perchanceby a word or two, he would look round upon his neighbours,full of pride, in the expectation of their congratulations.

From the church the procession returned in the sameway, and then everyone hurried back to his own affairs.Apart from a few devotees and some young ladies, notone in ten present at these levées regarded them otherwisethan as a tedious duty.

Twice or thrice during the winter great balls weregiven at the palace, and thousands of people were invitedto them. After the emperor had opened the dances witha polonaise, full liberty was left to every one to enjoy thetime as he liked. There was plenty of room in the immensebrightly illuminated halls, where young girls wereeasily lost to the watchful eyes of their parents and aunts,(134)and many thoroughly enjoyed the dances and the supper,during which the young people managed to be left tothemselves.

My duties at these balls were rather difficult. AlexanderII. did not dance, nor did he sit down, but hemoved all the time amongst his guests, his page de chambrehaving to follow him at a distance, so as to be withineasy call, and yet not inconveniently near. This combinationof presence with absence was not easy to attain,nor did the emperor require it: he would have preferredto be left entirely to himself; but such was the tradition,and he had to submit to it. The worst was when heentered a dense crowd of ladies who stood round thecircle in which the grand dukes danced, and slowlycirculated among them. It was not at all easy to makea way through this living garden, which opened to givepassage to the emperor, but closed in immediately behindhim. Instead of dancing themselves, hundreds of ladiesand girls stood there, closely packed, each in the expectationthat one of the grand dukes would perhapsnotice her and invite her to dance a waltz or a polka.Such was the influence of the Court upon St. Petersburgsociety that if one of the grand dukes cast his eye upona girl, her parents would do all in their power to maketheir child fall madly in love with the great personage,even though they knew well that no marriage couldresult from it—the Russian grand dukes not beingallowed to marry ‘subjects’ of the Tsar. The conversationswhich I once heard in a ‘respectable’ family, connectedwith the Court, after the heir-apparent had dancedtwice or thrice with a girl of seventeen, and the hopeswhich were expressed by her parents, surpassed all thatI could possibly have imagined.

Every time that we were at the palace we had lunchor dinner there, and the footmen would whisper to us bitsof news from the scandalous chronicle of the place,(135)whether we cared for it or not. They knew everythingthat was going on in the different palaces—that was theirdomain. For truth’s sake, I must say that during theyear which I speak of that sort of chronicle was notas rich in events as it became in the seventies. Thebrothers of the Tsar were only recently married, and hissons were all very young. But the relations of theemperor himself with the Princess X., whom Turguéneffhas so admirably depicted in ‘Smoke’ under the nameof Irène, were even more freely spoken of by the servantsthan by St. Petersburg society. One day, however,when we entered the room where we used to dress, wewere told, ‘The X. has to-day got her dismissal—a completeone this time.’ Half an hour later we saw the ladyin question coming to assist at Mass, with her eyesswollen from weeping, and swallowing her tears duringthe Mass, while the other ladies managed so to stand ata distance from her as to put her in evidence. Thefootmen were already informed about the incident, andcommented upon it in their own way. There was somethingtruly repulsive in the talk of these men, who theday before would have crouched down before the samelady.

The system of espionage which is exercised in thepalace, especially around the emperor himself, wouldseem almost incredible to the uninitiated. The followingincident will give some idea of it. A few years later, oneof the grand dukes received a severe lesson from a St.Petersburg gentleman. The latter had forbidden the grandduke his house, but, returning home unexpectedly, he foundhim in his drawing-room and rushed upon him with hislifted stick. The young man dashed down the staircase,and was already jumping into his carriage when the pursuercaught him, and dealt him a blow with his stick. Thepoliceman who stood at the door saw the adventure andran to report it to the chief of the police, General Trépoff,who, in his turn, jumped into his carriage and hastened(136)to the emperor, to be the first to report the ‘sad incident.’Alexander II. summoned the grand duke and had a talkwith him. A couple of days later, an old functionary whobelonged to the Third Section of the emperor’s chancery—thatis, to the state police—and who was a friend atthe house of one of my comrades, related the whole conversation.‘The emperor,’ he informed us, ‘was veryangry, and said to the grand duke in conclusion, “Youshould know better how to manage your little affairs.”’He was asked, of course, how he could know anythingabout a private conversation, but the reply was verycharacteristic: ‘The words and the opinions of his Majestymust be known to our department. How otherwise couldsuch a delicate institution as the state police be managed?Be sure that the emperor is the most closely watchedperson in all St. Petersburg.’

There was no boasting in these words. Every minister,every governor-general, before entering the emperor’sstudy with his reports, had a talk with the private valetof the emperor, to know what was the mood of the masterthat day; and according to that mood he either laid beforehim some knotty affair, or let it lie at the bottom of hisportfolio in hope of a more lucky day. The governor-generalof East Siberia, when he came to St. Petersburg,always sent his private aide-de-camp with a handsome giftto the private valet of the emperor. ‘There are days,’ heused to say, ‘when the emperor would get into a rage, andorder a searching inquest upon everyone and myself, if Ishould lay before him on such a day certain reports;whereas there are other days when all will go off quitesmoothly. A precious man that valet is.’ To knowfrom day to day the frame of mind of the emperor was asubstantial part of the art of retaining a high position—anart which later on Count Shuváloff and General Trépoffunderstood to perfection; also Count Ignátieff, who, I supposefrom what I saw of him, possessed that art evenwithout the help of the valet.

(137)

At the beginning of my service I felt a great admirationfor Alexander II., the liberator of the serfs. Imaginationoften carries a boy beyond the realities of themoment, and my frame of mind at that time was suchthat if an attempt had been made in my presence uponthe Tsar I should have covered him with my body. Oneday, at the beginning of January 1862, I saw him leavethe procession and rapidly walk alone toward the hallswhere parts of all the regiments of the St. Petersburggarrison were aligned for a parade. This parade usuallytook place outdoors, but this year, on account of the frost,it was held indoors, and Alexander II., who generallygalloped at full speed in front of the troops at the reviews,had now to march in front of the regiments. I knew thatmy Court duties ended as soon as the emperor appearedin his capacity of military commander of the troops, andthat I had to follow him to this spot, but no further.However, on looking round, I saw that he was quite alone.The two aides-de-camp had disappeared, and there waswith him not a single man of his suite. ‘I will not leavehim alone!’ I said to myself, and followed him.

Whether Alexander II. was in a great hurry that day,or had other reasons to wish that the review should beover as soon as possible, I cannot say, but he dashed infront of the troops, and marched along their rows at sucha speed, making such big and rapid steps—he was verytall—that I had the greatest difficulty in following him atmy most rapid pace, and in places had almost to run inorder to keep close behind him. He hurried as if he ranaway from a danger. His excitement communicated itselfto me, and every moment I was ready to jump infront of him, regretting only that I had on my ordnancesword and not my own sword, with a Toledo blade, whichpierced coppers and was a far better weapon. It wasonly after he had passed in front of the last battalion thathe slackened his pace, and, on entering another hall, lookedround, to meet my eyes glittering with the excitement of(138)that mad march. The younger aide-de-camp was runningat full speed, two halls behind. I was prepared to get asevere scolding, instead of which Alexander II. said tome, perhaps betraying his own inner thoughts: ‘Youhere? Brave boy!’ and as he slowly walked away heturned into space that problematic, absent-minded gazewhich I had begun often to notice.

Such was then the attitude of my mind. However,various small incidents, as well as the reactionary characterwhich the policy of Alexander II. was decidedlytaking, instilled more and more doubts into my heart.Every year, on January 6, a half Christian and half paganceremony of sanctifying the waters is performed inRussia. It is also performed at the palace. A pavilionis built on the Nevá River, opposite the palace, and theimperial family, headed by the clergy, proceed from thepalace, across the superb quay, to the pavilion, where aTe Deum is sung, and the cross is plunged into the waterof the river. Thousands of people stand on the quay andon the ice of the Nevá to witness the ceremony from adistance. All have to stand bareheaded during theservice. This year, as the frost was rather sharp, an oldgeneral had put on a wig, and in the hurry of drawing onhis cape, his wig had been dislodged and now lay acrosshis head, without his noticing it. The grand duke Constantine,having caught sight of it, laughed the wholetime the Te Deum was being sung, with the youngergrand dukes, looking in the direction of the unhappygeneral, who smiled stupidly without knowing why hewas the cause of so much hilarity. Constantine finallywhispered to the emperor, who also looked at the generaland laughed.

A few minutes later, as the procession once morecrossed the quay, on its way back to the palace, an oldpeasant, bareheaded too, pushed himself through thedouble hedge of soldiers who lined the path of the procession,and fell on his knees just at the feet of the(139)emperor, holding out a petition, and crying with tears inhis eyes, ‘Father, defend us!’ Ages of oppression ofthe Russian peasantry was in this exclamation; butAlexander II., who a few minutes before laughed duringthe church service at a wig lying the wrong way, nowpassed by the peasant without taking the slightest noticeof him. I was close behind him, and only saw in him ashudder of fear at the sudden appearance of the peasant,after which he went on without deigning even to cast aglance on the human figure at his feet. I looked round.The aides-de-camp were not there; the grand duke Constantine,who followed, took no more notice of the peasantthan his brother did; there was nobody even to take thepetition, so that I took it, although I knew that I shouldget a scolding for doing so. It was not my business toreceive petitions, but I remembered what it must havecost the peasant before he could make his way to thecapital, and then through the lines of police and soldierswho surrounded the procession. Like all peasants whohand petitions to the Tsar, he was going to be put underarrest, for no one knows how long.

On the day of the emancipation of the serfs AlexanderII. was worshipped at St. Petersburg; but it is most remarkablethat, apart from that moment of general enthusiasm,he had not the love of the city. His brotherNicholas—no one could say why—was at least verypopular among the small tradespeople and the cabmen;but neither Alexander II., nor his brother Constantine,the leader of the reform party, nor his third brother,Michael, had won the hearts of any class of people in St.Petersburg. Alexander II. had retained too much of thedespotic character of his father, which pierced now andthen through his usually good-natured manners. Heeasily lost his temper, and often treated his courtiers inthe most contemptuous way. He was not what onewould describe as a reliable man, either in his policy or(140)in his personal sympathies, and he was vindictive. Idoubt whether he was sincerely attached to anyone.Some of the men in his nearest surroundings were of theworst description—Count Adlerberg, for instance, whomade him pay over and over again his enormous debts,and others renowned for their colossal thefts. From thebeginning of 1862 he commenced to show himself capableof reviving the worst practices of his father’s reign. Itwas known that he still wanted to carry through a seriesof important reforms in the judicial organization and inthe army; that the terrible corporal punishments wereabout to be abolished, and that a sort of local self-government,and perhaps a constitution of some sort, would begranted. But the slightest disturbance was repressedunder his orders with a stern severity; he took eachmovement as a personal offence, so that at any momentone might expect from him the most reactionarymeasures.

The disorders which broke out at the universities ofSt. Petersburg, Moscow, and Kazán in October 1861were repressed with an ever-increasing strictness. Theuniversity of St. Petersburg was closed, and althoughfree courses were opened by most of the professors at theTown Hall, they also were soon closed, and the bestprofessors left the university. Immediately after theabolition of serfdom, a great movement began for theopening of Sunday schools; they were opened everywhereby private persons and corporations—all theteachers being volunteers—and the peasants and workers,old and young, flocked to these schools. Officers,students, even a few pages, became teachers; and suchexcellent methods were worked out that (Russian havinga phonetic spelling) we succeeded in teaching a peasantto read in nine or ten lessons. But suddenly all Sundayschools, in which the mass of the peasantry would havelearned to read in a few years, without any expenditureby the State, were closed. In Poland, where a series of(141)patriotic manifestations had begun, the Cossacks weresent out to disperse the crowds with their whips, and toarrest hundreds of people in the churches with their usualbrutality. Men were shot in the streets of Warsaw by theend of 1861, and for the suppression of the few peasantinsurrections which broke out the horrible flogging throughthe double line of soldiers—that favourite punishment ofNicholas I.—was applied. The despot that Alexander II.became in the years 1870-81 was foreshadowed in 1862.

Of all the imperial family, undoubtedly the most sympatheticwas the empress Marie Alexándrovna. She wassincere, and when she said something pleasant she meantit. The way in which she once thanked me for a littlecourtesy (it was after her reception of the ambassador ofthe United States, who had just come to St. Petersburg)deeply impressed me: it was not the way of a lady spoiledby courtesies, as an empress is supposed to be. Shecertainly was not happy in her home life; nor was sheliked by the ladies of the court, who found her too severe,and could not understand why she should take so muchto heart the étourderies of her husband. It is now knownthat she played a by no means unimportant part in bringingabout the abolition of serfdom. But at that time herinfluence in this direction seems to have been little known,the grand duke Constantine and the grand duch*ess HélènePávlovna, who was the main support of Nicholas Milútinat the Court, being considered the two leaders of thereform party in the palace spheres. The empress wasbetter known for the decisive part she had taken in thecreation of girls’ gymnasia (high schools), which receivedfrom the outset a high standard of organization and atruly democratic character. Her friendly relations withUshínsky, a great pedagogist, saved him from sharing thefate of all men of mark of that time—that is, exile.

Being very well educated herself, Marie Alexándrovnadid her best to give a good education to her eldest son.(142)The best men in all branches of knowledge were soughtas teachers, and she even invited for that purpose Kavélin,although she knew well his friendly relations with Hérzen.When he mentioned to her that friendship, she repliedthat she had no grudge against Hérzen, except for hisviolent language about the empress dowager.

The heir-apparent was extremely handsome—perhaps,even too femininely handsome. He was not proud in theleast, and during the levées he used to chatter in the mostcomradelike way with the pages de chambre. (I evenremember, at the reception of the diplomatic corps onNew Year’s Day, trying to make him appreciate thesimplicity of the uniform of the ambassador of the UnitedStates as compared with the parrot-coloured uniforms ofthe other ambassadors.) However, those who knew himwell described him as profoundly egoistic, a man absolutelyincapable of contracting an attachment to anyone. Thisfeature was prominent in him, even more than it was inhis father. As to his education, all the pains taken byhis mother were of no avail. In August 1861 his examinations,which were made in the presence of his father,proved to be a dead failure, and I remember AlexanderII., at a parade of which the heir-apparent was the commander,and during which he made some mistake, loudlyshouting out, so that everyone would hear it, ‘Even thatyou could not learn!’ He died, as is known, at the ageof twenty-two, from some disease of the spinal cord.

His brother, Alexander, who became the heir-apparentin 1865, and later on was Alexander III., was a decidedcontrast to Nikolái Alexándrovich. He reminded me somuch of Paul I. by his face, his figure, and his contemplationof his own grandeur, that I used to say, ‘If he everreigns, he will be another Paul I. in the Gátchina palace,and will have the same end as his great-grandfather hadat the hands of his own courtiers.’ He obstinately refusedto learn. It was rumoured that Alexander II.,having had so many difficulties with his brother Constantine,(143)who was better educated than himself, adoptedthe policy of concentrating all his attention on the heir-apparentand neglecting the education of his other sons;however, I doubt if such was the case: Alexander Alexándrovichmust have been averse to any education fromchildhood; in fact, his spelling, which I saw in thetelegrams he addressed to his bride at Copenhagen, wasunimaginably bad. I cannot render here his Russianspelling, but in French he wrote, ‘Ecri à oncle à proposparade ... les nouvelles sont mauvaisent,’ and so on.

He is said to have improved in his manners towardthe end of his life, but in 1870, and also much later, hewas a true descendant of Paul I. I knew at St. Petersburgan officer, of Swedish origin (from Finland), whohad been sent to the United States to order rifles for theRussian army. On his return he had to report abouthis mission to Alexander Alexándrovich, who had beenappointed to superintend the re-arming of the army.During this interview, the Tsarevich, giving full vent tohis violent temper, began to scold the officer, who probablyreplied with dignity, whereupon the prince fell intoa real fit of rage, insulting the officer in bad language.The officer, who belonged to that type of very loyal butself-respecting men who are frequently met with amongstthe Swedish nobility in Russia, left at once, and wrote aletter in which he asked the heir-apparent to apologizewithin twenty-four hours, adding that if the apology didnot come he would shoot himself. It was a sort ofJapanese duel. Alexander Alexándrovich sent no excuses,and the officer kept his word. I saw him at thehouse of a warm friend of mine, his intimate friend, whenhe was expecting every minute to receive the apology.Next morning he was dead. The Tsar was very angrywith his son, and ordered him to follow the hearse of theofficer to the grave. But even this terrible lesson didnot cure the young man of his Románoff haughtiness andimpetuosity.

I

In the middle of May 1862, a few weeks before our promotion,I was told one day by the Captain to make upthe final list of the regiments which each of us intendedto join. We had the choice of all the regiments of theGuards, which we could enter with the first officer’s grade,and of the Army with the third grade of lieutenant. Itook a list of our form, and went the round of my comrades.Everyone knew well the regiment he was goingto join, most of them already wearing in the garden theofficer’s cap of that regiment.

‘Her Majesty’s Cuirassiers,’ ‘The Body Guard Preobrazhénsky,’‘The Horse Guards,’ were the replies whichI inscribed in my list.

‘But you, Kropótkin? The artillery? The Cossacks?’I was asked on all sides. I could not stand these questions,and at last, asking a comrade to complete the list, I wentto my room to think once more over my final decision.

That I should not enter a regiment of the Guard, andgive my life to parades and court balls, I had settled longbefore. My dream was to enter the university—to study,to live the student’s life. That meant, of course, to breakentirely with my father, whose ambitions were quitedifferent, and to rely for my living upon what I mightearn by means of lessons. Thousands of Russian studentslive in that way, and such a life did not frighten me in(145)the least. But—how should I get over the first steps inthat life? In a few weeks I should have to leave theschool, to don my own clothes, to have my own lodging,and I saw no possibility of providing even the little moneywhich would be required for the most modest start.Then, failing the university, I had been often thinkingof late that I could enter the Artillery Academy. Thatwould free me for two years from the drudgery of militaryservice, and by the side of the military sciences I couldstudy mathematics and physics. But the wind of reactionwas blowing, and the officers of the academies had beentreated during the previous winter as if they were schoolboys;in two academies they had revolted, and in oneof them they had left in a body.

My thoughts turned more and more toward Siberia.The Amúr region had recently been annexed by Russia;I had read all about that Mississippi of the East, themountains it pierces, the sub-tropical vegetation of itstributary, the Usurí, and my thoughts went further—tothe tropical regions which Humboldt had described, andto the great generalizations of Ritter, which I delightedto read. Besides, I reasoned, there is in Siberia an immensefield for the application of the great reforms whichhave been made or are coming: the workers must befew there, and I shall find a field of action to my tastes.The worst would be that I should have to separate frommy brother Alexander; but he had been compelled toleave the university of Moscow after the last disorders,and in a year or two, I guessed (and guessed rightly), inone way or another we should be together. There remainedonly the choice of the regiment in the Amúrregion. The Usurí attracted me most; but, alas, therewas on the Usurí only one regiment of infantry Cossacks.A Cossack not on horseback—that was too bad for theboy that I still was, and I settled upon ‘the mountedCossacks of the Amúr.’

This I wrote on the list, to the great consternation of(146)all my comrades. ‘It is so far,’ they said, while myfriend Daúroff, seizing the Officers’ Handbook, read outof it, to the horror of all present: ‘Uniform, black, witha plain red collar without braids; fur bonnet made ofdog’s fur or any other fur; trousers, gray.’

‘Only look at that uniform!’ he exclaimed. ‘Botherthe cap!—you can wear one of wolf or bear fur; but thinkonly of the trousers! Gray, like a soldier of the Train!’The consternation reached its climax after that reading.

I joked as best I could, and took the list to thecaptain.

‘Kropótkin must always have his joke!’ he cried.‘Did I not tell you that the list must be sent to the grandduke to-day?’

I had some difficulty in making him believe that thelist really stated my intention.

However, next day my resolution almost gave waywhen I saw how Klasóvsky took my decision. He hadhoped to see me in the university, and had given melessons in Latin and Greek for that purpose; and I didnot dare to tell him what really prevented me fromentering the university: I knew that if I told him thetruth he would offer to share with me the little that hehad.

Then my father telegraphed to the director that heforbade my going to Siberia, and the matter was reportedto the grand duke, who was the chief of the militaryschools. I was called before his assistant, and talkedabout the vegetation of the Amúr and like things, becauseI had strong reasons for believing that if I said I wantedto go to the university and could not afford it, a bursarywould be offered to me by some one of the imperial family—anoffer 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 solutionto my difficulties.

(147)

On the Monday after Trinity—the day of the HolyGhost, which was that year on May 26, O.S.—a terriblefire broke out in the so-called Apráxin Dvor. TheApráxin Dvor was an immense space, nearly half a milesquare, which was entirely covered with small shops—mereshanties of wood—where all sorts of second- andthird-hand goods were sold. Old furniture and bedding,second-hand dresses and books, poured in from everyquarter 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 itsback the Ministry of the Interior and its archives, whereall the documents concerning the liberation of the serfswere kept; and in the front of it, which was lined by arow of shops built of stone, was the State Bank. Anarrow lane, also bordered with stone shops, separated theApráxin Dvor from a wing of the Corps of Pages, whichwas occupied by grocery and oil shops in its lower storyand with the apartments of the officers in its upper story.Almost opposite the Ministry of the Interior, on the otherside of a canal, there were extensive timber yards. Thislabyrinth of small shanties and the timber yards oppositetook fire almost at the same moment, at four o’clock inthe afternoon.

If there had been wind on that day, half the citywould have perished in the flames, including the Bank,several Ministries, the Gostínoi Dvor (another great blockof shops on the Nevsky Perspective), the Corps of Pages,and the National Library.

I was that afternoon at the Corps, dining at the houseof one of our officers, and we dashed to the spot as soonas we noticed from the windows the first clouds of smokerising in our close neighbourhood. The sight was terrific.Like an immense snake, rattling and whistling, the firethrew itself in all directions, right and left, enveloped theshanties, and suddenly rose in a huge column, darting outit* whistling tongues to lick up more shanties with their(148)contents. Whirlwinds of smoke and fire were formed;and when the whirls of burning feathers from the beddingshops began to sweep about the space, it became impossibleto remain any longer inside the burning market.The whole had to be abandoned.

The authorities had entirely lost their heads. Therewas not, at that time, a single steam fire-engine in St.Petersburg, and it was workmen who suggested bringingone from the iron works of Kólpino, situated twenty milesby rail from the capital. When the engine reached therailway station, it was the people who dragged it to theconflagration. Of its four lines of hose, one was damagedby an unknown hand, and the other three were directedupon the Ministry of the Interior.

The grand dukes came to the spot and went awayagain. Late in the evening, when the Bank was out ofdanger, the emperor also made his appearance, and said,what everyone knew already, that the Corps of Pageswas now the key of the battle, and must be saved by allmeans. It was evident that if the Corps had taken fire,the National Library and half of the Nevsky Perspectivewould have perished in the flames.

It was the crowd, the people, who did everything toprevent the fire from spreading further and further.There was a moment when the Bank was seriouslymenaced. The goods cleared from the shops oppositewere thrown into the Sadóvaya street, and lay in greatheaps upon the walls of the left wing of the Bank. Thearticles which covered the street itself continually tookfire, but the people, roasting there in an almost unbearableheat, prevented the flames from being communicatedto the piles of goods on the other side. They swore atall the authorities, seeing that there was not a pump onthe spot. ‘What are they all doing at the Ministry ofthe Interior, when the Bank and the Foundlings’ Houseare going to take fire? They have all lost their heads!(149)Where is the chief of police that he cannot send a firebrigade to the Bank?’ they said. I knew the chief,General Annenkoff, personally, as I had met him once ortwice at our sub-inspector’s house, whereto he came withhis brother the well-known literary critic, and I volunteeredto find him. I found him, indeed, walking aimlesslyin a street; and when I reported to him the stateof affairs, incredible though it may seem, it was to me, aboy, that he gave the order to move one of the firebrigades from the Ministry to the Bank. I exclaimed,of course, that the men would never listen to me, and Iasked for a written order; but General Annenkoff hadnot, or pretended not to have, a scrap of paper, so thatI asked one of our officers, L. L. Gosse, to come with meto transmit the order. We at last prevailed upon thecaptain of one fire brigade—who swore at all the worldand at his chiefs—to move his men and engines to theBank.

The Ministry itself was not on fire; it was thearchives which were burning, and many boys, chieflycadets and pages, together with a number of clerks,carried bundles of papers out of the burning buildingand loaded them into cabs. Often a bundle would fallout, and the wind, taking possession of its leaves, wouldstrew them about the square. Through the smoke asinister fire could be seen raging in the timber yards onthe other side of the canal.

The narrow lane which separated the Corps of Pagesfrom the Apráxin Dvor was in a deplorable state. Theshops which lined it were full of brimstone, oil, turpentine,and the like, and immense tongues of fire of manyhues, thrown out by explosions, licked the roofs of thewing of the Corps, which bordered the lane on its otherside. The windows and the pilasters under the roofbegan already to smoulder, while the pages and somecadets, after having cleared the lodgings, pumped waterthrough a small fire engine, which received at long intervals(150)scanty supplies from old-fashioned barrels, which hadto be filled with ladles. A couple of firemen who stoodon the hot roof continually shouted out, ‘Water! Water!’in tones which were heartrending. I could not standthese cries, and rushed into the Sadóvaya street, where,by sheer force, I compelled the driver of one of thebarrels belonging to a police fire brigade to enter ouryard and to supply our pump with water. But when Iattempted to do the same once more, I met with anabsolute refusal from the driver, ‘I shall be court-martialled,’he said, ‘if I obey you.’ On all sides mycomrades urged me, ‘Go and find somebody—the chiefof the police, the grand duke, anyone—and tell themthat without water we shall have to abandon the Corpsto the fire.’ ‘Ought we not to report to our director?’somebody would remark. ‘Bother the whole lot! youwon’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 theBank. Several officers stood there, indeed, around ageneral in whom I recognized the Governor-General ofSt. Petersburg, Prince Suvóroff. The gate, however, waslocked, and a Bank official who stood at it refused tolet 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, hisfirst question was, ‘Who has sent you?’ ‘Nobody—thecomrades,’ was my reply. ‘So you say the Corps willsoon be on fire?’ ‘Yes.’ He started at once, andseizing in the street an empty hatbox, covered his headwith it, in order to protect himself from the scorchingheat that came from the burning shops of the ApráxinDvor 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 andthe buildings of our Corps, of which the window frames(151)and the pilasters were smouldering, on the other side.Prince Suvóroff acted resolutely. ‘There is a companyof soldiers in your garden,’ he said to me: ‘take a detachmentand clear that lane—at once. A hose fromthe 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 conicallumps of sugar concealed in their képis, they were enjoyingthe warm night under the trees, cracking nuts. Noone cared to move till an officer interfered. The lanewas cleared, and the pump kept going. The comradeswere delighted, and every twenty minutes we relievedthe men who directed the jet of water, standing by theirside in an almost unbearable heat.

About three or four in the morning it was evidentthat bounds had been put to the fire; the danger of itsspreading to the Corps was over, and after havingquenched my thirst with half a dozen glasses of tea, ina small ‘white inn’ which happened to be open, I fell,half dead from fatigue, on the first bed that I found unoccupiedin the hospital of the corps.

Next morning I woke up early and went to see thesite of the conflagration, when on my return to the corpsI met the Grand Duke Michael, whom I accompanied,as was my duty, on his round. The pages, with theirfaces quite black from the smoke, with swollen eyes andinflamed lids, some of them with their hair burned,raised their heads from the pillows. It was hard torecognize them. They were proud, though, of feelingthat they had not been merely ‘white hands,’ and hadworked 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 tothe Amúr—whether I had friends there? whether theGovernor-General knew me? and, learning that I had(152)no relatives in Siberia and knew nobody there, he exclaimed,‘But how are you going, then? They maysend you to a lonely Cossack village. What will yoube doing there? I had better write about you to theGovernor-General, to recommend you.’

After such an offer I was sure that my father’s objectionwould be removed; and so it was. I was free togo to Siberia.

This great conflagration became a turning-point notonly in the policy of Alexander II., but also in the historyof Russia in that part of the century. That it was not amere accident was self-evident. Trinity and the day ofthe Holy Ghost are great holidays in Russia, and therewas nobody inside the market except a few watchmen;besides, the Apráxin market and the timber yards tookfire at the same time, and the conflagration at St. Petersburgwas followed by similar disasters in several provincialtowns. The fire was lit by somebody, but bywhom? This question remains unanswered to thepresent time.

Katkóff, the ex-Whig, who was inspired with personalhatred of Hérzen, and especially of Bakúnin, with whomhe had once to fight a duel, on the very day after the fireaccused the Poles and the Russian revolutionists of beingthe cause of it; and that opinion prevailed at St. Petersburgand Moscow.

Poland was preparing then for the revolution whichbroke out in the following January, and the secret revolutionarygovernment had concluded an alliance with theLondon refugees, and had its men in the very heart of theSt. Petersburg administration. Only a short time afterthe conflagration occurred, the Lord Lieutenant of Poland,Count Lüders, was shot at by a Russian officer; andwhen the grand duke Constantine was nominated in hisplace (with intention, it was said, of making Poland aseparate kingdom for Constantine) he also was immediately(153)shot at, on June 26. Similar attempts were made inAugust against the Marquis Wielepólsky, the Polish leaderof the pro-Russian Union party. Napoleon III. maintainedamong the Poles the hope of an armed interventionin favour of their independence. In such conditions,judging from the ordinary narrow military standpoint, todestroy the Bank of Russia and several Ministries, and tospread a panic in the capital might have been considereda good plan of warfare; but there never was the slightestscrap of evidence forthcoming to support this hypothesis.

On the other side, the advanced parties in Russia sawthat no hope could any longer be placed in Alexander’sreformatory initiative: he was clearly drifting into thereactionary camp. To men of forethought it was evidentthat the liberation of the serfs, under the conditions ofredemption which were imposed upon them, meant theircertain ruin, and revolutionary proclamations were issuedin May at St. Petersburg calling the people and the armyto a general revolt, while the educated classes were askedto insist upon the necessity of a National Convention.Under such circ*mstances, to disorganize the machine ofthe government might have entered into the plans ofsome revolutionists.

Finally, the indefinite character of the emancipationhad produced a great deal of fermentation among thepeasants, who constitute a considerable part of the populationin all Russian cities; and through all the history ofRussia, every time such a fermentation has begun it hasresulted in anonymous letters foretelling fires, and eventuallyin incendiarism.

It was possible that the idea of setting the Apráxinmarket on fire might occur to isolated men in the revolutionarycamp, but neither the most searching inquiries northe wholesale arrests which began all over Russia andPoland immediately after the fire revealed the slightestindication showing that such was really the case. Ifanything of the sort had been found, the reactionary party(154)would have made capital out of it. Many reminiscences andvolumes of correspondence from those times have sincebeen published, but they contain no hint whatever insupport of this suspicion.

On the contrary, when similar conflagrations brokeout in several towns on the Vólga, and especially atSarátoff, and when Zhdánoff, a member of the Senate,was sent by the Tsar to make a searching inquiry, hereturned with the firm conviction that the conflagration atSarátoff was the work of the reactionary party. Therewas among that party a general belief that it would bepossible to induce Alexander II. to postpone the finalabolition of serfdom, which was to take place on February19, 1863. They knew the weakness of his character, andimmediately after the great fire at St. Petersburg theybegan a violent campaign for postponement, and for therevision of the emancipation law in its practical applications.It was rumoured in well-informed legal circlesthat Senator Zhdánoff was in fact returning with positiveproofs 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 deplorableconsequences. After it Alexander II. surrendered tothe reactionaries, and—what was still worse—the publicopinion of that part of society at St. Petersburg, andespecially at Moscow, which carried most weight with thegovernment suddenly threw off its liberal garb, and turnedagainst not only the more advanced section of the reformparty, but even against its moderate wing. A few daysafter the conflagration I went on Sunday to see my cousin,the aide-de-camp of the emperor, in whose apartment Ihad often heard the Horse Guard officers expressing sympathywith Chernyshévsky; my cousin himself had beenup till then an assiduous reader of ‘The Contemporary’(the organ of the advanced reform party). Now he broughtseveral numbers of ‘The Contemporary,’ and, putting them(155)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 reactionaryspirit. ‘The Contemporary’ and other similar reviewswere suppressed; the Sunday schools were prohibitedunder any form; wholesale arrests began. The capitalwas placed under a state of siege.

A fortnight later, on June 13 (25), the time which wepages and cadets had so long looked for came at last.The emperor gave us a sort of military examination in allkinds of evolutions—during which we commanded thecompanies and I paraded on a horse before the battalion—andwe were promoted to be officers.

When the parade was over, Alexander II. loudly calledout, ‘The promoted officers to me!’ and we gatheredround him. He remained on horseback.

Here I saw him in a quite new light. The man whothe next year appeared in the rôle of a bloodthirsty andvindictive 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: youare officers.’ He spoke about military duty and loyaltyas they are usually spoken of on such occasions. ‘But ifany one of you,’ he went on, distinctly shouting out everyword, his face suddenly contorted with anger, ‘but if anyone of you—which God preserve you from—should underany circ*mstances prove disloyal to the Tsar, the throne,and the fatherland—take heed of what I say—he will betreated with all the se-ve-ri-ty of the laws, without theslightest com-mi-se-ra-tion!’

His voice failed; his face was peevish, full of thatexpression of blind rage which I saw in my childhoodon the faces of landlords when they threatened theirserfs ‘to skin them under the rods.’ He violently spurred(156)his horse, and rode out of our circle. Next morning,June 14, by his orders three officers were shot at Módlinin Poland, and one soldier, Szur by name, was killedunder the rods.

‘Reaction, full speed backwards,’ I said to myself aswe made our way back to the corps.

I saw Alexander II. once more before leaving St.Petersburg. Some days after our promotion, all thenewly appointed officers were at the palace, to be presentedto him. My more than modest uniform, with itsprominent gray trousers, attracted universal attention, andevery moment I had to satisfy the curiosity of officers ofall ranks, who came to ask me what was the uniform thatI wore. The Amúr Cossacks being then the youngestregiment of the Russian army, I stood somewhere nearthe end of the hundreds of officers who were present.Alexander II. found me and asked, ‘So you go toSiberia? Did your father consent to it, after all?’ Ianswered in the affirmative. ‘Are you not afraid to goso far?’ I warmly replied: ‘No, I want to work.There must be so much to do in Siberia to apply thegreat reforms which are going to be made.’ He lookedstraight at me; he became pensive; at last he said,‘Well, go; one can be useful everywhere;’ and his facetook on such an expression of fatigue, such a characterof complete surrender, that I thought at once, ‘He isa used-up man; he is going to give it all up.’

St. Petersburg had assumed a gloomy aspect. Soldiersmarched in the streets. Cossack patrols roderound the palace, the fortress was filled with prisoners.Wherever I went I saw the same thing—the triumph ofthe reaction. I left St. Petersburg without regret.

I went every day to the Cossack administration toask them to make haste and deliver me my papers, andas soon as they were ready I hurried to Moscow to joinmy brother Alexander.

(157)

II

The five years that I spent in Siberia were for me agenuine education in life and human character. I wasbrought into contact with men of all descriptions: thebest and the worst; those who stood at the top of societyand those who vegetated at the very bottom—the trampsand the so-called incorrigible criminals. I had ampleopportunities to watch the ways and habits of the peasantsin their daily life, and still more opportunities to appreciatehow little the State administration could give tothem, even if it were animated by the very best intentions.Finally, my extensive journeys, during which Itravelled over fifty thousand miles in carts, on boardsteamers, in boats, but chiefly on horseback, had awonderful effect in strengthening my health. Theyalso taught me how little man really needs as soon ashe comes out of the enchanted circle of conventionalcivilization. With a few pounds of bread and a fewounces of tea in a leather bag, a kettle and a hatchethanging at the side of the saddle, and under the saddlea blanket, to be spread at the camp fire upon a bed offreshly cut spruce twigs, a man feels wonderfully independent,even amidst unknown mountains thickly clothedwith woods or capped with snow. A book might bewritten about this part of my life, but I must rapidlyglide over it here, there being so much more to say aboutthe later periods.

Siberia is not the frozen land buried in snow andpeopled with exiles only that it is imagined to be, evenby many Russians. In its southern parts it is as richin natural productions as are the southern parts of Canada,which it resembles very much in its physical aspects;and beside half a million of natives, it has a populationof more than four millions of Russians. The southernparts of West Siberia are as thoroughly Russian as theprovinces to the north of Moscow.

(158)

In 1862 the upper administration of Siberia was farmore enlightened and far better all round than that ofany province of Russia proper. For several years thepost of Governor-General of East Siberia had beenoccupied by a remarkable personage, Count N. N.Muravióff, who annexed the Amúr region to Russia.He was very intelligent, very active, extremely amiable,and desirous to work for the good of the country.Like all men of action of the governmental school, hewas a despot at the bottom of his heart; but he heldadvanced opinions, and a democratic republic would nothave quite satisfied him. He had succeeded to a greatextent in getting rid of the old staff of civil serviceofficials, who considered Siberia a camp to be plundered,and he had gathered around him a number of youngofficials, quite honest, and many of them animated bythe same excellent intentions as himself. In his ownstudy, the young officers, with the exile Bakúnin amongthem (he escaped from Siberia in the autumn of 1861),discussed the chances of creating the United States ofSiberia, federated across the Pacific Ocean with theUnited States of America.

When I came to Irkútsk, the capital of East Siberia,the wave of reaction which I saw rising at St. Petersburghad not yet reached these distant dominions. I wasvery well received by the young Governor-General, Korsákoff,who had just succeeded Muravióff, and he told methat he was delighted to have about him men of liberalopinions. As to the commander of the General Staff,Kúkel—a young general not yet thirty-five years old,whose personal aide-de-camp I became—he at once tookme to a room in his house, where I found, togetherwith the best Russian reviews, complete collections ofthe London revolutionary editions of Hérzen. We weresoon warm friends.

General Kúkel temporarily occupied at that time the(159)post of Governor of Transbaikália, and a few weekslater we crossed the beautiful Lake Baikál and wentfurther east, to the little town of Chitá, the capital ofthe province. There I had to give myself, heart andsoul, without loss of time, to the great reforms whichwere then under discussion. The St. Petersburg Ministrieshad applied to the local authorities, asking themto work out schemes of complete reform in the administrationof the provinces, the organization of the police,the tribunals, the prisons, the system of exile, the self-governmentof the townships—all on broadly liberalbases laid down by the emperor in his manifestoes.

Kúkel, supported by an intelligent and practical man,Colonel Pedashénko, and by a couple of well-meaningcivil service officials, worked all day long, and often agood deal of the night. I became the secretary of twocommittees—for the reform of the prisons and the wholesystem of exile, and for preparing a scheme of municipalself-government—and I set to work with all the enthusiasmof a youth of nineteen years. I read muchabout the historical development of these institutions inRussia and their present condition abroad, excellentworks and papers dealing with these subjects having beenpublished by the Ministries of the Interior and of Justice;but what we did in Transbaikália was by no means merelytheoretical. I discussed first the general outlines, andsubsequently every point of detail, with practical men,well acquainted with the real needs and the local possibilities;and for that purpose I met a considerablenumber of men both in town and in the province. Thenthe conclusions we arrived at were re-discussed withKúkel and Pedashénko; and when I had put the resultsinto a preliminary shape, every point was again verythoroughly thrashed out in the committees. One ofthese committees, for preparing the municipal governmentscheme, was composed of citizens of Chitá, electedby all the population, as freely as they might have been(160)elected in the United States. In short, our work was veryserious; and even now, looking back at it through theperspective of so many years, I can say in full confidencethat if municipal self-government had been granted then,in the modest shape which we gave to it, the towns ofSiberia would be very different from what they are. Butnothing came of it all, as will presently be seen.

There was no lack of other incidental occupations.Money had to be found for the support of charitable institutions;an economic description of the province hadto be written in connection with a local agricultural exhibition;or some serious inquiry had to be made. ‘Itis a great epoch we live in; work, my dear friend;remember that you are the secretary of all existing andfuture committees’, Kúkel would sometimes say to me,—andI worked with doubled energy.

One example or two will show with what results.There was in our province a ‘district chief’—that is, apolice officer invested with very wide and indeterminaterights—who was simply a disgrace. He robbed thepeasants and flogged them right and left—even women,which was against the law; and when a criminal affairfell into his hands, it might lie there for months, menbeing kept in the meantime in prison till they gave hima bribe. Kúkel would have dismissed this man longbefore, but the Governor-General did not like the idea ofit, because he had strong protectors at St. Petersburg.After much hesitation, it was decided at last that I shouldgo to make an investigation on the spot, and collect evidenceagainst the man. This was not by any means easy,because the peasants, terrorized by him, and well knowingan old Russian saying, ‘God is far away, while your chiefis your next-door neighbour,’ did not dare to testify.Even the woman he had flogged was afraid at first tomake a written statement. It was only after I had stayeda fortnight with the peasants, and had won their confidence,that the misdeeds of their chief could be brought to(161)light. I collected crushing evidence, and the district chiefwas dismissed. We congratulated ourselves on havinggot rid of such a pest. What was, however, our astonishmentwhen, a few months later, we learned that this sameman had been nominated to a higher post in Kamchátka!There he could plunder the natives free of any control,and so he did. A few years later he returned to St.Petersburg a rich man. The articles he occasionallycontributes now to the reactionary press are, as one mightexpect, full of high ‘patriotic’ spirit.

The wave of reaction, as I have already said, had notthen reached Siberia, and the political exiles continuedto be treated with all possible leniency, as in Muravióff’stime. When, in 1861, the poet Mikháiloff was condemnedto hard labour for a revolutionary proclamation which hehad issued, and was sent to Siberia, the Governor of thefirst Siberian town on his way, Tobólsk, gave a dinner inhis honour, in which all the officials took part. InTransbaikália he was not kept at hard labour, but wasallowed officially to stay in the hospital prison of a smallmining village. His health being very poor—he wasdying from consumption, and did actually die a fewmonths later—General Kúkel gave him permission tostay in the house of his brother, a mining engineer, whohad rented a gold mine from the Crown on his ownaccount. Unofficially that was well known in EastSiberia. But one day we learned from Irkútsk that, inconsequence of a secret denunciation, a General of thegendarmes (state police) was on his way to Chitá tomake a strict inquiry into the affair. An aide-de-campof the Governor-General brought us the news. I wasdespatched in great haste to warn Mikháiloff, and to tellhim that he must return at once to the hospital prison,while the General of the gendarmes was kept at Chitá.As that gentleman found himself every night the winnerof considerable sums of money at the green table inKúkel’s house, he soon decided not to exchange this(162)pleasant pastime for a long journey to the mines in atemperature which was then a dozen degrees below thefreezing-point of mercury, and eventually went back toIrkútsk quite satisfied with his lucrative mission.

The storm, however, was coming nearer and nearer,and it swept everything before it soon after the insurrectionbroke out in Poland.

III

In January 1863 Poland rose against Russian rule.Insurrectionary bands were formed, and a war beganwhich lasted for full eighteen months. The Londonrefugees had implored the Polish revolutionary committeesto postpone the movement. They foresaw thatit would be crushed, and would put an end to the reformperiod in Russia. But it could not be helped. Therepression of the nationalist manifestations which tookplace at Warsaw in 1861, and the cruel, quite unprovokedexecutions which followed, exasperated the Poles. Thedie was cast.

Never before had the Polish cause so many sympathizersin Russia as at that time. I do not speak ofthe revolutionists; but even among the more moderateelements of Russian society it was thought, and wasopenly said, that it would be a benefit for Russia to havein Poland a friendly neighbour instead of a hostile subject.Poland will never lose her national character, it istoo strongly developed; she has, and will have, her ownliterature, her own art and industry. Russia can keepher in servitude only by means of sheer force andoppression—a condition of things which has hithertofavoured, and necessarily will favour, oppression in Russiaherself. Even the peaceful Slavophiles were of thatopinion; and while I was at school St. Petersburgsociety greeted with full approval the ‘dream’ which theSlavophile Iván Aksákoff had the courage to print in(163)his paper, ‘The Day.’ His dream was that the Russiantroops had evacuated Poland, and he discussed the excellentresults which would follow.

When the revolution of 1863 broke out, several Russianofficers refused to march against the Poles, whileothers openly took their part, and died either on thescaffold or on the battlefield. Funds for the insurrectionwere collected all over Russia—quite openly in Siberia—andin the Russian universities the students equippedthose of their comrades who were going to join therevolutionists.

Then, amidst this effervescence, the news spreadover Russia that during the night of January 10 bandsof insurgents had fallen upon the soldiers who werecantoned in the villages, and had murdered them intheir beds, although on the very eve of that day therelations of the troops with the Poles seemed to be quitefriendly. There was some exaggeration in the report,but unfortunately there was also truth in it, and the impressionit produced in Russia was most disastrous. Theold antipathies between the two nations, so akin in theirorigins but so different in their national characters, wokeup once more.

Gradually the bad feeling faded away to some extent.The gallant fight of the always brave sons of Poland,and the indomitable energy with which they resisted aformidable army, won sympathy for that heroic nation.But it became known that the Polish revolutionary committee,in its demand for the re-establishment of Polandwith its old frontiers, included the Little Russian orUkraínian provinces, the Greek Orthodox population ofwhich hated their Polish rulers, and more than once inthe course of the last three centuries slaughtered themwholesale. Moreover, Napoleon III. began to menaceRussia with a new war—a vain menace, which did moreharm to the Poles than all other things put together.And finally, the radical elements of Russia saw with(164)regret that now the purely nationalist elements of Polandhad got the upper hand, the revolutionary governmentdid not care in the least to grant the land to the serfs—ablunder of which the Russian government did notfail to take advantage, in order to appear in the positionof protector of the peasants against their Polishlandlords.

When the revolution broke out in Poland it wasgenerally believed in Russia that it would take a democratic,republican turn; and that the liberation of theserfs on a broad democratic basis would be the first thingwhich a revolutionary government, fighting for the independenceof the country, would accomplish.

The Emancipation Law, as it had been enacted atSt. Petersburg in 1861, provided ample opportunity forsuch a course of action. The personal obligations of theserfs towards their owners only came to an end onFebruary 19, 1863. Then a very slow process had to begone through in order to obtain a sort of agreementbetween the landlords and the serfs as to the size andthe locality of the land allotments which were to be givento the liberated serfs. The yearly payments for theseallotments (disproportionately high) were fixed by lawat so much per acre; but the peasants had also to payan additional sum for their homesteads, and of this sumthe maximum only had been fixed by the statute—ithaving been thought that the landlords might be inducedto forgo that additional payment, or to be satisfied withonly a part of it. As to the so-called ‘redemption’ ofthe land—in which case the Government undertook topay the landlord its full value in State bonds and thepeasants receiving the land had to pay in return, for forty-nineyears, six per cent. on that sum as interest andannuities—not only were these payments extravagantand ruinous for the peasants, but no term was even fixedfor the redemption: it was left to the will of the landlord;and in an immense number of cases the redemption arrangements(165)had not been entered upon twenty years afterthe emancipation.

Under such conditions a revolutionary governmenthad ample opportunity for immensely improving uponthe Russian law. It was bound to accomplish an actof justice towards the serfs—whose condition in Polandwas as bad as, and often worse than, in Russia itself—bygranting them better and more definite conditions ofemancipation. But nothing of the sort was done. Thepurely nationalist party and the aristocratic one havingobtained the upper hand in the movement, this all-absorbingmatter was left out of sight. It was thus easyfor the Russian Government to win the peasants to itsside.

Full advantage was taken of this fault when NicholasMilútin was sent to Poland by Alexander II. with themission to liberate the peasants in the way he intendeddoing it in Russia. ‘Go to Poland; apply there yourRed programme against the Polish landlords,’ said AlexanderII. to him; and Milútin, together with PrinceCherkássky and many others, really did their best totake the land from the landlords and give full-sizedallotments to the peasants.

I once met one of the Russian functionaries who wentto Poland under Milútin and Prince Cherkássky. ‘Wehad full liberty,’ he said to me, ‘to hold out the hand tothe peasants. My usual plan was to go to a village andconvoke the peasants’ assembly. “Tell me first,” I wouldsay, “what land do you hold at this moment?” Theywould point it out to me. “Is this all the land you everheld?” I would then ask. “Surely not,” they wouldreply with one voice; “years ago these meadows wereours; this wood was once in our possession; and thesefields belonged to us.” I would let them go on talkingit all over, and then would ask: “Now, which of you cancertify under oath that this land or that land has ever(166)been held by you?” Of course there would be nobodyforthcoming—it was all too long ago. At last, some oldman would be thrust out from the crowd, the rest saying:“He knows all about it, he can swear to it.” The oldman would begin a long story about what he knew in hisyouth, or had heard from his father, but I would cut thestory short.... “State on oath what you know to havebeen held by the gmina (the village community)—andthe land is yours.” And as soon as he took the oath—onecould trust that oath implicitly—I wrote out thepapers and declared to the assembly: “Now, this landis yours. You stand no longer under any obligationswhatever to your late masters: you are simply theirneighbours; all you will have to do is to pay the redemptiontax, so much every year, to the Government.Your homesteads go with the land: you get them free.”’

One can imagine the effect which such a policy producedupon the peasants. A cousin of mine, Petr Nikoláevich,a brother of the aide-de-camp whom I havementioned, was in Poland or in Lithuania with his regimentof uhlans of the Guard. The revolution was soserious that even the regiments of the Guard had beensent against it from St. Petersburg; and it is now knownthat when Mikhael Muravióff was ordered to Lithuania,and came to take leave of the Empress Marie, she said tohim: ‘Save at least Lithuania for Russia.’ Poland wasregarded as lost.

‘The armed bands of the revolutionists held the country,’my cousin said to me, ‘and we were powerless to defeatthem, or even to find them. Small bands over and overagain attacked our small detachments, and as they foughtadmirably, and knew the country and found support inthe population, they often had the best of the skirmishes.We were thus compelled to march in large columns only.We would cross a region, marching through the woodswithout finding any trace of the bands; but when wemarched back again we learned that bands had appeared(167)in our rear, that they had levied the patriotic tax inthe country, and if some peasant had rendered himselfuseful in any way to our troops we found him hangedon a tree by the revolutionary bands. So it went onfor months, with no chance of improvement, until Milútincame and freed the peasants, giving them the land.Then—all was over. The peasants sided with us; theyhelped us to lay hold of the bands, and the insurrectioncame to an end.’

I often spoke with the Polish exiles in Siberia uponthis subject, and some of them understood the fault thathad been committed. A revolution, from its very outset,must be an act of justice towards the ‘down-trodden andthe oppressed’—not a promise of making such reparationlater on—otherwise it is sure to fail. Unfortunately, itoften happens that the leaders are so much absorbed withmere questions of military tactics that they forget themain thing. To be revolutionists, and fail to prove tothe masses that a new era has really begun for them, isto ensure the certain ruin of the attempt.

The disastrous consequences for Poland of this revolutionare known; they belong to the domain of history.How many thousand men perished in battle, how manyhundreds were hanged, and how many scores of thousandswere transported to various provinces of Russia and Siberia,is not yet fully known. But even the official figureswhich were printed in Russia a few years ago show that inthe Lithuanian provinces alone—not to speak of Polandproper—that terrible man Mikhael Muravióff, to whomthe Russian Government has just erected a monument atWílno, hanged by his own authority 128 Poles, and transportedto Russia and Siberia 9,423 men and women.Officials lists, also published in Russia, give 18,672 menand women exiled to Siberia from Poland, of whom 10,407were sent to East Siberia. I remember that the Governor-Generalof East Siberia mentioned to me the same number,about 11,000 persons, sent to hard labour or exile in his(168)domains. I saw them there, and witnessed their sufferings.Altogether, something like 60,000 or 70,000 persons, ifnot more, were torn out of Poland and transported todifferent provinces of Russia, to the Urals, to Caucasus,and to Siberia.

For Russia the consequences were equally disastrous.The Polish insurrection was the definitive close of the reformperiod. True, the law of provincial self-government(Zémstvos) and the reform of the law courts were promulgatedin 1864 and 1866; but both were ready in 1862,and, moreover, at the last moment Alexander II. gavepreference to the scheme of self-government which hadbeen prepared by the reactionary party of Valúeff, asagainst the scheme which had been prepared by NicholasMilútin; and immediately after the promulgation of bothreforms their importance was reduced, and in some casesdestroyed, by the enactment of a number of by-laws.

Worst of all, public opinion itself took a further stepbackward. The hero of the hour was Katkóff, the leaderof the serfdom party, who appeared now as a Russian‘patriot,’ and carried with him most of the St. Petersburgand Moscow society. After that time, those who daredto speak of reforms were at once classed by Katkóff as‘traitors to Russia.’

The wave of reaction soon reached our remote province.One day in March a paper was brought by aspecial messenger from Irkútsk. It intimated to GeneralKúkel that he was at once to leave the post of Governorof Transbaikália and go to Irkútsk, waiting there forfurther orders, but without reassuming there the post ofcommander of the general staff.

Why? What did that mean? There was not a wordof explanation. Even the Governor-General, a personalfriend of Kúkel, had not run the risk of adding a singleword to the mysterious order. Did it mean that Kúkelwas going to be taken between two gendarmes to St.(169)Petersburg, and immured in that huge stone coffin, thefortress of St. Peter and St. Paul? All was possible.Later on we learned that such was indeed the intention;and so it would and have been done but for the energeticintervention of Count Nicholas Muravióff, ‘the conquerorof the Amúr,’ who personally implored the Tsar thatKúkel should be spared that fate.

Our parting with Kúkel and his charming family waslike a funeral. My heart was very heavy. I not onlylost in him a dear personal friend, but I felt also that thisparting was the burial of a whole epoch, full of long-cherishedhopes—‘full of illusions,’ as it became thefashion to say.

So it was. A new Governor came—a good-natured,‘leave-me-in-peace’ man. With renewed energy, seeingthat there was no time to lose, I completed our plans ofreform of the system of exile and municipal self-government.The Governor made a few objections here andthere for formality’s sake, but finally signed the schemes,and they were sent to headquarters. But at St. Petersburgreforms were no longer wanted. There our projectslie buried still, with hundreds of similar ones from allparts of Russia. A few ‘improved’ prisons, even moreterrible than the old unimproved ones, have been built inthe capitals, to be shown during prison congresses to distinguishedforeigners; but the remainder, and the wholesystem of exile, were found by George Kennan in 1886in exactly the same state in which I left them in 1862.Only now, after thirty-six years have passed away, theauthorities are introducing the reformed tribunals and aparody of self-government in Siberia, and committeeshave been nominated again to inquire into the system ofexile.

When Kennan came back to London from his journeyto Siberia he managed, on the very next day after hisarrival in London, to hunt up Stepniák, Tchaykóvsky,myself, and another Russian refugee. In the evening we(170)all met at Kennan’s room in a small hotel near CharingCross. We saw him for the first time, and having noexcess of confidence in enterprising Englishmen who hadpreviously undertaken to learn all about the Siberianprisons without even learning a word of Russian, webegan to cross-examine Kennan. To our astonishment,he not only spoke excellent Russian, but he knew everythingworth knowing about Siberia. One or another ofus had been acquainted with the greater proportion of allpolitical exiles in Siberia, and we besieged Kennan withquestions: ‘Where is So-and-So? Is he married? Ishe happy in his marriage? Does he still keep fresh inspirit?’ We were soon satisfied that Kennan knew allabout every one of them.

When this questioning was over, and we were preparingto leave, I asked, ‘Do you know, Mr. Kennan, if theyhave built a watchtower for the fire brigade at Chitá?’Stepniák looked at me, as if to reproach me for abusingKennan’s good-will. Kennan, however, began to laugh,and I soon joined him. And with much laughter wetossed each other questions and answers: ‘Why, do youknow about that?’ ‘And you too?’ ‘Built?’ ‘Yes,double estimates!’ and so on, till at last Stepniák interfered,and in his most severely good-natured way objected:‘Tell us at least what you are laughing about.’ WhereuponKennan told the story of that watchtower which hisreaders must remember. In 1859 the Chitá people wantedto build a watchtower, and collected the money for it;but their estimates had to be sent to the Ministry of theInterior. So they went to St. Petersburg; but when theycame back, two years later, duly approved, all the pricesfor timber and work had gone up in that rising youngtown. This was in 1862, while I was at Chitá. Newestimates were made and sent to St. Petersburg, and thestory was repeated for full twenty-five years, till at lastthe Chitá people, losing patience, put in their estimatesprices nearly double the real ones. These fantastic(171)estimates were solemnly considered at St. Petersburg,and approved. This is how Chitá got its watchtower.

It has often been said that Alexander II. committeda great fault, and brought about his own ruin, by raisingso many hopes which later on he did not satisfy. It isseen from what I have just said—and the story of littleChitá was the story of all Russia—that he did worse thanthat. It was not merely that he raised hopes. Yieldingfor a moment to the current of public opinion around him,he induced men all over Russia to set to work, to issuefrom the domain of mere hopes and dreams, and to touchwith the finger the reforms that were required. He madethem realize what could be done immediately, and howeasy it was to do it; he induced them to sacrifice whateverof their ideals could not be immediately realized,and to demand only what was practically possible at thetime. And when they had framed their ideas, and hadshaped them into laws which merely required his signatureto become realities, then he refused that signature.No reactionist could raise, or ever has raised, his voice toassert that what was left—the unreformed tribunals, theabsence of municipal government, or the system of exile—wasgood and was worth maintaining: no one has daredto say that. And yet, owing to the fear of doing anything,all was left as it was; for thirty-five years thosewho ventured to mention the necessity of a change weretreated as ‘suspects;’ and institutions unanimously recognizedas bad were permitted to continue in existenceonly that nothing more might be heard of that abhorredword ‘reform.’

IV

Seeing that there was nothing more to be done at Chitáin the way of reforms, I gladly accepted the offer to visitthe Amúr that same summer of 1863.

The immense domain on the left (northern) bank of(172)the Amúr, and along the Pacific Coast as far south asthe Bay of Peter the Great (Vladivostók), had beenannexed to Russia by Count Muravióff, almost againstthe will of the St. Petersburg authorities and certainlywithout much help from them. When he conceived thebold plan of taking possession of the great river whosesouthern position and fertile lands had for the last twohundred years always attracted the Siberians; and when,on the eve of the opening of Japan to Europe, he decidedto take for Russia a strong position on the Pacific coastand to join hands with the United States, he had almosteverybody against him at St. Petersburg: the Ministryof War, which had no men to dispose of, the Ministry ofFinance, which had no money for annexations, andespecially the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, always guidedby its pre-occupation of avoiding ‘diplomatic complications.’Muravióff had thus to act on his own responsibility,and to rely upon the scanty means which thinlypopulated Eastern Siberia could afford for this grandenterprise. Moreover, everything had to be done in ahurry, in order to oppose the ‘accomplished fact’ to theprotests of the West European diplomatists, which wouldcertainly be raised.

A nominal occupation would have been of no avail, andthe idea was to have on the whole length of the greatriver and of its southern tributary, the Usurí—full 2,500miles—a chain of self-supporting settlements, and thus toestablish a regular communication between Siberia andthe Pacific Coast. Men were wanted for these settlements,and as the scanty population of East Siberiacould not supply them, Muravióff did not recoil beforeany kind of means of getting men. Released convictswho, after having served their time, had become serfs tothe Imperial mines, were freed and organized as TransbaikálianCossacks, part of whom were settled along theAmúr and the Usurí, forming two new Cossack communities.Then Muravióff obtained the release of a(173)thousand hard-labour convicts (mostly robbers and murderers),who had to be settled as free men on the lowerAmúr. He came himself to see them off, and, as theywere going to leave, addressed them on the beach: ‘Go,my children, be free there, cultivate the land, make itRussian soil, start a new life,’ and so on. The Russianpeasant women nearly always follow, of their own freewill, their husbands if the latter happen to be sent tohard labour to Siberia, and many of the would-be colonistshad their families with them. But those who had noneventured to remark to Muravióff: ‘What is agriculturewithout a wife? We ought to be married.’ WhereuponMuravióff ordered to release all the hard-labour convictwomen of the place—about a hundred—and offered themthe choice of the man each of them would like to marryand to follow. However, there was little time to lose;the high water in the river was rapidly going down, therafts had to start, and Muravióff, asking the people tostand in pairs on the beach, blessed them, saying: ‘Imarry you, children. Be kind to each other; you men,don’t ill-treat your wives—and be happy!’

I saw these settlers some six years after that scene.Their villages were poor, the land they had been settledon having had to be cleared from under virgin forests; but,all taken, their settlements were not a failure, and ‘theMuravióff marriages’ were not less happy than marriagesare on the average. That excellent, intelligent man,Innocentus, bishop of the Amúr, recognized, later on,these marriages, as well as the children which were born,as quite legal, and had them inscribed on the Churchregisters.

Muravióff was less successful, though, with anotherbatch of men that he added to the population of EastSiberia. In his penury of men he had accepted a couple ofthousand soldiers from the punishment battalions. Theywere incorporated as ‘adopted sons’ in the families ofthe Cossacks, or were settled in joint households in the(174)villages. But ten or twenty years of barrack life underthe horrid discipline of Nicholas I.’s time surely was nota preparation for an agricultural life. The ‘sons’ desertedtheir adopted fathers and constituted the floating populationof the towns, living from hand to mouth on occasionaljobs, spending chiefly in drink what they earned, andthen again living as birds in the sky in the expectationof another job turning up.

The motley crowd of Transbaikálian Cossacks, of ex-convicts,and ‘sons,’ who were settled in a hurry andoften in a haphazard way along the banks of the Amúr,certainly did not attain prosperity, especially in thelower parts of the river and on the Usurí, where everysquare yard had often to be won upon a virgin sub-tropicalforest, and deluges of rain brought by the monsoonsin July, inundations on a gigantic scale, millions ofmigrating birds, and the like continually destroyed thecrops, finally bringing whole populations to sheer despairand apathy.

Considerable supplies of salt, flour, cured meat, and soon had thus to be shipped every year to support boththe regular troops and the settlements on the lower Amúr,and for that purpose some hundred and fifty barges usedto be built and loaded at Chitá, and floated with theearly spring floods down the Ingodá, the Shílka, and theAmúr. The whole flotilla was divided into detachmentsof from twenty to thirty barges, which were placed underthe orders of a number of Cossack and civil-serviceofficers. Most of them did not know much about navigation,but they could be trusted, at least, not to steal theprovisions and then report them as lost. I was nominatedassistant to the chief of all that flotilla—let mename him, Major Maróvsky.

My first experiences in my new capacity of navigatorwere all but successful. It so happened that I had toproceed with a few barges as rapidly as possible to acertain point on the Amúr, and there to hand over my(175)vessels. For that purpose I had to hire men exactlyfrom among those ‘sons’ whom I have already mentioned.None of them had ever had any experience in river navigation,nor had I. On the morning of our start my crewhad to be collected from the public-houses of the place,most of them being so drunk at that early hour that theyhad to be bathed in the river to bring them back to theirsenses. When we were afloat, I had to teach them everythingthat had to be done. Still, things went pretty wellduring the day; the barges, carried along by a swiftcurrent, floated down the river, and my crew, inexperiencedthough they were, had no interest in throwingtheir vessels upon the shore—that would have requiredspecial exertion. But when dusk came, and our hugeheavily laden fifty-ton barges had to be brought to theshore and fastened to it for the night, one of the barges,which was far ahead of the one upon which I was, wasstopped only when it was fast upon a rock, at the foot ofa tremendously high inaccessible cliff. There it stood immovable,while the level of the river, temporarily swollenby rains, was rapidly going down. My ten men evidentlycould not move it. So I rowed down to the next villageto ask assistance from the Cossacks, and at the sametime despatched a messenger to a friend—a Cossackofficer who stayed some twenty miles away and who hadexperience in such things.

The morning came; a hundred Cossacks—men andwomen—had come to my aid, but there was no meanswhatever to connect the barge with the shore, in order tounload it—so deep was the water under the cliff. And,as soon as we attempted to push it off the rock, its bottomwas broken in and water freely entered it, sweeping awaythe flour and the salt of the cargo. To my great horror,I perceived lots of small fish entering through the holeand freely swimming about in the barge—and I stoodthere helpless, not knowing what to do next. There is avery simple and effective remedy for such emergencies.(176)A sack of flour is thrust into the hole, and it soon takesits shape, while the outer crust of paste which is formedin the sack prevents water from penetrating through theflour; but none of us knew anything about it. Happilyenough, a few minutes later a barge was signalled comingdown the river towards us. The appearance of the swanwho carried Lohengrin was not greeted with more enthusiasmby the despairing Elsa than that clumsy vesselwas greeted by me. The haze which covered the beautifulShílka at that early hour in the morning added even moreto the poetry of the vision. It was my friend the Cossackofficer, who had realized by my description that nohuman force could drag my barge off the rock—that itwas lost—and taking an empty barge which by chancewas at hand, came with it to place upon it the cargo ofmy doomed craft. Now the hole was filled up, thewater was pumped out, and the cargo was transferred tothe new barge, which was fastened alongside mine; andnext morning I could continue my journey. This littleexperience was of great profit to me, and I soon reachedmy destination on the Amúr without further adventuresworth mentioning. Every night we found out somestretch of steep but relatively low shore where to stopwith the barges for the night, and our fires were soonlighted on the bank of the swift and clear river, amidstmost beautiful mountain scenery. In daytime, one couldhardly imagine a more pleasant journey than on boarda barge which leisurely floats down, without any of thenoises of a steamer—one or two strokes being occasionallygiven with its immense stern rudder to keep it in themain current. For the lover of nature, the lower part ofthe Shílka and the upper part of the Amúr, where onesees a most beautiful, wide, and swift river flowing amidstmountains rising in steep wooded cliffs a couple of thousandfeet above the water, offers one of the most delightfulscenes in the world. But on that very account communicationalong the shore, on horseback, along a narrow trail,(177)is extremely difficult. I learned this that same autumnat my own expense. In East Siberia the seven laststations along the Shílka (about 120 miles) were knownas the Seven Mortal Sins. This stretch of the Trans-Siberianrailway—if it is ever built—will cost unimaginablesums of money: much more than the stretch of theCanadian Pacific line in the Rocky Mountains, in theCanyon of the Fraser River, has cost.

After I had delivered my barges, I made about athousand miles down the Amúr in one of the post boatswhich are used on the river. The boat is covered with alight shed in its back part, and has on its stem a boxfilled with earth upon which a fire is kept to cook thefood. My crew consisted of three men. We had tomake haste, and therefore used to row in turns all daylong, while at night the boat was left to float with thecurrent, and I kept the watch for three or four hours tomaintain the boat in the midst of the river and to preventit from being dragged into some side branch.These watches—the full moon shining above, and thedark hills reflected in the river—were beautiful beyonddescription. My rowers were taken from the same‘sons;’ they were three tramps who had the reputationof being incorrigible thieves and robbers—and I carriedwith me a heavy sack full of bank-notes, silver, andcopper. In Western Europe such a journey on a lonelyriver would have been considered risky—not so in EastSiberia; I made it without even having so much as anold pistol, and I found my three tramps excellent company.Only as we approached Blagovéschensk theybecame restless. ‘Khánshina’ (the Chinese brandy) ‘ischeap there,’ they reasoned with deep sighs. ‘We aresure to get into trouble! It’s cheap, and it knocks youover in no time from want of being used to it!’ ... Ioffered to leave the money which was due to them with afriend, who would see them off with the first steamer.(178)‘That would not help us,’ they replied mournfully;‘somebody will offer a glass ... it’s cheap, ... and aglass knocks you over!’ they persisted in saying. Theywere really perplexed, and when, a few months later, Ireturned through the town I learned that one of ‘mysons’—as people called them in town—had really gotinto trouble. When he had sold the last pair of boots toget the poisonous drink, he had made some theft andwas locked up. My friend finally obtained his releaseand shipped him back.

Only those who have seen the Amúr, or know theMississippi or the Yang-tse-kiang, can imagine what animmense river the Amúr becomes after it has joined theSungarí and can realize what tremendous waves roll upits bed if the weather is stormy. When the rainy season,due to the monsoons, comes in July, the Sungarí, theUsurí, and the Amúr are swollen by unimaginablequantities of water; thousands of low islands, usuallycovered with willow thickets, are inundated or torn away,and the width of the river attains in places two, three,and even five miles; water rushes into hundreds ofbranches and lakes which spread in the lowlands alongthe main channel; and when a fresh wind blows from aneastern quarter, against the current, tremendous waves,higher than those which one sees in the estuary of theSt. Lawrence, roll up the main channel as well as up itsbranches. Still worse is it when a typhoon blows fromthe Chinese Sea and spreads over the Amúr region.

We experienced such a typhoon. I was then onboard a large decked boat, with Major Maróvsky, whomI had joined at Blagovéschensk. He had well providedhis boat with sails, which permitted us to sail close to thewind, and when the storm began we managed, nevertheless,to bring our boat on the sheltered side of the riverand to find refuge in some small tributary. There westayed for two days while the storm raged with suchfury that when I ventured for a few hundred yards into(179)the surrounding forest, I had to retreat on account of thenumber of immense trees which the wind was blowingdown round me. We began to feel very uneasy for ourbarges. It was evident that if they had been afloat thismorning, they never would have been able to reach thesheltered side of the river, but must have been driven bythe storm to the bank exposed to the full rage of thewind, and there they must have been destroyed. Adisaster was almost certain.

We sailed out as soon as the main fury of the stormhad abated. We knew that we must soon overtaketwo detachments of barges; but we sailed one day,two days, and there was no trace of them. My friendMaróvsky lost both sleep and appetite, and looked as ifhe had just had a serious illness. He sat whole dayson the deck, motionless, murmuring: ‘All is lost, allis lost!’ The villages are few and rare in this partof the Amúr, and nobody could give us any information.A new storm came on, and when we reached at last avillage, we learned that no barges had passed by it, andthat quantities of wreck had been seen floating downthe river during the previous day. It was evident thatat least forty barges, which carried a cargo of about2,000 tons, must have perished. It meant a certainfamine next spring on the lower Amúr if no supplieswere brought in time. We were late in the season,navigation would soon be closed, and there was notelegraph yet along the river.

We held a council and decided that Maróvsky shouldsail as quickly as possible to the mouth of the Amúr.Some purchases of grain might perhaps be made in Japanbefore the close of the navigation. Meanwhile I was togo with all possible speed up the river, to determine thelosses, and do my best to cover the two thousand milesof the Amúr and the Shílka—in boats, on horseback, oron board steamer if I met one. The sooner I could warnthe Chitá authorities, and despatch any amount of provisions(180)available, the better it would be. Perhaps part ofthem would reach this same autumn the upper Amúr,whence it would be easier to ship them in the early springto the lowlands. Even if a few weeks or only days couldbe won, it might make an immense difference in case ofa famine.

I began my two thousand miles’ journey in a rowingboat, changing rowers each twenty miles or so, at eachvillage. It was very slow progress, but there might beno steamer coming up the river for a fortnight, and inthe meantime I could reach the spots where the bargeswere wrecked, and see if any of the provisions had beensaved. Then, at the mouth of the Usurí (Khabaróvsk)I might find a steamer. The boats which I took in thevillages were miserable, and the weather very stormy.We kept evidently along the shore, but we had to crosssome branches of the Amúr of great width, and the waves,driven by the high wind, threatened continually to swampour little craft. One day we had to cross a branch of theAmúr nearly half a mile wide. Chopped waves rose likemountains as they rolled up that branch. My rowers,two peasants, were seized with terror; their faces werewhite as paper; their blue lips trembled, they murmuredprayers. Only a boy of fifteen, who held therudder, calmly kept a watchful eye upon the waves. Heglided between them as they seemed to sink around usfor a moment; but when he saw them rising to a menacingheight in front of us he gave a slight turn to the boatand steadied it across the waves. The boat shippedwater from each wave, and I threw it out with an oldladle, noting at times that it accumulated more rapidlythan I could get rid of it. There was a moment whenthe boat shipped two such big waves that, on a signgiven to me by one of the trembling rowers, I unfastenedthe heavy sackful of copper and silver that I carriedacross my shoulder.... For several days in successionwe had such crossings. I never forced the men to cross,(181)but they themselves, knowing why I had to hurry, woulddecide at a given moment that an attempt must be made.‘There are not seven deaths in one’s life, and one cannotbe avoided,’ they would say, and, signing themselveswith the cross, would seize the oars and pull over.

I soon reached the places where the main destructionof our barges took place. Forty-four barges hadbeen destroyed by the storm. Unloading had been impossible,and very little of the cargo had been saved.Two thousand tons of flour had perished in the waves.With this message I continued my journey.

A few days later a steamer slowly creeping up theriver overtook me, and when I boarded her the passengerstold me that the captain had drunk so much that he wasseized with delirium and jumped overboard. He wassaved, though, and was now lying ill in his cabin. Theyasked me to take the command of the steamer, and I hadto accept it; but soon I realized, to my great astonishment,that everything went on by itself in such an excellentroutine way that, though I paraded all day onthe bridge, I had almost nothing to do. Apart from afew minutes of real responsibility when the steamer hadto be brought to the landing-places, where we took woodfor fuel, and saying a few words now and then for encouragingthe stokers to start as soon as dawn permittedus faintly to distinguish the outlines of the shores, everythingwent on by itself, requiring but little interferenceof mine. A pilot who would have been able to interpretthe map would have managed as well.

Travelling by steamer and a great deal on horsebackI reached at last Transbaikália. The idea of a faminethat might break out next spring on the lower Amúroppressed me all the time. I found that the smallsteamer on board of which I was did not progressup the swift Shílka rapidly enough, and in order togain some twenty hours, or even less, I abandoned itand rode with a Cossack a couple of hundred miles up(182)the Argúñ, along one of the wildest mountain tracks inSiberia, stopping to light our camp fire only after midnightwould have overtaken us in the woods. Even theten or twenty hours that I might gain by this exertionhad not to be despised, because every day brought usnearer to the close of navigation: at nights, ice wasalready forming on the river. At last I met the Governorof Transbaikdália, and my friend, Colonel Pedashénko,on the Shílka, at the convict settlement of Kará, and thelatter took in hand the care of shipping immediately allavailable provisions. As to me, I left immediately toreport all about the matter at Irkútsk.

People at Irkútsk wondered that I had managed tomake this long journey so rapidly, but I was quite wornout. However, youth quickly recovers its strength, andI recovered mine by sleeping for some time such anumber of hours every day that I should be ashamedto say how many.

‘Have you taken some rest?’ the Governor-Generalasked me a week or so after my arrival. ‘Could youstart to-morrow for St. Petersburg, as a courier, to reportthere yourself upon the loss of the barges?’

It meant to cover in twenty days—not one day more—anotherdistance of 3,200 miles between Irkútsk andNíjni-Nóvgorod, where I could take the railway to St.Petersburg; to gallop day and night in post-carts whichhad to be changed at every station, because no carriagewould stand such a journey full speed over the ruts of theroads frozen at the end of the autumn. But to see mybrother Alexander was too great an attraction for me notto accept the offer, and I started the next night. WhenI reached the lowlands of West Siberia and the Urals thejourney really became a torture. There were days whenthe wheels of the carts would be broken over the frozenruts at every successive station. The rivers were freezing,and I had to cross the Ob in a boat amidst the floating ice,which menaced at every moment to crush our small craft.(183)When I reached the Tom river, on which the ice hadonly stopped floating during the preceding night, thepeasants refused for some time to take me over, askingme to give them ‘a receipt.’

‘What sort of receipt do you want?’

‘Well, you write on a paper: “I, undersigned, herebytestify that I was drowned by the will of God and by nofault of the peasants,” and you give us that paper.’

‘With pleasure, on the other shore.’

At last they took me over. A boy—a brave, brightboy whom I had selected in the crowd—opened the procession,testing the strength of the ice with a pole; I followedhim, carrying my despatch-box on my shoulders,and we two were attached to long reins which fivepeasants held, following us at a distance—one of themcarrying a bundle of straw, to be thrown on the ice if itshould not seem strong enough.

At last I reached Moscow, where my brother met me atthe station, and we proceeded at once to St. Petersburg.

Youth is a grand thing. After such a journey, whichlasted twenty-four days and nights, when I came, early inthe morning, to St. Petersburg, I went the same day todeliver my despatches, and did not fail also to call upon anaunt—or, rather, upon a cousin—who resided at St. Petersburg.She was radiant. ‘We have a dancing party to-night.Will you come?’ she said. Of course I would!And not only come, but dance until an early hour of themorning.

When I came to St. Petersburg and saw the authorities,I understood why I had been sent to make the report.Nobody would believe the possibility of such a destructionof the barges. ‘Have you been on the spot? Did you seethe destruction with your own eyes? Are you perfectlysure that “they” have not simply stolen the provisionsand shown you the wreck of some barges?’ Such werethe questions I had to answer.

(184)

The high functionaries who stood at the head of Siberianaffairs at St. Petersburg were simply charming in theirinnocent ignorance of Siberia. ‘Mais, mon cher,’ one ofthem said to me—he always spoke French—-‘how is itpossible that forty barges should be destroyed on theNevá without anyone rushing to help save them?’ ‘TheNevá,’ I exclaimed; ‘put three, four Nevás side by side,and you will have the lower Amúr!’

‘Is it really as big as that?’ And two minutes laterhe was chatting, in excellent French, about all sorts ofthings. ‘When did you last see Schwartz, the painter?Is not his “John the Terrible” a wonderful picture?Do you know for what reason Kúkel was going to bearrested? Do you know that Chernyshévsky is arrested?He is now in the fortress.’

‘What for? What has he done?’ I asked.

‘Nothing particular; nothing! But, mon cher, youknow, State considerations! Such a clever man, awfullyclever! And such an influence he has upon the youth.You understand that a Government cannot tolerate that:that’s impossible! intolérable, mon cher, dans un État bienordonné!’

Count Ignátieff made no such questions; he knew theAmúr very well, and he knew St. Petersburg too. Amidstall sorts of jokes, and witty remarks about Siberia whichhe made with an astounding vivacity, he dropped to me:‘It is a very lucky thing that you were there on the spot,and saw the wrecks. And “they” were clever to sendyou with the report! Well done! At first, nobodywanted to believe about the barges. Some new swindling,it was thought. But now people say that you were wellknown as a page, and you have only been a few monthsin Siberia; so you would not shelter the people there ifit were swindling. They trust in you.’

The Minister of War, Dmítri Milútin, was the onlyman in the high administration of St. Petersburg whotook the matter seriously. He asked me many questions:(185)all to the point. He mastered the subject at once,and all our conversation was in short sentences, withouthurry, but without any waste of words. ‘The coastsettlements to be supplied from the sea, you mean?The remainder only from Chitá? Quite right. But ifa storm happens next year, will there be the same destructiononce more?’ ‘No, if there are two small tugsto convoy the barges.’ ‘Will it do?’ ‘Yes, with onetug the loss would not have been half so heavy.’ ‘Veryprobably. Write to me, please; state all you have said,quite plainly; no formalities.’

V

I did not stay long at St. Petersburg, and returned toIrkútsk the same winter. My brother was going to joinme there in a few months; he was accepted as an officerof the Irkútsk Cossacks.

Travelling across Siberia in the winter is supposed tobe a terrible experience; but, all things considered, it ison the whole more comfortable than at any other seasonof the year. The snow-covered roads are excellent, and,although the cold is fearful, one can stand it well enough.Lying full length in the sledge—as everyone does inSiberia—wrapped in fur blankets, fur inside and fur outside,one does not suffer much from the cold, even whenthe temperature is forty or sixty Fahrenheit degreesbelow zero. Travelling in courier fashion—that is, rapidlychanging horses at each station and stopping only oncea day for one hour to take a meal—I reached Irkútsknineteen days after I had left St. Petersburg. Twohundred miles a day is the normal speed in such cases,and I remember having covered the last 660 miles beforeIrkútsk in seventy hours. The frost was not severe then,the roads were in an excellent condition, the drivers werekept in good spirits by a free allowance of silver coins,and the team of three small and light horses seemed to(186)enjoy running swiftly across hill and vale, and acrossrivers frozen as hard as steel, amidst forests glistening intheir silver attire in the rays of the sun.

I was now nominated attaché to the Governor-Generalof East Siberia for Cossack affairs, and had toreside at Irkútsk; but there was nothing particular to do.To let everything go on, according to the establishedroutine, with no more reference to changes, such was thewatchword that came now from St. Petersburg. I thereforegladly accepted the proposal to undertake geographicalexploration in Manchuria.

If one casts a glance on a map of Asia one sees thatthe Russian frontier, which runs in Siberia, broadlyspeaking, along the fiftieth degree of latitude, suddenlybends in Transbaikália to the north. It follows for threehundred miles the Argúñ river; then, on reaching theAmúr, it turns south-eastwards—the town of Blagovéschensk,which was the capital of the Amúr land, beingsituated again in about the same latitude of fifty degrees.Between the south-eastern corner of Transbaikália(New Tsurukháitu) and Blagovéschensk on the Amúr,the distance west to east is only five hundred miles; butalong the Argúñ and the Amúr it is over a thousandmiles, and moreover communication along the Argúñ,which is not navigable, is extremely difficult. In itslower parts there is nothing but a most wild mountaintrack.

Transbaikália is very rich in cattle, and the Cossackswho occupy its south-eastern corner, and are wealthycattle-breeders, wanted to establish a direct communicationwith the middle Amúr, which would be a goodmarket for their cattle. They used to trade with theMongols, and they had heard from them that it wouldnot be difficult to reach the Amúr, travelling eastwardsacross the Great Khingán. Going straight towards theeast, they were told, one would fall in with an oldChinese route which crosses the Khingán and leads to(187)the Manchurian town of Merghén (on the Nónni river,a tributary to the Sungarí), whence an excellent roadleads to the middle Amúr.

I was offered the leadership of a trading caravanwhich the Cossacks intended to organize in order to findthat route, and I accepted it with enthusiasm. NoEuropean had ever visited that region, and a Russiantopographer who went that way a few years before waskilled. Only two Jesuits, in the time of the emperorKan-si, had penetrated from the south as far as Merghén,and had determined its latitude. All the immense regionto the north of it, five hundred miles wide and fivehundred miles deep, was totally, absolutely unknown. Iconsulted all the available sources about this region.Nobody, not even the Chinese geographers, knew anythingabout it. Besides, the very fact of connecting themiddle Amúr with Transbaikália had its importance;Tsurukháitu is now going to be the head of the Trans-Manchuriarailway. We were thus the pioneers of thatgreat enterprise.

There was, however, one difficulty. The treaty withChina granted to the Russians free trade with the ‘Empireof China and Mongolia.’ Manchuria was not mentionedin it, and could as well be excluded as included in thetreaty. The Chinese frontier authorities interpreted itone way, and the Russians the other way. Moreover,only trade being mentioned, an officer would not beallowed to enter Manchuria. I had thus to go as atrader, and accordingly I bought at Irkútsk various goods,and went disguised as a merchant. The Governor-Generaldelivered me a passport, ‘To the Irkútsk secondguild merchant Petr Alexéiev and his companions,’ andhe warned me that if the Chinese authorities arrestedme and took me to Pekin, and thence across the Góbito the Russian frontier—in a cage on a camel’s back wastheir way of conveying prisoners across Mongolia—Imust not betray him by naming myself. I accepted,(188)of course, all the conditions, the temptation to visit acountry which no European had ever seen being toogreat for an explorer.

It would not have been easy to conceal my identitywhile I was in Transbaikália. The Cossacks are anextremely inquisitive sort of people—real Mongols—andas soon as a stranger comes to one of their villages, whiletreating him with the greatest hospitality, the master ofthe house submits the new-comer to a formal interrogatory.

‘A tedious journey, I suppose,’ he begins; ‘a longway from Chitá, is it not? And then, perhaps, longerstill for one who comes from some place beyond Chitá?Maybe from Irkútsk? Trading there, I believe? Manytradesmen come this way. You are going also toNerchínsk, I should say?—Yes, people are often marriedat your age; and you, too, must have left a family, Isuppose? Many children? Not all boys, I shouldsay?’ And so on for quite half an hour.

The local commander of the Cossacks, CaptainBuxhövden, knew his people, and consequently wehad taken our precautions. At Chitá and at Irkútskwe often had had amateur theatricals, playing in preferencedramas of Ostróvsky, in which the scene ofaction is nearly always amongst the merchant classes.I played several times in different dramas, and foundsuch great pleasure in acting that I even wrote on oneoccasion to my brother an enthusiastic letter confessingto him my passionate desire to abandon my militarycareer and to go on the stage. I played mostly youngmerchants, and had so well got hold of their ways oftalking and gesticulating, and tea drinking from thesaucer—I knew these ways since my Nikólskoye experiences—thatnow I had a good opportunity to act itall out in reality for useful purposes.

‘Take your seat, Petr Alexéievich,’ Captain Buxhövdenwould say to me, when the boiling tea-urn,throwing out clouds of steam, was placed on the table.

(189)

‘Thank you; we may stay here’, I would reply,sitting on the edge of a chair at a distance, and beginningto drink my tea in true Moscow-merchant fashion.Buxhövden meanwhile nearly exploded with laughteras I blew upon my saucer with staring eyes, and bitoff in a special way microscopic particles from a smalllump of sugar which was to serve for half a dozen cups.

We knew that the Cossacks would soon make outthe truth about me, but the important thing was to wina few days only, and to cross the frontier while myidentity was not yet discovered. I must have playedmy part pretty well, as the Cossacks treated me as asmall merchant. In one village an old woman beckonedme in the passage and asked me: ‘Are there morepeople coming behind you on the road, my dear?’‘None, grandmother, that we heard of.’ ‘They saida prince, Rapótsky, was going to come. Is he coming?’

‘Oh, I see. You are right, grandmother. HisHighness intended to go, too, from Irkútsk. But howcan he? Such a journey! Not suitable for them. Sothey remained where they were.’

‘Of course, how can he?’

In short, we crossed the frontier unmolested. Wewere eleven Cossacks, one Tungus, and myself, all onhorseback. We had with us about forty horses for saleand two carts, one of which, two-wheeled, belonged tome, and contained the cloth, the velveteen, the goldbraid, and so on, which I had taken in my capacity ofmerchant. I attended to it and to my horses entirelymyself, while we chose one of the Cossacks to be the‘elder’ of our caravan. He had to manage all thediplomatic talk with the Chinese authorities. All Cossacksspoke Mongolian, and the Tungus understoodManchurian. The Cossacks of the caravan knew, ofcourse, who I was—one of them knew me at Irkútsk—butthey never betrayed that knowledge, understandingthat the success of the expedition depended upon(190)it. I wore a long blue cotton dress, like the others,and the Chinese paid no attention to me, so that Icould make, unnoticed by them, the compass surveyof the route. The first day only, when all sorts ofChinese soldiers hung about us in the hope of gettinga glass of whisky, I had often to cast only a furtiveglance at my compass and to inscribe the bearings andthe distances in my pocket, without taking my paperout. We had with us no arms whatever. Only ourTungus, who was going to marry, had taken his matchlockgun and used it to hunt for fallow deer, bringingus meat for supper, and making a provision of furs withwhich to pay for his future wife.

When there was no more whisky to be obtained fromus the Chinese soldiers left us alone. So we wentstraight eastwards, finding our way as best we couldacross hill and dale, and after a four or five days’ marchwe really fell in with the Chinese track which had totake us across the Khingán to Merghén.

To our astonishment we discovered that the crossingof the great ridge, which looked so black and terribleon the maps, was most easy. We overtook on the roadan old Chinese functionary, miserably wretched, whotravelled in the same direction in a two-wheeled cart.For the last two days the road was going up hill, andthe country bore testimony to its high altitude. Theground became marshy, and the road was muddy; thegrass was very poor, and the trees grew thin, undeveloped,often crippled and covered with lichens. Mountains devoidof forests rose right and left, and we thought alreadyof the difficulties we should experience in crossing theridge, when we saw the old Chinese functionary alightingfrom his cart before an obó—that is, before a heapmade of stones and branches of trees to which bundles ofhorsehair and small rags had been attached. He drewseveral hairs out of the mane of his horse, and attachedthem to the branches.

(191)

‘What is that?’ we asked.

‘The obó—the waters before us flow now to the Amúr.’

‘Is that all of the Khingán?’

‘Yes! No mountains more to cross as far as theAmúr: only hills!’

Quite a commotion spread in our caravan. ‘Therivers flow to the Amúr, the Amúr!’ shouted the Cossacksto each other. All their lives they had heard theold Cossacks talking about the great river where the vinegrows wild, where the prairies extend for hundreds ofmiles and could give wealth to millions of men; then,after the Amúr was annexed to Russia, they heard of thelong journey to it, the difficulties of the first settlers, andthe prosperity of their relatives settled on the upper Amúr;and now we had found the short way to it! We had beforeus a steep slope upon which the road went downwards inzig-zags leading to a small river, which pierced its waythrough a chopped sea of mountains, and led to the Amúr.No more obstacles lay between us and the great river.A traveller will imagine my delight at this unexpectedgeographical discovery. As to the Cossacks, they hastenedto dismount and to attach in their turn bundles of hairtaken from their horses to the branches thrown on theobó. The Siberians altogether have a sort of awe for thegods of the heathen. They don’t think much of them,but these gods, they say, are wicked creatures, bent onmischief, and it is never good to be on bad terms withthem. It is far better to bribe them with small tokensof respect.

‘Look, here is a strange tree: it must be an oak,’ theyexclaimed, as we went down the steep slope. The oakdoes not grow, indeed, in Siberia. None is found untilthe eastern slope of the high plateau has been reached.‘Look, nut trees!’ they exclaimed next. ‘And whattree is that?’ they said, seeing a lime tree, or some othertree which does not grow in Russia either, but which Iknew as part of the Manchurian flora. The northerners,(192)who for centuries had dreamed of warmer lands, and nowsaw them, were in delight. Lying on the ground coveredwith rich grass, they caressed it with their eyes—theywould have kissed it. Now they burned with the desireto reach the Amúr as soon as possible. When, a fortnightlater, we stopped at our last camp fire within twentymiles from the river, they grew impatient like children.They began to saddle their horses shortly after midnight,and hurried me to start long before daybreak; and whenat last we caught from an eminence a sight of the mightystream, the eyes of these unimpressionable Siberians,generally devoid of poetical feeling, gleamed with poeticalardour as they looked upon the blue waters of the majesticAmúr. It was evident that, sooner or later—with or withoutthe support, or even against the wish, of the RussianGovernment—both banks of this river, a desert now butrich in possibilities, as well as the immense unpopulatedstretches of North Manchuria, would be invaded by Russiansettlers, just as the shores of the Mississippi werecolonized by the Canadian voyageurs.

In the meantime the old half-blind Chinese functionarywith whom we had crossed the Khingán, havingdonned his blue coat and official hat with a glass buttonon its top, declared to us next morning that he would notlet us go further. Our ‘elder’ had received him and hisclerk in our tent, and the old man, repeating what theclerk whispered to him, raised all sorts of objections toour further progress. He wanted us to camp on the spotwhile he would send our pass to Pekin to get orders,which we absolutely refused to do. Then he sought toquarrel with our passport.

‘What sort of a passport is that?’ he said, lookingwith disdain into our pass, which was written in a fewlines on a plain sheet of foolscap paper, in Russian andMongolian, and had a simple sealing-wax seal. ‘Youmay have written it yourselves and sealed it with a copper,’he remarked, ‘Look at my pass: this is worth something,’(193)and he unrolled before us a sheet of paper, two feet long,covered with Chinese characters.

I sat quietly aside during this conference, packing somethingin my box, when a sheet of the ‘Moscow Gazette’fell under my hand. The Gazette, being the property ofthe Moscow University, had an eagle printed on its title-heading.‘Show him this,’ I said to our elder. He unfoldedthe large sheet of print and pointed out the eagle.‘That pass was to show to you,’ our elder said, ‘but thisis what we have for ourselves.’

‘Why, is it all written about you?’ the old man askedwith terror.

‘All about us,’ our elder replied, without even a twinklein his eyes.

The old man—a true functionary—looked quite dumbfoundedat seeing such a profusion of writing. He examinedevery one of us, nodding with his head. But theclerk was still whispering something to his chief, whofinally declared that he would not let us continue thejourney.

‘Enough of talking,’ I said to the elder; ‘give theorder to saddle the horses.’ The Cossacks were of thesame opinion, and in no time our caravan started, biddinggood-bye to the old functionary and promising him to reportthat short of resorting to violence—which he was notable to do—he had done all in his power to prevent usfrom entering Manchuria, and that it was our fault if wewent nevertheless.

A few days later we were at Merghén, where wetraded a little, and soon reached the Chinese town ofAigún, on the right bank of the Amúr, and the Russiantown of Blagovéschensk, on the left bank. We had discoveredthe direct route and many interesting things besides:the border-ridge character of the Great Khinghán,the ease with which it can be crossed, the tertiary volcanoesof the Uyún Kholdontsí region, which had so longbeen a puzzle in geographical literature, and so on. I(194)cannot say that I was a sharp tradesman, for at MerghénI persisted (in broken Chinese) in asking thirty-five roublesfor a watch when the Chinese buyer had already offeredme forty-five; but the Cossacks traded all right. Theysold very well all their horses, and when my horses, mygoods, and the rest were sold by the Cossacks it appearedthat the expedition had cost the government the modestsum of twenty-two roubles—a little over two pounds.

VI

All this summer I travelled on the Amúr. I went asfar as its mouth, or rather its estuary—Nikoláevsk—tojoin the Governor-General, whom I accompanied in asteamer up the Usurí; and after that, in the autumn, Imade a still more interesting journey up the Sungarí,to the very heart of Manchuria, as far as Ghirín (orKirín, according to the southern pronunciation).

Many rivers in Asia are formed by the junction oftwo equally important streams, so that it is difficult forthe geographer to say which of the two is the main oneand which is a tributary. The Ingodá and the Onónjoin to make the Shílka; the Shílka and the Argúñ jointo make the Amúr; and the Amúr joins the Sungarí toform that mighty stream which flows north-eastwardsand enters the Pacific in the inhospitable latitudes of theTartar Strait.

Up to the year 1864 the great river of Manchuriaremained very little known. All information about itdated from the times of the Jesuits, and that was scanty.Now that a revival in the exploration of Mongolia andManchuria was going to take place, and the fear ofChina which had hitherto been entertained in Russiaappeared to be exaggerated, all of us younger peoplepressed upon the Governor-General the necessity of exploringthe Sungarí. To have next door to the Amúran immense region almost as little known as an African(195)desert seemed to us provoking. Quite unexpectedly,General Korsákoff decided that same autumn to send asteamer up the Sungarí, under the pretext of carryingsome message of friendship to the Governor-General ofthe Ghirín province. A Russian consul from Urgá hadto take the message. A doctor, an astronomer, twotopographers, and myself, all placed under the commandof a Colonel Chernyáeff, had to take part in the expeditionon board a tiny steamer, Usuri, which had in towa barge with coal. Twenty-five soldiers, whose rifleswere carefully concealed in the coal, went with us on thebarge.

All was organized very hurriedly, and there was noaccommodation on the small steamer to receive such anumerous company; but we were all full of enthusiasm,and huddled as best we could in the tiny cabins. Oneof us had to sleep on a table, and when we started wefound that there were even no knives and forks for allof us—not to speak of other necessaries. One of us resortedto his penknife at dinner time, and my Chineseknife with two ivory sticks was a welcome addition toour equipment.

It was not an easy task to go up the Sungarí. Thegreat river, in its lower parts, where it flows throughthe same lowlands as the Amúr, is very shallow, and,although our steamer had only three feet draught, weoften could not find a channel deep enough to passthrough. There were days when we advanced but someforty miles, and scraped many times the sandy bottomof the river with our keel; over and over again a rowingboat was sent out to find the necessary depth. But ouryoung captain had made up his mind that he wouldreach Ghirín this autumn, and we progressed every day.As we advanced higher and higher up we found the rivermore and more beautiful, and more and more easy fornavigation; and when we had passed the sandy desertsat its junction with its sister-river, the Nónni, navigation(196)became easy and pleasant. In a few weeks we reachedthe capital of this province of Manchuria. An excellentmap of the river was made by the topographers.

There was no time, unfortunately, to spare, and sowe very seldom landed in any village or town. Thevillages are few and rare along the banks of the river,and in its lower parts we found only lowlands, whichare inundated every year. Higher up we sailed for ahundred miles amidst sand dunes. It was only whenwe reached the upper Sungarí and began to approachGhirín that we found a dense population.

If our aim had been to establish friendly relationswith Manchuria—and not simply to learn what theSungarí is—our expedition ought to have been considereda dead failure. The Manchurian authorities had it freshin their memories how, eight years before, the ‘visit’of Muravióff ended in the annexation of the Amúrand the Usurí, and they could not but look with suspicionon these new and uncalled-for visitors. The twenty-fiverifles concealed in the coal, which had been dulyreported to the Chinese authorities before we left, stillmore provoked their suspicions; and when our steamercast her anchor in front of the populous city of Ghirínwe found all its merchants armed with rusty swords,unearthed from some old arsenal. We were not prevented,however, from walking in the streets, but allshops were closed as soon as we landed and themerchants were not allowed to sell anything. Someprovisions were sent on board the steamer—as a gift,but no money was taken in return.

The autumn was rapidly coming to its end, the frostsbegan already, and we had to hurry back, as we couldnot winter on the Sungarí. In short, we saw Ghirín, butspoke to none but the couple of interpreters who cameevery morning on board our steamer. Our aim, however,was fulfilled. We had ascertained that the river isnavigable, and a detailed map of it was made, from its(197)mouth to Ghirín, with the aid of which we were ableto steam on our return journey at full speed withoutany accident. Our steamer only once touched theground. But the Ghirín authorities, desirous above allthat we should not be compelled to winter on the river,sent us two hundred Chinese, who aided us in gettingoff the sands. When I jumped into the water and, alsotaking a stick, began to sing our river song, ‘Dubínushka,’which helps all present to give a sudden push at the samemoment, the Chinese enjoyed immensely the fun of it,and after several such pushes the steamer was soonafloat. The most cordial relations were established afterthis little adventure between ourselves and the Chinese—Imean, of course, the people, who seemed to dislikevery much their arrogant Manchurian officials.

We called at several Chinese villages peopled withexiles from the celestial empire, and we were received inthe most cordial way. One evening especially impresseditself on my memory. We came to a small, picturesquevillage as night was already falling. Some of us landed,and I went alone through the village. A thick crowd ofa hundred Chinese soon surrounded me, and although Iknew not a word of their tongue, and they knew no moreof mine, we chatted in the most amicable way by mimicryand we understood each other. To pat one on theshoulders in sign of friendship is decidedly internationallanguage. To offer each other tobacco and to be offereda light is again an international expression of friendship.One thing interested them—why had I, though young, abeard? They wear none before they are sixty. Andwhen I told them by signs that in case I should havenothing to eat I might eat it—the joke was transmittedfrom one to the other through the whole crowd. Theyroared with laughter, and began to pat me even morecaressingly on the shoulders; they took me about, showingme their houses, everyone offered me his pipe, and thewhole crowd accompanied me as a friend to the steamer.(198)I must say that there was not one single boshkó (policeman)in that village. In other villages our soldiers andthe young officers always made friends with the Chinese,but as soon as a boshkó appeared all was spoiled. In return,one must have seen what ‘faces’ they used to make atthe boshkó behind his back! They evidently hated theserepresentatives of authority.

Our expedition has since been forgotten. The astronomer,Th. Usóltzeff, and I published reports about itin the ‘Memoirs’ of the Siberian Geographical Society;but a few years later a great conflagration at Irkútskdestroyed all the copies left of the Memoirs as well as theoriginal map of the Sungarí, and it was only last year,when the Trans-Manchurian railway began to be built,that Russian geographers unearthed our reports, andfound that the great river had been explored five-and-thirtyyears ago.

VII

As there was nothing more to be done in the directionof reform, I tried to do what seemed to be possible underthe existing circ*mstances—only to become convinced ofthe absolute uselessness of such efforts. In my newcapacity of attaché to the Governor-General for Cossackaffairs, I made, for instance, a most thorough investigationof the economical condition of the Usurí Cossacks,whose crops used to be lost every year, so that thegovernment had every winter to feed them in order tosave them from famine. When I returned from theUsurí with my report, I received congratulations on allsides, I was promoted, I got special rewards. All themeasures I recommended were accepted, and specialgrants of money were given for aiding the emigration ofsome and for supplying cattle to others, as I had suggested.But the practical realization of the measureswent into the hands of some old drunkard, who would(199)squander the money and pitilessly flog the unfortunateCossacks for the purpose of converting them into goodagriculturists. And thus it went on in all directions, beginningwith the winter palace at St. Petersburg and endingwith the Usurí and Kamchátka.

The higher administration of Siberia was influencedby excellent intentions, and I can only repeat that, everythingconsidered, it was far better, far more enlightened,and far more interested in the welfare of the people thanthe administration of any other province of Russia.But it was an administration—a branch of the treewhich had its roots at St. Petersburg—and that wasenough to paralyze all its excellent intentions, enough tomake it interfere with and kill all the beginnings oflocal life and progress. Whatever was started for thegood of the country by local men was looked at withdistrust, and was immediately paralyzed by hosts ofdifficulties which came, not so much from the bad intentionsof the administrators, but simply from the fact thatthese officials belonged to a pyramidal, centralized administration.The very fact of their belonging to agovernment which radiated from a distant capital causedthem to look upon everything from the point of view offunctionaries of the government, who think first of allabout what their superiors will say, and how this or thatwill appear in the administrative machinery. The interestsof the country are a secondary matter.

Gradually I turned my energy more and more towardscientific exploration. In 1865 I explored thewestern Sayáns, where I caught a new glimpse of thestructure of the Siberian highlands and came uponanother important volcanic region on the Chinese frontier;and finally, the year following, I undertook a longjourney to discover a direct communication between thegold mines of the Yakútsk province (on the Vitím andthe Olókma) and Transbaikália. For many years themembers of the Siberian expedition (1860-1864) had(200)tried to find such a passage, and had endeavoured tocross the series of very wild, stony parallel ridges whichseparate these mines from the plains of Transbaikália;but when, coming from the south, they reached thatgloomy mountain region, and saw before them the drearymountains spreading for hundreds of miles northward,all of these explorers, save one who was killed by natives,returned southward. It was evident that in order to besuccessful the expedition had to move from the north tothe south—from the dreary unknown wilderness to thewarmer and populated regions. It so happened, also,that while I was preparing for the expedition I wasshown a map which a Tungus had traced with his knifeon a piece of bark. This little map—a splendid specimen,by the way, of the usefulness of the geometrical sense inthe lowest stages of civilization, and one which wouldconsequently interest A. R. Wallace—so struck me byits seeming truth to nature that I fully trusted to it, andbegan my journey from the north, following the indicationsof the map.

In company with a young and promising naturalist,Polakóff, and a topographer, we went first down theLéna to the northern gold mines. There we equippedthe expedition, taking provisions for three months, andstarted southward. An old Yakút hunter, who twentyyears before had once followed the passage indicated inthe Tungus map, undertook to act for us as a guide andto cross the mountain region—250 miles wide—followingthe river-valleys and gorges indicated by the Tunguswith his knife on the birch-bark map. He really accomplishedthat astounding feat, although there wasno track of any sort to follow, and all the valleys thatone saw from the top of a mountain pass, all equallycovered with wood, seemed to be absolutely alike to theunpractised eye. This time the passage was found.For three months we wandered in the almost totallyuninhabited mountain deserts and over the marshy(201)plateau, till at last we reached our destination, Chitá.I am told that this passage is now of value for bringingcattle from the south to the gold mines; as for me, thejourney helped me immensely afterwards in finding thekey to the structure of the mountains and plateaus ofSiberia—but I am not writing a book of travel, andmust stop.

The years that I spent in Siberia taught me manylessons which I could hardly have learned elsewhere.I soon realized the absolute impossibility of doing anythingreally useful for the masses of the people bymeans of the administrative machinery. With thisillusion I parted for ever. Then I began to understandnot only men and human character, but also the innersprings of the life of human society. The constructivework of the unknown masses, which so seldom findsany mention in books, and the importance of thatconstructive work in the growth of forms of society,appeared before my eyes in a clear light. To witness,for instance, the ways in which the communities ofDukhobórtsy (brothers of those who are now settlingin Canada, and who found such a hearty support inEngland and the United States) migrated to the Amúrregion; to see the immense advantages which they gotfrom their semi-communistic brotherly organization;and to realize what a success their colonization was,amidst all the failures of State colonization, was learningsomething which cannot be learned from books.Again, to live with natives, to see at work the complexforms of social organization which they have elaboratedfar away from the influence of any civilization, was, asit were, to store up floods of light which illuminatedmy subsequent reading. The part which the unknownmasses play in the accomplishment of all importanthistorical events, and even in war, became evident tome from direct observation, and I came to hold ideas(202)similar to those which Tolstóy expresses concerning theleaders and the masses in his monumental work, ‘Warand Peace.’

Having been brought up in a serf-owner’s family, Ientered active life, like all young men of my time, witha great deal of confidence in the necessity of commanding,ordering, scolding, punishing, and the like. Butwhen, at an early stage, I had to manage serious enterprisesand to deal with men, and when each mistakewould lead at once to heavy consequences, I beganto appreciate the difference between acting on the principleof command and discipline, and acting on the principleof common understanding. The former worksadmirably in a military parade, but it is worth nothingwhere real life is concerned and the aim can be achievedonly through the severe effort of many converging wills.Although I did not then formulate my observations interms borrowed from party struggles, I may say now thatI lost in Siberia whatever faith in State discipline I hadcherished before. I was prepared to become an anarchist.

From the age of nineteen to twenty-five I had towork out important schemes of reform, to deal withhundreds of men on the Amúr, to prepare and to makerisky expeditions with ridiculously small means, and soon; and if all these things ended more or less successfully,I account for it only by the fact that I soon understoodthat in serious work commanding and disciplineare of little avail. Men of initiative are required everywhere;but once the impulse has been given, the enterprisemust be conducted, especially in Russia, notin military fashion, but in a sort of communal way, bymeans of common understanding. I wish that allframers of plans of State discipline could pass throughthe school of real life before they begin to frame theirState Utopias: we should then hear far less than atpresent of schemes of military and pyramidal organizationof society.

(203)

With all that, life in Siberia became less and lessattractive for me, although my brother Alexander hadjoined me in 1864 at Irkútsk, where he commanded asquadron of Cossacks. We were happy to be together;we read a great deal and discussed all the philosophical,scientific, and sociological questions of the day; but weboth longed after intellectual life, and there was nonein Siberia. The occasional passage through Irkútsk ofRaphael Pumpelly or of Adolph Bastian—the only twomen of science who visited our capital during my staythere—was quite an event for both of us. The scientificand especially the political life of Western Europe,of which we heard through the papers, attracted us, andthe return to Russia was the subject to which we continuallycame back in our conversations. Finally, theinsurrection of the Polish exiles in 1866 opened oureyes to the false position we both occupied as officers ofthe Russian army.

VIII

I was far away in the Vitím mountains when somePolish exiles, who were employed in piercing a new roadin the cliffs round Lake Baikál, made a desperate attemptto break their chains and to force their way to Chinaacross Mongolia. Troops were sent out against them,and a Russian officer was killed by the insurgents. Iheard of it on my return to Irkútsk, where some fiftyPoles were to be tried by a court-martial. The sittingsof courts-martial being open in Russia, I followed this,taking detailed notes of the proceedings, which I sentto a St. Petersburg paper, and which were publishedin full, to the great dissatisfaction of the Governor-General.

Eleven thousand Poles, men and women, had beentransported to East Siberia in consequence of the insurrectionof 1863. They were chiefly students, artists,(204)ex-officers, nobles, and especially skilled artisans fromthe intelligent and highly developed working-men’spopulation of Warsaw and other towns. A greatnumber of them were kept in hard labour, while theremainder were settled all over the country in villageswhere they could find no work whatever and lived in astate of semi-starvation. Those who were condemned tohard labour worked either at Chitá, building the bargesfor the Amúr—these were the happiest—or in iron worksof the Crown, or in salt works. I saw some of the latter,on the Léna, standing half-naked in a shanty, round animmense cauldron filled with salt-brine, and mixing thethick, boiling brine with long shovels, in an infernaltemperature, while the gates of the shanty were wideopen to make a strong current of glacial air. After twoyears of such work these martyrs were sure to die fromconsumption.

Lately, a considerable number of Polish exiles wereemployed as navvies building a road along the southerncoast of Lake Baikál. This narrow Alpine lake, fourhundred miles long, surrounded by beautiful mountainsrising three to five thousand feet above its level, cuts offTransbaikália and the Amúr from Irkútsk. In winter itmay be crossed over the ice and in summer there aresteamers, but for six weeks in the spring and anothersix weeks in the autumn the only means to reach Chitáand Kyákhta (for Pekin) from Irkútsk was to travel onhorseback a long circuitous route, across mountains 7,000to 8,000 feet in altitude. I once travelled along thistrack, greatly enjoying the scenery of the mountains,which were snow-clad in May, but otherwise the journeywas really awful. To climb eight miles only, to the topof the main pass, Khamár-dabán, it took me the wholeday from three in the morning till eight at night. Ourhorses continually fell through the thawing snow, plungingwith the rider many times a day into icy water whichflowed underneath the snow-crust. It was decided accordingly(205)to build a permanent road along the southerncoast of the lake, blowing up a passage in the steep,almost vertical cliffs which rise along the shore, andspanning with bridges a hundred wild torrents whichfuriously rush from the mountains into the lake. Polishexiles were employed at this hard work.

Several batches of Russian political exiles had beensent during the last century to Siberia, but, with thesubmissiveness to fate which is characteristic of theRussians, they never revolted; they allowed themselvesto be killed inch by inch, without ever attempting tofree themselves. The Poles, on the contrary—this mustbe said to their honour—were never so submissive asthat, and this time they broke into open revolt. Theyevidently had no chance of success—they revolted nevertheless.They had before them the great lake, and behindthem a girdle of absolutely impracticable mountains,beyond which begin the wildernesses of North Mongolia;but they nevertheless conceived the idea of disarmingthe soldiers who guarded them, forging those terribleweapons of the Polish insurrections—scythes planted aspikes on long poles—and making their way across themountains and across Mongolia, towards China, wherethey would find English ships to take them. One daythe news came to Irkútsk that part of those Poles whowere at work on the Baikál road had disarmed a dozensoldiers and broken out into revolt. Eighty soldiers wereall that could be despatched against them from Irkútsk.Crossing the lake in a steamer, they went to meet theinsurgents on the other side of the lake.

The winter of 1866 had been unusually dull at Irkútsk.In the Siberian capital there is no such distinction betweenthe different classes as one sees in Russian provincialtowns; and the Irkútsk ‘society,’ composed ofnumerous officers and officials, together with the wivesand daughters of local traders and even clergymen, metduring the winter, every Thursday, at the Assembly(206)Rooms. This winter, however, there was no ‘go’ in theevening parties. Amateur theatricals, too, were notsuccessful; and gambling, which was usually pursued ona grand scale at Irkútsk, only dragged just along: awant of money was felt this winter among the officials,and even the arrival of several mining officers did notbring with it the heaps of bank-notes with which theseprivileged gentlemen usually enlivened the knights of thegreen tables. The season was decidedly dull—just theseason for starting spiritualistic experiences with talkingtables and talkative spirits. A gentleman who hadbeen during the previous winter the pet of Irkútsksociety on account of the tales which he recited withgreat talent, seeing that interest in himself and his taleswas failing, now took to spiritualism as a new amusem*nt.He was clever, and in a week’s time the Irkútskladies were mad over talking spirits. A new life was infusedamongst those who did not know how to kill time.Talking tables appeared in every drawing-room, andlove-making went hand in hand with spirit rapping. Anofficer, whom I will call Pótaloff, took it all in deadlyearnest—talking tables and love. Perhaps he was lessfortunate with the latter than with the tables; at anyrate, when the news of the Polish insurrection came heasked to be sent to the spot with the eighty soldiers.He hoped to return with a halo of military glory. ‘I goagainst the Poles,’ he wrote in his diary; ‘it would be sointeresting to be slightly wounded!’

He was killed. He rode on horseback by the side ofthe Colonel who commanded the soldiers, when ‘thebattle with the insurgents’—the glowing description ofwhich may be found in the annals of the General Staff—began.The soldiers slowly advanced along the road,when they met some fifty Poles, five or six of whomwere armed with rifles and the remainder with sticks andscythes; they occupied the forest, and from time totime fired their guns. The chain of soldiers did the(207)same. Lieutenant Pótaloff twice asked permission of theColonel to dismount and to dash into the forest. TheColonel very angrily ordered him to stay where he was.Notwithstanding this, the next moment the Lieutenanthad disappeared. Several shots resounded in the wood,followed by wild cries; the soldiers rushed that way, andfound the Lieutenant bleeding on the grass. The Polesfired their last shots and surrendered; the battle wasover, Pótaloff was dead. He had rushed, revolver inhand, into the thicket, where he found several Polesarmed with pikes. He fired all his shots at them in ahaphazard way, wounding one of them, whereupon theothers rushed upon him with their pikes.

At the other end of the road, on this side of thelake, two Russian officers behaved in the most abominableway towards those Poles who were building thesame road but took no part in the insurrection. One ofthe two officers rushed into their tent, swearing andshooting at the peaceful convicts with his revolver, badlywounding two of them.

Now, the logic of the Siberian military authoritieswas that as a Russian officer had been killed severalPoles had to be executed. The court-martial condemnedfive of them to death: Szaramówicz, a pianist,a handsome man of thirty who was the leader of the insurrection;Celínski, an ex-officer of the Russian army,a man of sixty, because he had once been an officer;and three others whose names I do not remember.

The Governor-General telegraphed to St. Petersburgasking permission to reprieve the condemned insurgents,but no answer came. He had promised us not to executethem, but after having waited several days for thereply, he ordered the sentence to be carried out secretlyearly in the morning. The reply from St. Petersburgcame four weeks later, by post: the Governor was leftto act ‘according to the best of his understanding.’ Inthe meantime five brave men had been shot.

(208)

The insurrection, people said, was foolish. And yetthis handful of insurgents obtained something. Thenews of it reached Europe. The executions, the brutalitiesof the two officers, which became known throughthe proceedings of the court, produced a commotion inAustria, and Austria interfered in favour of the Galicianswho had taken part in the revolution of 1863 and hadbeen sent to Siberia. Soon after the Baikál insurrectionthe fate of the Polish exiles in Siberia was substantiallybettered, and they owed it to their insurgents—to thosefive brave men who were shot at Irkútsk, and those whohad taken arms by their side.

For my brother and myself this insurrection was agreat lesson. We realized what it meant to belong inany way to the army. I was away; but my brotherwas at Irkútsk, and his squadron was dispatched againstthe insurgents. Happily, the commander of the regimentto which my brother belonged knew him well, and,under some pretext, he ordered another officer to takecommand of the mobilized part of the squadron.Otherwise Alexander, of course, would have refused tomarch. If I had been at Irkútsk, I should have donethe same.

We decided, then, to leave the military service and toreturn to Russia. This was not an easy matter, especiallyas Alexander had married in Siberia; but at last allwas arranged, and early in 1867 we were on our way toSt. Petersburg.

I

Early in the autumn of 1867 my brother and I, withhis family, were settled at St. Petersburg. I entered theuniversity, and sat on the benches among young men,almost boys, much younger than myself. What I hadso longed for five years before was accomplished: Icould study; and, acting upon the idea that a thoroughtraining in mathematics is the only solid basis for allsubsequent scientific work and thought, I joined the physico-mathematicalfaculty in its mathematical section.My brother entered the Military Academy for Jurisprudence,whilst I entirely gave up military service, to thegreat dissatisfaction of my father, who hated the verysight of a civilian dress. We both had now to rely entirelyupon ourselves.

Study at the university and scientific work absorbedall my time for the next five years. A student of themathematical faculty has, of course, very much to do, butmy previous studies in higher mathematics permitted meto devote part of my time to geography; and, moreover,I had not lost in Siberia the habit of hard work.

The report of my last expedition was in print; but inthe meantime a vast problem rose before me. Thejourneys that I had made in Siberia had convinced methat the mountains which at that time were drawn on the(210)maps of Northern Asia were mostly fantastic, and gave noidea whatever of the structure of the country. The greatplateaux which are so prominent a feature of Asia were noteven suspected by those who drew the maps. Instead ofthem several great ridges, such as, for instance, the easternportion of the Stanovói, which used to be drawn on themaps as a black worm creeping eastward, had grown upin the topographic bureaux, contrary to the indicationsand even to the sketches of such explorers as L. Schwartz.These ridges have no existence in nature. The heads ofthe rivers which flow toward the Arctic Ocean on the oneside, and toward the Pacific on the other, lie intermingledon the surface of a vast plateau; they rise in the samemarshes. But, in the European topographer’s imagination,the highest mountain ridges must run along the chiefwater-partings, and the topographers had drawn there thehighest Alps, of which there is no trace in reality. Manysuch imaginary mountains were made to intersect the mapsof Northern Asia in all directions.

To discover the true leading principles in the dispositionof the mountains of Asia—the harmony of mountainformation—now became a question which for yearsabsorbed my attention. For a considerable time theold maps, and still more the generalizations of Alexandervon Humboldt, who, after a long study of Chinesesources, had covered Asia with a network of mountainsrunning along the meridians and parallels, hampered mein my researches, until at last I saw that even Humboldt’sgeneralizations, stimulating though they had been, didnot agree with the facts.

Beginning, then, with the beginning, in a purely inductiveway, I collected all the barometrical observationsof previous travellers, and from them calculated hundredsof altitudes; I marked on a large-scale map all geologicaland physical observations that had been made by differenttravellers—the facts, not the hypotheses—and I tried tofind out what structural lines would answer best to the(211)observed realities. This preparatory work took me morethan two years; and then followed months of intensethought, in order to find out what the bewildering chaosof scattered observations meant, until one day, all of asudden, the whole became clear and comprehensible, as ifit were illuminated with a flash of light. The main structurallines of Asia are not north and south, or west andeast; they are from the south-west to the north-east—justas, in the Rocky Mountains and the plateaux ofAmerica, the lines are north-west to south-east; onlysecondary ridges shoot out north-west. Moreover themountains of Asia are not bundles of independent ridges,like the Alps, but are subordinated to an immenseplateau—an old continent which once pointed towardsBehring Strait. High border ridges have towered upalong its fringes, and in the course of ages terraces,formed by later sediments, have emerged from the sea,thus adding on both sides to the width of that primitivebackbone of Asia.

There are not many joys in human life equal to thejoy of the sudden birth of a generalization, illuminating themind after a long period of patient research. What hasseemed for years so chaotic, so contradictory, and so problematictakes at once its proper position within an harmoniouswhole. Out of the wild confusion of facts andfrom behind the fog of guesses—contradicted almost assoon as they are born—a stately picture makes its appearance,like an Alpine chain suddenly emerging in allits grandeur from the mists which concealed it the momentbefore, glittering under the rays of the sun in all its simplicityand variety, in all its mightiness and beauty. Andwhen the generalization is put to a test, by applying it tohundreds of separate facts which seemed to be hopelesslycontradictory the moment before, each of them assumesits due position, increasing the impressiveness of thepicture, accentuating some characteristic outline, or addingan unsuspected detail full of meaning. The generalization(212)gains in strength and extent; its foundations growin width and solidity; while in the distance, through thefar-off mist on the horizon, the eye detects the outlinesof new and still wider generalizations.

He who has once in his life experienced this joy ofscientific creation will never forget it; he will be longingto renew it; and he cannot but feel with pain that thissort of happiness is the lot of so few of us, while so manycould also live through it—on a small or on a grand scale—ifscientific methods and leisure were not limited to ahandful of men.

This work I consider my chief contribution to science.My first intention was to produce a bulky volume, inwhich the new ideas about the mountains and plateauxof Northern Asia should be supported by a detailed examinationof each separate region; but in 1873, when Isaw that I should soon be arrested, I only prepared amap which embodied my views and wrote an explanatorypaper. Both were published by the Geographical Society,under the supervision of my brother, while I was alreadyin the fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul. Petermann,who was then preparing a map of Asia, and knew mypreliminary work, adopted my scheme for his map, andit has been accepted since by most cartographers. Themap of Asia, as it is now understood, explains, I believe,the main physical features of the great continent, as wellas the distribution of its climates, faunas, and floras, andeven its history. It reveals, also, as I was able to seeduring my last journey to America, striking analogiesbetween the structure and the geological growth of thetwo continents of the northern hemisphere. Very fewcartographers could say now whence all these changes inthe map of Asia have come; but in science it is betterthat new ideas should make their way independently ofany name attached to them. The errors which are unavoidablein a first generalization are easier to rectify.

(213)

II

At the same time I worked a great deal for the RussianGeographical Society in my capacity of secretary to itssection of physical geography.

Great interest was taken then in the exploration ofTurkestan and the Pamírs. Syévertsoff had just returnedafter several years of travel. A great zoologist,a gifted geographer, and one of the most intelligentmen I ever came across, he, like so many Russians,disliked writing. When he had made an oral communicationat a meeting of the Society he could not beinduced to write anything beyond revising the reportsof his communication, so that all that has been publishedunder his signature is very far from doing full justiceto the real value of the observations and the generalizationshe had made. This reluctance to put down inwriting the results of thought and observation is unfortunatelynot uncommon in Russia. His remarks onthe orography of Turkestan, on the geographical distributionof plants and animals, and especially on thepart played by hybrids in the production of new speciesof birds, which I have heard him make, or on the importanceof mutual support in the progressive developmentof species which I have found just mentioned ina couple of lines in some report of a meeting, bore thestamp of more than an ordinary talent and originality;but he did not possess the exuberant force of expositionin an appropriately beautiful form, which might havemade of him one of the most prominent men of scienceof our time.

Miklúkho Makláy, well known in Australia, whichtowards the end of his life became the country of hisadoption, belonged to the same order of men—the menwho have had so much more to say than they havesaid in print. He was a tiny, nervous man, alwayssuffering from malaria, who had just returned from the(214)coasts of the Red Sea, when I made his acquaintance.A follower of Hæckel, he had worked a great deal uponthe marine invertebrates in their life surroundings.The Geographical Society managed next to get himtaken on board a Russian man-of-war to some unknownpart of the coast of New Guinea, where hewanted to study the most primitive savages. Accompaniedby one sailor only, he was left on this inhospitableshore, the inhabitants of which had the reputationof being cannibals. A hut was built for the twoRobinsons, and they lived eighteen months or moreby the side of a native village on excellent terms withthe natives. Always to be straightforward towardsthem, and never to deceive them—not even in the mosttrifling matters—not even for scientific purposes—washis ethics. On this point he was most scrupulous.When he was travelling some time later on in theMalayan peninsula he had with him a native who hadentered into his service on the express condition ofnever being photographed. The natives, as everyoneknows, consider that something is taken out of themwhen their likeness is taken by photography. Makláy,who was collecting anthropological materials, confessedthat one day, when the man was fast asleep, he wasawfully tempted to photograph him, the more so as hewas a typical representative of his tribe and he wouldhave never known that he had been photographed. ButMakláy remembered his promise and never did it. Whenhe left New Guinea the natives made him promise toreturn; and a few years later, although he was severelyill, he kept his word and did return. This remarkableman has, however, published only an infinitesimal partof the truly invaluable observations he had made.

Fédchenko, who had made extensive travels andzoological observations in Turkestan—in company withhis wife, Olga Fédchenko, also a naturalist—was, aswe used to say, a ‘West European.’ He worked hard(215)to bring out in an elaborated form the results of hisobservations; but he was, unfortunately, killed in climbinga mountain in Switzerland. Glowing with youthfulardour after his journeys in the Turkestan mountains,and full of confidence in his own powers, he undertookan ascent without proper guides, and perished in a snowstorm.His wife, happily, completed the publication ofhis ‘Travels’ after his death, and I believe she has nowa son who continues the work of his father and mother.

I also saw a great deal of Prjeválsky, or ratherPrzewalski, as his Polish name ought to be spelt, althoughhe himself preferred to appear as a ‘Russianpatriot.’ He was a passionate hunter, and the enthusiasmwith which he made his explorations ofCentral Asia was almost as much the result of hisdesire to hunt all sorts of difficult game—bucks, wildcamels, wild horses, and so on—as of his desire todiscover lands new and difficult to approach. Whenhe was induced to speak of his discoveries he wouldsoon interrupt his modest descriptions with an enthusiasticexclamation: ‘But what game there! Whathunting! ...’ and he would describe passionatelyhow he crept such and such a distance to approacha wild horse within shooting range. No sooner washe back at St. Petersburg than he schemed a new expedition,and parsimoniously laid aside all his money,trying to increase it by Stock Exchange operations,for a new expedition. He was the type of a travellerby his strong physique and his capacity for enduringthe life of a mountain hunter, full of privations. Hedelighted in leading such a life. He made his firstjourney with only three comrades, and always kept onexcellent terms with the natives. However, as his subsequentexpeditions took a more military character, hebegan unfortunately to rely upon the force of his armedescort in preference to a peaceful intercourse with thenatives, and I heard it said in well-informed quarters(216)that if he had not died at the very start of his Tibet expedition—soadmirably and peacefully conducted afterhis death by his companions, Pyevtsóff, Roboróvsky,and Kozlóff—he very probably would not have returnedalive.

There was considerable activity at that time in theGeographical Society, and numerous were the geographicalquestions in which our section, and consequently itssecretary, took a lively interest. Most of them were tootechnical to be mentioned in this place, but I must alludeto the awakening of interest in navigation, in the fisheriesand trade in the Russian portion of the Arctic Ocean,which took place in these years. A Siberian merchantand goldminer, Sídoroff, made the most persevering effortsto awaken that interest. He foresaw that with a littleaid in the shape of naval schools, the exploration of theNorman Coast and the White Sea, and so on, the Russianfisheries and Russian navigation could be largely developed.But unfortunately that little had to be done allthrough St. Petersburg, and the ruling portion of thatcourtly, bureaucratic, red-tapist, literary, artistic, and cosmopolitancity could not be moved to take an interest inanything ‘provincial.’ Poor Sídoroff was simply ridiculedfor his efforts. Interest in our far North had to be enforcedupon the Russian Geographical Society fromabroad.

In the years 1869-71 the bold Norwegian seal-huntershad quite unexpectedly opened the Kara Sea to navigation.To our extreme astonishment we learned one dayat the Society that the sea which lies between the islandof Nóvaya Zemlyá and the Siberian coast, and which weused confidently to describe in our writings as ‘an icecellar permanently stocked with ice’, had been entered bya number of small Norwegian schooners and crossed bythem in all directions. Even the wintering place of thefamous Dutchman Barentz, which we believed to be concealedfor ever from the eyes of man by ice-fields hundreds(217)of years old, had been visited by these adventurous Norsem*n.

‘Exceptional seasons and an exceptional state of theice’ was what our elder navigators said. But to a few ofus it was quite evident that, with their small schoonersand their small crews, the bold Norwegian hunters, whofeel at home amid the ice, had ventured to pierce thefloating ice which usually bars the way to the Kara Sea,while the commanders of Government ships, hamperedby the responsibilities of the naval service, had neverrisked doing so.

A general interest in Arctic exploration was awakenedby these discoveries. In fact, it was the seal-hunters whoopened the new era of Arctic enthusiasm which culminatedin Nordenskjöld’s circumnavigation of Asia, in thepermanent establishment of the north-eastern passage toSiberia, in Peary’s discovery of North Greenland, and inNansen’s ‘Fram’ expedition. Our Russian GeographicalSociety also began to move, and a committee was appointedto prepare the scheme of a Russian Arctic expedition,and to indicate the scientific work that could bedone by it. Specialists undertook to write each of thespecial scientific chapters of this report; but, as oftenhappens, a few chapters only—botany, geology, and meteorology—wereready in time, and I, as secretary of thecommittee, had to write the remainder. Several subjects,such as marine zoology, the tides, pendulum observations,and terrestrial magnetism, were quite new to me; butthe amount of work which a healthy man can accomplishin a short time, if he strains all his forces and goes straightto the root of the subject, no one would suppose beforehand—andso my report was ready.

It concluded by advocating a great Arctic expedition,which would awaken in Russia a permanent interest inArctic questions and Arctic navigation, and in the meantimea reconnoitring expedition on board a schoonerchartered in Norway with its captain, pushing north or(218)north-east of Nóvaya Zemlyá. This expedition, we suggested,might also try to reach, or at least to sight, anunknown land which must be situated at no great distancefrom Nóvaya Zemlyá. The probable existence of such aland had been indicated by an officer of the Russian navy,Baron Schilling, in an excellent but little known paperon the currents in the Arctic Ocean. When I read thispaper, as also Lütke’s ‘Journey to Nóvaya Zemlyá,’ andmade myself acquainted with the general conditions ofthis part of the Arctic Ocean, I saw at once that thesupposition must be correct. There must be a land tothe north-west of Nóvaya Zemlyá, and it must reach ahigher latitude than Spitzbergen. The steady position ofthe ice at the west of Nóvaya Zemlyá, the mud and stoneson it, and various other smaller indications confirmed thehypothesis. Besides, if such a land were not locatedthere, the ice current which flows westward from themeridian of Behring Strait to Greenland (the current ofthe ‘Fram’s’ drift) would, as Baron Schilling had trulyremarked, reach the North Cape and cover the coasts ofLaponia with masses of ice, just as it covers the northernextremity of Greenland. The warm current alone—afeeble continuation of the Gulf Stream—could not haveprevented the accumulation of ice on the coasts ofNorthern Europe. This land, as is known, was discovereda couple of years later by the Austrian expedition,and named Franz Josef Land.

The Arctic report had a quite unexpected result forme. I was offered the leadership of the reconnoitringexpedition, on board a Norwegian schooner chartered forthe purpose. I replied, of course, that I had never beento sea; but I was told that by combining the experienceof a Carlsen or a Johansen with the initiative of a man ofscience something valuable could be done; and I shouldhave accepted had not the Ministry of Finance at thisjuncture interposed with its veto. It replied that theExchequer could not grant the three or four thousand(219)pounds which would be required for the expedition.Since that time Russia has taken no part in the explorationof the Arctic seas. The land which we distinguishedthrough the subpolar mists was discovered byPayer and Weyprecht, and the archipelagoes which mustexist to the north-east of Nóvaya Zemlyá—I am evenmore firmly persuaded of it now than I was then—remainundiscovered.

Instead of joining an Arctic expedition I was sentout by the Geographical Society on a modest tour inFinland and Sweden, to explore the glacial deposits; andthat journey drifted me in a quite different direction.

The Russian Academy of Sciences sent out thissummer two of its members—the old geologist GeneralHelmersen and Friedrich Schmidt, the indefatigableexplorer of Siberia—to study the structure of thoselong ridges of drift which are known as åsar in Swedenand Finland, and as esker, kames, and so on, in theBritish Isles. The Geographical Society sent me toFinland for the same purpose. We visited, all three,the beautiful ridge of Pungaharju and then separated.I worked hard during this summer. I travelled a greatdeal in Finland, and crossed over to Sweden, where Ispent many happy hours in the company of A. Nordenskjöld.Already then (in 1871) he mentioned to mehis schemes of reaching the mouths of the Siberianrivers, and even the Behring Strait, by the northernroute. Returning to Finland I continued my researchestill late in the autumn, and collected a mass of mostinteresting observations relative to the glaciation of thecountry. But I also thought a great deal during thisjourney about social matters, and these thoughts had adecisive influence upon my subsequent development.

All sorts of valuable materials relative to the geographyof Russia passed through my hands in theGeographical Society, and the idea gradually came tome of writing an exhaustive physical geography of that(220)immense part of the world. My intention was to give athorough geographical description of the country, basingit upon the main lines of the surface structure which Ibegan to disentangle for European Russia; and to sketchin that description the different forms of economic lifewhich ought to prevail in different physical regions.Take, for instance, the wide prairies of Southern Russia,so often visited by droughts and failures of crops. Thesedroughts and failures must not be treated as accidentalcalamities: they are as much a natural feature of thatregion as its position on a southern slope, its fertility, andthe rest; and the whole of the economic life of thesouthern prairies ought to be organized in prevision ofthe unavoidable recurrence of periodical droughts. Eachregion of the Russian Empire ought to be treated in thesame scientific way, as Karl Ritter treated parts of Asiain his beautiful monographs.

But such a work would have required plenty of timeand full freedom for the writer, and I often thought howhelpful to this end it would be were I to occupy someday the position of secretary to the Geographical Society.Now, in the autumn of 1871, as I was working in Finland,slowly moving on foot toward the sea coast alongthe newly built railway, and closely watching the spotwhere the first unmistakable traces of the former extensionof the post-glacial sea would appear, I received atelegram from the Geographical Society: ‘The councilbegs you to accept the position of secretary to theSociety.’ At the same time the outgoing secretarystrongly urged me to accept the proposal.

My hopes were realized. But in the meantime otherthoughts and other longings had pervaded my mind. Iseriously thought over the reply, and wired, ‘Mostcordial thanks, but cannot accept.’

(221)

III

It often happens that men pull in a certain political,social, or familiar harness simply because they neverhave time to ask themselves whether the position theystand in and the work they accomplish are right;whether their occupations really suit their inner desiresand capacities, and give them the satisfaction whicheveryone has the right to expect from his work. Activemen are especially liable to find themselves in such aposition. Every day brings with it a fresh batch ofwork, and a man throws himself into his bed late atnight without having completed what he expected tohave done; then in the morning he hurries to the unfinishedtask of the previous day. Life goes, and thereis no time left to think, no time to consider the directionthat one’s life is taking. So it was with me.

But now, during my journey in Finland, I hadleisure. When I was crossing in a Finnish two-wheeledkarria some plain which offered no interest to thegeologist, or when I was walking, hammer on shoulder,from one gravel pit to another, I could think; and,amidst the undoubtedly interesting geological work Iwas carrying on, one idea, which appealed far morestrongly to my inner self than geology, persistentlyworked in my mind.

I saw what an immense amount of labour the Finnishpeasant spends in clearing the land and in breaking upthe hard boulder clay, and I said to myself, ‘I willwrite, let me say, the physical geography of this part ofRussia, and tell the peasant the best means of cultivatingthis soil. Here an American stump-extractor would beinvaluable; there certain methods of manuring would beindicated by science.... But what is the use of talkingto this peasant about American machines, when he hasbarely enough bread to live upon from one crop to thenext; when the rent which he has to pay for that(222)boulder clay grows heavier and heavier in proportion tohis success in improving the soil? He gnaws at hishard-as-a-stone rye-flour cake, which he bakes twice ayear; he has with it a morsel of fearfully salted cod anda drink of skimmed milk. How dare I talk to him ofAmerican machines, when all that he can raise must besold to pay rent and taxes? He needs me to live withhim, to help him to become the owner or the freeoccupier of that land. Then he will read books withprofit, but not now.’

And my thoughts wandered from Finland to ourNikólskoye peasants, whom I had lately seen. Nowthey are free, and they value freedom very much. Butthey have no meadows. In one way or another thelandlords have got nearly all the meadows for themselves.When I was a child the Savókhins used to sendout six horses for night pasture; the Tolkachóffs hadseven. Now these families have only three horses each;other families, which formerly had three horses, haveonly one or none. What can be done with one miserablehorse? No meadows, no horses, no manure! Howcan I talk to them of grass-sowing? They are alreadyruined—poor as Lazarus—and in a few years they willbe made still poorer by a foolish taxation. How happythey were when I told them that my father gave thempermission to mow the grass in the small open spaces inhis Kóstino forest! ‘Your Nikólskoye peasants areferocious for work,’ that is the common saying aboutthem in our neighbourhood; but the arable land, whichour stepmother has taken out of their allotments invirtue of the ‘law of minimum’—that diabolic clause introducedby the serf-owners when they were allowed torevise the emancipation law—is now a forest of thistles,and the ‘ferocious’ workers are not allowed to till it.And the same sort of thing goes on throughout Russia.Even at that time it was evident, and official commissionersgave warning of it, that the first serious failure(223)of crops in Middle Russia would result in a terriblefamine—and famine came, in 1876, in 1884, in 1891, in1895, and again in 1898.

Science is an excellent thing. I knew its joys andvalued them, perhaps more than many of my colleaguesdid. Even now, as I was looking on the lakes andthe hillocks of Finland, new and beautiful generalizationsarose before my eyes. I saw in a remote past,at the very dawn of mankind, the ice accumulating fromyear to year in the northern archipelagoes, over Scandinaviaand Finland. An immense growth of ice invadedthe north of Europe and slowly spread as far as itsmiddle portions. Life dwindled in that part of thenorthern hemisphere, and, wretchedly poor, uncertain,it fled further and further south before the icy breathwhich came from that immense frozen mass. Man—miserable,weak, ignorant—had every difficulty in maintaininga precarious existence. Ages passed away, tillthe melting of the ice began, and with it came the lakeperiod, when countless lakes were formed in the cavities,and a wretched subpolar vegetation began timidly toinvade the unfathomable marshes with which every lakewas surrounded. Another series of ages passed beforean extremely slow process of drying up set in, and vegetationbegan its slow invasion from the south. And nowwe are fully in the period of a rapid desiccation, accompaniedby the formation of dry prairies and steppes, andman has to find out the means to put a check to thatdesiccation to which Central Asia already has fallen avictim, and which menaces South-Eastern Europe.

Belief in an ice cap reaching Middle Europe was atthat time rank heresy; but before my eyes a grandpicture was rising, and I wanted to draw it, with thethousands of details I saw in it; to use it as a key tothe present distribution of floras and faunas; to open upnew horizons to geology and physical geography.

But what right had I to these higher joys, when(224)all round me was nothing but misery and struggle fora mouldy bit of bread; when whatsoever I should spendto enable me to live in that world of higher emotions mustneeds be taken from the very mouths of those who grewthe wheat and had not bread enough for their children?From somebody’s mouth it must be taken, because theaggregate production of mankind remains still so low.

Knowledge is an immense power. Man must know.But we already know much! What if that knowledge—andonly that—should become the possession of all?Would not science itself progress in leaps and cause mankindto make strides in production, invention, and socialcreation, of which we are hardly in a condition now tomeasure the speed?

The masses want to know: they are willing to learn;they can learn. There, on the crest of that immensemoraine which runs between the lakes, as if giants hadheaped it up in a hurry to connect the two shores, therestands a Finnish peasant plunged in contemplation ofthe beautiful lakes, studded with islands, which lie beforehim. Not one of these peasants, poor and downtroddenthough they may be, will pass this spot without stoppingto admire the scene. Or there, on the shore of a lake,stands another peasant, and sings something so beautifulthat the best musician would envy him his melody forits feeling and its meditative power. Both deeply feel,both meditate, both think; they are ready to widentheir knowledge: only give it to them; only give themthe means of getting leisure. This is the direction inwhich, and these are the kind of people for whom, I mustwork. All those sonorous phrases about making mankindprogress, while at the same time the progress-makersstand aloof from those whom they pretend topush onwards, are mere sophisms made up by mindsanxious to shake off a fretting contradiction.

So I sent my negative reply to the GeographicalSociety.

(225)

IV

St. Petersburg had changed greatly from what itwas when I left it in 1862. ‘Oh yes, you knew theSt. Petersburg of Chernyshévsky,’ the poet Máikoffremarked to me once. True, I knew the St. Petersburgof which Chernyshévsky was the favourite. But howshall I describe the city which I found on my return?Perhaps as the St. Petersburg of the cafés chantants,of the music halls, if the words ‘all St. Petersburg’ought really to mean the upper circles of society, whichtook their keynote from the Court.

At the Court, and in its circles, liberal ideas werein sorely bad repute. All prominent men of the sixties,even such moderates as Count Nicholas Muravióff andNicholas Milútin, were treated as suspects. Only DmítriMilútin, the Minister of War, was kept by Alexander II.at his post, because the reform which he had to accomplishin the army required many years for its realization.All other active men of the reform period hadbeen brushed aside.

I spoke once with a high dignitary of the Ministryfor foreign affairs. He sharply criticized another highfunctionary, and I remarked in the latter’s defence,‘Still there is this to be said for him, that he neveraccepted service under Nicholas I.’ ‘And now he isin service under the reign of Shuváloff and Trépoff!’was the reply, which so correctly described the situationthat I could say nothing more.

General Shuváloff, the chief of the State police, andGeneral Trépoff, the chief of the St. Petersburg police,were indeed the real rulers of Russia. Alexander II.was their executive, their tool. And they ruled by fear.Trépoff had so frightened Alexander by the spectre ofa revolution which was going to break out at St. Petersburg,that if the omnipotent chief of the police was a fewminutes late in appearing with his daily report at the(226)palace, the Emperor would ask, ‘Is everything quiet atSt. Petersburg?’

Shortly after Alexander II, had given an ‘entire dismissal’to Princess X. he conceived a warm friendshipfor General Fleury, the aide-de-camp of Napoleon III.,that sinister man who was the soul of the coup d’état ofDecember 2, 1852. They were continually seen together,and Fleury once informed the Parisians of thegreat honour which was bestowed upon him by theRussian Tsar. As the latter was riding along theNevsky Perspective he saw Fleury, and asked him tomount into his carriage, an égoïste which had a seat onlytwelve inches wide, for a single person; and the Frenchgeneral recounted at length how the Tsar and he,holding fast to each other, had to leave half of theirbodies hanging in the air on account of the narrownessof the seat. It is enough to name this friend, freshfrom Compiègne, to suggest what the friendship meant.

Shuváloff took every advantage of the present stateof mind of his master. He prepared one reactionarymeasure after another, and when Alexander showed reluctanceto sign any of them Shuváloff would speak ofthe coming revolution and the fate of Louis XVI., and,‘for the salvation of the dynasty,’ would implore him tosign the new additions to the laws of repression. Forall that sadness and remorse would from time to timebesiege Alexander. He would fall into a gloomy melancholy,and speak in a sad tone of the brilliant beginningof his reign, and of the reactionary character which itwas taking. Then Shuváloff would organize an especiallylively bear hunt. Hunters, merry courtiers, andcarriages full of ballet girls would go to the forests ofNóvgorod. A couple of bears would be killed byAlexander II., who was a good shot and used to let theanimal approach to within a few yards of his rifle; andthere, in the excitement of the hunting festivities, Shuváloffwould obtain his master’s consent to any scheme ofrepression which he had concocted.

(227)

Alexander II. certainly was not a rank and file man,but two different men lived in him, both strongly developed,struggling with each other; and this innerstruggle became more and more violent as he advancedin age. He could be charming in his behaviour, andthe next moment display sheer brutality. He waspossessed of a calm, reasoned courage in the face of areal danger, but he lived in constant fear of dangerswhich existed in his brain only. He assuredly was nota coward; he would meet a bear face to face; on oneoccasion, when the animal was not killed outright by hisfirst bullet, and the man who stood behind him with alance, rushing forward, was knocked down by the bear,the Tsar came to his rescue, and killed the bear close tothe muzzle of his gun (I know this from the man himself);yet he was haunted all his life by the fears of his ownimagination and of an uneasy conscience. He was verykind in his manner toward his friends, but that kindnessexisted side by side with the terrible cold-blooded cruelty—aseventeenth-century cruelty—which he displayed incrushing the Polish insurrection, and later on in 1880,when similar measures were taken to crush the revolt ofthe Russian youth—a cruelty of which no one wouldhave thought him capable. He thus lived a double life,and at the period of which I am speaking he merrilysigned the most reactionary decrees, and afterward becamedespondent about them. Towards the end of hislife this inner struggle, as will be seen later on, becamestill stronger, and assumed an almost tragical character.

In 1872 Shuváloff was nominated ambassador inEngland, but his friend General Potápoff continued thesame policy till the beginning of the Turkish war in1877. During all this time the most scandalous plunderingof the State exchequer, and also of the Crown lands,of the estates confiscated in Lithuania after the insurrection,of the Bashkir lands in Orenbúrg, and so on, wasproceeding on a grand scale. Several such scandals(228)were subsequently brought to light and some of themwere judged by the Senate, acting as high court ofjustice, after Potápoff, who became insane, and Trépoffhad been dismissed, and their rivals at the palace wantedto show them to Alexander II. in their true light. Inone of these judicial inquiries it came out that a friend ofPotápoff had most shamelessly robbed the peasants of aLithuanian estate of their lands, and afterward, empoweredby his friends at the Ministry of the Interior,he had caused the peasants, who sought redress, to beimprisoned, subjected to wholesale flogging, and shotdown by the troops. This was one of the most revoltingstories of the kind even in the annals of Russia, whichteem with similar robberies up to the present time. Itwas only after Véra Zasúlich had shot at Trépoff andwounded him (to avenge his having ordered one of thepolitical prisoners to be flogged in prison) that thethefts of this party became widely known and Trépoffwas dismissed. Thinking he was going to die, he wrotehis will, from which it became known that this man, whohad made the Tsar believe he was poor, even though hehad occupied for years the lucrative post of chief of theSt. Petersburg police, left in reality to his heirs a considerablefortune. Some courtiers carried the report toAlexander II. Trépoff lost his credit, and it was thenthat a few of the robberies of the Shuváloff-Potápoff-Trépoffparty were brought before the Senate.

The pillage which went on in all the ministries, especiallyin connection with the railways and all sorts ofindustrial enterprises, was really enormous. Immense fortuneswere made at that time. The navy, as AlexanderII. himself said to one of his sons, was ‘in the pocketsof So-and-so.’ The cost of the railways, guaranteed bythe State, was simply fabulous. As to commercial enterprises,it was openly known that none could belaunched unless a specified percentage of the dividends(229)was promised to different functionaries in the severalministries. A friend of mine, who intended to startsome enterprise at St. Petersburg, was frankly told atthe Ministry of the Interior that he would have to paytwenty-five per cent. of the net profits to a certain person,fifteen per cent. to one man at the Ministry of Finances,ten per cent. to another man in the same ministry, andfive per cent. to a fourth person. The bargains weremade without concealment, and Alexander II. knew it.His own remarks, written on the reports of the Comptroller-General,bear testimony to this. But he saw inthe thieves his protectors from the revolution, and keptthem until their robberies became an open scandal.

The young grand dukes, with the exception of theheir-apparent, afterwards Alexander III., who alwayswas a good and thrifty paterfamilias, followed the exampleof the head of the family. The orgies which oneof them used to arrange in a small restaurant on theNevsky Perspective were so degradingly notorious thatone night the chief of the police had to interfere andwarned the owner of the restaurant that he would bemarched to Siberia if he ever again let his ‘grand duke’sroom’ to the grand duke. ‘Imagine my perplexity,’this man said to me on one occasion, when he wasshowing me that room, the walls and ceiling of whichwere upholstered with thick satin cushions, ‘On theone side I had to offend a member of the ImperialFamily, who could do with me what he liked, and onthe other side General Trépoff menaced me withSiberia! Of course I obeyed the General; he is, as youknow, omnipotent now.’ Another grand duke becameconspicuous for ways belonging to the domain ofpsychopathy; and a third was exiled to Turkestan,after he had stolen the diamonds of his mother.

The Empress Marie Alexándrovna, abandoned byher husband, and probably horrified at the turn whichCourt life was taking, became more and more a devotee,(230)and soon she was entirely in the hands of the palacepriests, a representative of a quite new type in theRussian Church—the Jesuitic. This new genus ofwell-combed, depraved, and Jesuitic clergy made rapidProgress at that time; already they were working hardand with success to become a power in the State and tolay hands on the schools.

It has been proved over and over again that thevillage clergy in Russia are so much taken up by theirfunctions—performing baptisms and marriages, administeringCommunion to the dying, and so on—thatthey cannot pay due attention to the schools; evenwhen the priest is paid for giving the Scripture lessonat a village school he usually passes that lesson tosome one else, as he has no time to attend to ithimself. Nevertheless the higher clergy, exploitingthe hatred of Alexander II. toward the so-called revolutionaryspirit, began their campaign for laying theirhands upon the schools. ‘No schools unless clericalones’ became their motto. All Russia wanted education,but even the ridiculously small sum of two millionroubles included every year in the State budget forprimary schools used not to be spent by the Ministry ofPublic Instruction, while nearly as much was given tothe Synod as an aid for establishing schools under thevillage clergy—schools most of which existed, and nowexist, on paper only.

All Russia wanted technical education, but theMinistry opened only classical gymnasia, because formidablecourses of Latin and Greek were consideredthe best means of preventing the pupils from readingand thinking. In these gymnasia only two or threeper cent. of the pupils succeeded in completing an eightyears’ course, all boys promising to become somethingand to show some independence of thought beingcarefully sifted out before they could reach the last form,and all sorts of measures were taken to reduce the(231)numbers of pupils. Education was considered as a sortof luxury, for the few only. At the same time theMinistry of Education was engaged in a continuous,passionate struggle against all private persons andinstitutions—district and county councils, municipalities,and the like—which endeavoured to open teachers’seminaries or technical schools, or even simple primaryschools. Technical education—in a country which wasso much in want of engineers, educated agriculturists,and geologists—was treated as equivalent to revolutionism.It was prohibited, prosecuted; so that up tothe present time, every autumn, something like two orthree thousand young men are refused admission to thehigher technical schools from mere lack of vacancies.A feeling of despair took possession of all those whowished to do anything useful in public life; while thepeasantry were ruined at an appalling rate by over-taxation,and by ‘beating out’ of them the arrears ofthe taxes by means of semi-military executions, whichruined them for ever. Only those governors of theprovinces were in favour at the capital who managedto beat out the taxes in the most severe ways.

Such was the official St. Petersburg. Such was theinfluence it exercised upon Russia.

V

When we were leaving Siberia we often talked, mybrother and I, of the intellectual life which we shouldfind at St. Petersburg, and of the interesting acquaintanceswe should make in the literary circles. Wemade such acquaintances, indeed, both among theradicals and among the moderate Slavophiles; but Imust confess that they were rather disappointing. Wefound plenty of excellent men—Russia is full of excellentmen—but they did not quite correspond to our(232)ideal of political writers. The best writers—Chernyshévsky,Mikháiloff, Lavróff—were in exile, or werekept in the fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul, likePísareff. Others, taking a gloomy view of the situation,had changed their ideas, and were leaning towarda sort of paternal absolutism; while the greater number,though holding still to their beliefs, had become socautious in expressing them that their prudence wasalmost equal to desertion.

At the height of the reform period nearly everyonein the advanced literary circles had had some relationseither with Hérzen or with Turguéneff and his friends,or with the ‘Great Russian’ or the ‘Land and Freedom’secret societies, which had at that period an ephemeralexistence. Now, these same men were only the moreanxious to bury their former sympathies as deep aspossible, so as to appear above political suspicion.

One or two of the liberal reviews which were toleratedat that time, owing chiefly to the superior diplomatictalents of their editors, contained excellent material,showing the ever-growing misery and the desperate conditionsof the great mass of the peasants, and makingclear enough the obstacles that were put in the way ofevery progressive worker. The amount of such factswas enough to drive one to despair. But no one daredto suggest any remedy, or to hint at any field of action,at any outcome from a position which was representedas hopeless. Some writers still cherished the hope thatAlexander II. would once more assume the characterof reformer; but with the majority the fear of seeingtheir reviews suppressed, and both editors and contributorsmarched ‘to some more or less remote part of theempire,’ dominated all other feelings. Fear and hopeequally paralyzed them.

The more radical they had been ten years before, thegreater were their fears. My brother and I were verywell received in one or two literary circles, and we went(233)occasionally to their friendly gatherings; but the momentthe conversation began to lose its frivolous character, ormy brother, who had a great talent for raising seriousquestions, directed it toward home affairs, or toward thestate of France, where Napoleon III. was hastening tohis fall in 1870, some sort of interruption was sure tooccur. ‘What do you think, gentlemen, of the latestperformance of “La Belle Hélène”?’ or, ‘What is youropinion of that cured fish?’ was loudly asked by one ofthe elder guests, and the conversation was brought to anend.

Outside the literary circles things were even worse. Inthe sixties Russia, especially in St. Petersburg, was full ofmen of advanced opinions, who seemed ready at that timeto make any sacrifices for their ideas. ‘What has becomeof them?’ I asked myself. I looked up some of them;but, ‘Prudence, young man!’ was all they had to say.‘Iron is stronger than straw,’ or ‘One cannot break astone wall with his forehead,’ and similar proverbs, unfortunatelytoo numerous in the Russian language, constitutednow their code of practical philosophy. ‘Wehave done something in our life: ask no more from us;’or, ‘Have patience: this sort of thing will not last,’ theytold us, while we, the youth, were ready to resume thestruggle, to act, to risk, to sacrifice everything, if necessary,and only asked them to give us advice, some guidance andsome intellectual support.

Turguéneff has depicted in ‘Smoke’ some of the ex-reformersfrom the upper layers of society, and his pictureis disheartening. But it is especially in the heartrendingnovels and sketches of Madame Kohanóvskaya, who wroteunder the pseudonym of ‘V. Krestóvsky’ (she must notbe confounded with another novel-writer, Vsévolod Krestóvsky),that one can follow the many aspects which thedegradation of the ‘liberals of the sixties’ took at thattime. ‘The joy of living’—perhaps the joy of havingsurvived—became their goddess, as soon as the nameless(234)crowd which ten years before made the force of the reformmovement refused to hear any more of ‘all thatsentimentalism.’ They hastened to enjoy the richeswhich poured into the hands of ‘practical’ men.

Many new ways to fortune had been opened sinceserfdom had been abolished, and the crowd rushed witheagerness into these channels. Railways were feverishlymade in Russia; to the lately opened private banks thelandlords went in numbers to mortgage their estates; thenewly established private notaries and lawyers at thecourts were in the possession of large incomes; the shareholders’companies multiplied with an appalling rapidityand the promoters flourished. A class of men who formerlywould have lived in the country on the modest incomeof a small estate cultivated by a hundred serfs, oron a still more modest salary of a functionary in a lawcourt, now made fortunes, or had such yearly incomes asin the times of serfdom were possible only for the landmagnates.

The very taste of ‘society’ sank lower and lower.The Italian Opera, formerly a forum for radical demonstrations,was now deserted; the Russian Opera, timidlyasserting the rights of its great composers, was frequentedby a few enthusiasts only. Both were found ‘tedious,’and the cream of St. Petersburg society crowded to avulgar theatre where the second-rate stars of the Parissmall theatres won easy laurels from their jeunesse doréeadmirers, or went to see ‘La Belle Hélène,’ which wasplayed on the Russian stage, while our great dramatistswere forgotten. Offenbach’s music reigned supreme.

It must be said that the political atmosphere wassuch that the best men had reasons, or had at leastweighty excuses, for keeping quiet. After Karakózoffhad shot at Alexander II. in April 1866 the State policehad become omnipotent. Everyone suspected of ‘radicalism,’no matter what he had done or what he had not(235)done, had to live under the fear of being arrested anynight for the sympathy he might have shown to some oneinvolved in this or that political affair, or for an innocentletter intercepted in a midnight search, or simply for his‘dangerous’ opinions; and arrest for political reasonsmight mean anything—years of seclusion in the fortressof St. Peter and St. Paul, transportation to Siberia, oreven torture in the casemates of the fortress.

This movement of the circles of Karakózoff remainsup to this date very imperfectly known, even in Russia.I was at that time in Siberia, and know of it only byhearsay. It appears, however, that two different currentscombined in it. One of them was the beginning of thatgreat movement ‘towards the people’ which later ontook such a formidable extension, while the other currentwas mainly political. Groups of young men, some ofwhom were on the road to become brilliant universityprofessors, or men of mark as historians and ethnographers,had come together about 1864, with the intentionof carrying to the people education and knowledge inspite of the opposition of the Government. They wentas mere artisans to great industrial towns, and startedthere co-operative associations, as well as informal schools,hoping that by the exercise of much tact and patience theymight be able to educate the people, and thus to createthe first centres from which better and higher conceptionswould gradually radiate amongst the masses. Their zealwas great; considerable fortunes were brought into theservice of the cause; and I am inclined to think that,compared with all similar movements which took placelater on, this one stood perhaps on the most practicalbasis. Its initiators certainly were very near to the workingpeople.

On the other side, with some of the members of thesecircles—Karakózoff, Ishútin, and their nearest friends—themovement took a political direction. During theyears from 1862 to 1866 the policy of Alexander II. had(236)assumed a decidedly reactionary character; he had surroundedhimself with men of the most reactionary type,taking them as his nearest advisers; the very reformswhich made the glory of the beginning of his reignwere now wrecked wholesale by means of by-laws andministerial circulars: a return to manorial justice andserfdom in a disguised form was openly expected in theold camp; while no one could hope at that time that themain reform—the abolition of serfdom—could withstandthe assaults directed against it from the Winter Palaceitself. All this must have brought Karakózoff and hisfriends to the idea that a further continuance of AlexanderII.’s reign would be a menace even to the little that hadbeen won; that Russia would have to return to thehorrors of Nicholas I. if Alexander continued to rule.Great hopes were felt at the same time—this is ‘an oftenrepeated story, but always new’—as to the liberal inclinationsof the heir to the throne and his uncle Constantine.I must also say that before 1866 such fears and such considerationswere not unfrequently expressed in muchhigher circles than those with which Karakózoff seemsto have been in contact. At any rate Karakózoff shotat Alexander II. one day, as he was coming out of theSummer Garden to take his carriage. The shot missed,and Karakózoff was arrested on the spot.

Katkóff, the leader of the Moscow reactionary party,and a great master in extracting pecuniary profits fromevery political disturbance, at once accused all radicalsand liberals of complicity with Karakózoff—which wascertainly false—and insinuated in his paper—making allMoscow believe it—that Karakózoff was a mere instrumentin the hands of the Grand Duke Constantine, theleader of the reform party in the highest spheres. Onecan imagine how the two rulers, Shuváloff and Trépoff,exploited these accusations and the fears of AlexanderII.

Mikhael Muravióff, who had won during the Polish(237)insurrection his nickname of ‘the Hangman,’ receivedorders to make a most searching inquiry, and to discoverby every possible means the plot which was supposed toexist. He made arrests in all classes of society, orderedhundreds of searches, and boasted that he ‘would findthe means to render the prisoners more talkative.’ Hecertainly was not the man to recoil even before torture;and public opinion in St. Petersburg was almost unanimousin saying that Karakózoff was tortured to obtainavowals, but made none.

State secrets are well kept in fortresses, especially inthat huge mass of stone opposite the Winter Palace, whichhas seen so many horrors, only in recent times disclosedby historians. It still keeps Muravióff’s secrets. Howeverthe following may perhaps throw some light on thismatter.

In 1866 I was in Siberia. One of our Siberian officers,who travelled from Russia to Irkútsk toward theend of that year, met at a post station two gendarmes.They had accompanied to Siberia a functionary exiledfor theft, and were now returning home. Our Irkútskofficer, who was a very amiable man, finding the gendarmesat the tea table on a cold winter night, joinedthem and chatted with them while the horses were beingchanged. One of the men knew Karakózoff.

‘He was cunning, he was,’ he said. ‘When he wasin the fortress we were ordered, two of us—we wererelieved every two hours—not to let him sleep. So wekept him sitting on a small stool, and as soon as hebegan to doze we shook him to keep him awake....What will you? we were ordered to do so!... Well,see how cunning he was: he would sit with crossed legs,swinging one of his legs to make us believe that he wasawake, and himself, in the meantime, would get a nap,continuing to swing his leg. But we soon made it outand told those who relieved us, so that he was shakenand waked up every few minutes, whether he swung his(238)legs or not.’ ‘And how long did that last?’ my friendasked. ‘Oh, many days—more than one week.’

The naïve character of this description is in itself aproof of veracity: it could not have been invented; andthat Karakózoff was tortured to this degree may be takenfor granted.

When Karakózoff was hanged one of my comradesfrom the corps of pages was present at the executionwith his regiment of cuirassiers. ‘When he was takenout of the fortress,’ my comrade told me, ‘sitting on thehigh platform of the cart which was jolting on the roughglacis of the fortress, my first impression was that theywere bringing out an india-rubber doll to be hanged, thatKarakózoff was already dead. Imagine that the head,the hands, the whole body were absolutely loose, as ifthere were no bones in the body, or as if the bones hadall been broken. It was a terrible thing to see, and tothink what it meant. However, when two soldiers tookhim down from the cart I saw that he moved his legsand made strenuous endeavours to walk by himself andto ascend the steps of the scaffold. So it was not a doll,nor could he have been in a swoon. All the officerswere very much puzzled at the circ*mstance and couldnot explain it.’ When, however, I suggested to mycomrade that perhaps Karakózoff had been tortured thecolour came into his face, and he replied, ‘So we allthought.’

Absence of sleep for weeks would alone be sufficientto explain the state in which that morally very strongman was during the execution. I may add that I havethe absolute certitude that—at least in one case—drugswere administered to a prisoner in the fortress—namely,‘Sabúroff,’ in 1879. Did Muravióff limit the torture tothis only? Was he prevented from going any further,or not? I do not know. But this much I know: that Ioften heard from high officials at St. Petersburg thattorture had been resorted to in this case.

(239)

Muravióff had promised to root out all radical elementsin St. Petersburg, and all those who had had inany degree a radical past now lived under the fear offalling into the despot’s clutches. Above all they keptaloof from the younger people, from fear of being involvedwith them in some perilous political associations.In this way a chasm was opened not only between the‘fathers’ and the ‘sons,’ as Turguéneff described it in hisnovel, not only between the two generations, but also betweenall men who had passed the age of thirty and thosewho were in their early twenties. Russian youth stoodconsequently in the position not only of having to fightin their fathers the defenders of serfdom, but of beingleft entirely to themselves by their elder brothers, whowere unwilling to join them in their leanings towardsocialism, and were afraid to give them support even intheir struggle for more political freedom. Was thereever before in history, I ask myself, a youthful bandengaging in a fight against so formidable a foe, so desertedby fathers and even by elder brothers, althoughthose young men had merely taken to heart, and hadtried to realize in life, the intellectual inheritance of thesesame fathers and brothers? Was there ever a struggleundertaken in more tragical conditions than these?

VI

The only bright point which I saw in the life of St.Petersburg was the movement which was going onamongst the youth of both sexes. Various currentsjoined to produce the mighty agitation which soon tookan underground and revolutionary character, and engrossedthe attention of Russia for the next fifteen years.I shall speak of it in a subsequent chapter; but I mustmention in this place the movement which was carriedon, quite openly, by our women for obtaining access to(240)higher education. St. Petersburg was at that time itsmain centre.

Every afternoon the young wife of my brother, onher return from the women’s pedagogical courses whichshe followed, had something new to tell us about theanimation which prevailed there. Schemes were laidfor opening a medical academy and universities forwomen; debates upon schools or upon different methodsof education were organized in connection with thecourses, and hundreds of women took a passionate interestin these questions, discussing them over and overagain in private. Societies of translators, publishers,printers, and bookbinders were started, in order thatwork might be provided for the poorest members of thesisterhood who flocked to St. Petersburg, ready to doany sort of work, only to live in the hope that they,too, would some day have their share of higher education.A vigorous, exuberant life reigned in those femininecentres, in striking contrast to what I met with elsewhere.

Since the Government had shown its determined intentionnot to admit women to the existing universitiesthey had directed all their efforts toward opening universitiesof their own. They were told at the Ministryof Education that the girls who had passed through thegirls’ gymnasia (the high schools) were not prepared tofollow university lectures. ‘Very well,’ they replied,‘permit us to open intermediate courses, preparatoryto the university, and impose upon us any programmeyou like. We ask no grants from the State. Only giveus the permission, and it will be done.’ Of course thepermission was not given.

Then they started private courses and drawing-roomlectures in all parts of St. Petersburg. Many universityprofessors, in sympathy with the new movement, volunteeredto give lectures. Poor men themselves, theywarned the organizers that any mention of remunerationwould be taken as a personal offence. Natural science(241)excursions used to be made every summer in the neighbourhoodof St. Petersburg, under the guidance of universityprofessors, and women constituted the bulk ofthe excursionists. In the courses for midwives theyforced the professors to treat each subject in a far moreexhaustive way than was required by the programme,or to open additional courses. They took advantage ofevery possibility, of every breach in the fortress, to stormit. They gained admission to the anatomical laboratoryof old Dr. Gruber, and by their admirable work theywon this enthusiast of anatomy entirely to their side.If they learned that a professor had no objection toletting them work in his laboratory on Sundays and atnight on week days, they took advantage of the opening,working late on week days and all day on Sunday.

At last, notwithstanding all the opposition of theMinistry, they opened the intermediate courses, onlygiving them the name of pedagogical courses. Was itpossible, indeed, to forbid future mothers studying themethods of education? But as the methods of teachingbotany or mathematics could not be taught in the abstract,botany, mathematics, and the rest were soon introducedinto the curriculum of the pedagogical courses,which became preparatory for the university.

Step by step the women thus widened their rights.As soon as it became known that at some German universitya certain professor might open his lecture-roomto a few women, they knocked at his door and wereadmitted. They studied law and history at Heidelberg,and mathematics at Berlin; at Zürich more than ahundred girls and women worked at the University andthe Polytechnicum. There they won something morevaluable than the degree of Doctor of Medicine; theywon the esteem of the most learned professors, whoexpressed it publicly several times. When I came toZürich in 1872, and became acquainted with some of thestudents, I was astonished to see quite young girls, who(242)were studying at the Polytechnicum, solving intricateproblems of the theory of heat, with the aid of the differentialcalculus, as easily as if they had had years ofmathematical training. One of the Russian girls whostudied mathematics under Weierstrass at Berlin, SophieKovalévsky, became a mathematician of high repute,and was invited to a professorship at Stockholm; shewas, I believe, the first woman in our century to hold aprofessorship in a university for men. She was soyoung that in Sweden no one wanted to call her anythingbut by her diminutive name of Sónya.

In spite of the open hatred of Alexander II. foreducated women—when he met in his walks a girl wearingspectacles and a round Garibaldian cap he began totremble, thinking that she must be a Nihilist bent onshooting him—in spite of the bitter opposition of theState police, who represented every woman student as arevolutionist; in spite of the thunders and the vile accusationswhich Katkóff directed against the whole ofthe movement in almost every number of his venomousgazette, the women succeeded, in the teeth of theGovernment, in opening a series of educational institutions.When several of them had obtained medicaldegrees abroad they forced the Government, in 1872, tolet them open a medical academy with their own privatemeans. And when the Russian women were recalled bytheir Government from Zürich, to prevent their intercoursewith the revolutionist refugees, they forced theGovernment to let them open in Russia four universitiesof their own, which soon had nearly a thousand pupils.It seems almost incredible, but it is a fact that notwithstandingall the prosecutions which the Women’s MedicalAcademy had to live through, and its temporary closure,there are now in Russia more than six hundred andseventy women practising as doctors.

It was certainly a grand movement, astounding inits success and instructive in a high degree. Above all(243)it was through the unlimited devotion of a mass ofwomen in all possible capacities that they gained theirsuccesses. They had already worked as sisters of charityduring the Crimean war, as organizers of schools lateron, as the most devoted schoolmistresses in the villages,as educated midwives and doctors’ assistants amongstthe peasants. They went afterward as nurses and doctorsin the fever-stricken hospitals during the Turkish war of1878, and won the admiration of the military commandersand of Alexander II. himself. I know two ladies, bothvery eagerly ‘wanted’ by the State police, who servedas nurses during the war, under assumed names whichwere guaranteed by false passports; one of them, thegreater ‘criminal’ of the two, who had taken a prominentpart in my escape, was even appointed head nurse ofa large hospital for wounded soldiers, while her friendnearly died from typhoid fever. In short, women tookany position, no matter how low in the social scale, andno matter what privations it involved, if only they couldbe in any way useful to the people; not a few of them,but hundreds and thousands. They have conquered theirrights in the true sense of the word.

Another feature of this movement was that in it thechasm between the two generations—the older and theyounger sisters—did not exist; or, at least, it wasbridged over to a great extent. Those who were theleaders of the movement from its origin never brokethe link which connected them with their younger sisters,even though the latter were far more advanced in theirideals than the older women were.

They pursued their aims in the higher spheres; theykept strictly aloof from any political agitation; but theynever committed the fault of forgetting that their trueforce was in the masses of younger women, of whom agreat number finally joined the radical or revolutionarycircles. These leaders were correctness itself—I consideredthem too correct—but they did not break with(244)those younger students who went about as typical Nihilists,with short-cropped hair, disdaining crinoline, and betrayingtheir democratic spirit in all their behaviour. Theleaders did not mix with them, and occasionally therewas friction, but they never repudiated them—a greatthing, I believe, in those times of madly raging prosecutions.

They seemed to say to the younger and more democraticpeople, ‘We shall wear our velvet dresses andchignons, because we have to deal with fools who seein a velvet dress and a chignon the tokens of “politicalreliability;” but you, girls, remain free in your tastesand inclinations.’ When the women who studied atZürich were ordered by the Russian Government toreturn, these correct ladies did not turn against therebels. They simply said to the Government, ‘Youdon’t like it? Well, then, open women’s universitiesat home; otherwise our girls will go abroad in stillgreater numbers, and of course will enter into relationswith the political refugees.’ When they werereproached with breeding revolutionists, and weremenaced with the closing of their academy and universities,they retorted, ‘Yes, many students becomerevolutionists; but is that a reason for closing all universities?’How few political leaders have the moralcourage not to turn against the more advanced wingof their own party!

The real secret of their wise and fully successfulattitude was that none of the women who were the soulof that movement were mere ‘feminists,’ desirous to gettheir share of the privileged positions in society andthe State. Far from that. The sympathies of most ofthem went with the masses. I remember the livelypart which Miss Stásova, the veteran leader of the agitation,took in the Sunday schools in 1861, the friendshipsshe and her friends made among the factory girls,the interest they manifested in the hard life of those(245)girls outside the school, the fights they fought againsttheir greedy employers. I recall the keen interest whichthe women showed, at their pedagogical courses, in thevillage schools and in the work of those few who, likeBaron Korff, were permitted for some time to do somethingin that direction, and the social spirit which permeatedtheir courses. The rights they strove for—boththe leaders and the great bulk of the women—were notonly the individual right to higher instruction, but muchmore, far more, the right to be useful workers among thepeople, the masses. This was why they succeeded tosuch an extent.

VII

For the last few years the health of my father hadbeen going from bad to worse, and when my brotherAlexander and I came to see him, in the spring of 1871,we were told by the doctors that with the first frostsof autumn he would be gone. He had continued tolive in the old style, in the Stáraya Konúshennaya,but around him everything in this aristocratic quarterhad changed. The rich serf-owners, who once were soprominent there, had gone. After having spent in areckless way the redemption money which they hadreceived at the emancipation of the serfs, and afterhaving mortgaged and re-mortgaged their estates in thenew land banks which preyed upon their helplessness,they had withdrawn at last to the country or to provincialtowns, there to sink into oblivion. Their houses hadbeen taken by ‘the intruders’—rich merchants, railwaycontractors, and the like—while in nearly every one ofthe old families which remained in the Old Equerries’Quarters a young life struggled to assert its rights uponthe ruins of the old one. A couple of retired generals,who cursed the new ways, and relieved their griefs by(246)predicting for Russia a certain and speedy ruin underthe new order, or some relative occasionally droppingin, were all the company my father had now. Out ofour many relatives, numbering nearly a score of familiesat Moscow alone in my childhood, two families only hadremained in the capital, and these had joined the currentof the new life, the mothers discussing with their girlsand boys such matters as schools for the people andwomen’s universities. My father looked upon them withcontempt. My stepmother and my younger stepsister,Pauline, who had not changed, did their best to comforthim; but they themselves felt strange in their unwontedsurroundings.

My father had always been unkind and most unjusttoward my brother Alexander, but Alexander was utterlyincapable of holding a grudge against anyone. Whenhe entered our father’s sick-room, with the deep, kindlook of his dark blue eyes and with a smile revealing hisinfinite kindness, and when he immediately found outwhat could be done to render the sufferer more comfortablein his sick-chair, and did it as naturally as if he hadleft the sick-room only an hour before, my father wassimply bewildered; he stared at him without being ableto understand. Our visit brought life into the dull,gloomy house; nursing became more bright; my stepmother,Pauline, the servants themselves, grew moreanimated, and my father felt the change.

One thing worried him, however. He had expectedto see us come as repentant sons, imploring his support.But when he tried to direct conversation into that channelwe stopped him with such a cheerful ‘Don’t bother aboutthat; we get on very nicely,’ that he was still morebewildered. He looked for a scene in the old style—hissons begging pardon, and money—perhaps he evenregretted for a moment that this did not happen; but heregarded us with a greater esteem. We were all threeaffected at parting. He seemed almost to dread returning(247)to his gloomy loneliness amidst the wreckage of asystem he had lived to maintain. But Alexander hadto go back to his service, and I was leaving for Finland.

When I was called home again, from Finland, Ihurried to Moscow, to find the burial ceremony justbeginning, in that same old red church where my fatherhad been baptized, and where the last prayers had beensaid over his mother. As the funeral procession passedalong the streets, of which every house was familiar to mein my childhood, I noticed that the houses had changedlittle, but I knew that in all of them a new life had begun.

In the house which had formerly belonged to ourfather’s mother and then to Princess Mírski, and whichnow was bought by General N——, an old inhabitant ofthe Quarter, the only daughter of the family maintainedfor a couple of years a painful struggle against her good-naturedbut obstinate parents, who worshipped her butwould not allow her to study at the university courseswhich had been opened for ladies at Moscow. At lastshe was allowed to join these courses, but was taken tothem in an elegant carriage, under the close supervisionof her mother, who courageously sat for hours on thebenches amongst the students, by the side of her beloveddaughter; and yet, notwithstanding all this care andwatchfulness, a couple of years later the daughter joinedthe revolutionary party, was arrested, and spent one yearin the fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul.

In the house opposite, the despotic heads of thefamily, Count and Countess Z——, were in a bitterstruggle against their two daughters, who were sick ofthe idle and useless existence their parents forced themto lead, and who wanted to join those other girls who,free and happy, flocked to the university courses. Thestruggle lasted for years; the parents did not yield inthis case, and the result of it was that the elder girlended her life by poisoning herself, when her youngersister was allowed to follow her own inclinations.

(248)

In the house next door, which had been our familyresidence for a year, when I entered it with Tchaykóvskyto hold in it the first secret meeting of a circle whichwe founded at Moscow, I at once recognized the roomswhich had been so familiar to me, in such a differentatmosphere, in my childhood. It now belonged to thefamily of Nathalie Armfeld, that highly sympatheticKará ‘convict’ whom George Kennan has so touchinglydescribed in his book on Siberia.

And in a house within a stone’s throw of that wheremy father had died, and within a few months after hisdeath, I received Stepniák, clothed as a peasant, hehaving escaped from a country village where he had beenarrested for socialist propaganda amongst the peasants.

Such was the change which had been accomplishedin the Old Equerries’ Quarter within the last fifteen years.The last stronghold of the old nobility was now invadedby the new spirit.

VIII

The next year, early in the spring, I made my firstjourney to Western Europe. In crossing the Russianfrontier I experienced, even more intensely than I wasprepared to do, what every Russian feels on leaving hismother country. So long as the train runs on Russianground, through the thinly populated north-westernprovinces, one has the feeling of crossing a desert.Hundreds of miles are covered with low growths whichhardly deserve the name of forests. Here and there theeye discovers a small, miserably poor village buried inthe snow, or an impracticable, muddy, narrow, and windingvillage road. But everything—scenery and surroundings—changesall of a sudden as soon as the train entersPrussia, with its clean-looking villages and farms, itsgardens, and its paved roads; and the sense of contrast(249)grows stronger and stronger as one penetrates furtherinto Germany. Even dull Berlin seemed animated afterour Russian towns.

And the contrast of climate! Two days before Ihad left St. Petersburg thickly covered with snow, andnow, in Middle Germany, I walked without an overcoatalong the railway platform, in warm sunshine, admiringthe budding flowers. Then came the Rhine, and furtheron Switzerland, bathed in the rays of a bright sun, withits small, clean hotels, where breakfast was served out ofdoors, in view of the snow-clad mountains. I never beforehad realized so vividly what Russia’s northern positionmeant, and how the history of the Russian nation hadbeen influenced by the fact that the main centres of itslife had to develop in high latitudes, as far north as theshores of the Gulf of Finland. Only then I fully understoodthe uncontrollable attraction which southern landshave exercised on the Russians, the colossal efforts whichthey have made to reach the Black Sea, and the steadypressure of the Siberian colonists southward, further intoManchuria.

At that time Zürich was full of Russian students,both women and men. The famous Oberstrass, nearthe Polytechnicum, was a corner of Russia, where theRussian language prevailed over all others. The studentslived as most Russian students do, especially the women—thatis, upon very little. Tea and bread, some milk,and a thin slice of meat cooked over a spirit lamp, amidstanimated discussions about the latest news of the socialisticworld or the last book read, that was their regularfare. Those who had more money than was needed forsuch a mode of living gave it for the ‘common cause’—thelibrary, the Russian review which was going to bepublished, the support of the Swiss labour papers. As totheir dress, the most parsimonious economy reigned inthat direction. Pushkin has written in a well-known(250)verse, ‘What hat may not suit a girl of sixteen?’ Ourgirls at Zürich seemed defiantly to throw this question atthe population of the old Zwinglian city: ‘Can there bea simplicity in dress which does not become a girl, whenshe is young, intelligent, and full of energy?’

With all this the busy little community worked harderthan any other students have ever worked since therewere universities in existence, and the Zürich professorswere never tired of showing the progress accomplished bythe women at the university as an example to the malestudents.

For many years I had longed to learn all about theInternational Workingmen’s Association. Russian papersmentioned it pretty frequently in their columns, but theywere not allowed to speak of its principles or what it wasdoing, I felt that it must be a great movement, full ofconsequences, but I could not grasp its aims and tendencies.Now that I was in Switzerland I determined tosatisfy my longings.

The Association was then at the height of its development.Great hopes had been awakened in the years1840-48 in the hearts of European workers. Only nowwe begin to realize what a formidable amount of socialistliterature was circulated in those years by socialists of alldenominations, Christian socialists, State socialists, Fourierists,Saint-Simonists, Owenites, and so on; and onlynow we begin to understand the depth of that movement,and to discover how much of what our generation hasconsidered the product of contemporary thought wasalready developed and said—often with great penetration—duringthose years. The republicans understood thenunder the name of ‘republic’ a quite different thing fromthe democratic organization of capitalist rule which nowgoes under that name. When they spoke of the UnitedStates of Europe they understood the brotherhood ofworkers, the weapons of war transformed into tools, and(251)these tools used by all members of society for the benefitof all—‘the iron returned to the labourer,’ as PierreDupont said in one of his songs. They meant not onlythe reign of equality as regards criminal law and politicalrights, but particularly economic equality. The nationaliststhemselves saw in their dreams Young Italy, YoungGermany, and Young Hungary taking the lead in far-reachingagrarian and economic reforms.

The defeat of the June insurrection at Paris, of Hungaryby the armies of Nicholas I., and of Italy by theFrench and the Austrians, and the fearful reaction, politicaland intellectual, which followed everywhere inEurope, totally destroyed that movement. Its literature,its achievements, its very principles of economic revolutionand universal brotherhood were simply forgotten,lost, during the next twenty years.

However, one idea had survived—the idea of an internationalbrotherhood of all the workers, which a fewFrench emigrants continued to preach in the UnitedStates, and the followers of Robert Owen in England.The understanding which was reached by some Englishworkers and a few French workers’ delegates to theLondon International Exhibition of 1862 became thenthe starting point for a formidable movement, which soonspread all over Europe, and included several millionworkers. The hopes which had been dormant for twentyyears were awakened once more, when the workers werecalled upon to unite, ‘without distinction of creed, sex,nationality, race, or colour,’ to proclaim that ‘the emancipationof the workers must be their own work,’ and tothrow the weight of a strong, united, international organizationinto the evolution of mankind—not in the name oflove and charity, but in the name of justice, of the forcethat belongs to a body of men moved by a reasoned consciousnessof their own aims and aspirations.

Two strikes at Paris, in 1868 and 1869, more or lesshelped by small contributions sent from abroad, especially(252)from England, insignificant though they were in themselves,and the prosecutions which the Imperial Governmentdirected against the International, became the originof an immense movement, in which the solidarity of theworkers of all nations was proclaimed in the face of therivalries of the States. The idea of an internationalunion of all trades, and of a struggle against capital withthe aid of international support, carried away the mostindifferent of the workers. The movement spread likewildfire in France, Belgium, Italy, and Spain, bringing tothe front a great number of intelligent, active, and devotedworkers, and attracting to it some decidedly superiormen and women from the wealthier educated classes. Aforce, never before suspected to exist, grew stronger everyday in Europe; and if the movement had not beenarrested in its growth by the Franco-German war, greatthings would probably have happened in Europe, deeplymodifying the aspects of our civilization, and undoubtedlyaccelerating human progress. Unfortunately, the crushingvictory of the Germans brought about abnormal conditionsin Europe; it stopped for a quarter of a centurythe normal development of France, and threw all Europeinto a period of militarism, which we are still living in atthe present moment.

All sorts of partial solutions of the great social questionhad currency at that time among the workers—co-operation,productive associations supported by the State,people’s banks, gratuitous credit, and so on. Each ofthese solutions was brought before the ‘sections’ ofthe Association, and then before the local, regional, national,and international congresses, and eagerly discussed.Every annual congress of the Association markeda new step in advance, in the development of ideas aboutthe great social problem which stands before our generationand calls for a solution. The amount of intelligentthings which were said at these congresses, and of scientifically(253)correct, deeply thought over ideas which were circulated—allbeing the results of the collective thought ofthe workers—has never yet been sufficiently appreciated;but there is no exaggeration in saying that all schemes ofsocial reconstruction which are now in vogue under thename of ‘scientific socialism’ or ‘anarchism’ had theirorigin in the discussions and reports of the different congressesof the International Association. The few educatedmen who joined the movement have only put into atheoretical shape the criticisms and the aspirations whichwere expressed in the sections, and subsequently in thecongresses, by the workers themselves.

The war of 1870-71 had hampered the developmentof the Association, but had not stopped it. In all the industrialcentres of Switzerland numerous and animatedsections of the International existed, and thousands ofworkers flocked to their meetings, at which war was declaredupon the existing system of private ownership ofland and factories, and the near end of the capitalistsystem was proclaimed. Local congresses were held invarious parts of the country, and at each of these gatheringsmost arduous and difficult problems of the presentsocial organization were discussed, with a knowledge ofthe matter and a depth of conception which alarmed themiddle classes even more than did the numbers of adherentswho joined the sections, or groups, of the International.The jealousies and prejudices which had hitherto existedin Switzerland between the privileged trades (the watchmakersand jewellers) and the rougher trades (weavers,building trades, and so on), and which had prevented jointaction in labour disputes, were disappearing. The workersasserted with increasing emphasis that of all the divisionswhich exist in modern society by far the most importantis that between the owners of capital and those who notonly come into the world penniless, but are doomed toremain producers of wealth for the favoured few.

Italy, especially middle and northern Italy, was honeycombed(254)with groups and sections of the International; andin these the Italian unity so long struggled for was declareda mere illusion. The workers were called upon to maketheir own revolution—to take the land for the peasantsand the factories for the workers themselves, and to abolishthe oppressive centralized organization of the State,whose historical mission always was to protect and tomaintain the exploitation of man by man.

In Spain similar organizations covered Catalonia,Valencia, and Andalusia; they were supported by, andunited with, the powerful labour unions of Barcelona,which already then had introduced the eight hours’ dayin the building trades. The International had no lessthan eighty thousand regularly paying Spanish members;it embodied all the active and thinking elements of thepopulation; and by its distinct refusal to meddle with thepolitical intrigues during 1871-72 it had drawn to itself inan immense degree the sympathies of the masses. Theproceedings of its provincial and national congresses,and the manifestoes which they issued, were models ofa severe logical criticism of the existing conditions, as wellas admirably lucid statements of the workers’ ideals.

In Belgium, Holland, and even in Portugal the samemovement was spreading, and it had already brought intothe Association the great mass and the best elements ofthe Belgian coal miners and weavers. In England thetrades unions had also joined the movement, at least inprinciple, and, without committing themselves to Socialism,were ready to support their Continental brethren in directstruggles against capital, especially in strikes. In Germanythe socialists had concluded a union with the rathernumerous followers of Lassalle, and the first foundationsof a social democratic party had been laid. Austria andHungary followed in the same track; and although nointernational organization was possible at that time inFrance, after the defeat of the Commune and the reactionwhich followed (Draconic laws having been enacted(255)against the adherents of the Association), everyone waspersuaded, nevertheless, that this period of reaction wouldnot last, and that France would soon join the Associationagain and take the lead in it.

When I came to Zürich I joined one of the local sectionsof the International Workingmen’s Association. I alsoasked my Russian friends where I could learn more aboutthe great movement which was going on in other countries.‘Read,’ was their reply, and my sister-in-law, who wasthen studying at Zürich, brought me large numbers ofbooks and collections of newspapers for the last two years.I spent days and nights in reading, and received a deepimpression which nothing will efface; the flood of newthoughts awakened is associated in my mind with a tinyclean room in the Oberstrass, commanding from a windowa view of the blue lake, with the mountains beyond it,where the Swiss fought for their independence, and thehigh spires of the old town—that scene of so many religiousstruggles.

Socialistic literature has never been rich in books.It is written for workers, for whom one penny is money,and its main force lies in its small pamphlets and itsnewspapers. Moreover he who seeks for informationabout socialism finds in books little of what he requiresmost. They contain the theories or the scientific argumentsin favour of socialist aspirations, but they give noidea how the workers accept socialist ideals, and howthey could put them into practice. There remainsnothing but to take collections of papers and read themall through—the news as well as the leading articles—theformer, perhaps, even more than the latter. Quitea new world of social relations and methods of thoughtand action is revealed by this reading, which gives aninsight into what cannot be found anywhere else—namely,the depth and the moral force of the movement,the degree to which men are imbued with the newtheories, their readiness to carry them out in their daily(256)life and to suffer for them. All discussions about theimpracticability of socialism and the necessary slownessof evolution are of little value, because the speed of evolutioncan only be judged from a close knowledge of thehuman beings of whose evolution we are speaking.What estimate of a sum can be made without knowingits components?

The more I read the more I saw that there wasbefore me a new world, unknown to me, and totally unknownto the learned makers of sociological theories—aworld that I could know only by living in the Workingmen’sAssociation and by meeting the workers intheir everyday life. I decided, accordingly, to spend acouple of months in such a life. My Russian friendsencouraged me, and after a few days’ stay at Zürich Ileft for Geneva, which was then a great centre of theinternational movement.

The place where the Geneva sections used to meetwas the spacious Masonic Temple Unique. More thantwo thousand men could come together in its large hallat the general meetings, while every evening all sorts ofcommittee and section meetings took place in the side-rooms,or classes in history, physics, engineering, and soon, were held. Free instruction was given there to theworkers by the few, very few, middle-class men who hadjoined the movement, mainly French refugees of theParis Commune. It was a people’s university as well asa people’s forum.

One of the chief leaders of the movement at theTemple Unique was a Russian, Nicholas Ootin, a bright,clever, and active man; and the real soul of it was amost sympathetic Russian lady, who was known far andwide amongst the workers as Madame Olga. She wasthe working force in all the committees. Both Ootinand Madame Olga received me cordially, made me acquaintedwith all the men of mark in the sections of the(257)different trades, and invited me to be present at thecommittee meetings. So I went, but I preferred beingwith the workers themselves. Taking a glass of sourwine at one of the tables in the hall, I used to sit thereevery evening amid the workers, and soon becamefriendly with several of them, especially with a stonemasonfrom Alsace, who had left France after the insurrectionof the Commune. He had children, justabout the age of the two whom my brother had sosuddenly lost a few months before, and through thechildren I was soon on good terms with the family andtheir friends. I could thus follow the movement fromthe inside, and know the workers’ view of it.

The workers had built all their hopes on the internationalmovement. Young and old flocked to theTemple Unique after their long day’s work, to get holdof the scraps of instruction which they could obtainthere, or to listen to the speakers who promised them agrand future, based upon the common possession of allthat man requires for the production of wealth, and upona brotherhood of men, without distinction of caste, race,or nationality. All hoped that a great social revolution,peaceful or not, would soon come and totally change theeconomic conditions. No one desired class war, but allsaid that if the ruling classes rendered it unavoidable,through their blind obstinacy, the war must be foughtover, provided it would bring with it well-being andliberty to the down-trodden masses.

One must have lived among the workers at that timeto realize the effect which the sudden growth of theAssociation had upon their minds—the trust they put init, the love with which they spoke of it, the sacrificesthey made for it. Every day, week after week and yearafter year, thousands of workers gave their time andtheir coppers, taken upon their very food, in order tosupport the life of each group, to secure the appearanceof the papers, to defray the expenses of the congresses,(258)to support the comrades who had suffered for the Association.Another thing that impressed me deeplywas the elevating influence which the International exercised.Most of the Paris Internationalists were almosttotal abstainers from drink, and all had abandonedsmoking. ‘Why should I nurture in myself that weakness?’they said. The mean, the trivial disappeared toleave room for the grand, the elevating inspirations.

Outsiders never realize the sacrifices which are madeby the workers in order to keep their labour movementsalive. No small amount of moral courage was requiredto join openly a section of the International Association,and to face the discontent of the master and a probabledismissal at the first opportunity, with the long monthsout of work which usually followed. But, even underthe best circ*mstances, belonging to a trade union, or toany advanced party, requires a series of uninterruptedsacrifices. Even a few pence given for the commoncause represent a burden on the meagre budget of theEuropean worker, and many pence have to be disbursedevery week. Frequent attendance at the meetings meansa sacrifice too. For us it may be a pleasure to spend acouple of hours at a meeting, but for men whose workingday begins at five or six in the morning those hourshave to be stolen from necessary rest.

I felt this devotion as a standing reproach. I sawhow eager the workers were to gain instruction, andhow despairingly few were those who volunteered to aidthem. I saw how much the toiling masses needed to behelped by men possessed of education and leisure intheir endeavours to spread and to develop the organization;but few and rare were those who came to assistwithout the intention of making political capital out ofthis very helplessness of the people! More and more Ibegan to feel that I was bound to cast in my lot withthem. Stepniák says, in his ‘Career of a Nihilist,’ thatevery revolutionist has had a moment in his life when(259)some circ*mstance, maybe unimportant in itself, hasbrought him to pronounce his oath of giving himself tothe cause of revolution. I know that moment; I livedthrough it after one of the meetings at the TempleUnique, when I felt more acutely than ever before howcowardly are the educated men who hesitate to put theireducation, their knowledge, their energy at the service ofthose who are so much in need of that education and thatenergy. ‘Here are men,’ I said to myself, ‘who are consciousof their servitude, who work to get rid of it; butwhere are the helpers? Where are those who will cometo serve the masses—not to utilize them for their ownambitions?’

Gradually some doubts began, however, to creep intomy mind as to the soundness of the agitation which wascarried on at the Temple Unique. One night a well-knownGeneva lawyer, Monsieur A., came to the meeting,and stated that if he had not hitherto joined the Associationit was because he had first to settle his own businessaffairs; having now succeeded in that direction, he cameto join the labour movement. I felt shocked at thiscynical avowal, and when I communicated my reflectionsto my stone-mason friend he explained to me that thisgentleman, having been defeated at the previous election,when he sought the support of the radical party, nowhoped to be elected by the support of the labour vote.‘We accept their services for the present,’ my friend concluded,‘but when the revolution comes our first movewill be to throw all of them overboard.’

Then came a great meeting, hastily convoked, toprotest, as it was said, against the calumnies of the‘Journal de Genève.’ This organ of the moneyed classesof Geneva had ventured to suggest that mischief wasbrewing at the Temple Unique, and that the buildingtrades were going once more to make a general strike,such as they had made in 1869. The leaders at the(260)Temple Unique called the meeting. Thousands ofworkers filled the hall, and Ootin asked them to passa resolution, the wording of which seemed to me verystrange: an indignant protest was expressed in it againstthe inoffensive suggestion that the workers were going tostrike. ‘Why should this suggestion be described as acalumny?’ I asked myself. ‘Is it, then, a crime tostrike?’ Ootin concluded in the meantime a hurriedspeech in support of his resolution with the words, ‘Ifyou agree, citizens, with it I will send it at once to thepress.’ He was going to leave the platform, when somebodyin the hall suggested that discussion would not beout of place; and then the representatives of all branchesof the building trades stood up in succession, saying thatthe wages had lately been so low that they could hardlylive upon them; that with the opening of the spring therewas plenty of work in view, of which they intended totake advantage to increase their wages; and that if anincrease were refused they intended to begin a generalstrike.

I was furious, and next day hotly reproached Ootinfor his behaviour. ‘As a leader,’ I told him, ‘you werebound to know that a strike had really been spoken of.’In my innocence I did not suspect the real motives ofthe leaders, and it was Ootin himself who made meunderstand that a strike at that time would be disastrousfor the election of the lawyer, Monsieur A.

I could not reconcile this wire-pulling by the leaderswith the burning speeches I had heard them pronouncefrom the platform. I felt disheartened, and spoke toOotin of my intention to make myself acquainted withthe other section of the International Association atGeneva, which was known as the Bakunísts. The name‘anarchist’ was not much in use then. Ootin gave me atonce a word of introduction to another Russian, NicholasJoukóvsky, who belonged to that section, and, lookingstraight into my face, he added with a sigh, ‘Well, you(261)won’t return to us; you will remain with them.’ He hadguessed right.

IX

I went first to Neuchâtel, and then spent a week or soamong the watchmakers in the Jura Mountains. I thusmade my first acquaintance with that famous Jura Federationwhich played for the next few years an importantpart in the development of socialism, introducing into itthe no-government, or anarchist, tendency.

In 1872, the Jura Federation was becoming a rebelagainst the authority of the general council of the InternationalWorkingmen’s Association. The Associationwas essentially a working-men’s organization, the workersunderstanding it as a labour movement and not as apolitical party. In East Belgium, for instance, they hadintroduced into the statutes a clause in virtue of whichno one could be a member of a section unless employedin a manual trade; even foremen were excluded.

The workers were moreover federalist in principle.Each nation, each separate region, and even each localsection had to be left free to develop on its own lines.But the middle-class revolutionists of the old school whohad entered the International, imbued as they were withthe notions of the centralized, pyramidal secret organizationsof earlier times, had introduced the same notionsinto the Workingmen’s Association. Beside the federaland national councils, a general council was nominatedat London, to act as a sort of intermediary between thecouncils of the different nations. Marx and Engels wereits leading spirits. It soon appeared, however, that themere fact of having such a central body became a sourceof substantial inconvenience. The general council wasnot satisfied with playing the part of a correspondencebureau; it strove to govern the movement, to approve orto censure the action of the local federations and sections,(262)and even of individual members. When the Communeinsurrection began in Paris—and ‘the leaders had onlyto follow,’ without being able to say whereto they wouldbe led within the next twenty-four hours—the generalcouncil insisted upon directing the insurrection fromLondon. It required daily reports about the events,gave orders, favoured this and hampered that, and thusput in evidence the disadvantage of having a governingbody, even within the Association. The disadvantagebecame still more apparent when, at a secret conferenceheld in 1871, the general council, supported by a fewdelegates, decided to direct the forces of the Associationtowards electoral agitation. It set people thinking aboutthe evils of any government, however democratic itsorigin. This was the first spark of anarchism. TheJura Federation became the centre of opposition againstthe general council.

The separation between leaders and workers whichI had noticed at Geneva in the Temple Unique did notexist in the Jura Mountains. There were a number ofmen who were more intelligent, and especially more active,than the others; but that was all. James Guillaume,one of the most intelligent and broadly educated menI ever met, was a proof-reader and the manager of asmall printing office. His earnings in this capacity wereso small that he had to give his nights to translatingnovels from German into French, for which he was paideight francs for sixteen pages.

When I came to Neuchâtel, he told me that unfortunatelyhe could not spare even as much as a coupleof hours for a friendly chat. The printing office wasjust issuing that afternoon the first number of a localpaper, and in addition to his usual duties of proof-readerand co-editor, he had to write on the wrappers a thousandaddresses of persons to whom the first three numberswould be sent, and to fasten himself the wrappers.

(263)

I offered to aid him in writing the addresses, butthat was not practicable, because they were either keptin memory or written on scraps of paper in an unreadablehand.... ‘Well, then,’ said I, ‘I will come in theafternoon to the office and fasten the wrappers, and youwill give me the time which you may thus save.’

We understood each other. Guillaume warmly shookmy hand, and that was the beginning of our friendship.We spent all the afternoon in the office, he writing theaddresses, I fastening the wrappers, and a French Communard,who was a compositor, chatting with us all thewhile as he rapidly composed a novel, intermingling hisconversation with the sentences which he had to put intype and which he read aloud.

‘The fight in the streets,’ he would say, ‘became verysharp.’... ‘Dear Mary, I love you.’... ‘The workerswere furious and fought like lions at Montmartre,’ ...‘and he fell on his knees before her,’ ... ‘and thatlasted for four days. We knew that Galliffet was shootingall prisoners—the more terrible still was the fight,’and so on he went, rapidly lifting the type from the case.

It was late in the evening that Guillaume took offhis working blouse, and we went out for a friendlychat for a couple of hours, when he had to resume hiswork as editor of the ‘Bulletin’ of the Jura Federation.

At Neuchâtel I also made the acquaintance of Malon.He was born in a village, and in his childhood he wasa shepherd. Later on he came to Paris, learned therea trade—basket-making—and, like the book-binderVarlin and the carpenter Pindy, with whom he wasassociated in the International, had come to be widelyknown as one of the leading spirits of the Associationwhen it was prosecuted in 1869 by Napoleon III. Allthree had entirely won the hearts of the Paris workers,and when the Commune insurrection broke out theywere elected members of the Council of the Commune,all three receiving formidable numbers of votes. Malon(264)was also mayor of one of the Paris arrondissem*nts.Now, in Switzerland, he was earning his living as abasket-maker. He had rented for a few coppers a montha small open shed out of the town, on the slope of a hill,from which he enjoyed while at work an extensive viewof the Lake of Neuchâtel. At night he wrote letters,a book on the Commune, short articles for the labourpapers—and thus he became a writer. Every day I wentto see him and to hear what this broad-faced, laborious,slightly poetical, quiet, and most good-hearted Communardhad to tell me about the insurrection in which hetook a prominent part, and which he had just describedin a book, ‘The Third Defeat of the French Proletariate.’

One morning when I had climbed the hill and reachedhis shed, he met me quite radiant with the words: ‘Youknow, Pindy is alive! Here is a letter from him; he isin Switzerland.’ Nothing had been heard of Pindy sincehe was seen last on May 25 or May 26 at the Tuileries,and he was supposed to be dead, while in reality he remainedin concealment at Paris. And while Malon’sfingers continued to ply the wickers and to shape theminto an elegant basket, he told me in his quiet voice, whichonly slightly trembled at times, how many men had beenshot by the Versailles troops on the supposition that theywere Pindy, Varlin, himself, or some other leader. Hetold me what he knew of the death of Varlin, the book-binderwhom the Paris workers worshipped, or old Delécluze,who did not want to survive the defeat, and manyothers; and he related the horrors which he had witnessedduring that carnival of blood with which the wealthyclasses of Paris celebrated their return to the capital, andthen—the spirit of retaliation which took hold of a crowd,led by Raoul Rigault, which executed the hostages of theCommune.

His lips quivered when he spoke of the heroism ofthe children; and he quite broke down when he toldme the story of that boy whom the Versailles troops(265)were going to shoot, and who asked the officer’s permissionto hand first a silver watch, which he had on,to his mother, who lived close by. The officer, yieldingto a moment of pity, let the boy go, probably hoping thathe would never return. But a quarter of an hour laterthe boy was back and, taking his place amidst the corpsesat the wall, said: ‘I am ready.’ Twelve bullets put anend to his young life.

I think I never suffered so much as when I read thatterrible book, ‘Le Livre Rouge de la Justice Rurale,’which contained nothing but extracts from the lettersof the Standard, Daily Telegraph, and Times correspondents,written from Paris during the last days of May 1871,relating the horrors committed by the Versailles armyunder Galliffet, together with a few quotations from theParis Figaro, imbued with a bloodthirsty spirit towardsthe insurgents. In reading these pages I was filled withdespair concerning mankind, and should have continuedto despair, had I not afterwards seen in those of thedefeated party who had lived through all these horrors,that absence of hatred, that confidence in the final triumphof their ideas, that calm though sad gaze of their eyesdirected towards the future, that readiness to forget thenightmare of the past, which struck me in Malon; in fact,in nearly all the refugees of the Commune whom I metat Geneva, and which I still see in Louise Michel, Lefrançais,Elisée Reclus, and other friends.

From Neuchâtel I went to Sonvilliers. In a littlevalley in the Jura hills there is a succession of smalltowns and villages of which the French-speaking populationwas at that time entirely employed in the variousbranches of watchmaking; whole families used to workin small workshops. In one of them I found anotherleader, Adhémar Schwitzguébel, with whom, also, I afterwardbecame very closely connected. He sat amonga dozen young men who were engraving lids of goldand silver watches. I was asked to take a seat on a(266)bench or table, and soon we were all engaged in a livelyconversation upon socialism, government or no government,and the coming congresses.

In the evening a heavy snowstorm raged; it blindedus, and froze the blood in our veins, as we struggled tothe next village. But, notwithstanding the storm, aboutfifty watchmakers, chiefly old people, came from theneighbouring towns and villages—some of them as faras seven miles distant—to join in a small informalmeeting that was called for that evening.

The very organization of the watch trade, whichpermits men to know one another thoroughly and towork in their own houses, where they are free to talk,explains why the level of intellectual development inthis population is higher than that of workers who spendall their life from early childhood in the factories. Thereis more independence and more originality among pettytrades’ workers. But the absence of a division betweenthe leaders and the masses in the Jura Federation wasalso the reason why there was not a question uponwhich every member of the federation would not striveto form his own independent opinion. Here I saw thatthe workers were not a mass that was being led andmade subservient to the political ends of a few men;their leaders were simply their more active comrades—initiatorsrather than leaders. The clearness of insight,the soundness of judgment, the capacity for disentanglingcomplex social questions, which I noticed amongst theseworkers, especially the middle-aged ones, deeply impressedme; and I am firmly persuaded that if the JuraFederation has played a prominent part in the developmentof socialism, it is not only on account of the importanceof the no-government and federalist ideas of which itwas the champion, but also on account of the expressionwhich was given to these ideas by the good sense of theJura watchmakers. Without their aid, these conceptionsmight have remained mere abstractions for a long time.

(267)

The theoretical aspects of anarchism, as they werethen beginning to be expressed in the Jura Federation,especially by Bakúnin; the criticisms of state socialism—thefear of an economic despotism, far more dangerousthan the merely political despotism—which I heardformulated there; and the revolutionary character ofthe agitation, appealed strongly to my mind. But theequalitarian relations which I found in the Jura Mountains,the independence of thought and expression which Isaw developing in the workers, and their unlimited devotionto the cause appealed even more strongly to myfeelings; and when I came away from the mountains,after a week’s stay with the watchmakers, my views uponsocialism were settled. I was an anarchist.

A subsequent journey to Belgium, where I could compareonce more the centralized political agitation atBrussels with the economic and independent agitationthat was going on amongst the clothiers at Verviers,only strengthened my views. These clothiers were oneof the most sympathetic populations that I have evermet with in Western Europe.

X

Bakúnin was at that time at Locarno. I did not seehim, and now regret it very much, because he was deadwhen I returned four years later to Switzerland. It washe who had helped the Jura friends to clear up theirideas and to formulate their aspirations; he who hadinspired them with his powerful, burning, irresistiblerevolutionary enthusiasm. As soon as he saw that asmall newspaper, which Guillaume began to edit in theJura hills (at Locle), was sounding a new note of independentthought in the socialist movement, he came toLocle, talked for whole days and whole nights long tohis new friends about the historical necessity of a new(268)move in the anarchist direction; he wrote for that papera series of profound and brilliant articles on the historicalprogress of mankind towards freedom; he infused enthusiasminto his new friends, and he created that centreof propaganda from which anarchism spread later onto other parts of Europe.

After he had moved to Locarno—from whence hestarted a similar movement in Italy and, through hissympathetic and gifted emissary, Fanelli, also in Spain—thework that he had begun in the Jura hills was continuedindependently by the Jurassians themselves. Thename of ‘Michel’ often recurred in their conversations—not,however, as that of an absent chief whose opinionswould make law, but as that of a personal friend ofwhom everyone spoke with love, in a spirit of comradeship.What struck me most was that Bakúnin’s influencewas felt much less as the influence of an intellectualauthority than as the influence of a moral personality.In conversations about anarchism, or about the attitudeof the federation, I never heard it said, ‘Bakúnin hassaid so’ or ‘Bakúnin thinks so,’ as if it clenched thediscussion. His writings and his sayings were not atext that one had to obey—as is often unfortunately thecase in political parties. In all such matters, in whichintellect is the supreme judge, everyone in discussionused his own arguments. Their general drift and tenormight have been suggested by Bakúnin, or Bakúninmight have borrowed them from his Jura friends—atany rate, in each individual the arguments retained theirown individual character. I only once heard Bakúnin’sname invoked as an authority in itself, and that struckme so much that I even now remember the spot wherethe conversation took place and its surroundings. Theyoung men began once in the presence of women someyoung men’s talk, not very respectful towards the othersex, when one of the women present put a sudden stopto it by exclaiming: ‘Pity that Michel is not here: he(269)would have put you in your place!’ The colossal figureof the revolutionist who had given up everything for thesake of the revolution, and lived for it alone, borrowingfrom his conception of it the highest and purest conceptionsof life, continued to inspire them.

I returned from this journey with distinct sociologicalconceptions which I have retained since, doing my bestto develop them in more and more definite, concreteforms.

There was, however, one point which I did not acceptwithout having given to it a great deal of thinking andmany hours of my nights. I clearly saw that the immensechange which would hand over everything that isnecessary for life and production into the hands of society—beit the Folk State of the social democrats, or thefree unions of freely associated groups, as the anarchistssay—would imply a revolution far more profound thanany of those which history has on record. Moreover,in such a revolution the workers would have against them,not the rotten generation of aristocrats against whom theFrench peasants and republicans had to fight in the lastcentury—and even that fight was a desperate one—butthe far more powerful, intellectually and physically, middleclasses, which have at their service all the potent machineryof the modern State. However, I soon noticed that norevolution, whether peaceful or violent, has ever takenplace without the new ideals having deeply penetratedinto the very class itself whose economical and politicalprivileges had to be assailed. I had witnessed the abolitionof serfdom in Russia, and I knew that if a convictionof the injustice of their rights had not widely spreadwithin the serf-owners’ class itself (as a consequence ofthe previous evolution and revolutions accomplished inWestern Europe), the emancipation of the serfs wouldnever have been accomplished as easily as it was in 1861.And I saw that the idea of emancipation of the workers(270)from the present wage-system was making headwayamongst the middle classes themselves. The most ardentdefenders of the present economical conditions had alreadyabandoned the plea of right in defending the presentprivileges—questions as to the opportuneness of such achange having already taken its place. They did notdeny the desirability of some such change, and only askedwhether the new economical organization advocated bythe socialists would really be better than the present one;whether a society in which the workers would have adominant voice would be able to manage productionbetter than the individual capitalists, actuated by mereconsiderations of self-interest, manage it at the presenttime.

Besides, I began gradually to understand that revolutions,i.e. periods of accelerated rapid evolution and rapidchanges, are as much in the nature of human society asthe slow evolution which incessantly goes on now amongthe civilized races of mankind. And each time that sucha period of accelerated evolution and thorough reconstructionbegins, civil war may break out on a small or ona grand scale. The question is, then, not so much howto avoid revolutions as how to attain the greatest resultswith the most limited amount of civil war, the leastnumber of victims, and a minimum of mutual embitterment.For that end there is only one means; namely,that the oppressed part of society should obtain theclearest possible conception of what they intend to achieveand how, and that they should be imbued with theenthusiasm which is necessary for that achievement—inwhich case they will be sure to attract to their cause thebest and the freshest intellectual forces of the class whichis possessed of historically grown-up privileges.

The Commune of Paris was a terrible example ofan outbreak with yet undetermined ideals. When theworkers became, in March 1871, the masters of the greatcity, they did not attack the property rights vested in the(271)middle classes. On the contrary, they took these rightsunder their protection. The leaders of the Communecovered the National Bank with their bodies, and notwithstandingthe crisis which had paralysed industry, and theconsequent absence of earning for a mass of workers, theyprotected the rights of the owners of the factories, thetrade establishments, and the dwelling-houses at Pariswith their decrees. However, when the movement wascrushed, no account was taken by the middle classes ofthe modesty of the Communalist claims of the insurgents.Having lived for two months in fear that the workerswould make an assault upon their property rights, therich men of France took upon the workers just the samerevenge as if they had made the assault in reality.Nearly thirty thousand workers were slaughtered, as isknown, not in battle but after they had lost the battle.If the workers had taken steps towards the socializationof property, the revenge could not have been moreterrible.

If, then, my conclusion was that there are periods inhuman development when a conflict is unavoidable, andcivil war breaks out quite independently of the will ofparticular individuals, let, at least, these conflicts takeplace, not on the ground of vague aspirations, but upondefinite issues; not upon secondary points, the insignificanceof which does not diminish the violence of theconflict, but upon broad ideas which inspire men by thegrandness of the horizon which they bring into view. Inthis last case the conflict itself will depend much less uponthe efficacy of firearms and guns than upon the force ofthe creative genius which will be brought into action inthe work of reconstruction of society. It will dependchiefly upon the constructive forces of society taking forthe moment a free course; upon the inspirations being ofa higher standard, and so winning more sympathy evenfrom those who, as a class, are opposed to the change.The conflict, being thus engaged in on larger issues, will(272)purify the social atmosphere itself; and the numbers ofvictims on both sides will certainly be much smaller thanthey would have been in case the fight had been foughtupon matters of secondary importance in which the lowerinstincts of men find a free play.

With these ideas I returned to Russia.

XI

During my journey I had bought a number of booksand collections of socialist newspapers. In Russia suchbooks were ‘unconditionally prohibited’ by censorship;and some of the collections of newspapers and reports ofinternational congresses could not be bought for anyamount of money even in Belgium. ‘Shall I part withthem, while my brother and my friends would be soglad to have them at St. Petersburg?’ I asked myself;and I decided that by all means I must get them intoRussia.

I returned to St. Petersburg viâ Vienna and Warsaw.Thousands of Jews live by smuggling on the Polishfrontier, and I thought that if I could succeed in discoveringonly one of them my books would be carried in safetyacross the border. However, to alight at a small railwaystation near the frontier while every other passenger wenton, and to hunt there for smugglers, would hardly havebeen reasonable; so I took a side branch of the railwayand went to Cracow. ‘The capital of Old Poland is nearto the frontier,’ I thought, ‘and I shall find there someJew who will lead me to the men I seek.’

I reached the once renowned and brilliant city in theevening, and early next morning went out from my hotelon my search. To my bewilderment I saw, however, atevery street corner and wherever I turned my eyes inthe otherwise deserted market place a Jew, wearing thetraditional long dress and locks of his forefathers, and(273)watching there for some Polish nobleman or tradesmanwho might send him on an errand and pay him a fewcoppers for the service. I wanted to find one Jew; andnow there were too many of them. Whom should Iapproach? I made the round of the town, and then, inmy despair, I decided to accost the Jew who stood at theentrance gate of my hotel—an immense old palace, ofwhich in former days every hall was filled with elegantcrowds of gaily dressed dancers, but which now fulfilledthe more prosaic function of giving food and shelter to afew occasional travellers. I explained to the man mydesire of smuggling into Russia a rather heavy bundle ofbooks and newspapers.

‘Very easily done, sir,’ he replied. ‘I will just bringto you the representative of the Universal Company forthe International Exchange of (let me say) Rags andBones. They carry on the largest smuggling businessin the world, and he is sure to oblige you.’ Half an hourlater he really returned with the representative of thecompany—a most elegant young man, who spoke inperfection Russian, German, and Polish.

He looked at my bundle, weighed it with his hands,and asked what sort of books were in it.

‘All severely prohibited by Russian censorship; thatis why they must be smuggled in.’

‘Books,’ he said, ‘are not exactly in our line of trade;our business lies in costly silks. If I were going to paymy men by weight, according to our silk tariff, I shouldhave to ask you a quite extravagant price. And then,to tell the truth, I don’t much like meddling with books.The slightest mishap, and “they” would make of it apolitical affair, and then it would cost the Universal Ragsand Bones Company a tremendous sum of money to getclear of it.’

I probably looked very sad, for the elegant youngman who represented the Universal Rags and BonesCompany immediately added: ‘Don’t be troubled. He(274)[the hotel commissionnaire] will arrange it for you insome other way.’

‘Oh yes. There are scores of ways to arrange sucha trifle, to oblige the gentleman,’ jovially remarked thecommissionnaire, as he left me.

In an hour’s time he came back with another youngman. This one took the bundle, put it by the side ofthe door, and said: ‘It’s all right. If you leave to-morrow,you shall have your books at such a stationin Russia,’ and he explained to me how it would bemanaged.

‘How much will it cost?’ I asked.

‘How much are you disposed to pay?’ was thereply.

I emptied my purse on the table, and said: ‘Thatmuch for my journey. The remainder is yours, I willtravel third class!’

‘Wai! wai! wai!’ exclaimed both men at once,‘What are you saying, sir? Such a gentleman travelthird class! Never! No, no, no, that won’t do....Eight roubles will do for us, and then one rouble or sofor the commissionnaire, if you are agreeable to it—justas much as you like. We are not highway robbers, buthonest tradesmen.’ And they bluntly refused to takemore money.

I had often heard of the honesty of the Jewish smugglerson the frontier; but I had never expected to havesuch a proof of it. Later on, when our circle importedmany books from abroad, or still later, when so manyrevolutionists and refugees crossed the frontier in enteringor leaving Russia, there was not a case in which thesmugglers betrayed anyone, or took advantage of thecirc*mstances to exact an exorbitant price for theirservices.

Next day I left Cracow; and at the designatedRussian station a porter approached my compartment,and, speaking loudly, so as to be heard by the gendarme(275)who was walking along the platform, said to me, ‘Hereis the bag your highness left the other day,’ and handedme my precious parcel.

I was so pleased to have it that I did not even stopat Warsaw, but continued my journey directly to St.Petersburg, to show my trophies to my brother.

XII

A formidable movement was developing in the meantimeamongst the educated youth of Russia. Serfdomwas abolished. But quite a network of habits and customsof domestic slavery, of utter disregard of human individuality,of despotism on the part of the fathers, andof hypocritical submission on that of the wives, the sons,and the daughters, had developed during the two hundredand fifty years that serfdom had existed. Everywherein Europe, at the beginning of this century, there wasa great deal of domestic despotism—the writings ofThackeray and Dickens bear ample testimony to it—butnowhere else had that tyranny attained such aluxurious development as in Russia. All Russian life,in the family, in the relations between commander andsubordinate, military chief and soldier, employer andemployee, bore the stamp of it. Quite a world ofcustoms and manners of thinking, of prejudices andmoral cowardice, of habits bred by a lazy existence, hadgrown up; and even the best men of the time paid alarge tribute to these products of the serfdom period.

Law could have no grip upon these things. Only avigorous social movement, which would attack the veryroots of the evil, could reform the habits and customs ofeveryday life; and in Russia this movement—this revoltof the individual—took a far more powerful character,and became far more sweeping in its criticisms, than anywherein Western Europe or America. ‘Nihilism’ was(276)the name that Turguéneff gave it in his epoch-makingnovel, ‘Fathers and Sons.’

The movement is often misunderstood in westernEurope. In the press, for example, Nihilism is confusedwith terrorism. The revolutionary disturbance whichbroke out in Russia toward the close of the reign ofAlexander II., and ended in the tragical death of theTsar, is constantly described as Nihilism. This is, however,a mistake. To confuse Nihilism with terrorism isas wrong as to confuse a philosophical movement likeStoicism or Positivism with a political movement, suchas, for example, republicanism. Terrorism was calledinto existence by certain special conditions of the politicalstruggle at a given historical moment. It has lived, andhas died. It may revive and die out again. But Nihilismhas impressed its stamp upon the whole of the lifeof the educated classes of Russia, and that stamp will beretained for many years to come. It is Nihilism, divestedof some of its rougher aspects—which were unavoidablein a young movement of that sort—which gives now tothe life of a great portion of the educated classes ofRussia a certain peculiar character which we Russiansregret not to find in the life of Western Europe. It isNihilism, again, in its various manifestations which givesto many of our writers that remarkable sincerity, thathabit of ‘thinking aloud,’ which astounds western Europeanreaders.

First of all, the Nihilist declared war upon what maybe described as the ‘conventional lies of civilized mankind.’Absolute sincerity was his distinctive feature, and in thename of that sincerity he gave up, and asked others togive up, those superstitions, prejudices, habits, and customswhich their own reason could not justify. He refused tobend before any authority except that of reason, and inthe analysis of every social institution or habit he revoltedagainst any sort of more or less masked sophism.

He broke, of course, with the superstitions of his(277)fathers, and in his philosophical conceptions he was apositivist, an agnostic, a Spencerian evolutionist, or ascientific materialist; and while he never attacked thesimple, sincere religious belief which is a psychologicalnecessity of feeling, he bitterly fought against the hypocrisythat leads people to assume the outward mask of areligion which they continually throw aside as uselessballast.

The life of civilized people is full of little conventionallies. Persons who dislike each other, meeting in thestreet, make their faces radiant with a happy smile; theNihilist remained unmoved, and smiled only for thosewhom he was really glad to meet. All those forms ofoutward politeness which are mere hypocrisy were equallyrepugnant to him, and he assumed a certain externalroughness as a protest against the smooth amiability ofhis fathers. He saw them wildly talking as idealistsentimentalists, and at the same time acting as realbarbarians toward their wives, their children, and theirserfs; and he rose in revolt against that sort of sentimentalism,which, after all, so nicely accommodated itselfto the anything but ideal conditions of Russian life. Artwas involved in the same sweeping negation. Continualtalk about beauty, the ideal, art for art’s sake, æsthetics,and the like, so willingly indulged in—while every objectof art was bought with money exacted from starvingpeasants or from underpaid workers, and the so-called‘worship of the beautiful’ was but a mask to cover themost commonplace dissoluteness—inspired him with disgust;and the criticisms of art which one of the greatestartists of the century, Tolstóy, has now powerfully formulated,the Nihilist expressed in the sweeping assertion,‘A pair of boots is more important than all your Madonnasand all your refined talk about Shakespeare.’

Marriage without love and familiarity without friendshipwere repudiated. The Nihilist girl, compelled byher parents to be a doll in a doll’s house, and to marry(278)for property’s sake, preferred to abandon her house andher silk dresses; she put on a black woollen dress of theplainest description, cut off her hair, and went to a highschool, in order to win there her personal independence.The woman who saw that her marriage was no longer amarriage—that neither love nor friendship connected anymore those who were legally considered husband andwife—preferred to break a bond which retained noneof its essential features; and she often went with herchildren to face poverty, preferring loneliness and miseryto a life which, under conventional conditions, wouldhave given a perpetual lie to her best self.

The Nihilist carried his love of sincerity even into theminutest details of everyday life. He discarded the conventionalforms of society talk, and expressed his opinionsin a blunt and terse way, even with a certain affectationof outward roughness.

We used in Irkútsk to meet once a week in a club,and to have some dancing, I was for a time a regularvisitor at these soirées, but gradually, having to work, Iabandoned them. One night, as I had not made myappearance for several weeks in succession, a young friendof mine was asked by one of the ladies why I did not comeany more to their gatherings. ‘He takes a ride nowwhen he wants exercise,’ was the rather rough reply ofmy friend. ‘But he might come to spend a couple ofhours with us, without dancing,’ one of the ladies venturedto say. ‘What would he do here?’ retorted my Nihilistfriend, ‘talk with you about fashions and furbelows? Hehas had enough of that nonsense.’ ‘But he sees occasionallyMiss So-and-So,’ timidly remarked one of the youngladies present. ‘Yes, but she is a studious girl,’ bluntlyreplied my friend, ‘he helps her with her German.’ Imust add that this undoubtedly rough rebuke had theeffect that most of the Irkútsk girls began next to besiegemy brother, my friend, and myself with questions as towhat we should advise them to read or to study. With(279)the same frankness the Nihilist spoke to his acquaintances,telling them that all their talk about ‘this poor people’was sheer hypocrisy so long as they lived upon the underpaidwork of these people whom they commiserated attheir ease as they chatted together in richly decoratedrooms; and with the same frankness a Nihilist wouldinform a high functionary that he (the said functionary)cared not a straw for the welfare of those whom he ruled,but was simply a thief!

With a certain austerity the Nihilist would rebukethe woman who indulged in small talk, and prided herselfon her ‘womanly’ manners and elaborate toilette. Hewould bluntly say to a pretty young person: ‘How is itthat you are not ashamed to talk this nonsense and towear that chignon of false hair?’ In a woman he wantedto find a comrade, a human personality—not a doll or a‘muslin girl’—and he absolutely refused to join in thosepetty tokens of politeness with which men surround thosewhom they like so much to consider as ‘the weaker sex.’When a lady entered a room a Nihilist did not jump offhis seat to offer it to her—unless he saw that she lookedtired and there was no other seat in the room. He behavedtowards her as he would have behaved towards acomrade of his own sex; but if a lady—who might havebeen a total stranger to him—-manifested the desire tolearn something which he knew and she knew not, hewould walk every night to the far end of a great city tohelp her with his lessons. The young man who wouldnot move his hand to serve a lady with a cup of tea,would transfer to the girl who came to study at Moscowor St. Petersburg the only lesson which he had got andwhich gave him daily bread, simply saying to her: ‘It iseasier for a man to find work than it is for a woman.There is no attempt at knighthood in my offer, it is simplya matter of equality.’

Two great Russian novelists, Turguéneff and Goncharóff,have tried to represent this new type in their(280)novels. Goncharóff, in Precipice, taking a real but unrepresentativeindividual of this class, made a caricatureof Nihilism. Turguéneff was too good an artist, and hadhimself conceived too much admiration for the new type,to let himself be drawn into caricature painting; but evenhis Nihilist, Bazároff, did not satisfy us. We found himtoo harsh, especially in his relations with his old parents,and, above all, we reproached him with his seeming neglectof his duties as a citizen. Russian youth could notbe satisfied with the merely negative attitude of Turguéneff’shero. Nihilism, with its affirmation of the rightsof the individual and its negation of all hypocrisy, wasbut a first step toward a higher type of men and women,who are equally free, but live for a great cause. In theNihilists of Chernyshévsky, as they are depicted in hisfar less artistic novel, ‘What is to be Done?’ they sawbetter portraits of themselves.

‘It is bitter, the bread that has been made by slaves,’our poet Nekrásoff wrote. The young generation actuallyrefused to eat that bread, and to enjoy the riches that hadbeen accumulated in their fathers’ houses by means ofservile labour, whether the labourers were actual serfs orslaves of the present industrial system.

All Russia read with astonishment, in the indictmentwhich was produced at the court against Karakózoff andhis friends, that these young men, owners of considerablefortunes, used to live three or four in the same room, neverspending more than ten roubles (one pound) apiece amonth for all their needs, and giving at the same timetheir fortunes for co-operative associations, co-operativeworkshops (where they themselves worked), and the like.Five years later, thousands and thousands of the Russianyouth—the best part of it—were doing the same. Theirwatchword was, ‘V naród!’ (To the people; be thepeople.) During the years 1860-65 in nearly every wealthyfamily a bitter struggle was going on between the fathers,(281)who wanted to maintain the old traditions, and the sonsand daughters, who defended their right to dispose of theirlife according to their own ideals. Young men left themilitary service, the counter, the shop, and flocked to theuniversity towns. Girls, bred in the most aristocraticfamilies, rushed penniless to St. Petersburg, Moscow, andKíeff, eager to learn a profession which would free themfrom the domestic yoke, and some day, perhaps, alsofrom the possible yoke of a husband. After hard andbitter struggles, many of them won that personal freedom.Now they wanted to utilize it, not for their own personalenjoyment, but for carrying to the people the knowledgethat had emancipated them.

In every town of Russia, in every quarter of St.Petersburg, small groups were formed for self-improvementand self-education; the works of the philosophers,the writings of the economists, the researches of theyoung Russian historical school, were carefully read inthese circles, and the reading was followed by endlessdiscussions. The aim of all that reading and discussionwas to solve the great question which rose before them:In what way could they be useful to the masses?Gradually, they came to the idea that the only way wasto settle amongst the people and to live the people’slife. Young men went into the villages as doctors,doctors’ assistants, teachers, village scribes, even asagricultural labourers, blacksmiths, woodcutters, andso on, and tried to live there in close contact with thepeasants. Girls passed teachers’ examinations, learnedmidwifery or nursing, and went by the hundred into thevillages, devoting themselves entirely to the poorest partof the population.

They went without even having any ideals of socialreconstruction or any thought of revolution; merely andsimply they wanted to teach the mass of the peasants toread, to instruct them, to give them medical help, or inany way to aid to raise them from their darkness and(282)misery, and to learn at the same time from them whatwere their popular ideals of a better social life.

When I returned from Switzerland I found this movementin full swing.

XIII

I hastened, of course, to share with my friends myimpressions of the International Workingmen’s Associationand my books. At the university I had no friends,properly speaking; I was older than most of my companions,and among young people a difference of a fewyears is always an obstacle to complete comradeship. Itmust also be said that since the new rules of admission tothe university had been introduced in 1861, the best ofthe young men, the most developed and the most independentin thought, were sifted out of the gymnasia, anddid not gain admittance to the university. Consequently,the majority of my comrades were good boys, laborious,but taking no interest in anything besides the examinations.

I was friendly with only one of them: let me call himDmítri Kelnitz. He was born in South Russia, and,although his name was German, he hardly spoke German,and his face was South Russian rather than Teutonic.He was very intelligent, had read a great deal, and hadseriously thought over what he had read. He lovedscience and deeply respected it, but, like many of us, hesoon came to the conclusion that to follow the career ofa scientific man meant to join the camp of the Philistines,and that there was plenty of other and more urgent workthat he could do. He attended the university lecturesfor two years, and then abandoned them, giving himselfentirely to social work. He lived anyhow; I even doubtif he had a permanent lodging. Sometimes he wouldcome to me and ask, ‘Have you some paper?’ and,(283)having taken a supply of it, he would sit at the corner ofa table for an hour or two, diligently making a translation.The little that he earned in this way was more thansufficient to satisfy all his limited wants. Then he wouldhurry to a distant part of the town to see a comrade or tohelp a needy friend; or he would cross St. Petersburg onfoot, to a remote suburb, in order to obtain free admissionto a college for some boy in whom the comrades wereinterested. He was undoubtedly a gifted man. InWestern Europe a man far less gifted would have workedhis way to a position of political or socialist leadership.No such thought ever entered the brain of Kelnitz. Tolead men was by no means his ambition, and there wasno work too insignificant for him to do. This trait, however,was not distinctive of him alone; all those who hadlived some years in the students’ circles of those timeswere possessed of it to a high degree.

Soon after my return Kelnitz invited me to join acircle which was known among the youth as ‘the Circleof Tchaykóvsky.’ Under this name it played an importantpart in the history of the social movement in Russia,and under this name it will go down to history. ‘Itsmembers,’ Kelnitz said to me, ‘have hitherto been mostlyconstitutionalists; but they are excellent men, with mindsopen to any honest idea; they have plenty of friends allover Russia, and you will see later on what you can do.’I already knew Tchaykóvsky and a few other membersof this circle. Tchaykóvsky had won my heart at ourfirst meeting, and our friendship has remained unshakenfor twenty-seven years.

The beginning of this circle was a very small groupof young men and women—one of whom was SophiePeróvskaya—who had united for purposes of self-educationand self-improvement. Tchaykóvsky was of theirnumber. In 1869 Necháieff had tried to start, amidstthe youth imbued with the above-mentioned desire ofworking amongst the people, a secret revolutionary organization,(284)and to secure this end he resorted to the ways ofold conspirators, without recoiling even before deceit whenhe wanted to force his associates to follow his lead. Suchmethods could have no success in Russia, and very soonhis society broke down. All the members were arrested,and some of the best and purest of the Russian youthwent to Siberia before they had done anything. Thecircle of self-education of which I am speaking was constitutedin opposition to the methods of Necháieff. Thefew friends had judged, quite correctly, that a morallydeveloped individuality must be the foundation of everyorganization, whatever political character it may takeafterward and whatever programme of action it mayadopt in the course of future events. This was why thecircle of Tchaykóvsky, gradually widening its programme,spread so extensively in Russia, achieved such importantresults, and later on, when the ferocious prosecutions ofthe government created a revolutionary struggle, producedthat remarkable set of men and women who fellin the terrible contest they waged against autocracy.

At that time, however—that is, in 1872—the circle hadnothing revolutionary in it. If it had remained a merecircle of self-improvement, it would soon have petrifiedlike a monastery. But the members found a suitable work.They began to spread good books. They bought the worksof Lassalle, Bervi (on the condition of the labouring classesin Russia), Marx, Russian historical works, and so on—wholeeditions—and distributed them among students inthe provinces. In a few years there was not a town ofimportance in ‘thirty-eight provinces of the RussianEmpire,’ to use official language, where this circle didnot have a group of comrades engaged in the spreadingof that sort of literature. Gradually, following thegeneral drift of the times, and stimulated by the newswhich came from Western Europe about the rapidgrowth of the labour movement, the circle became moreand more a centre of socialistic propaganda among the(285)educated youth, and a natural intermediary betweennumbers of provincial circles; and then, one day, theice between students and workers was broken, and directrelations were established with working people at St.Petersburg and in some of the provinces. It was at thatjuncture that I joined the circle, in the spring of 1872.

All secret societies are fiercely prosecuted in Russia,and the western reader will perhaps expect from mea description of my initiation and of the oath of allegiancewhich I took. I must disappoint him, becausethere was nothing of the sort, and could not be; weshould have been the first to laugh at such ceremonies,and Kelnitz would not have missed the opportunity ofputting in one of his sarcastic remarks, which would havekilled any ritual. There was not even a statute. Thecircle accepted as members only persons who were wellknown and had been tested in various circ*mstances, andof whom it was felt that they could be trusted absolutely.Before a new member was received, his character wasdiscussed with the frankness and seriousness which werecharacteristic of the Nihilist. The slightest token ofinsincerity or conceit would have barred the way toadmission. The circle did not care either to make ashow of numbers, and had no tendency to concentrate inits hands all the activity that was going on among theyouth, or to include in one organization the scores ofdifferent circles which existed in the capitals and theprovinces. With most of them friendly relations weremaintained; they were helped, and they helped us, whennecessity arose, but no assault was made on their autonomy.

The circle preferred to remain a closely united groupof friends; and never did I meet elsewhere such a collectionof morally superior men and women as the score ofpersons whose acquaintance I made at the first meetingof the circle of Tchaykóvsky. I still feel proud of havingbeen received into that family.

(286)

XIV

When I joined the circle of Tchaykóvsky, I found itsmembers hotly discussing the direction to be given totheir activity. Some were in favour of continuing tocarry on radical and socialistic propaganda among theeducated youth; but others thought that the sole aim ofthis work should be to prepare men who would becapable of arousing the great inert labouring masses, andthat their chief activity ought to be among the peasantsand workmen in the towns. In all the circles andgroups which were formed at that time by the hundredat St. Petersburg and in the provinces the same discussionswent on, and everywhere the second programmeprevailed over the first.

If our youth had merely taken to socialism in theabstract, it might have felt satisfied with a mere declarationof socialist principles, including as a distant aim‘the communistic possession of the instruments of production,’and in the meantime it might have carried onsome sort of political agitation. Many middle-classsocialist politicians in Western Europe and Americareally take this course. But our youth had been drawnto socialism in quite another way. They were nottheorisers about socialism, but had become socialists byliving no richer than the workers live, by making no distinctionbetween ‘mine and thine’ in their circles, and byrefusing to enjoy for their own satisfaction the richesthey had inherited from their fathers. They had donewith regard to capitalism what Tolstóy advises shouldnow be done with regard to war—that is, that people,instead of criticizing war and continuing to wear themilitary uniform, should refuse, each one for himself, tobe a soldier and to use arms. In the same way ourRussian youth, each one for himself or herself, refusedto take personal advantage of the revenues of theirfathers, Such a youth had to go to the people—and(287)they went. Thousands and thousands of young menand women had already left their homes, and tried nowto live in the villages and the industrial towns in allpossible capacities. This was not an organized movement:it was one of those mass movements which occurat certain periods of sudden awakening of human conscience.Now that small organized groups were formed,ready to try a systematic effort for spreading ideas offreedom and revolt in Russia, they were forcibly broughtto carry on that propaganda amidst the dark masses ofpeasants and workers in the towns. Various writershave tried to explain this movement ‘to the people’ byinfluences from abroad—‘foreign agitators’ is everywherea favourite explanation. It is certainly true thatour youth listened to the mighty voice of Bakúnin, andthat the agitation of the International Workingmen’sAssociation had a fascinating effect upon us. But themovement ‘V naród’—To the people—had a far deeperorigin: it began before ‘foreign agitators’ had spoken tothe Russian youth, and even before the InternationalAssociation had been founded. It began already in thegroups of Karakózoff in 1866; Turguéneff saw it coming,and already in 1859 faintly indicated it. I did my bestto promote that movement in the circle of Tchaykóvsky;but I was only working with the tide, which was infinitelymore powerful than any individual efforts.

We often spoke, of course, of the necessity of apolitical agitation against our absolute government. Wesaw already that the mass of the peasants were beingdriven to unavoidable and irremediable ruin by foolishtaxation, and by the still more foolish selling off of theircattle to cover the arrears of taxes. We, ‘visionaries,’saw coming that complete ruin of a whole populationwhich by this time, alas, has been accomplished to anappalling extent in Central Russia, and is confessed bythe government itself. We knew how, in every direction,Russia was being plundered in a most scandalous manner.(288)We knew, and we learned more every day, of the lawlessnessof the functionaries, and the almost incredible bestial*tyof many among them. We heard continually offriends whose houses were raided at night by the police,who disappeared in prisons, and who—we ascertainedlater on—had been transported without judgment tohamlets in some remote province of Russia. We felt,therefore, the necessity of a political struggle againstthis terrible power, which was crushing the best intellectualforces of the nation. But we saw no possibleground, legal or semi-legal, for such a struggle.

Our elder brothers did not want our socialistic aspirations,and we could not part with them. Nay, evenif some of us had done so, it would have been of noavail. The young generation, as a whole, were treatedas ‘suspects,’ and the elder generation feared to haveanything to do with them. Every young man of democratictastes, every young woman following a courseof higher education, was a suspect in the eyes of thestate police, and was denounced by Katkóff as an enemyof the state. Cropped hair and blue spectacles wornby a girl, a Scotch plaid worn in winter by a student,instead of an overcoat, which were evidences of Nihilistsimplicity and democracy, were denounced as tokensof ‘political unreliability.’ If any student’s lodging cameto be frequently visited by other students, it was periodicallyinvaded by the state police and searched. Socommon were the night raids in certain students’ lodgingsthat Kelnitz once said, in his mildly humorousway, to the police officer who was searching the rooms:‘Why should you go through all our books, each timeyou come to make a search? You might as well havea list of them, and then come once a month to see ifthey are all on the shelves; and you might, from timeto time, add the titles of the new ones.’ The slightestsuspicion of political unreliability was sufficient groundupon which to take a young man from a high school,(289)to imprison him for several months, and finally to sendhim to some remote province of the Urals—‘for an undeterminedterm,’ as they used to say in their bureaucraticslang. Even at the time when the circle ofTchaykóvsky did nothing but distribute books, all ofwhich had been printed with the censor’s approval,Tchaykóvsky was twice arrested and kept some fouror six months in prison—on the second occasion at acritical time of his career as a chemist. His researcheshad recently been published in the Bulletin of theAcademy of Sciences, and he had come up for hisfinal university examinations. He was released at last,because the police could not discover sufficient evidenceagainst him to warrant his transportation to theUrals! ‘But if we arrest you once more,’ he was told,‘we shall send you to Siberia.’ In fact, it was a favouritedream of Alexander II. to have, somewhere in thesteppes, a special town, guarded night and day bypatrols of Cossacks, where all suspected young peoplecould be sent, so as to make of them a city of ten ortwenty thousand inhabitants. Only the menace whichsuch a city might some day offer prevented him fromcarrying out this truly Asiatic scheme.

One of our members, an officer, had belonged to agroup of young men whose ambition was to serve inthe provincial Zémstvos (district and county councils).They regarded work in this direction as a high mission,and prepared themselves for it by serious studies of theeconomical conditions of Central Russia. Many youngpeople cherished for a time the same hopes; but allthese hopes vanished at the first contact with the actualgovernment machinery.

Having granted institutions of a very limited formof self-government to certain provinces of Russia, thegovernment, immediately after having passed that law,directed all its efforts to reduce that reform to nothing(290)and to deprive it of all its meaning and vitality. Theprovincial ‘self-government’ had to content itself withthe mere function of state officials who would collectadditional local taxes and spend them for the local needsof the state. Every attempt of the county councilsto take the initiative in any improvement—schools,teachers’ colleges, sanitary measures, agricultural improvements,etc.—was met by the central governmentwith suspicion—nay with hatred—and denounced bythe ‘Moscow Gazette’ as ‘separatism,’ as the creationof ‘a state within the state,’ as rebellion against autocracy.

If anyone were to tell the true history, for example,of the teachers’ college of Tver, or of any similar undertakingof a Zémstvo in those years, with all the pettypersecutions, the prohibitions, the suspensions, and whatnot with which the institution was harassed, no WestEuropean, and especially no American reader, wouldbelieve it. He would throw the book aside, saying, ‘Itcannot be true; it is too stupid to be true.’ And yetit was so. Whole groups of the elected representativesof several Zémstvos were deprived of their functions,ordered to leave their province and their estates, orwere simply exiled, for having dared to petition theemperor in the most loyal manner concerning suchrights as belonged to the Zémstvos by law. ‘The electedmembers of the provincial councils must be simple ministerialfunctionaries, and obey the Minister of the Interior:’such was the theory of the St. Petersburg government.As to the less prominent people—teachers,doctors, and the like, in the service of the local councils—theywere removed and exiled by the state police intwenty-four hours, without further ceremony than anorder of the omnipotent Third Section of the imperialchancelry. No longer ago than last year, a lady whosehusband is a rich landowner and occupies a prominentposition in one of the Zémstvos, and who is herself(291)interested in education, invited eight schoolmasters toher birthday party. ‘Poor men,’ she said to herself,‘they never have the opportunity of seeing anyone butthe peasants.’ The day after the party the village policemancalled at the mansion and insisted upon having thenames of the eight teachers, in order to report them tothe police authorities. The lady refused to give thenames. ‘Very well,’ he replied, ‘I will find them out,nevertheless, and make my report. Teachers must notcome together, and I am bound to report if they do.’The high position of the lady sheltered the teachers inthis case; but if they had met in the lodgings of oneof their own number they would have received a visitfrom the state police, and half of them would have beendismissed by the Ministry of Education; and if, moreover,an angry word had escaped from one of themduring the police raid, he or she would have been sentto some province of the Urals. This is what happensto-day, thirty-three years after the opening of the countyand district councils; but it was far worse in the seventies.What sort of basis for a political struggle couldsuch institutions offer?

When I inherited from my father his Tambóv estate,I thought very seriously for a time of settling on thatestate, and devoting my energy to work in the localZémstvo. Some peasants and the poorer priests of theneighbourhood asked me to do so. As for myself, Ishould have been content with anything I could do, nomatter how small it might be, if only it would help toraise the intellectual level and the well-being of thepeasants. But one day, when several of my advisers weretogether, I asked them: ‘Supposing I were to try tostart a school, an experimental farm, a co-operative enterprise,and, at the same time, also took upon myself thedefence of that peasant from our village who has latelybeen wronged—would the authorities let me do it?’‘Never!’ was the unanimous reply.

(292)

An old grey-haired priest, a man who was held ingreat esteem in our neighbourhood, came to me a fewdays later, with two influential dissenting leaders, andsaid: ‘Talk with these two men. If you can manage it,go with them and, Bible in hand, preach to the peasants....Well, you know what to preach.... No police inthe world will find you, if they conceal you.... There’snothing to be done besides; that’s what I, an old man,advise you.’

I told them frankly why I could not assume the partof Wiclif. But the old man was right. A movementsimilar to that of the Lollards is rapidly growing nowamongst the Russian peasants. Such tortures as havebeen inflicted on the peace-loving Dukhobórs, and suchraids upon the peasant dissenters in South Russia as weremade in 1897, when children were kidnapped so that theymight be educated in orthodox monasteries, will only giveto that movement a force that it could not have attainedfive-and-twenty years ago.

As the question of agitation for a constitution wascontinually being raised in our discussions, I once proposedto our circle to take it up seriously and to choosean appropriate plan of action. I was always of the opinionthat when the circle decided anything unanimously, eachmember ought to put aside his personal feeling and giveall his strength to the task. ‘If you decide to agitate fora constitution,’ I said, ‘this is my plan: I will separatemyself from you, for appearance sake, and maintainrelations with only one member of the circle—for instance,Tchaykóvsky—through whom I shall be kept informedhow you succeed in your work, and can communicate toyou in a general way what I am doing. My work will beamong the courtiers and the higher functionaries. I haveamong them many acquaintances, and know a number ofpersons who are disgusted with the present conditions.I will bring them together and unite them, if possible,(293)into a sort of organization; and then, some day, there issure to be an opportunity to direct all these forces towardcompelling Alexander II. to give Russia a constitution.There certainly will come a time when all these people,feeling that they are compromised, will in their own interesttake a decisive step. If it is necessary, some of us,who have been officers, might be very helpful in extendingthe propaganda amongst the officers in the army; butthis action must be quite separate from yours, thoughparallel with it. I have seriously thought of it. I knowwhat connections I have and who can be trusted, and Ibelieve some of the discontented already look upon me asa possible centre for some action of this sort. This courseis not the one I should take of my own choice; but if youthink that it is best, I will give myself to it with mightand main.’

The circle did not accept that proposal. Knowingone another as well as they did, my comrades probablythought that if I went in this direction I should cease tobe true to myself. For my own personal happiness, formy own personal life, I cannot feel too grateful now thatmy proposal was not accepted. I should have gone in adirection which was not the one dictated by my ownnature, and I should not have found in it the personalhappiness which I have found in other paths. But when,six or seven years later, the terrorists were engaged intheir terrible struggle against Alexander II., I regrettedthat there had not been somebody else to do the sort ofwork I had proposed to do in the higher circles at St.Petersburg. With some understanding there beforehand,and with the ramifications which such an understandingprobably would have taken all over the empire, the holocaustsof victims would not have been made in vain. Atany rate, the underground work of the executive committeeought by all means to have been supported by aparallel agitation at the Winter Palace.

(294)

Over and over again the necessity of a political effortthus came under discussion in our little group, with noresult. The apathy and the indifference of the wealthierclasses were hopeless, and the irritation among the persecutedyouth had not yet been brought to that highpitch which ended, six years later, in the struggle of theterrorists under the Executive Committee. Nay—andthis is one of the most tragical ironies of history—it wasthe same youth whom Alexander II., in his blind fear andfury, ordered to be sent by the hundred to hard labourand condemned to slow death in exile; it was the sameyouth who protected him in 1871-78. The very teachingsof the socialist circles were such as to prevent therepetition of a Karakózoff attempt on the Tsar’s life.‘Prepare in Russia a great socialist mass movementamongst the workers and the peasants,’ was the watchwordin those times. ‘Don’t trouble about the Tsar andhis counsellors. If such a movement begins, if the peasantsjoin in the mass movement to claim the land and toabolish the serfdom redemption taxes, the imperial powerwill be the first to seek support in the moneyed classesand the landlords and to convoke a Parliament—just asthe peasant insurrection in France in 1789 compelled theroyal power to convoke the National Assembly; so itwill be in Russia.’

But there was more than that. Separate men andgroups, seeing that the reign of Alexander II. was hopelesslydoomed to sink deeper and deeper in reaction, andentertaining at the same time vague hopes as to thesupposed ‘liberalism’ of the heir-apparent—all youngheirs to thrones are supposed to be liberal—persistentlyreverted to the idea that the example of Karakózoff oughtto be followed. The organized circles, however, strenuouslyopposed such an idea, and urged their comradesnot to resort to that course of action. I may now divulgethe following fact, which has hitherto remained unknown.When a young man came to St. Petersburg from one of(295)the southern provinces with the firm intention of killingAlexander II., and some members of the Tchaykóvskycircle learned of his plan, they not only applied all theweight of their arguments to dissuade the young man,but, when he would not be dissuaded, they informed himthat they would keep a watch over him and prevent himby force from making any such attempt. Knowing wellhow loosely guarded the Winter Palace was at that time,I can positively say that they saved the life of AlexanderII. So firmly were the youth opposed at that time tothe war in which later, when the cup of their sufferingswas filled to overflowing, they took part.

XV

The two years that I worked with the circle of Tchaykóvsky,before I was arrested, left a deep impression uponall my subsequent life and thought. During those twoyears it was life under high pressure—that exuberance oflife when one feels at every moment the full throbbing ofall the fibres of the inner self, and when life is really worthliving. I was in a family of men and women so closelyunited by their common object, and so broadly and delicatelyhumane in their mutual relations, that I cannotnow recall a single moment of even temporary frictionmarring the life of our circle. Those who have had anyexperience of political agitation will appreciate the valueof this statement.

Before abandoning entirely my scientific career, I consideredmyself bound to finish the report of my journeyto Finland for the Geographical Society, as well as someother work that I had in hand for the same society; andmy new friends were the first to confirm me in that decision.It would not be fair, they said, to do otherwise.Consequently, I worked hard to finish my geological andgeographical books.

(296)

Meetings of our circle were frequent, and I nevermissed them. We used to meet then in a suburban partof St. Petersburg, in a small house of which Sophie Peróvskaya,under the assumed name and the fabricated passportof an artisan’s wife, was the supposed tenant. Shewas born of a very aristocratic family, and her father hadbeen for some time the military governor of St. Petersburg;but, with the approval of her mother, who adoredher, she had left her home to join a high school, and withthe three sisters Korníloff—daughters of a rich manufacturer—shehad founded that little circle of self-educationwhich later on became our circle. Now, in the capacityof an artisan’s wife, in her cotton dress and men’s boots,her head covered with a cotton kerchief, as she carriedon her shoulders her two pails of water from the Nevá,no one would have recognized in her the girl who a fewyears before shone in one of the most fashionable drawing-roomsof the capital. She was a general favourite, andevery one of us, on entering the house, had a speciallyfriendly smile for her—even when she, making a point ofhonour of keeping the house relatively clean, quarrelledwith us about the dirt which we, dressed in peasant top-bootsand sheepskins, brought in after walking the muddystreets of the suburbs. She tried then to give to hergirlish, innocent, and very intelligent little face the mostsevere expression possible to it. In her moral conceptionsshe was a ‘rigorist,’ but not in the least of the sermon-preachingtype. When she was dissatisfied with someone’s conduct, she would cast a severe glance at him frombeneath her brows; but in that glance one saw her open-minded,generous nature, which understood all that ishuman. On one point only she was inexorable. ‘Awomen’s man,’ she once said, speaking of some one, andthe expression and the manner in which she said it, withoutinterrupting her work, is engraved for ever in mymemory.

Peróvskaya was a ‘popularist’ to the very bottom of(297)her heart, and at the same time a revolutionist, a fighterof the truest steel. She had no need to embellish theworkers and the peasants with imaginary virtues in orderto love them and to work for them. She took them asthey were, and said to me once: ‘We have begun agreat thing. Two generations, perhaps, will succumb inthe task, and yet it must be done.’ None of the womenof our circle would have given way before the certaintyof death on the scaffold. Each would have looked deathstraight in the face. But none of them, at that stage ofour propaganda, thought of such a fate. Peróvskaya’s well-knownportrait is exceptionally good; it records so wellher earnest courage, her bright intelligence, and her lovingnature. The letter she wrote to her mother a few hoursbefore she went to the scaffold is one of the best expressionsof a loving soul that a woman’s heart ever dictated.

The following incident will show what the otherwomen of our circle were. One night, Kupreyánoff andI went to Varvara B., to whom we had to make an urgentcommunication. It was past midnight, but, seeing a lightin her window, we went upstairs. She sat in her tinyroom at a table copying a programme of our circle. Weknew how resolute she was, and the idea came to us tomake one of those stupid jokes men sometimes thinkfunny. ‘B.,’ I said, ‘we come to fetch you: we are goingto try a rather mad attempt to liberate our friends fromthe fortress.’ She asked not one question. She quietlylaid down her pen, rose from her chair, and said only,‘Let us go.’ She spoke in so simple, so unaffected avoice that I felt at once how foolishly I had acted, andtold her the truth. She dropped back into her chair,with tears in her eyes, and in a despairing voice asked:‘It was only a joke? Why do you make such jokes?’I fully realized then the cruelty of what I had done.

Another general favourite in our circle was SerghéiKravchínsky, who became so well known, both in England(298)and in the United States, under the name of Stepniák.He was often called ‘the Baby,’ so unconcerned was heabout his own security: but his carelessness about himselfwas merely the result of a complete absence of fear, which,after all, is often the best policy for one who is hunted bythe police. He soon became well known for his propagandain the circles of workers, under his real Christianname of Serghéi, and consequently was very much wantedby the police; notwithstanding that, he took no precautionswhatever to conceal himself, and I remember that oneday he was severely scolded at one of our meetings forwhat was described as a gross imprudence. Being late forthe meeting, as he often was, and having a long distanceto cover in order to reach our house, he, dressed as a peasantin his sheepskin, ran the whole length of a great mainthoroughfare at full speed in the middle of the street.‘How could you do it?’ he was reproachfully asked.‘You might have aroused suspicion, and have been arrestedas a common thief.’ But I wish that everyone hadbeen as cautious as he was in affairs where other peoplecould be compromised.

We made our first intimate acquaintance overStanley’s book, ‘How I Discovered Livingstone.’ Onenight our meeting had lasted till twelve, and as wewere about to leave, one of the Korníloffs entered witha book in her hand, and asked who among us couldundertake to translate by the next morning at eighto’clock sixteen printed pages of Stanley’s book. I lookedat the size of the pages, and said that if somebody wouldhelp me the work could be done during the night.Serghéi volunteered, and by four o’clock the sixteenpages were done. We read to each other our translations,one of us following the English text; then weemptied a jar of Russian porridge which had been lefton the table for us, and went out together to returnhome. We became close friends from that night.

I have always liked people capable of working, and(299)doing their work properly. So Serghéi’s translation andhis capacity of working rapidly had already influencedme in his favour. But when I came to know more ofhim, I felt real love for his honest, frank nature, for hisyouthful energy and good sense, for his superior intelligence,simplicity, and truthfulness, and for his courageand tenacity. He had read and thought a great deal,and upon the revolutionary character of the strugglewhich we had undertaken it appeared we had similarviews. He was ten years younger than I was, andperhaps did not quite realize what a hard contest thecoming revolution would be. He told us later on, withmuch humour, how he once worked among the peasantsin the country. ‘One day,’ he said, ‘I was walkingalong the road with a comrade when we were overtakenby a peasant in a sleigh. I began to tell the peasantthat he must not pay taxes, that the functionariesplunder the people, and I tried to convince him byquotations from the Bible that they must revolt. Thepeasant whipped up his horse, but we followed rapidly;he made his horse trot, and we began to run behindhim; all the time I continued to talk to him abouttaxes and revolt. Finally he made his horse gallop;but the animal was not worth much—an underfedpeasant pony—so my comrade and I did not fall behind,but kept up our propaganda till we were quite out ofbreath.’

For some time Serghéi stayed in Kazán, and I hadto correspond with him. He always hated writing lettersin cipher, so I proposed a means of correspondencewhich had often been used before in conspiracies. Youwrite an ordinary letter about all sorts of things, but inthis letter it is only certain words—let us say, everyfifth word—which has a meaning. You write, forinstance: ‘Excuse my hurried letter. Come to-nightto see me; to-morrow I shall go away to my sister.My brother Nicholas feels worse; it was late to make(300)an operation.’ Reading each fifth word, you find:‘Come to-morrow to Nicholas, late.’ We had to writeletters of six or seven pages to transmit one page ofinformation, and we had to cultivate our imagination inorder to fill the letters with all sorts of things by wayof introducing the words that were required. Serghéi,from whom it was impossible to obtain a cipher letter,took to this kind of correspondence, and used to sendme letters containing stories with thrilling incidents anddramatic endings. He said to me afterward that thiscorrespondence helped to develop his literary talent.When one has talent, everything contributes to its development.

In January or February 1874 I was at Moscow, inone of the houses in which I had spent my childhood.Early in the morning I was told that a peasant desiredto see me. I went out and found it was Serghéi, whohad just escaped from Tver. He was strongly built, andhe, with another ex-officer, Rogachóff, endowed withequal physical strength, went travelling about the countryas lumber sawyers. The work was very hard, especiallyfor inexperienced hands, but both of them liked it; andno one would have thought to look for disguised officersin these two strong sawyers. They wandered in thiscapacity for about a fortnight without arousing suspicion,and made revolutionary propaganda right and left withoutfear. Sometimes Serghéi, who knew the NewTestament almost by heart, spoke to the peasants asa religious preacher, proving to them by quotations fromthe Bible that they ought to start a revolution. Sometimeshe formed his arguments of quotations fromthe economists. The peasants listened to the two menas to real apostles, took them from one house to another,and refused to be paid for food. In a fortnight theyhad produced quite a stir in a number of villages. Theirfame was spreading far and wide. The peasants, youngand old, began to whisper to one another in the barns(301)about the ‘delegates;’ they began to speak out moreloudly than they usually did that the land would soonbe taken from the landlords, who would receive pensionsfrom the Tsar. The younger people became more aggressivetoward the police officers, saying: ‘Wait a little;our turn will come soon: you Herods will not rule longnow.’ But the fame of the sawyers reached the earsof one of the police authorities, and they were arrested.An order was given to take them to the next policeofficial, ten miles away.

They were taken under the guard of several peasants,and on their way had to pass through a village whichwas holding its festival. ‘Prisoners? All right! Comeon here, my uncle,’ said the peasants, who were alldrinking in honour of the occasion. They were keptnearly the whole day in that village, the peasants takingthem from one house to another, and treating them tohome-made beer. The guards did not have to be askedtwice. They drank, and insisted that the prisonersshould drink too. ‘Happily,’ Serghéi said, ‘they gaveus the beer in such large wooden bowls, which werepassed round, that I could put my mouth to the rimof the bowl as if I were drinking, but no one could seehow much beer I had imbibed.’ The guards were alldrunk toward night, and preferred not to appear in thisstate before the police officer, so they decided to stayin the village till morning. Serghéi kept talking tothem, and all listened to him, regretting that such agood man had been caught. As they were going tosleep, a young peasant whispered to Serghéi, ‘When Igo to shut the gate I will leave it unbolted.’ Serghéiand his comrade understood the hint, and as soon asall fell asleep they went out into the street. Theystarted at a fast pace, and at five o’clock in the morningwere twenty miles away from the village, at a smallrailway station, where they took the first train, andwent to Moscow. Serghéi remained there, and later,(302)when all of us at St. Petersburg had been arrested, theMoscow circle, under his inspiration, became the maincentre of the agitation.

Here and there, small groups of propagandists hadsettled in towns and villages in various capacities.Blacksmiths’ shops and small farms had been started,and young men of the wealthier classes worked in theshops or on the farms, to be in daily contact with thetoiling masses. At Moscow, a number of young girls,of rich families, who had studied at the Zürich universityand had started a separate organization, wenteven so far as to enter cotton factories, where theyworked from fourteen to sixteen hours a day, and livedin the factory barracks the miserable life of the Russianfactory girls. It was a grand movement, in which, atthe lowest estimate, from two to three thousand personstook an active part, while twice or thrice as many sympathizersand supporters helped the active vanguard invarious ways. With a good half of that army our St.Petersburg circle was in regular correspondence—always,of course, in cipher.

The literature which could be published in Russiaunder a rigorous censorship—the faintest hint of socialismbeing prohibited—was soon found insufficient, andwe started a printing office of our own abroad. Pamphletsfor the workers and the peasants had to be written,and our small ‘literary committee,’ of which I was amember, had its hands full of work. Serghéi wrote acouple of such pamphlets—one in the Lamennais style,and another containing an exposition of socialism in afairy tale—and both had a wide circulation. The booksand pamphlets which were printed abroad were smuggledinto Russia by thousands, stored at certain spots, andsent out to the local circles, which distributed themamongst the peasants and the workers. All this requireda vast organization as well as much travelling about,(303)and a colossal correspondence, particularly for protectingour helpers and our bookstores from the police. Wehad special ciphers for different provincial circles, andoften, after six or seven hours had been passed in discussingall details, the women, who did not trust to ouraccuracy in the cipher correspondence, spent all the nightin covering sheets of paper with cabalistic figures andfractions.

The utmost cordiality always prevailed at our meetings.Chairmen and all sorts of formalism are so utterlyrepugnant to the Russian mind that we had none; andalthough our debates were sometimes extremely hot,especially when ‘programme questions’ were under discussion,we always managed very well without resortingto Western formalities. An absolute sincerity, a generaldesire to settle the difficulties for the best, and a franklyexpressed contempt for all that in the least degree approachedtheatrical affectation were quite sufficient. Ifanyone of us had ventured to attempt oratorical effectsby a speech, friendly jokes would have shown him atonce that speech-making was out of place. Often wehad to take our meals during these meetings, and theyinvariably consisted of rye bread, with cucumbers, a bitof cheese, and plenty of weak tea to quench the thirst.Not that money was lacking; there was always enough,and yet there was never too much to cover the steadilygrowing expenses for printing, transportation of books,concealing friends wanted by the police, and starting newenterprises.

At St. Petersburg it was not long before we hadwide acquaintance amongst the workers. Serdukóff,a young man of splendid education, had made a numberof friends amongst the engineers, most of them employedin a state factory of the artillery department,and he had organized a circle of about thirty members,who used to meet for reading and discussion. Theengineers are pretty well paid at St. Petersburg, and(304)those who were not married were fairly well off. Theysoon became quite familiar with the current radical andsocialist literature—Buckle, Lassalle, Mill, Draper, Spielhagen,were familiar names to them; and in their aspectthese engineers differed little from students. WhenKelnitz, Serghéi, and I joined the circle, we frequentlyvisited their group, and gave them informal lectures uponall sorts of things. Our hopes, however, that these youngmen would grow into ardent propagandists amidst lessprivileged classes of workers were not fully realised. Ina free country they would have been the habitualspeakers at public meetings; but, like the privilegedworkers of the watch trade in Geneva, they treated themass of the factory hands with a sort of contempt, andwere in no haste to become martyrs to the socialist cause.It was only after they had been arrested and kept threeor four years in prison for having dared to think associalists, and had sounded the full depth of Russianabsolutism, that several of them developed into ardentpropagandists, chiefly of a political revolution.

My sympathies went especially toward the weaversand the workers in the cotton factories. There aremany thousands of them at St. Petersburg, who workthere during the winter, and return for the three summermonths to their native villages to cultivate the land.Half peasants and half town workers, they had generallyretained the social spirit of the Russian villager. Themovement spread like wildfire among them. We hadto restrain the zeal of our new friends; otherwise theywould have brought to our lodgings hundreds at a time,young and old. Most of them lived in small associations,or artéls, ten or twelve persons hiring a common apartmentand taking their meals together, each one payingevery month his share of the general expenses. It wasto these lodgings that we used to go, and the weaverssoon brought us in contact with other artéls of stonemasons,(305)carpenters, and the like. In some of these artélsSerghéi, Kelnitz, and a couple more of our friends werequite at home, and spent whole nights talking aboutsocialism. Besides, we had in different parts of St.Petersburg special apartments, kept by some of ourpeople, to which ten or twelve workers would come everynight to learn reading and writing, and after that to havea talk. From time to time one of us went to the nativevillages of our town friends, and spent a couple of weeksin almost open propaganda amongst the peasants.

Of course, all of us who had to deal with this class ofworkers had to dress like the workers themselves—thatis, to wear the peasant garb. The gap between thepeasants and the educated people is so great in Russia,and contact between them is so rare, that not only doesthe appearance in a village of a man who wears the towndress awaken general attention, but even in town, if onewhose talk and dress reveal that he is not a worker isseen to go about with workers, the suspicion of the policeis aroused at once. ‘Why should he go about with “lowpeople,” if he has not a bad intention?’ Often, after adinner in a rich mansion, or even in the Winter Palace,where I went frequently to see a friend, I took a cab,hurried to a poor student’s lodging in a remote suburb,exchanged my fine clothes for a cotton shirt, peasant’stop-boots, and a sheepskin, and, joking with peasants onthe way, went to meet my worker friends in some slum.I told them what I had seen of the labour movementabroad. They listened with an eager attention; they lostnot a word of what was said; and then came the question,‘What can we do in Russia?’ ‘Agitate, organize,’ wasour reply; ‘there is no royal road;’ and we read thema popular story of the French Revolution, an adaptationof Erckmann-Chatrian’s admirable ‘Histoire d’un Paysan.’Every one admired M. Chovel, who went as a propagandistthrough the villages colporting prohibited books,and burned to follow in his footsteps. ‘Speak to others,’(306)we said; ‘bring men together; and when we becomemore numerous, we shall see what we can attain.’ Theyfully understood, and we had only to moderate theirzeal.

Amongst them I passed my happiest hours. NewYear’s day of 1874, the last I spent in Russia at liberty,is especially memorable to me. The previous evening Ihad been in a choice company. Inspiring, noble wordswere spoken that night about the citizen’s duties, the well-beingof the country, and the like. But underneath allthe thrilling speeches, one note resounded: How couldeach of the speakers preserve his own personal well-being?Yet no one had the courage to say, frankly and openly,that he was ready to do only that which would not endangerhis own dovecote. Sophisms—no end of sophisms—aboutthe slowness of evolution, the inertia of the lowerclasses, the uselessness of sacrifice, were uttered to justifythe unspoken words, all intermingled with assurances ofeach one’s willingness to make sacrifices. I returnedhome, seized suddenly with profound sadness amid allthis talk.

Next morning I went to one of our weavers’ meetings.It took place in an underground dark room. I wasdressed as a peasant, and was lost in the crowd of othersheepskins. My comrade, who was known to the workers,simply introduced me: ‘Borodín, a friend.’ ‘Tell us,Borodín,’ he said, ‘what you have seen abroad.’ And Ispoke of the labour movement in Western Europe, itsstruggles, its difficulties, and its hopes.

The audience consisted mostly of middle-aged people.They were intensely interested. They asked me questions,all to the point, about the minute details of the working-men’sunions, the aims of the International Associationand its chances of success, and then came questions aboutwhat could be done in Russia, and the prospects of ourpropaganda. I never minimized the dangers of ouragitation, and frankly said what I thought. ‘We shall(307)probably be sent to Siberia, one of these days; and you—partof you—will be kept long months in prison forhaving listened to us.’ This gloomy prospect did notfrighten them. ‘After all, there are men in Siberia, too—notbears only.’ ‘Where men are living others canlive.’ ‘The devil is not so terrible as they paint him.’‘If you are afraid of wolves, never go into the wood,’ theysaid as we parted. And when, afterward, several of themwere arrested, they nearly all behaved bravely, shelteringus and betraying no one.

XVI

During the two years of which I am now speakingmany arrests were made, both at St. Petersburg and inthe provinces. Not a month passed without our losingsomeone, or learning that members of this or that provincialgroup had disappeared. Toward the end of 1873the arrests became more and more frequent. In Novemberone of our main settlements in a suburb of St. Petersburgwas raided by the police. We lost Peróvskaya andthree other friends, and all our relations with the workersin this suburb had to be suspended. We founded a newsettlement, further away from the town, but it had soonto be abandoned. The police became very vigilant, andthe appearance of a student in the workmen’s quarterswas noticed at once; spies circulated among the workers,who were watched closely. Dmítri Kelnitz, Serghéi, andmyself, in our sheepskins and with our pleasant looks,passed unnoticed, and continued to visit the hauntedground. But Dmítri and Serghéi, whose names hadacquired a wide notoriety in the workmen’s quarters, wereeagerly wanted by the police; and if they had beenfound accidentally during a nocturnal raid at a friend’slodgings they would have been arrested at once. Therewere periods when Dmítri had every day to hunt for a(308)place where he could spend the night in relative safety.‘Can I stay the night with you?’ he would ask, enteringsome comrade’s room at ten o’clock. ‘Impossible! mylodgings have been closely watched lately. Better go toN——.’ ‘I have just come from him, and he says spiesswarm in his neighbourhood.’ ‘Then, go to M——; heis a great friend of mine, and above suspicion. But it isfar from here, and you must take a cab. Here is money.’But, on principle, Dmítri would not take a cab, and wouldwalk to the other end of the town to find a refuge, or atlast go to a friend whose rooms might be searched at anygiven moment.

Early in January 1874, another settlement, our mainstronghold for propaganda amongst the weavers, waslost. Some of our best propagandists disappeared behindthe gates of the mysterious Third Section. Ourcircle became narrower, general meetings were increasinglydifficult, and we made strenuous efforts to formnew circles of young men who might continue our workwhen we should all be arrested. Tchaykóvsky was inthe south, and we forced Dmítri and Serghéi to leaveSt. Petersburg—actually forced them, imperiously orderingthem to leave. Only five or six of us remained totransact all the business of our circle. I intended, assoon as I should have delivered my report to theGeographical Society, to go to the south-west of Russia,and there to start a sort of land league, similar to theleague which became so powerful in Ireland at the endof the seventies.

After two months of relative quiet, we learned in themiddle of March that nearly all the circle of the engineershad been arrested, and with them a young man namedNízovkin, an ex-student, who unfortunately had theirconfidence, and, we were sure, would soon try to clearhimself by telling all he knew about us. Besides Dmítriand Serghéi he knew Serdukóff, the founder of the circle,and myself, and he would certainly name us as soon as(309)he was pressed with questions. A few days later, twoweavers—most unreliable fellows, who had even embezzledsome money from their comrades, and whoknew me under the name of Borodín—were arrested.These two would surely set the police at once upon thetrack of Borodín, the man, dressed as a peasant, whospoke at the weavers’ meetings. Within a week’s timeall the members of our circle, excepting Serdukóff andmyself, were arrested.

There was nothing left to us but to fly from St.Petersburg: this was exactly what we did not want todo. All our immense organization for printing pamphletsabroad and for smuggling them into Russia; all thenetwork of circles, farms, and country settlements withwhich we were in correspondence in nearly forty (out offifty) provinces of European Russia and which had beenslowly built up during the last two years; finally, ourworkers’ groups at St. Petersburg and our four differentcentres for propaganda amongst workers of the capital—howcould we abandon all these without having foundmen to maintain our relations and correspondence?Serdukóff and I decided to admit to our circle two newmembers, and to transfer the business to them. Wemet every evening in different parts of the town, and aswe never kept any addresses or names in writing—thesmuggling addresses alone had been deposited in a secureplace, in cipher—we had to teach our new membershundreds of names and addresses and a dozen ciphers,repeating them over and over, until our friends hadlearned them by heart. Every evening we went overthe whole map of Russia in this way, dwelling especiallyon its western frontier, which was studded with men andwomen engaged in receiving books from the smugglers,and the eastern provinces, where we had our main settlements.Then, always in disguise, we had to take thenew members to our sympathizers in the town, andintroduce them to those who had not yet been arrested.

(310)

The thing to be done in such a case was to disappearfrom one’s apartments, and to re-appear somewhere elseunder an assumed name. Serdukóff had abandoned hislodging, but, having no passport, he concealed himselfin the houses of friends. I ought to have done the same,but a strange circ*mstance prevented me. I had justfinished my report upon the glacial formations in Finlandand Russia, and this report had to be read at a meetingof the Geographical Society. The invitations were alreadyissued, but it happened that on the appointed daythe two geological societies of St. Petersburg had a jointmeeting, and they asked the Geographical Society topostpone the reading of my report for a week. It wasknown that I was going to present certain ideas aboutthe extension of the ice cap as far as Middle Russia, andour geologists, with the exception of my friend andteacher, Friedrich Schmidt, considered this speculationof far too reaching a character, and wanted to have itthoroughly discussed. For one week more, consequently,I could not go away.

Strangers prowled about my house and called uponme under all sorts of fantastical pretexts: one of themwanted to buy a forest on my Tambóv estate, which wassituated in absolutely treeless prairies. I noticed in mystreet—the fashionable Morskáya—one of the two arrestedweavers whom I have mentioned, and thus learnedthat my house was watched. Yet I had to act as ifnothing extraordinary had happened, because I was toappear at the meeting of the Geographical Society thefollowing Friday night.

The meeting came. The discussions were very animated,and one point, at least, was won. It was recognizedthat all old theories concerning the diluvial periodin Russia were totally baseless, and that a new departuremust be made in the investigation of the whole question.I had the satisfaction of hearing our leading geologist,Barbot-de-Marny, say, ‘Ice cap or not, we must acknowledge,(311)gentlemen, that all we have hitherto said about theaction of floating ice had no foundation whatever inactual exploration.’ And I was proposed at that meetingto be nominated president of the Physical Geographysection, while I was asking myself whether I shouldnot spend that very night in the prison of the ThirdSection.

It would have been best not to return at all to myapartment, but I was broken down with fatigue after theexertions of the last few days, and went home. Therewas no police raid during that night. I looked throughthe heaps of my papers, destroyed everything that mightbe compromising for anyone, packed all my things, andprepared to leave. I knew that my apartment waswatched, but I hoped that the police would not pay mea visit before late in the night, and that at dusk I couldslip out of the house without being noticed. Dusk came,and, as I was starting, one of the servant girls said to me,‘You had better go by the service staircase.’ I understoodwhat she meant, and went quickly down the staircaseand out of the house. One cab only stood at thegate; I jumped into it. The driver took me to the greatPerspective of Névsky. There was no pursuit at first,and I thought myself safe; but presently I noticedanother cab running full speed after us; our horse wasdelayed somehow, and the other cab passed ours.

To my astonishment, I saw in it one of the two arrestedweavers, accompanied by someone else. Hewaved his hand as if he had something to tell me. Itold my cabman to stop. ‘Perhaps,’ I thought, ‘he hasbeen released from arrest, and has an important communicationto make to me.’ But as soon as we stopped, theman who was with the weaver—he was a detective—shoutedloudly, ‘Mr. Borodín, Prince Kropótkin, I arrestyou!’ He made a signal to the policeman, of whom thereare hosts along the main thoroughfare of St. Petersburg,and at the same time jumped into my cab and showed(312)me a paper which bore the stamp of the St. Petersburgpolice. ‘I have an order to take you before the Governor-Generalfor an explanation,’ he said. Resistance was impossible—acouple of policemen were already close by—andI told my cabman to turn round and drive to theGovernor-General’s house. The weaver remained in hiscab and followed us.

It was now evident that the police had hesitated forten days to arrest me, because they were not sure thatBorodín and I were the same person. My response tothe weaver’s call had settled their doubts.

It so happened that just as I was leaving my house ayoung man came from Moscow, bringing me a letter froma friend, Voinarálsky, and another from Dmítri, addressedto our friend Polakóff. The former announced the establishmentof a secret printing office at Moscow, and wasfull of cheerful news concerning the activity in that city.I read it and destroyed it. As the second letter containednothing but innocent friendly chat, I took it with me.Now that I was arrested I thought it would be better todestroy it, and, asking the detective to show me his paperagain, I took advantage of the time that he was fumblingin his pocket to drop the letter on the pavement withouthis noticing it. However, as we reached the Governor-General’shouse the weaver handed it to the detective,saying, ‘I saw the gentleman drop this letter on the pavement,so I picked it up.’

Now came tedious hours of waiting for the representativeof the judicial authorities, the procureur or publicprosecutor. This functionary plays the part of a strawman, who is paraded by the State police during theirsearches: he gives an aspect of legality to their proceedings.It was many hours before that gentleman wasfound and brought to perform his functions as a shamrepresentative of justice. I was taken back to myhouse, and a most thorough search of all my paperswas made: this lasted till three in the morning, but did(313)not reveal a scrap of paper that could tell against me oranyone else.

From my house I was taken to the Third Section,that omnipotent institution which has ruled in Russiafrom the beginning of the reign of Nicholas I. down tothe present time—a true ‘state in the state.’ It beganunder Peter I. in the Secret Department, where the adversariesof the founder of the Russian military empirewere subjected to the most abominable tortures, underwhich they expired; it was continued in the SecretChancelry during the reigns of the Empresses, when theTorture Chamber of the powerful Minich inspired allRussia with terror; and it received its present organizationfrom the iron despot, Nicholas I., who attached toit the corps of gendarmes—the chief of the gendarmesbecoming a person far more dreaded in the RussianEmpire than the Emperor himself.

In every province of Russia, in every populous town,nay, at every railway station, there are gendarmes whor*port directly to their own generals or colonels, who inturn correspond with the chief of the gendarmes; andthe latter, seeing the Emperor every day, reports to himwhat he finds necessary to report. All functionaries ofthe empire are under gendarme supervision; it is theduty of the generals and colonels to keep an eye uponthe public and private life of every subject of the Tsar—evenupon the governors of the provinces, the ministers,and the grand dukes. The Emperor himself is undertheir close watch, and as they are well informed of thepetty chronicle of the palace, and know every step thatthe Emperor takes outside his palace, the chief of thegendarmes becomes, so to speak, a confidant of the mostintimate affairs of the rulers of Russia.

At this period of the reign of Alexander II. the ThirdSection was absolutely all-powerful. The gendarme colonelsmade searches by the thousand without troublingthemselves in the least about the existence of laws and(314)law courts in Russia. They arrested whom they liked,kept people imprisoned as long as they pleased, andtransported hundreds to North-east Russia or Siberiaaccording to the fancy of general or colonel; the signatureof the Minister of the Interior was a mere formality,because he had no control over them and no knowledgeof their doings.

It was four o’clock in the morning when my examinationbegan. ‘You are accused,’ I was solemnly told, ‘ofhaving belonged to a secret society which has for itsobject the overthrow of the existing form of government,and of conspiracy against the sacred person of his ImperialMajesty. Are you guilty of this crime?’

‘Till I am brought before a court where I can speakpublicly, I will give you no replies whatever.’

‘Write,’ the procureur dictated to a scribe: ‘“Doesnot acknowledge himself guilty.” Still’ he continued,after a pause, ‘I must ask you certain questions. Doyou know a person of the name of Nikolái Tchaykóvsky?’

‘If you persist in your questions, then write “No” toany question whatsoever that you are pleased to ask me.’

‘But if we ask you whether you know, for instance,Mr. Polakóff, whom you spoke about a while ago?’

‘The moment you ask me such a question, don’thesitate: write “No.” And if you ask me whether Iknow my brother, or my sister, or my stepmother, write“No.” You will not receive from me another reply: becauseif I answered “Yes” with regard to any person, youwould at once plan some evil against him, making a raidor something worse, and saying next that I named him.’

A long list of questions was read, to which I patientlyreplied each time, ‘Write “No.”’ That lasted for anhour, during which I learned that all who had beenarrested, with the exception of the two weavers, hadbehaved very well. The weavers knew only that I hadtwice met a dozen workers, and the gendarmes knewnothing about our circle.

(315)

‘What are you doing, prince?’ a gendarme officersaid, as he took me to my cell. ‘Your refusal to answerquestions will be made a terrible weapon against you.’

‘It is my right, is it not?’

‘Yes, but—you know.... I hope you will find thisroom comfortable. It has been kept warm since yourarrest.’

I found it quite comfortable, and fell sound asleep.I was waked the next morning by a gendarme, whobrought me the morning tea. He was soon followed bysomebody else, who whispered to me in the most unconcernedway, ‘Here’s a scrap of paper and a pencil: writeyour letter.’ It was a sympathizer, whom I knew byname; he used to transmit our correspondence with theprisoners of the Third Section.

From all sides I heard knocks on the walls, followingin rapid succession. It was the prisoners communicatingwith one another by means of light taps; but, being anew-comer, I could make nothing out of the noise, whichseemed to come from all parts of the building at once.

One thing worried me. During the search in myhouse, I overheard the procureur whispering to thegendarme officer about going to make a search at theapartment of my friend Polakóff, to whom the letter ofDmítri was addressed. Polakóff was a young student, avery gifted zoologist and botanist, with whom I hadmade my Vitím expedition in Siberia. He was born ofa poor Cossack family on the frontier of Mongolia, and,after having surmounted all sorts of difficulties, he hadcome to St. Petersburg, entered the university, where hehad won the reputation of a most promising zoologist,and was then passing his final examinations. We hadbeen great friends since our long journey, and had evenlived together for a time at St. Petersburg, but he tookno interest in my political activity.

I spoke of him to the procureur. ‘I give you my(316)word of honour,’ I said, ‘that Polakóff has never takenpart in any political affair. To-morrow he has to passan examination, and you will spoil forever the scientificcareer of a young man who has gone through greathardships, and has struggled for years against all sorts ofobstacles, to attain his present position. I know thatyou do not much care for it, but he is looked upon atthe university as one of the future glories of Russianscience.’

The search was made, nevertheless, but a respite ofthree days was given for the examinations. A littlelater I was called before the procureur, who triumphantlyshowed me an envelope addressed in my handwriting,and in it a note, also in my handwriting, which said,‘Please take this packet to V. E., and ask that it bekept until demand in due form is made.’ The person towhom the note was addressed was not mentioned in thenote. ‘This letter,’ the procureur said, ‘was found atMr. Polakóff’s; and now, prince, his fate is in your hands.If you tell me who V. E. is, Mr. Polakóff will be released;but if you refuse to do so, he will be kept as long as hedoes not make up his mind to give us the name of thatperson.’

Looking at the envelope, which was addressed inblack chalk, and the letter, which was written in commonlead pencil, I immediately remembered the circ*mstancesunder which the two had been written. ‘I am positive,’I exclaimed at once, ‘that the note and the envelopewere not found together! It is you who have put theletter in the envelope.’

The procureur blushed. ‘Would you have me believe,’I continued, ‘that you, a practical man, did notnotice that the two are written in quite different pencils?And now you are trying to make people think that thetwo belong to each other! Well, sir, then I tell you thatthe letter was not to Polakóff.’

He hesitated for some time, but then, regaining his(317)audacity, he said, ‘Polakóff has admitted that this letterof yours was written to him.’

Now I knew he was lying. Polakóff would haveadmitted everything concerning himself; but he wouldhave preferred to be marched to Siberia rather than toinvolve another person. So, looking straight in the faceof the procureur, I replied, ‘No, sir, he has never saidthat, and you know perfectly well that your words arenot true.’

He became furious, or pretended to be so. ‘Well,then,’ he said, ‘if you wait here a moment, I will bringyou Polakóff’s written statement to that effect. He is inthe next room under examination.’

‘Ready to wait as long as you like.’

I sat on a sofa, smoking countless cigarettes. Thestatement did not come, and never came.

Of course there was no such statement. I metPolakóff in 1878 at Geneva, whence we made a delightfulexcursion to the Aletsch glacier. I need not say thathis answers were what I expected them to be: he deniedhaving any knowledge of the letter, or of the person theletters V. E. represented. Scores of books used to betaken from me to him, and back to me, and the letterwas found in a book, while the envelope was discoveredin the pocket of an old coat. He was kept several weeksunder arrest, and then released, owing to the interventionof his scientific friends. V. E. was not molested,and delivered my papers in due time.

Later on, each time I saw the procureur, I teased himwith the question: ‘And what about Polakóff’s statement?’

I was not taken back to my cell, but an hour laterthe procureur came in, accompanied by a gendarmeofficer. ‘Our examination,’ he announced to me, ‘isnow terminated; you will be removed to anotherplace.’

(318)

A four-wheeled cab stood at the gate. I was askedto enter it, and a stout gendarme officer, of Caucasianorigin, sat by my side. I spoke to him, but he onlysnored. The cab crossed the Chain Bridge, then passedthe parade grounds and ran along the canals, as if avoidingthe more frequented thoroughfares. ‘Are we goingto the Litóvsky prison?’ I asked the officer, as I knewthat many of my comrades were already there. Hemade no reply. The system of absolute silence whichwas maintained toward me for the next two years beganin this four-wheeled cab; but when we went rolling overthe Palace Bridge I understood that I was taken to thefortress of St. Peter and St. Paul.

I admired the beautiful river, knowing that I shouldnot soon see it again. The sun was going down. Thickgrey clouds were hanging in the west above the Gulf ofFinland, while light clouds floated over my head, showinghere and there patches of blue sky. Then the carriageturned to the left and entered a dark arched passage, thegate of the fortress.

‘Now I shall have to remain here for a couple ofyears,’ I remarked to the officer.

‘No, why so long?’ replied the Circassian who, nowthat we were within the fortress, had regained the powerof speech. ‘Your affair is almost terminated, and maybe brought into court in a fortnight.’

‘My affair,’ I replied, ‘is very simple; but beforebringing me to a court you will try to arrest all thesocialists in Russia, and they are many, very many; intwo years you will not have done.’ I did not thenrealize how prophetic my remark was.

The carriage stopped at the door of the militarycommander of the fortress, and we entered his receptionhall. General Korsákoff, a thin old man, came in, witha peevish expression on his face. The officer spoke tohim in a subdued voice, and the old man answered,‘All right,’ looking at him with a sort of scorn, and then(319)turned his eyes toward me. It was evident that he wasnot at all pleased to receive a new inmate, and that hefelt slightly ashamed of his rôle; but he seemed to add,‘I am a soldier, and only do my duty.’ Presently wegot into the carriage again, but soon stopped before anothergate, where we were kept a long time until a detachmentof soldiers opened it from the inside. Proceeding onfoot through narrow passages, we came to a third irongate, opening into a dark arched passage, from which weentered a small room where darkness and dampnessprevailed.

Several non-commissioned officers of the fortresstroops moved noiselessly about in their soft felt boots,without speaking a word, while the governor signed theCircassian’s book acknowledging the reception of a newprisoner. I was required to take off all my clothes, andto put on the prison dress—a green flannel dressing-gown,immense woollen stockings of an incredible thickness,and boat-shaped yellow slippers, so big that I couldhardly keep them on my feet when I tried to walk. Ialways hated dressing-gowns and slippers, and the thickstockings inspired me with disgust. I had to take offeven a silk undergarment, which in the damp fortress itwould have been especially desirable to retain, but thatcould not be allowed. I naturally began to protest andto make a noise about this, and after an hour or so itwas restored to me by order of General Korsákoff.

Then I was taken through a dark passage, where Isaw armed sentries walking about, and was put into acell. A heavy oak door was shut behind me, a keyturned in the lock, and I was alone in a half-dark room.

I

This was, then, the terrible fortress where so much ofthe true strength of Russia had perished during the lasttwo centuries, and the very name of which is uttered inSt. Petersburg in a hushed voice.

Here Peter I. tortured his son Alexis and killed himwith his own hand; here the Princess Tarakánova waskept in a cell which filled with water during an inundation—therats climbing upon her to save themselves fromdrowning; here the terrible Minich tortured his enemies,and Catherine II. buried alive those who objected to herhaving murdered her husband. And from the times ofPeter I., for a hundred and seventy years, the annals ofthis mass of stone which rises from the Nevá in front ofthe Winter Palace were annals of murder and torture, ofmen buried alive, condemned to a slow death, or driven toinsanity in the loneliness of the dark and damp dungeons.

Here the Decembrists, who were the first to unfurlin Russia the banner of republican rule and the abolitionof serfdom, underwent their first experiences ofmartyrdom, and traces of them may still be found inthe Russian Bastille. Here were imprisoned the poetsRyléeff and Shevchénko, Dostoévsky, Bakúnin, Chernyshévsky,Písareff, and so many others of our best contemporarywriters. Here Karakózoff was tortured andhanged.

(321)

Here, somewhere in the Alexis ravelin, was stillkept Necháieff, who was given up to Russia by Switzerlandas a common-law criminal, but was treated as adangerous political prisoner, and would never again seethe light. In the same ravelin were also two or threemen whom, rumour said, Alexander II., because of whatthey knew, and what others must not know, about somepalace mystery, ordered to be imprisoned for life. Oneof them, adorned with a long grey beard, was lately seenby an acquaintance of mine in the mysterious fortress.

All these shadows rose before my imagination. Butmy thoughts fixed especially on Bakúnin, who, thoughhe had been shut up in an Austrian fortress, after 1848,for two years chained to the wall, and then was handedover to Nicholas I. who kept him in this fortress for sixyears longer, came out, when the Iron Tsar’s death releasedhim after an eight years’ imprisonment, fresher andfuller of vigour than his comrades who had remained atliberty. ‘He has lived it through,’ I said to myself, ‘andI must, too; I will not succumb here!’

My first movement was to approach the window,which was placed so high that I could hardly reach itwith my lifted hand. It was a long, low opening, cutin a wall five feet thick, and protected by an iron gratingand a double iron window-frame. At a distance of adozen yards from this window I saw the outer wall ofthe fortress, of immense thickness, on the top of which Icould make out a grey sentry-box. Only by lookingupward could I perceive a bit of the sky.

I made a minute inspection of the room where I hadnow to spend no one could say how many years. Fromthe position of the high chimney of the Mint I guessedthat I was in the south-western corner of the fortress, ina bastion overlooking the Nevá. The building in whichI was incarcerated, however, was not the bastion itself,but what is called in a fortification a reduit; that is, aninner two-storied pentagonal piece of masonry which(322)rises a little higher than the walls of the bastion, and ismeant to contain two tiers of guns. This room of minewas a casemate destined for a big gun, and the windowwas an embrasure. The rays of the sun could never penetrateit; even in summer they are lost in the thickness ofthe wall. The room held an iron bed, a small oak table,and an oak stool. The floor was covered with paintedfelt, and the walls with yellow paper. However, in orderto deaden sounds, the paper was not put on the wall itself;it was pasted upon canvas, and behind the canvas I discovereda wire grating, back of which was a layer of felt;only beyond the felt could I reach the stone wall. At theinner side of the room there was a washstand, and a thickoak door in which I made out a locked opening, for passingfood through, and a little slit protected by glass and bya shutter from the outside: this was the ‘Judas,’ throughwhich the prisoner could be spied upon at every moment.The sentry who stood in the passage frequently liftedthe shutter and looked inside—his boots squeaking as hecrept toward the door. I tried to speak to him; thenthe eye which I could see through the slit assumed anexpression of terror, and the shutter was immediately letdown, only to be furtively opened a minute or two later;but I could not get a word of response from the sentry.

Absolute silence reigned all round. I dragged mystool to the window and looked upon the little bit of skythat I could see; I tried to catch some sound from theNevá, or from the town on the opposite side of the river;but I could not. This dead silence began to oppress me,and I tried to sing, slowly at first, and louder and louderafterwards.

‘Have I then to say farewell to love for ever’—Icaught myself singing from my favourite opera ofGlinka, ‘Ruslán and Ludmíla.’

‘Sir, do not sing, please,’ a bass voice resoundedthrough the food-window in my door.

‘I will sing, and I shall.’

(323)

‘You may not.’

‘I will sing nevertheless.’

Then came the governor, who tried to persuade methat I must not sing, as it would have to be reported tothe commander of the fortress, and so on.

‘But my throat will become blocked and my lungsbecome useless if I do not speak and cannot sing,’ I triedto argue.

‘You had better try to sing in a lower tone, more orless to yourself,’ said the old governor in a supplicatorymanner.

But all this was useless. A few days later I had lostall desire to sing. I tried to do it on principle, but it wasof no avail.

‘The main thing,’ I said to myself, ‘is to preserve myphysical vigour. I will not fall ill. Let me imagine myselfcompelled to spend a couple of years in a hut in thefar north, during an arctic expedition. I will take plentyof exercise, practise gymnastics, and not let myself bebroken down by my surroundings. Ten steps from onecorner to the other is already something. If I repeatthem one hundred and fifty times, I shall have walkedone verst’ (two-thirds of a mile). I determined to walkevery day seven versts—about five miles: two versts inthe morning, two before dinner, two after dinner, and onebefore going to sleep. ‘If I put on the table ten cigarettes,and move one of them each time that I pass thetable, I shall easily count the three hundred times that Imust walk up and down. I must walk rapidly, but turnslowly in the corner to avoid becoming giddy, and turneach time a different way. Then twice a day I shallpractise gymnastics with my heavy stool.’ I lifted it byone leg, holding it at arm’s length. I turned it like awheel, and soon learned to throw it from one hand to theother, over my head, behind my back, and across my legs.

A few hours after I had been brought into the prisonthe governor came to offer me some books, and among(324)them was an old acquaintance and friend of mine, the firstvolume of George Lewes’s ‘Physiology,’ in a Russiantranslation; but the second volume, which I especiallywanted to read again, was missing. I asked, of course,to have paper, pen, and ink, but was absolutely refused.Pen and ink are never allowed in the fortress, unlessspecial permission is obtained from the Emperor himself.I suffered very much from this forced inactivity, andbegan to compose in my imagination a series of novelsfor popular reading, taken from Russian history—somethinglike Eugène Sue’s ‘Mystères du Peuple.’ I madeup the plot, the descriptions, the dialogues, and tried tocommit the whole to memory from the beginning to theend. One can easily imagine how exhausting such awork would have been if I had had to continue it for morethan two or three months.

But my brother Alexander obtained pen and ink forme. One day I was asked to enter a four-wheeled cab,in company with the same speechless Georgian gendarmeofficer of whom I have spoken before. I was taken tothe Third Section, where I was allowed an interview withmy brother, in the presence of two gendarme officers.

Alexander was at Zürich when I was arrested. Fromearly youth he had longed to go abroad, where men thinkas they like, read what they like, and openly express theirthoughts. Russian life was hateful to him. Veracity—absoluteveracity—and the most open-hearted franknesswere the dominating features of his character; he could notbear deceit or even conceit in any form. The absence offree speech in Russia, the Russian readiness to submit tooppression, the veiled words to which our writers resort,were utterly repulsive to his frank and open nature. Soonafter my return from Western Europe he removed toSwitzerland, and decided to settle there. After he hadlost his two children—one from cholera in a few hours,and another from consumption—St. Petersburg becamedoubly repugnant to him.

(325)

My brother did not take part in our work of agitation.He did not believe in the possibility of a popular uprising,and he conceived a revolution only as the action of a representativebody, like the National Assembly of Francein 1789. As for the socialist agitation, he understood itwhen it is conducted by means of public meetings—notas the secret, minute work of personal propaganda whichwe were carrying on. In England he would have sidedwith John Bright or with the Chartists. If he had beenin Paris during the uprising of June 1848, he would surelyhave fought with the last handful of workers behind thelast barricade; but in the preparatory period he wouldhave followed Louis Blanc or Ledru Rollin.

In Switzerland he settled at Zürich, and his sympathieswent with the moderate wing of the International.Socialist on principle, he carried out his principles inhis most frugal and laborious mode of living, toiling onpassionately at his great scientific work—the main purposeof his life—a work which was to be a nineteenth-centurycounter-part to the famous Tableau de la Natureof the Encyclopædists. He soon became a close personalfriend of the old refugee, Colonel P. L. Lavróff, withwhom he had very much in common in his Kantianphilosophical views.

When he learned about my arrest, Alexander immediatelyleft everything—the work of his life, the lifeitself of freedom which was as necessary for him as freeair is necessary for a bird—and returned to St. Petersburg,which he disliked, only to help me through my imprisonment.

We were both very much affected at this interview.My brother was extremely excited. He hated the verysight of the blue uniforms of the gendarmes—thoseexecutioners of all independent thought in Russia—andexpressed his feeling frankly in their presence. As forme, the sight of him at St. Petersburg filled me withthe most dismal apprehensions. I was happy to see his(326)honest face, his eyes full of love, and to hear that Ishould see them once a month; and yet I wished himhundreds of miles away from that place to which hecame free that day, but to which he would inevitably bebrought some night under an escort of gendarmes.‘Why did you come into the lion’s den? Go back atonce!’ my whole inner self cried; and yet I knew thathe would remain as long as I was in prison.

He understood better than any one else that inactivitywould kill me, and had already made application toobtain for me the permission of resuming work. TheGeographical Society wanted me to finish my book onthe glacial period, and my brother turned the wholescientific world in St. Petersburg upside down to moveit to support his application. The Academy of Scienceswas interested in the matter; and finally, two or threemonths after my imprisonment, the governor enteredmy cell and announced to me that I was permitted bythe Emperor to complete my report to the GeographicalSociety, and that I should be allowed pen and ink forthat purpose. ‘Till sunset only,’ he added. Sunset, atSt. Petersburg, is at three in the afternoon, in wintertime; but that could not be helped. ‘Till sunset’ werethe words used by Alexander II. when he granted thepermission.

II

So I could work!

I could hardly express now the immensity of relief Ithen felt at being enabled to resume writing. I wouldhave consented to live on nothing but bread and water,in the dampest of cellars, if only permitted to work.

I was, however, the sole prisoner to whom writingmaterials were allowed. Several of my comrades spentthree years and more in confinement before the famoustrial of ‘the hundred and ninety-three’ took place, and(327)all they had was a slate. Of course, even the slate waswelcome in that dreary loneliness, and they used it towrite exercises in the languages they were learning, or towork out mathematical problems; but what was jotteddown on the slate could last only a few hours.

My prison life now took a more regular character.There was something immediate to live for. At nine inthe morning I had already made the first three hundredpacings across my cell, and was waiting for my pencilsand pens to be delivered to me. The work which I hadprepared for the Geographical Society contained, besidea report of my explorations in Finland, a discussion ofthe bases upon which the glacial hypothesis ought torest. Now, knowing that I had plenty of time beforeme, I decided to rewrite and enlarge that part of mywork. The Academy of Sciences put its admirablelibrary at my service, and a corner of my cell soon filledup with books and maps, including the whole of theexcellent Swedish Geological Survey publications, anearly full collection of reports of all Arctic travels, andwhole sets of the Quarterly Journal of the London GeologicalSociety. My book grew in the fortress to thesize of two large volumes. The first of them was printedby my brother and Polakóff (in the Geographical Society’sMemoirs); while the second, not quite finished, remainedin the hands of the Third Section when I ran away.The manuscript was only found in 1895, and given tothe Russian Geographical Society, by whom it wasforwarded to me in London.

At five in the afternoon—at three in the winter—assoon as the tiny lamp was brought in, my pencils andpens were taken away, and I had to stop work. Then Iused to read, mostly books of history. Quite a libraryhad been formed in the fortress by the generations ofpolitical prisoners who had been confined there. I wasallowed to add to the library a number of staple workson Russian history, and with the books which were(328)brought to me by my relatives I was enabled to readalmost every work and collection of acts and documentsbearing on the Moscow period of the history of Russia.I relished in reading, not only the Russian annals,especially the admirable annals of the democratic mediævalrepublic of Pskov—the best, perhaps, in Europe forthe history of that type of mediæval cities—but all sortsof dry documents, and even the Lives of the Saints,which occasionally contain facts of the real life of themasses which cannot be found elsewhere. I also readduring this time a great number of novels, and evenarranged for myself a treat on Christmas Eve. Myrelatives managed to send me then the Christmas storiesof Dickens, and I spent the festival laughing and cryingover those beautiful creations of the great novelist.

III

The worst was the silence, as of the grave, whichreigned about me. In vain I knocked on the walls andstruck the floor with my foot, listening for the faintestsound in reply. None was to be heard. One monthpassed, then two, three, fifteen months, but there wasno reply to my knocks. We were only six, scatteredamong thirty-six casemates—all my arrested comradesbeing kept in the Litóvskiy Zámok prison. When thenon-commissioned officer entered my cell to take meout for a walk, and I asked him, ‘What kind of weatherhave we? Does it rain?’ he cast a furtive side glance atme, and without saying a word promptly retired behindthe door, where a sentry and another non-commissionedofficer kept watch upon him. The only living beingfrom whom I could hear even a few words was thegovernor, who came to my cell every morning to say‘good-morning’ and ask whether I wanted to buytobacco or paper. I tried to engage him in conversation;(329)but he also cast furtive glances at the non-commissionedofficers who stood in the half-opened door, as if to say,‘You see, I am watched, too.’ Pigeons only were notafraid to keep intercourse with me. Every morning andevery afternoon they came to my window to receivethrough the gratings their food.

There were no sounds whatever except the squeakof the sentry’s boots, the hardly perceptible noise of theshutter of the Judas, and the ringing of the bells on thefortress cathedral. They rang a ‘Lord save me’ (‘Góspodipomílui’) every quarter of an hour—one, two, three,four times. Then, each hour, the big bell struck slowly,with long intervals between successive strokes. A lugubriouscanticle followed, chimed by the bells, which atevery sudden change of temperature went out of tune,making at such times a horrible cacophony whichsounded like the ringing of bells at a burial. At thegloomy hour of midnight, the canticle, moreover, wasfollowed by the discordant notes of a ‘God save theTsar.’ The ringing lasted a full quarter of an hour;and no sooner had it come to an end than a new ‘Lordsave me’ announced to the sleepless prisoner that aquarter of an hour of his uselessly spent life had gonein the meantime, and that many quarters of an hour,and hours, and days, and months of the same vegetativelife would pass, before his keepers, or, maybe, death,would release him.

Every morning I was taken out for a half-hour’swalk in the prison yard. This yard was a smallpentagon with a narrow pavement round it, and a littlebuilding—the bath house—in the middle. But I likedthose walks.

The need of new impressions is so great in prisonthat, when I walked in our narrow yard, I always keptmy eyes fixed upon the high gilt spire of the fortresscathedral. This was the only thing in my surroundingswhich changed its aspect, and I liked to see it glittering(330)like pure gold when the sun shone from a clear blue sky,or assuming a fairy aspect when a light bluish haze layupon the town, or becoming steel gray when dark cloudsbegan to gather.

During these walks, I saw occasionally the daughterof our governor, a girl of eighteen, as she came out fromher father’s apartment and had to walk a few steps in ouryard in order to reach the entrance gate—the only issuefrom the building. She always hurried to pass away,with her eyes cast down, as if she felt ashamed of beingthe daughter of a jailor. Her younger brother, on thecontrary, a cadet whom I also saw once or twice in theyard, always looked straight in my face with such a frankexpression of sympathy that I was struck by it, and evenmentioned it to some one after my release. Four or fiveyears later, when he was already an officer, he was exiledto Siberia. He had joined the revolutionary party, andmust have helped, I suppose, to carry on correspondencewith prisoners in the fortress.

Winter is gloomy at St. Petersburg for those whocannot be out in the brightly lighted streets. It wasstill gloomier, of course, in a casemate. But dampnesswas even worse than darkness. In order to drive awaymoisture the casemate was overheated, and I could notbreathe; but when, at last, I obtained by request, thatthe temperature should be kept lower than before, theouter wall became dripping with moisture, and the paperwas as if a pail of water had been poured upon it everyday—the consequence being that I suffered a great dealfrom rheumatism.

With all that I was cheerful, continuing to write andto draw maps in the darkness, sharpening my lead pencilswith a broken piece of glass which I had managed to gethold of in the yard; I faithfully walked my five miles aday in the cell, and performed gymnastic feats with myoak stool. Time went on. But then sorrow crept into(331)my cell and nearly broke me down. My brother Alexanderwas arrested.

Toward the end of December 1874, I was allowedan interview with him and our sister Hélène, in thefortress, in the presence of a gendarme officer. Interviews,granted at long intervals, always bring both theprisoner and his relatives into a state of excitement.One sees beloved faces and hears beloved voices, knowingthat the vision will last but a few moments; one feelsso near to the other, and yet so far off, as there can beno intimate conversation before a stranger, an enemyand a spy. Besides, my brother and sister felt anxiousfor my health, upon which the dark, gloomy winter daysand the dampness had already marked their first effects.We parted with heavy hearts.

A week after that interview, I received, instead ofan expected letter from my brother concerning the printingof my book, a short note from Polakóff. He informedme that henceforward he would read the proofs, and thatI should have to address to him everything relative tothe printing. From the very tone of the note I understoodat once that something must be wrong with mybrother. If it were only illness, Polakóff would havementioned it. Days of fearful anxiety came upon me.Alexander must have been arrested, and I must havebeen the cause of it! Life suddenly ceased to have anymeaning for me. My walks, my gymnastics, my work,lost interest. All the day long I went ceaselessly up anddown my cell, thinking of nothing but Alexander’s arrest.For me, an unmarried man, imprisonment was only personalinconvenience; but he was married, he passionatelyloved his wife, and they now had a boy, upon whomthey had concentrated all the love that they had felt fortheir first two children.

Worst of all was the incertitude. What could hehave done? For what reason had he been arrested?What were they going to do with him? Weeks passed;(332)my anxiety became deeper and deeper; but there wasno news, till at last I heard in a roundabout way that hehad been arrested for a letter written to P. L. Lavróff.

I learned the details much later. After his lastinterview with me he wrote to his old friend, who atthat time was editing a Russian socialist review, Forward,in London. He mentioned in this letter his fearsabout my health; he spoke of the many arrests whichwere made then in Russia; and he freely expressed hishatred of the despotic rule. The letter was interceptedat the post office by the Third Section, and they cameon Christmas Eve to search his apartments. Theycarried out their search in an even more brutal mannerthan usual. After midnight half a dozen men made anirruption into his flat, and turned everything upside down.The very walls were examined; the sick child was takenout of its bed, that the bedding and the mattresses mightbe inspected. They found nothing—there was nothingto find.

My brother very much resented this search. Withhis customary frankness, he said to the gendarme officerwho conducted it: ‘Against you, captain, I have nogrievance. You have received little education, and youhardly understand what you are doing. But you, sir,’he continued, turning toward the procureur, ‘you knowwhat part you are playing in these proceedings. Youhave received a university education. You know thelaw, and you know that you are trampling all law,such as it is, under your feet, and covering the lawlessnessof these men by your presence; you are simply—ascoundrel!’

They swore hatred against him. They kept him imprisonedin the Third Section till May. My brother’schild—a charming boy, whom illness had rendered stillmore affectionate and intelligent—was dying from consumption.The doctors said he had only a few daysmore to live. Alexander, who had never asked any(333)favour of his enemies, asked them this time to permithim to see his child for the last time. He begged tobe allowed to go home for one hour, upon his wordof honour to return, or to be taken there under escort.They refused. They could not deny themselves thatvengeance.

The child died, and its mother was thrown oncemore into a state bordering on insanity when my brotherwas told that he was to be transported to East Siberia,to a small town, Minusínsk. He would travel in a cartbetween two gendarmes, and his wife might follow later,but could not travel with him.

‘Tell me, at least, what is my crime,’ he demanded;but there was no accusation of any sort against himbeyond the letter. This transportation appeared soarbitrary, so much an act of mere revenge on the partof the Third Section, that none of our relatives couldbelieve that the exile would last more than a few months.My brother lodged a complaint with the Minister of theInterior. The reply was that the minister could notinterfere with the will of the chief of the gendarmes.Another complaint was lodged with the Senate. It wasof no avail.

A couple of years later, our sister Hélène, acting onher own initiative, wrote a petition to the Tsar. Ourcousin Dmítri, Governor-general of Khárkoff, aide-de-campof the Emperor and a favourite at the court, alsodeeply incensed at this treatment by the Third Section,handed the petition personally to the Tsar, and in sodoing added a few words in support of it. But thevindictiveness of the Románoffs was a family trait stronglydeveloped in Alexander II. He wrote upon the petition,‘Pust posidít’ (Let him remain some time more). Mybrother stayed in Siberia twelve years, and never returnedto Russia.

(334)

IV

The countless arrests which were made in the summerof 1874, and the serious turn which was given by thepolice to the prosecution of our circle, produced a deepchange in the opinions of Russian youth. Up to thattime the prevailing idea had been to pick out among theworkers, and eventually the peasants, a number of menwho should be prepared to become socialistic agitators.But the factories were now flooded with spies, and it wasevident that, do what they might, both propagandists andworkers would very soon be arrested and hidden for everin Siberia. Then began a great movement ‘to the people’in a new form, when several hundred young men andwomen, disregarding all precautions hitherto taken, rushedto the country, and, travelling through the towns andvillages, incited the masses to revolution, almost openlydistributing pamphlets, songs, and proclamations. Inour circles this summer received the name of ‘the madsummer.’

The gendarmes lost their heads. They had not handsenough to make the arrests nor eyes enough to trace thesteps of every propagandist. Yet not less than fifteenhundred persons were arrested during this hunt, and halfof them were kept in prison for years.

One day in the summer of 1875, in the cell that wasnext to mine I distinctly heard the light steps of heeledboots, and a few minutes later I caught fragments of aconversation. A feminine voice spoke from the cell, anda deep bass voice—evidently that of the sentry—gruntedsomething in reply. Then I recognized the sound of thecolonel’s spurs, his rapid steps, his swearing at the sentry,and the click of the key in the lock. He said something,and a feminine voice loudly replied: ‘We did not talk.I only asked him to call the non-commissioned officer.’Then the door was locked, and I heard the colonel swearingin whispers at the sentry.

(335)

So I was alone no more. I had a lady neighbour,who at once broke down the severe discipline which hadhitherto reigned amongst the soldiers. From that daythe walls of the fortress, which had been mute during thelast fifteen months, became animated. From all sides Iheard knocks with the foot on the floor: one, two, three,four, ... eleven knocks; twenty-four knocks, fifteenknocks; then an interruption, followed by three knocksand a long succession of thirty-three knocks. Over andover again these knocks were repeated in the same succession,until the neighbour would guess at last thatthey were meant for ‘Kto vy?’ (Who are you?), theletter v being the third letter in our alphabet. Thereuponconversation was soon established, and usually wasconducted in the abridged alphabet; that is, the alphabetbeing divided into six rows of five letters, each letter ismarked by its row and its place in the row.

I discovered with great pleasure that I had at my leftmy friend Serdukóff, with whom I could soon talk abouteverything, especially when we used our cipher. Butintercourse with men brought its sufferings as well asits joys. Underneath me was lodged a peasant, whomSerdukóff knew. He talked to him by means of knocks;and even against my will, often unconsciously during mywork, I followed their conversations. I also spoke tohim. Now, if solitary confinement without any sort ofwork is hard for educated men, it is infinitely harder for apeasant who is accustomed to physical work, and not atall wont to spend years in reading. Our peasant friendfelt quite miserable, and having been kept for nearly twoyears in another prison before he was brought to thefortress—his crime was that he had listened to socialists—hewas already broken down. Soon I began to notice,to my terror, that from time to time his mind wandered.Gradually his thoughts grew more and more confused,and we two perceived, step by step, day by day, evidencesthat his reason was failing, until his talk became at last(336)that of a lunatic. Frightful noises and wild cries camenext from the lower story; our neighbour was mad, butwas still kept for several months in the casemate beforehe was removed to an asylum, from which he neveremerged. To witness the destruction of a man’s mind,under such conditions, was terrible. I am sure it musthave contributed to increase the nervous irritability ofmy good and true friend Serdukóff. When, after fouryears’ imprisonment, he was acquitted by the court andreleased, he shot himself.

One day I received a quite unexpected visit. TheGrand Duke Nicholas, brother of Alexander II., whowas inspecting the fortress, entered my cell, followed onlyby his aide-de-camp. The door was shut behind him.He rapidly approached me, saying, ‘Good-day, Kropótkin.’He knew me personally, and spoke in a familiar, good-naturedtone, as to an old acquaintance. ‘How is itpossible, Kropótkin, that you, a page de chambre, asergeant of the corps of pages, should be mixed up inthis business, and now be here in this horrible casemate?’

‘Every one has his own opinions,’ was my reply.

‘Opinions! So your opinions were that you muststir up a revolution?’

What was I to reply? Yes? Then the constructionwhich would be put upon my answer would be that I,who had refused to give any answers to the gendarmes,‘avowed everything’ before the brother of the Tsar.His tone was that of a commander of a military schoolwhen trying to obtain ‘avowals’ from a cadet. Yet Icould not say ‘No’: it would have been a lie. I did notknow what to say, and stood without saying anything.

‘You see! You feel ashamed of it now’—

This remark angered me, and I at once said in arather sharp way, ‘I have given my replies to the examiningmagistrate, and have nothing more to add.’

‘But understand, Kropótkin, please,’ he said then in(337)the most familiar tone, ‘that I don’t speak to you as anexamining magistrate. I speak quite as a private person—quiteas a private man,’ he repeated, lowering his voice.

Thoughts went whirling in my head. To play thepart of Marquis Posa? To tell the emperor through thegrand duke of the desolation of Russia, the ruin of thepeasantry, the arbitrariness of the officials, the terriblefamines in prospect? To say that we wanted to helpthe peasants out of their desperate condition, to makethem raise their heads—and by all this try to influenceAlexander II.? These thoughts followed one anotherin rapid succession, till at last I said to myself: ‘Never!Nonsense! They know all that. They are enemies ofthe nation, and such talk would not change them.’

I replied that he always remained an official person,and that I could not look upon him as a private man.

He then began to ask me indifferent questions. ‘Wasit not in Siberia, with the Decembrists, that you beganto entertain such ideas?’

‘No; I knew only one Decembrist, and with him Ihad no conversation worth speaking of.’

‘Was it then at St. Petersburg that you got them?’

‘I was always the same.’

‘Why! Were you such in the corps of pages?’ heasked me with terror.

‘In the corps I was a boy, and what is indefinite inboyhood grows definite in manhood.’

He asked me some other similar questions, and ashe spoke I distinctly saw what he was driving at. Hewas trying to obtain avowals, and my imagination vividlypictured him saying to his brother: ‘All these examiningmagistrates are imbeciles. He gave them no replies,but I talked to him ten minutes, and he told me everything.’That began to annoy me; and when he said tome something to this effect, ‘How could you have anythingto do with all these people—peasants and peoplewith no names?’—I sharply turned upon him and said,(338)‘I have told you already that I have given my repliesto the examining magistrate.’ Then he abruptly leftthe cell.

Later, the soldiers of the guard made quite a legendof that visit. The person who came in a carriage tocarry me away at the time of my escape wore a militarycap, and, having sandy whiskers, bore a faint resemblanceto the Grand Duke Nicholas. So a tradition grew upamongst the soldiers of the St. Petersburg garrison thatit was the grand duke himself who came to rescue meand kidnapped me. Thus are legends created even intimes of newspapers and biographical dictionaries.

V

Two years had passed. Several of my comrades haddied, several had become insane, but nothing was heardyet of our case coming before a court.

My health gave way before the end of the secondyear. The oak stool now seemed heavy in my hand,and the five miles became an endless distance. As therewere about sixty of us in the fortress, and the winter dayswere short, we were taken out for a walk in the yard fortwenty minutes only every third day. I did my best tomaintain my energy, but the ‘arctic wintering’ withoutan interruption in the summer got the better of me. Ihad brought back from my Siberian journeys slightsymptoms of scurvy; now, in the darkness and dampnessof the casemate, they developed more distinctly;that scourge of the prisons had got hold of me.

In March or April 1876, we were at last told thatthe Third Section had completed the preliminary inquest.The ‘case’ had been transmitted to the judicialauthorities, and consequently we were removed to aprison attached to the court of justice—the House ofDetention.

(339)

It was an immense show prison, recently built on themodel of the French and Belgian prisons, consisting offour stories of small cells, each of which had a windowoverlooking an inner yard and a door opening on an ironbalcony; the balconies of the several stories were connectedby iron staircases.

For most of my comrades the transfer to this prisonwas a great relief. There was much more life in it thanin the fortress; more opportunity for correspondence, forseeing one’s relatives, and for mutual intercourse. Tappingon the walls continued all day long undisturbed,and I was able in this way to relate to a young neighbourthe history of the Paris Commune from the beginningto the end. It took, however, a whole week’stapping.

As to my health, it grew even worse than it had latelybeen in the fortress. I could not bear the close atmosphereof the tiny cell, which measured only four stepsfrom one corner to another, and where, as soon as thesteam-pipes were set to work, the temperature changedfrom a glacial cold to an unbearable heat. Having toturn so often, I became giddy after a few minutes’ walk,and ten minutes of outdoor exercise, in the corner of ayard inclosed between high brick walls, did not refreshme in the least. As to the prison doctor, who did notwant to hear the word ‘scurvy’ pronounced ‘in his prison,’the less said of him the better.

I was allowed to receive food from home, it so happeningthat one of my relatives, married to a lawyer, lived afew doors from the court. But my digestion had becomeso bad that I was soon able to eat nothing but a smallpiece of bread and one or two eggs a day. My strengthrapidly failed, and the general opinion was that I shouldnot live more than a few months. When climbing thestaircase which led to my cell in the second story, I hadto stop two or three times to rest, and I remember anelderly soldier from the escort once commiserating me(340)and saying, ‘Poor man, you won’t live till the end of thesummer.’

My relatives now became very much alarmed. Mysister Hélène tried to obtain my release on bail, but theprocureur, Shúbin, replied to her, with a sardonic smile,‘If you bring me a doctor’s certificate that he will die inten days, I will release him.’ He had the satisfaction ofseeing my sister fall into a chair and sob aloud in hispresence. She succeeded, however, in gaining her requestthat I should be visited by a good physician—the chiefdoctor of the military hospital of the St. Petersburggarrison. He was a bright, intelligent, aged general, whoexamined me in the most scrupulous manner, and concludedthat I had no organic disease, but was sufferingsimply from a want of oxidation of the blood. ‘Air isall that you want,’ he said. Then he stood a few minutesin hesitation, and added in a decided manner, ‘No usetalking, you cannot remain here; you must be transferred.’

Some ten days later I was transferred to the militaryhospital, which is situated on the outskirts of St. Petersburg,and has a special small prison for the officers andsoldiers who fall ill when they are under trial. Two ofmy comrades had already been removed to this hospitalprison, when it was certain that they would soon die ofconsumption.

In the hospital I began at once to recover. I wasgiven a spacious room on the ground floor, close by theroom of the military guard. It had an immense gratedwindow looking south, which opened on a small boulevardwith two rows of trees; and beyond the boulevardthere was a wide space where two hundred carpenterswere engaged in building wooden shanties for typhoidpatients. Every evening they gave an hour or so tosinging in chorus—such a chorus as is formed only inlarge carpenters’ artéls. A sentry marched up and downthe boulevard, his box standing opposite my room.

(341)

My window was kept open all the day, and I baskedin the rays of the sun, which I had missed for such a longtime. I breathed the balmy air of May with a full chest,and my health improved rapidly—too rapidly, I beganto think. I was soon able to digest light food, gainedstrength, and resumed my work with renewed energy.Seeing no way how I could finish the second volume ofmy work, I wrote a résumé of it, which was printed inthe first volume.

In the fortress I had heard from a comrade who hadbeen in the hospital prison that it would not be hard forme to escape from it, and I made my presence thereknown to my friends. However, escape proved far moredifficult than I had been led to believe. A stricter supervisionthan had ever before been heard of was exercisedover me. The sentry in the passage was placed at mydoor, and I was never let out of my room. The hospitalsoldiers and the officers of the guard who occasionallyentered it seemed to be afraid to stay more than aminute or two.

Various plans were made by my friends to liberateme—some of them very amusing. I was, for instance,to file through the iron bars of my window. Then, on arainy night, when the sentry on the boulevard was dozingin his box, two friends were to creep up from behind andoverturn the box, so that it would fall upon the sentryand catch him like a mouse in a trap, without hurtinghim. In the meantime, I was to jump out of the window.But a better solution came in an unexpected way.

‘Ask to be let out for a walk,’ one of the soldierswhispered to me one day. I did so. The doctor supportedmy demand, and every afternoon, at four, I wasallowed to take an hour’s walk in the prison yard. Ihad to keep on the green flannel dressing-gown whichis worn by the hospital patients, but my boots, my vest,and my trousers were delivered to me every day.

I shall never forget my first walk. When I was(342)taken out, I saw before me a yard fully three hundredpaces long and more than two hundred paces wide, allcovered with grass. The gate was open, and through itI could see the street, the immense hospital opposite,and the people who passed by. I stopped on the doorstepsof the prison, unable for a moment to move when Isaw that yard and that gate.

At one end of the yard stood the prison—a narrowbuilding, about one hundred and fifty paces long—ateach end of which was a sentry-box. The two sentriespaced up and down in front of the building, and hadtramped out a footpath in the green. Along this footpathI was told to walk, and the two sentries continuedto walk up and down—so that I was never more thanten or fifteen paces from the one or the other. Threehospital soldiers took their seats on the doorsteps.

At the opposite end of this spacious yard wood forfuel was being unloaded from a dozen carts, and piled upalong the wall by a dozen peasants. The whole yardwas inclosed by a high fence made of thick boards. Itsgate was open to let the carts in and out.

This open gate fascinated me. ‘I must not stare atit,’ I said to myself; and yet I looked at it all the time.As soon as I was taken back to my cell I wrote to myfriends to communicate to them the welcome news.‘I feel well-nigh unable to use the cipher,’ I wrote witha tremulous hand, tracing almost illegible signs insteadof figures. ‘This nearness of liberty makes me trembleas if I were in a fever. They took me out to-day in theyard; its gate was open, and no sentry near it. Throughthis unguarded gate I will run out; my sentries will notcatch me’—and I gave the plan of the escape. ‘A ladyis to come in an open carriage to the hospital. She isto alight, and the carriage to wait for her in the street,some fifty paces from the gate. When I am taken outat four, I shall walk for a while with my hat in myhand, and somebody who passes by the gate will take it(343)as a signal that all is right within the prison. Then youmust return a signal: “The street is clear.” Without itI shall not start: once beyond the gate I must not berecaptured. Light or sound only can be used for yoursignal. The coachman may send a flash of light—thesun’s rays reflected from his lacquered hat upon themain hospital building; or, still better, the sound of asong that goes on as long as the street is clear; unlessyou can occupy the little gray bungalow which I seefrom the yard, and signal to me from its window. Thesentry will run after me like a dog after a hare, describinga curve, while I run in a straight line, and I willkeep five or ten paces in advance of him. In the street,I shall spring into the carriage and we shall gallop away.If the sentry shoots—well, that cannot be helped; it liesbeyond our foresight; and then, against a certain deathin prison, the thing is well worth the risk.’

Counter proposals were made, but that plan wasultimately adopted. The matter was taken in hand byour circle; people who never had known me enteredinto it, as if it were the release of the dearest of theirbrothers. However, the attempt was beset with difficulties,and time went with terrible rapidity. I workedhard, writing late at night; but my health improved,nevertheless, at a speed which I found appalling. WhenI was let out into the yard for the first time, I couldonly creep like a tortoise along the footpath; now I feltstrong enough to run. True, I continued to go at thesame tortoise pace, lest my walks should be stopped;but my natural vivacity might betray me at any moment.And my comrades, in the meantime, had to enlistmore than a score of people in the affair, to find areliable horse and an experienced coachman, and toarrange hundreds of unforeseen details which alwaysspring up around such conspiracies. The preparationstook a month or so, and any day I might be moved backto the House of Detention.

(344)

At last the day of the escape was settled. June 29,old style, is the day of St. Peter and St. Paul. Myfriends, throwing a touch of sentimentalism into theirenterprise, wanted to set me free on that day. Theyhad let me know that in reply to my signal ‘All rightwithin’ they would signal ‘All right outside’ by sendingup a red toy balloon. Then the carriage would come,and a song would be sung to let me know when thestreet was open.

I went out on the 29th, took off my hat, and waitedfor the balloon. But nothing of the kind was to be seen.Half an hour passed. I heard the rumble of a carriagein the street; I heard a man’s voice singing a song unknownto me; but there was no balloon.

The hour was over, and with a broken heart I returnedto my room. ‘Something must have gone wrong,’I said to myself.

The impossible had happened that day. Hundredsof children’s balloons are always on sale in St. Petersburg,near the Gostínoi Dvor. That morning therewere none; not a single balloon was to be found. Onewas discovered at last, in the possession of a child, butit was old and would not fly. My friends rushed thento an optician’s shop, bought an apparatus for makinghydrogen, and filled the balloon with it; but it wouldnot fly any better: the hydrogen had not been dried.Time pressed. Then a lady attached the balloon to herumbrella, and, holding the latter high above her head,walked up and down in the street alongside the highwall of our yard; but I saw nothing of it; the wall beingtoo high, and the lady too short.

As it turned out, nothing could have been better thanthat accident with the balloon. When the hour of mywalk had passed, the carriage was driven along thestreets which it was intended to follow after the escape;and there, in a narrow street, it was stopped by adozen or more carts which were carrying wood to the(345)hospital. The horses of the carts got into disorder—someof them on the right side of the street, and someon the left—and the carriage had to make its way at aslow pace amongst them; at a turning it was actuallyblocked. If I had been in it, we should have beencaught.

Now a whole system of signals was established alongthe streets through which we should have to go afterthe escape, in order to give notice if the streets werenot clear. For a couple of miles from the hospital mycomrades took the position of sentries. One was towalk up and down with a handkerchief in his hand,which at the approach of the carts he was to put into hispocket; another was to sit on a stone and eat cherries,stopping when the carts came near; and so on. Allthese signals, transmitted along the streets, were finallyto reach the carriage. My friends had also hired thegray bungalow that I could see from the yard, and atan open window of that little house a violinist stoodwith his violin, ready to play when the signal, ‘Streetclear,’ reached him.

The attempt had been settled for the next day.Further postponement would have been dangerous. Infact, the carriage had been taken notice of by thehospital people, and something suspicious must havereached the ears of the authorities, as on the night beforemy escape I heard the patrol officer ask the sentry whostood opposite my window, ‘Where are your ball cartridges?’The soldier began to take them in a clumsyway out of his cartridge pouch, spending a couple ofminutes before he got them. The patrol officer sworeat him. ‘Have you not been told to-night to keep fourball cartridges in the pocket of your coat?’ And hestood by the sentry till the latter put four cartridgesinto his pocket. ‘Look sharp!’ he said as he turnedaway.

The new arrangements concerning the signals had(346)to be communicated to me at once; and at two on thenext day a lady—a dear relative of mine—came to theprison, asking that a watch might be transmitted tome. Everything had to go through the hands of theprocureur; but as this was simply a watch, without abox, it was passed along. In it was a tiny cipher notewhich contained the whole plan. When I saw it I wasseized with terror, so daring was the feat. The lady,herself under pursuit by the police for political reasons,would have been arrested on the spot, if anyone hadchanced to open the lid of the watch. But I saw hercalmly leave the prison and move slowly along theboulevard.

I came out at four, as usual, and gave my signal. Iheard next the rumble of the carriage, and a few minuteslater the tones of the violin in the gray house soundedthrough our yard. But I was then at the other end ofthe building. When I got back to the end of my pathwhich was nearest the gate—about a hundred paces fromit—the sentry was close upon my heels. ‘One turnmore,’ I thought—but before I reached the farther endof the path the violin suddenly ceased playing.

More than a quarter of an hour passed, full of anxiety,before I understood the cause of the interruption. Thena dozen heavily loaded carts entered the gate and movedto the other end of the yard.

Immediately the violinist—a good one, I must say—begana wildly exciting mazurka from Kontsky, asif to say, ‘Straight on now—this is your time!’ I movedslowly to the nearer end of the footpath, trembling atthe thought that the mazurka might stop before I reachedit.

When I was there I turned round. The sentry hadstopped five or six paces behind me; he was looking theother way. ‘Now or never!’ I remember that thoughtflashing through my head. I flung off my green flanneldressing-gown and began to run.

(347)

For many days in succession I had practised howto get rid of that immeasurably long and cumbrousgarment. It was so long that I carried the lower parton my left arm, as ladies carry the trains of their ridinghabits. Do what I might, it would not come off in onemovement. I cut the seams under the armpits, but thatdid not help. Then I decided to learn to throw it offin two movements: one, casting the end from my arm,the other dropping the gown on the floor. I practisedpatiently in my room until I could do it as neatly assoldiers handle their rifles. ‘One, two,’ and it was onthe ground.

I did not trust much to my vigour, and began torun rather slowly, to economize my strength. But nosooner had I taken a few steps than the peasants whowere piling the wood at the other end shouted, ‘Heruns! Stop him! Catch him!’ and they hastened tointercept me at the gate. Then I flew for my life. Ithought of nothing but running—not even of the pitwhich the carts had dug out at the gate. Run! run!full speed!

The sentry, I was told later by the friends whowitnessed the scene from the gray house, ran after me,followed by three soldiers who had been sitting on thedoorsteps. The sentry was so near to me that he feltsure of catching me. Several times he flung his rifleforward, trying to give me a blow in the back with thebayonet. One moment my friends in the windowthought he had me. He was so convinced that hecould stop me in this way that he did not fire. But Ikept my distance, and he had to give up at the gate.

Safe out of the gate, I perceived, to my terror, thatthe carriage was occupied by a civilian who wore amilitary cap. He sat without turning his head to me.‘Sold!’ was my first thought. The comrades hadwritten in their last letter, ‘Once in the street, don’tgive yourself up: there will be friends to defend you in(348)case of need,’ and I did not want to jump into thecarriage if it was occupied by an enemy. However, asI got nearer to the carriage I noticed that the man init had sandy whiskers which seemed to be those of awarm friend of mine. He did not belong to our circle,but we were personal friends, and on more than oneoccasion I had learned to know his admirable, daringcourage, and how his strength suddenly became herculeanwhen there was danger at hand. ‘Why should he bethere? Is it possible?’ I reflected, and was going toshout out his name, when I caught myself in good time,and instead clapped my hands, while still running, toattract his attention. He turned his face to me—and Iknew who it was.

‘Jump in, quick, quick!’ he shouted in a terriblevoice, calling me and the coachman all sorts of names,a revolver in his hand and ready to shoot. ‘Gallop!gallop! I will kill you!’ he cried to the coachman.The horse—a beautiful racing trotter, which had beenbought on purpose—started at full gallop. Scores ofvoices yelling, ‘Hold them! Get them!’ resoundedbehind us, my friend meanwhile helping me to put onan elegant overcoat and an opera hat. But the realdanger was not so much in the pursuers as in a soldierwho was posted at the gate of the hospital, about oppositeto the spot where the carriage had to wait. Hecould have prevented my jumping into the carriage orcould have stopped the horse by simply rushing a fewsteps forward. A friend was consequently commissionedto divert this soldier by talking. He did this most successfully.The soldier having been employed at onetime in the laboratory of the hospital, my friend gave ascientific turn to their chat, speaking about the microscopeand the wonderful things one sees through it. Referringto a certain parasite of the human body, he asked, ‘Didyou ever see what a formidable tail it has?’ ‘What,man, a tail?’ ‘Yes it has; under the microscope it is(349)as big as that.’ ‘Don’t tell me any of your tales!’ retortedthe soldier. ‘I know better. It was the first thingI looked at under the microscope.’ This animated discussiontook place just as I ran past them and sprang intothe carriage. It sounds like fable, but it is fact.

The carriage turned sharply into a narrow lane, pastthe same wall of the yard where the peasants had beenpiling wood, and which all of them had now deserted intheir run after me. The turn was so sharp that the carriagewas nearly upset, when I flung myself inward, draggingtoward me my friend; this sudden movement rightedthe carriage.

We trotted through the narrow lane and then turnedto the left. Two gendarmes were standing there, at thedoor of a public-house, and gave to the military cap ofmy companion the military salute. ‘Hush! hush!’ Isaid to him, for he was still terribly excited. ‘All goeswell; the gendarmes salute us!’ The coachman thereuponturned his face toward me, and I recognized in himanother friend, who smiled with happiness.

Everywhere we saw friends, who winked to us orgave us a Godspeed as we passed at the full trot of ourbeautiful horse. Then we entered the large NevskyPerspective, turned into a side street, and alighted at adoor, sending away the coachman. I ran up the staircase,and at its top fell into the arms of my sister-in-law,who had been waiting in painful anxiety. She laughedand cried at the same time, bidding me hurry to put onanother dress and to crop my conspicuous beard. Tenminutes later my friend and I left the house and took acab.

In the meantime the officer of the guard at the prisonand the hospital soldiers had rushed out into the street,doubtful as to what measures they should take. Therewas not a cab for a mile round, every one having beenhired by my friends. An old peasant woman from thecrowd was wiser than all the lot. ‘Poor people,’ she(350)said, as if talking to herself, ‘they are sure to come outon the Perspective, and there they will be caught if somebodyruns along that lane, which leads straight to thePerspective.’ She was quite right, and the officer ran tothe tramway car which stood close by, and asked themen to let him have their horses to send somebody onhorseback to the Perspective. But the men obstinatelyrefused to give up their horses, and the officer did notuse force.

As to the violinist and the lady who had taken thegray house, they too rushed out and joined the crowdwith the old woman, whom they heard giving advice,and when the crowd dispersed they quietly went away.

It was a fine afternoon. We drove to the islandswhere the St. Petersburg aristocracy go on bright springdays to see the sunset, and called on the way, in a remotestreet, at a barber’s shop to shave off my beard, whichoperation changed me, of course, but not very much.We drove aimlessly up and down the islands, but, havingbeen told not to reach our night quarters till late in theevening, did not know where to go. ‘What shall we doin the meantime?’ I asked my friend. He also ponderedover that question. ‘To Donon’s!’ he suddenly calledout to the cabman, naming one of the best St. Petersburgrestaurants. ‘No one will ever think of looking for you atDonon’s,’ he calmly remarked. ‘They will hunt for youeverywhere else, but not there; and we shall have adinner, and a drink, too, in honour of your successfulescape.’

What could I reply to so reasonable a suggestion?So we went to Donon’s, passed the halls flooded withlight and crowded with visitors at the dinner hour, andtook a separate room, where we spent the evening till thetime came when we were expected. The house wherewe had first alighted was searched less than two hoursafter we left, as were also the apartments of nearly all ourfriends. Nobody thought of making a search at Donon’s.

(351)

A couple of days later I was to take possession of anapartment which had been engaged for me, and which Icould occupy under a false passport. But the lady whowas to take me in a carriage to that house took the precautionof visiting it first by herself. It was densely surroundedby spies. So many of my friends had come toinquire whether I was safe there that the suspicions of thepolice had been aroused. Moreover, my portrait hadbeen printed by the Third Section, and hundreds of copieshad been distributed to policemen and watchmen. Allthe detectives who knew me by sight were looking for mein the streets; while those who did not were accompaniedby soldiers and warders who had seen me during my imprisonment.The Tsar was furious that such an escapeshould have taken place in his capital in full daylight, andhad given the order, ‘He must be found.’

It was impossible to remain at St. Petersburg, and Iconcealed myself in country houses in its neighbourhood.In company with half-a-dozen friends, I stayed at a villagefrequented at this time of the year by St. Petersburgpeople bent on picnicking. Then it was decided that Ishould go abroad. But from a foreign paper we hadlearned that all the frontier stations and the railway terminiin the Baltic provinces and Finland were closelywatched by detectives who knew me by sight. So Idetermined to travel in a direction where I should beleast expected. Armed with the passport of a friend,and accompanied by another friend, I crossed Finland,and went northward to a remote port on the Gulf ofBothnia, whence I crossed to Sweden.

After I had gone on board the steamer, and it wasabout to sail, the friend who was to accompany me tothe frontier told me the St. Petersburg news, which hehad promised our friends not to tell me before. Mysister Hélène had been arrested, as well as the sister ofmy brother’s wife, who had visited me in prison oncea month after my brother and his wife went to Siberia.

(352)

My sister knew absolutely nothing of the preparationsfor my escape. Only after I had escaped a friendhad hurried to her, to tell her the welcome news. Sheprotested her ignorance in vain: she was taken from herchildren, and was kept imprisoned for a fortnight. Asto the sister of my brother’s wife, she had known vaguelythat something was to be attempted, but she had hadno part in the preparations. Common sense ought tohave shown the authorities that a person who hadofficially visited me in prison would not be involved insuch an affair. Nevertheless, she was kept in prison forover two months. Her husband, a well-known lawyer,vainly endeavoured to obtain her release. ‘We areaware now,’ he was told by the gendarme officers, ‘thatshe has had nothing to do with the escape; but, yousee, we reported to the emperor, on the day we arrestedher, that the person who had organized the escape wasdiscovered and arrested. It will now take some time toprepare the emperor to accept the idea that she is notthe real culprit.’

I crossed Sweden without stopping anywhere, andwent to Christiania, where I waited a few days for asteamer to sail for Hull, gathering information in themeantime about the peasant party of the NorwegianStorthing. As I went to the steamer I asked myselfwith anxiety, ‘Under which flag does she sail—Norwegian,German, English?’ Then I saw floating abovethe stern the Union Jack—the flag under which so manyrefugees, Russian, Italian, French, Hungarian, and ofall nations, have found an asylum. I greeted that flagfrom the depth of my heart.

I

A storm raged in the North Sea, as we approached thecoasts of England. But I met the storm with delight.I enjoyed the struggle of our steamer against the furiouslyrolling waves, and sat for hours on the stem, the foam ofthe waves dashing into my face. After the two years Ihad spent in a gloomy casemate, every fibre of my innerself seemed to be throbbing with life, and eager to enjoythe full intensity of life.

My intention was not to stay abroad more than a fewweeks or months; just enough time to allow the hue andcry caused by my escape to subside, and also to restoremy health a little. I landed under the name of Lavashóff,the name under which I had left Russia; and, avoidingLondon, where the spies of the Russian embassy wouldsoon have been at my heels, I went first to Edinburgh.

It has, however, so happened that I have never returnedto Russia. I was soon taken up by the wave ofthe anarchist movement, which was just then rising inWestern Europe; and I felt that I should be more usefulin helping that movement to find its proper expressionthan I could possibly be in Russia. In my mother countryI was too well known to carry on an open propaganda,especially among the workers and the peasants; and lateron, when the Russian movement became a conspiracy andan armed struggle against the representative of autocracy,(354)all thought of a popular movement was necessarily abandoned;while my own inclinations drew me more andmore intensely toward casting in my lot with the labouringand toiling masses. To bring to them such conceptionsas would aid them to direct their efforts to the bestadvantage of all the workers; to deepen and to widen theideals and principles which will underlie the coming socialrevolution; to develop these ideals and principles beforethe workers, not as an order coming from their leaders,but as a result of their own reason; and so to awakentheir own initiative, now that they were called upon toappear in the historical arena as the builders of a new,equitable mode of organization of society—this seemedto me as necessary for the development of mankind asanything I could accomplish in Russia at that time. Accordingly,I joined the few men who were working in thatdirection in Western Europe, relieving those of them whohad been broken down by years of hard struggle.

When I landed at Hull and went to Edinburgh I informedbut a few friends in Russia and in the Jura Federationof my safe arrival in England. A socialist mustalways rely upon his own work for his living, and consequently,as soon as I was settled in the Scotch capitalin a small room in the suburbs, I tried to find somework.

Among the passengers on board our steamer therewas a Norwegian professor, with whom I talked, tryingto remember the little that I formerly had known of theSwedish language. He spoke German. ‘But as youspeak some Norwegian,’ he said to me, ‘and are tryingto learn it, let us both speak it.’

‘You mean Swedish?’ I ventured to ask, ‘I speakSwedish, don’t I?’

‘Well, I should rather say Norwegian; certainly notSwedish,’ was his reply.

Thus happened to me what happened to one of Jules(355)Verne’s heroes, who had learned by mistake Portugueseinstead of Spanish. At any rate, I talked a good dealwith the professor—let it be Norwegian—and he gaveme a Christiania paper, which contained the reports ofthe Norwegian North Atlantic deep-sea expedition, justreturned home. As soon as I reached Edinburgh I wrotea note in English about these explorations, and sent it to‘Nature,’ which my brother and I used regularly to readat St. Petersburg from its first appearance. The sub-editoracknowledged the note with thanks, remarkingwith an extreme leniency which I have often met withsince in England, that my English was ‘all right’ andonly required to be ‘a little more idiomatic.’ I may saythat I had learned English in Russia, and, with mybrother, had translated Page’s ‘Philosophy of Geology’and Herbert Spencer’s ‘Principles of Biology.’ But Ihad learned it from books, and pronounced it very badly,so that I had the greatest difficulty in making myselfunderstood by my Scotch landlady; her daughter and Iused to write on scraps of paper what we had to say toeach other; and as I had no idea of idiomatic English, Imust have made the most amusing mistakes. I remember,at any rate, protesting once to her, in writing, that it wasnot a ‘cup of tea’ that I expected at tea time, but manycups. I am afraid my landlady took me for a glutton,but I must say, by way of apology, that neither in thegeological books I had read in English nor in Spencer’s‘Biology’ was there any allusion to such an importantmatter as tea-drinking.

I got from Russia the Journal of the Russian GeographicalSociety, and soon began to supply the ‘Times’also with occasional paragraphs about Russian geographicalexplorations. Prjeválsky was at that time in CentralAsia, and his progress was followed in England withinterest.

However, the money I had brought with me wasrapidly disappearing, and all my letters to Russia being(356)intercepted, I could not succeed in making my addressknown to my relatives. So I moved in a few weeks toLondon, thinking I could find more regular work there.The old refugee, P. L. Lavróff, continued to edit atLondon his newspaper Forward; but as I hoped soon toreturn to Russia, and the editorial office of the Russianpaper must have been closely watched by spies, I did notgo there.

I went, very naturally, to the office of ‘Nature,’ whereI was most cordially received by the sub-editor, Mr. J.Scott Keltie. The editor wanted to increase the columnof Notes, and found that I wrote them exactly as theywere required. A table was consequently assigned me inthe office, and scientific reviews in all possible languageswere piled upon it. ‘Come every Monday, Mr. Levashóff,’I was told, ‘look over these reviews, and if there is anyarticle that strikes you as worthy of notice, write a note,or mark the article: we will send it to a specialist.’ Mr.Keltie did not know, of course, that I used to rewriteeach note three or four times before I dared to submitmy English to him; but taking the scientific reviewshome, I soon managed very nicely, with my ‘Nature’notes and my ‘Times’ paragraphs, to get a living. Ifound that the weekly payment, on Thursday, of theparagraph contributors to the ‘Times’ was an excellentinstitution. To be sure, there were weeks when there wasno interesting news from Prjeválsky, and news from otherparts of Russia was not found interesting; in such casesmy fare was bread and tea only.

One day, however, Mr. Keltie took from the shelvesseveral Russian books, asking me to review them for‘Nature.’ I looked at the books, and, to my embarrassment,saw that they were my own works on the GlacialPeriod and the Orography of Asia. My brother had notfailed to send them to our favourite ‘Nature.’ I was ingreat perplexity, and, putting the books into my bag, tookthem home, to reflect upon the matter. ‘What shall I(357)do with them?’ I asked myself. ‘I cannot praise them,because they are mine; and I cannot be too sharp onthe author, as I hold the views expressed in them.’ Idecided to take them back next day, and explain to Mr.Keltie that, although I had introduced myself under thename of Levashóff, I was the author of these books, andcould not review them.

Mr. Keltie knew from the papers about Kropótkin’sescape, and was very much pleased to discover the refugeesafe in England. As to my scruples, he remarkedwisely that I need neither scold nor praise the author,but could simply tell the readers what the books wereabout. From that day a friendship, which still continues,grew up between us.

In November or December 1876, seeing in the letterbox of P. L. Lavróff’s paper an invitation for ‘K.’ tocall at the editorial office to receive a letter from Russia,and thinking that the invitation was for me, I called atthe office, and soon established friendship with the editorand the younger people who printed the paper.

When I called for the first time at the office—mybeard shaved and my top hat on—and asked the ladywho opened the door, in my very best English: ‘IsMr. Lavróff in?’ I imagined that no one would ever knowwho I was as long as I had not mentioned my name.It appeared, however, that the lady—who did not knowme at all, but well knew my brother while he stayed atZürich—at once recognized me and ran upstairs to saywho the visitor was. ‘I knew you immediately,’ shesaid afterwards, ‘by your eyes, which reminded me ofthose of your brother.’

That time, I did not stay long in England. I wasin lively correspondence with my friend James Guillaume,of the Jura Federation, and as soon as I found some permanentgeographical work, which I could do in Switzerlandas well as in London, I removed to Switzerland.(358)The letters that I got at last from home told me thatI might as well stay abroad, as there was nothing particularto be done in Russia. A wave of enthusiasm wasrolling over the country at that time in favour of theSlavonians who had revolted against the age-long Turkishoppression, and my best friends, Serghéi (Stepniák),Kelnitz, and several others had gone to the Balkánpeninsula to join the insurgents. ‘We read,’ my friendswrote, ‘the “Daily News” correspondence about thehorrors in Bulgaria; we weep at the reading, and gonext to enlist either as volunteers in the Balkán insurgents’band or as nurses.’

I went to Switzerland, joined the Jura Federationof the International Workingmen’s Association, and,following the advice of my Swiss friends, settled in LaChaux-de-Fonds.

II

The Jura Federation has played an important part inthe modern development of socialism.

It always happens that after a political party has setbefore itself a purpose, and has proclaimed that nothingshort of the complete attainment of that aim will satisfyit, it divides into two fractions. One of them remainswhat it was, while the other, although it professes not tohave changed a word of its previous intentions, acceptssome sort of compromise, and gradually, from compromiseto compromise, is driven farther from its primitiveprogramme, and becomes a party of modest makeshiftreform.

Such a division had occurred within the InternationalWorkingmen’s Association. Nothing less than an expropriationof the present owners of land and capital,and a transmission of all that is necessary for the productionof wealth to the producers themselves, was the(359)avowed aim of the Association at the outset. Theworkers of all nations were called upon to form theirown organizations for a direct struggle against capitalism;to work out the means of socializing the production ofwealth and its consumption; and, when they should beready to do so, to take possession of the necessariesfor production, and to control production with no regardto the present political organization, which must undergoa complete reconstruction. The Association had thusto be the means for preparing an immense revolution inmen’s minds, and later on in the very forms of life—arevolution which would open to mankind a new era ofprogress based upon the solidarity of all. That wasthe ideal which aroused from their slumber millions ofEuropean workers, and attracted to the Association itsbest intellectual forces.

However, two fractions soon developed. When thewar of 1870 had ended in a complete defeat of France,and the uprising of the Paris Commune had been crushed,and the Draconian laws which were passed against theAssociation excluded the French workers from participationin it; and when, on the other hand, parliamentaryrule had been introduced in ‘united Germany’—the goalof the Radicals since 1848—an effort was made by theGermans to modify the aims and the methods of thewhole socialist movement. The ‘conquest of powerwithin the existing states’ became the watchword of thatsection, which took the name of ‘Social Democracy.’The first electoral successes of this party at the electionsto the German Reichstag aroused great hopes. Thenumber of the social democratic deputies having grownfrom two to seven, and next to nine, it was confidentlycalculated by otherwise reasonable men that before theend of the century the social democrats would have amajority in the German Parliament, and would thenintroduce the socialist ‘popular state’ by means of suitablelegislation. The socialist ideal of this party gradually(360)lost the character of something that had to be workedout by the labour organizations themselves, and becamestate management of the industries—in fact, state socialism;that is, state capitalism. To-day, in Switzerland,the efforts of the social democrats are directed in politicstoward centralization as against federalism, and in theeconomic field to promoting the state management ofrailways and the state monopoly of banking and of thesale of spirits. The state management of the land andof the leading industries, and even of the consumptionof riches, would be the next step in a more or less distantfuture.

Gradually, all the life and activity of the Germansocial democratic party was subordinated to electoralconsiderations. Trade unions were treated with contemptand strikes were met with disapproval, becauseboth diverted the attention of the workers from electoralstruggles. Every popular outbreak, every revolutionaryagitation in any country of Europe, was received by thesocial democratic leaders with even more animosity thanby the capitalist press.

In the Latin countries, however, this new directionfound but few adherents. The sections and federationsof the International remained true to the principleswhich had prevailed at the foundation of the Association.Federalist by their history, hostile to the idea of acentralized state, and possessed of revolutionary traditions,the Latin workers could not follow the evolutionof the Germans.

The division between the two branches of the socialistmovement became apparent immediately after theFranco-German war. The International, as I have alreadymentioned, had created a governing body in theshape of a general council which resided at London; andthe leading spirits of that council being two Germans,Engels and Marx, the council became the stronghold ofthe new social democratic direction; while the inspirers(361)and intellectual leaders of the Latin federations wereBakúnin and his friends.

The conflict between the Marxists and the Bakúnistswas not a personal affair. It was the necessary conflictbetween the principles of federalism and those of centralization,the free Commune and the State’s paternal rule,the free action of the masses of the people and the bettermentof existing capitalist conditions through legislation—aconflict between the Latin spirit and the GermanGeist, which, after the defeat of France on the battlefield,claimed supremacy in science, politics, philosophy, andin socialism too, representing its own conception ofsocialism as ‘scientific,’ while all other interpretations itdescribed as ‘utopian.’

At the Hague Congress of the International Association,which was held in 1872, the London generalcouncil, by means of a fictitious majority, excluded Bakúnin,his friend Guillaume, and even the Jura Federationfrom the International. But as it was certain that mostof what remained then of the International—that is, theSpanish, the Italian, and the Belgian Federations—wouldside with the Jurassians, the congress tried to dissolve theAssociation. A new general council, composed of a fewsocial democrats, was nominated in New York, wherethere were no workmen’s organizations belonging to theAssociation to control it, and where it has never beenheard of since. In the meantime, the Spanish, theItalian, the Belgian, and the Jura Federations of theInternational continued to exist and to meet as usual,for the next five or six years, in annual internationalcongresses.

The Jura Federation, at the time when I came toSwitzerland, was the centre and the leading voice of theinternational federations. Bakúnin had just died (July1, 1876), but the federation retained the position it hadtaken under his impulse.

(362)

The conditions in France, Spain, and Italy were suchthat only the maintenance of the revolutionary spiritthat had developed amongst the Internationalist workersprevious to the Franco-German war prevented the governmentsfrom taking decisive steps toward crushing thewhole labour movement and inaugurating the reign ofWhite Terror. It is well known that the re-establishmentof a Bourbon monarchy in France was very nearbecoming an accomplished fact. Marshal MacMahonwas maintained as president of the republic only inorder to prepare for a monarchist restoration; the veryday of the solemn entry of Henry V. into Paris wassettled, and even the harnesses of the horses, adornedwith the pretender’s crown and initials, were ready.And it is also known that it was only the fact thatGambetta and Clémenceau—the opportunist and theradical—had covered wide portions of France with committees,armed and ready to rise as soon as the coupd’état should be made, which prevented the proposedrestoration. But the real strength of those committeeswas in the workers, many of whom had formerly belongedto the International and had retained the old spirit.Speaking from personal knowledge, I may venture tosay that the radical middle-class leaders would havehesitated in case of an emergency, while the workerswould have seized the first opportunity for an uprisingwhich, beginning with the defence of the republic, mighthave gone further on in the socialist direction.

The same was true in Spain. As soon as the clericaland aristocratic surroundings of the king drove him toturn the screws of reaction, the republicans menaced himwith a movement in which, they knew, the real fightingelement would be the workers. In Catalonia alone therewere over one hundred thousand men in strongly organizedtrade unions, and more than eighty thousandSpaniards belonged to the International, regularly holdingcongresses, and punctually paying their contributions(363)to the association with a truly Spanish sense of duty. Ican speak of these organizations from personal knowledge,gained on the spot, and I know that they were ready toproclaim the United States of Spain, abandon ruling thecolonies, and in some of the most advanced regionsmake serious attempts in the direction of collectivism.It was this permanent menace which prevented theSpanish monarchy from suppressing all the workers’ andpeasants’ organizations, and from inaugurating a frankclerical reaction.

Similar conditions prevailed also in Italy. The tradeunions in North Italy had not reached the strength theyhave now; but parts of Italy were honeycombed withInternational sections and republican groups. Themonarchy was kept under continual menace of beingupset should the middle-class republicans appeal to therevolutionary elements among the workers.

In short, looking back upon these years, from whichwe are separated now by a quarter of a century, I amfirmly persuaded that if Europe did not pass through aperiod of stern reaction after 1871, this was mainly dueto the spirit which was aroused in Western Europebefore the Franco-German war, and has been maintainedsince by the Anarchist Internationalists, the Blanquists,the Mazzinians, and the Spanish ‘cantonalist’ republicans.

Of course, the Marxists, absorbed by their localelectoral struggles, knew little of these conditions.Anxious not to draw the thunderbolts of Bismarck upontheir heads, and fearing above all that a revolutionaryspirit might make its appearance in Germany and leadto repressions which they were not strong enough toface, they not only repudiated, for tactical purposes, allsympathy with the Western revolutionists, but graduallybecame inspired with hatred toward the revolutionaryspirit, and denounced it with virulence wheresoever itmade its appearance, even when they saw its first signsin Russia.

(364)

No revolutionary papers could be printed in Franceat that time, under Marshal MacMahon. Even thesinging of the ‘Marseillaise’ was considered a crime;and I was once very much amazed at the terror whichseized several of my co-passengers in a train when theyheard a few recruits singing the revolutionary song (inMay 1878). ‘Is it permitted again to sing the “Marseillaise”?’they asked one another with anxiety. TheFrench Press had consequently no socialist papers. TheSpanish papers were very well edited, and some of themanifestoes of their congresses were admirable expositionsof anarchist socialism; but who knows anythingof Spanish ideas outside of Spain? As to the Italianpapers, they were all short-lived, appearing, disappearing,and re-appearing elsewhere under different names; andadmirable as some of them were, they did not spreadbeyond Italy. Consequently, the Jura Federation, withits papers printed in French, became the centre for themaintenance and expression in the Latin countries ofthe spirit which—I repeat it—saved Europe from avery dark period of reaction. And it was also theground upon which the theoretical conceptions of anarchismwere worked out by Bakúnin and his followersin a language that was understood all over continentalEurope.

III

Quite a number of remarkable men of different nationalities,nearly all of whom had been personal friends ofBakúnin, belonged at that time to the Jura Federation.The editor of our chief paper, the ‘Bulletin’ of thefederation, was James Guillaume, a teacher by profession,who belonged to one of the aristocratic families ofNeuchâtel. Small, thin, with the stiff appearance andresoluteness of Robespierre, and with a truly golden(365)heart which opened only in the intimacy of friendship,he was a born leader by his phenomenal powers of workand his stern activity. For eight years he fought againstall sorts of obstacles to maintain the paper in existence,taking the most active part in every detail of the federation,till he had to leave Switzerland, where he couldfind no work whatever, and settled in France, where hisname will be quoted some day with the utmost respectin the history of education.

Adhémar Schwitzguébel, also a Swiss, was the typeof the jovial, lively, clear-sighted French-speaking watchmakersof the Bernese Jura hills. A watch engraver bytrade, he never attempted to abandon his position ofmanual worker, and, always merry and active, he supportedhis large family through the severest periods ofslack trade and curtailed earnings. His gift of taking adifficult economic or political question, and, after muchthought about it, considering it from the working-man’spoint of view, without divesting it of its deepest meaning,was wonderful. He was known far and wide in the‘mountains,’ and with the workers of all countries he wasa general favourite.

His direct counterpart was another Swiss, also awatchmaker, Spichiger. He was a philosopher, slow inboth movement and thought, English in his physicalaspect; always trying to get at the full meaning ofevery fact, and impressing all of us by the justness ofthe conclusions he reached while he was pondering overall sorts of subjects during his work of scooping outwatch lids.

Round these three gathered a number of solid,staunch, middle-aged or elderly workmen, passionatelovers of liberty, happy to take part in such a promisingmovement, and a hundred or so bright young men, alsomostly watchmakers—all very independent and affectionate,very lively, and ready to go to any length inself-sacrifice.

(366)

Several refugees of the Paris Commune had joinedthe federation. Elisée Reclus, the great geographer,was of their number—a type of the true Puritan in hismanner of life, and of the French encyclopædist philosopherof the last century in his mind; the man whoinspires others, but never has governed anyone, andnever will do so; the anarchist whose anarchism is theepitome of his broad, intimate knowledge of the formsof life of mankind under all climates and in all stagesof civilization; whose books rank among the very bestof the century; whose style, of a striking beauty, movesthe mind and the conscience; and who, as he enters theoffice of an anarchist paper, says to the editor—maybea boy in comparison with himself: ‘Tell me what Ihave to do,’ and will sit down, like a newspaper subordinate,to fill up a gap of so many lines in the currentnumber of the paper. In the Paris Commune he simplytook a rifle and stood in the ranks; and if he invites acontributor to work with him upon a volume of hisworld-famed Geography, and the contributor timidlyasks, ‘What have I to do?’ he replies: ‘Here are thebooks, here is a table. Do as you like.’

At his side was Lefrançais, an elderly man, formerlya teacher, who had been thrice in his life an exile: afterJune 1848, after Napoleon’s coup d’état, and after 1871.An ex-member of the Commune, and consequently oneof those who were said to have left Paris carrying awaymillions in their pockets, he worked as a freight handlerat the railway at Lausanne, and was nearly killed in thatwork, which required younger shoulders than his. Hisbook on the Paris Commune is the one in which thereal historical meaning of that movement was put in itsproper light. ‘A Communalist, not an Anarchist, please,’he would say. ‘I cannot work with such fools as youare;’ and he worked with none but us, ‘because,’ as hesaid, ‘you fools are still the men whom I love best.With you one can work, and remain one’s self.’

(367)

Another ex-member of the Paris Commune whowas with us was Pindy, a carpenter from the north ofFrance, an adopted child of Paris. He became widelyknown at Paris, during a strike, supported by the International,for his vigour and bright intelligence, andwas elected a member of the Commune, which nominatedhim commander of the Tuileries Palace. Whenthe Versailles troops entered Paris, shooting theirprisoners by the hundred, three men at least were shotin different parts of the town, having been mistakenfor Pindy. After the fight, however, he was concealedby a brave girl, a seamstress, who saved him by hercalmness when the house was searched by the troops,and who afterwards became his wife. Only twelvemonths later they succeeded in leaving Paris unnoticed,and came to Switzerland. Here Pindy learned assaying,at which he became skilful; spending his days bythe side of his red-hot stove, and at night devotinghimself passionately to propaganda work, in which headmirably combined the passion of a revolutionist withthe good sense and organizing powers characteristic ofthe Parisian worker.

Paul Brousse was then a young doctor, full of mentalactivity, uproarious, sharp, lively, ready to develop anyidea with a geometrical logic to its utmost consequences;powerful in his criticisms of the State and State organization;finding enough time to edit two papers, in Frenchand in German, to write scores of voluminous letters,to be the soul of a workmen’s evening party; constantlyactive in organizing men, with the subtle mind of a true‘southerner.’

Among the Italians who collaborated with us inSwitzerland, two men whose names stood always associated,and will be remembered in Italy by more thanone generation, two close personal friends of Bakúnin,were Cafiero and Malatesta. Cafiero was an idealist ofthe highest and the purest type, who gave a considerable(368)fortune to the cause, and who never since has askedhimself what he shall live upon to-morrow; a thinkerplunged in philosophical speculation; a man who neverwould harm anyone, and yet took the rifle and marchedin the mountains of Benevento, when he and his friendsthought that an uprising of a socialist character mightbe attempted, were it only to show the people that theiruprisings ought to have a deeper meaning than that ofa mere revolt against tax collectors. Malatesta was astudent of medicine, who had left the medical professionand also his fortune for the sake of the revolution; fullof fire and intelligence, a pure idealist, who all his life—andhe is now approaching the age of fifty—has neverthought whether he would have a piece of bread for hissupper and a bed for the night. Without even so muchas a room that he could call his own, he would sellsherbet in the streets of London to get his living, andin the evening write brilliant articles for the Italianpapers. Imprisoned in France, released, expelled, recondemnedin Italy, confined to an island, escaped, andagain in Italy in disguise; always in the hottest of thestruggle, whether it be in Italy or elsewhere—he haspersevered in this life for thirty years in succession.And when we meet him again, released from a prisonor escaped from an island, we find him just as we sawhim last; always renewing the struggle, with the samelove of men, the same absence of hatred toward his adversariesand jailers, the same hearty smile for a friend,the same caress for a child.

The Russians were few among us, most of themfollowing the German social democrats. We had, however,Joukóvsky, a friend of Hérzen, who had left Russiain 1863—a brilliant, elegant, highly intelligent nobleman,a favourite with the workers—who better than any ofthe rest of us had what the French call l’oreille du peuple(the ear of the workers), because he knew how to firethem by showing them the great part they had to play(369)in rebuilding society, to lift them by holding before themhigh historical views, to throw a flash of light on themost intricate economic problem, and to electrify themwith his earnestness and sincerity. Sokolóff, formerlyan officer of the Russian general staff, an admirer of PaulLouis Courier for his boldness and of Proudhon for hisphilosophical ideas, who had made many a socialist inRussia by his review articles, was also with us temporarily.

I mention only those who became widely known aswriters, or as delegates to congresses, or in some otherway. And yet I ask myself if I ought not rather tospeak of those who never committed their names to print,but were as important in the life of the federation as anyone of the writers; who fought in the ranks, and werealways ready to join in any enterprise, never askingwhether the work would be grand or small, distinguishedor modest—whether it would have great consequences,or simply result in infinite worry to themselves and theirfamilies.

I ought also to mention the Germans Werner andRinke, the Spaniard Albarracin, and many others; butI am afraid that these faint sketches of mine may notconvey to the reader the same feelings of respect andlove with which every one of this little family inspiredthose who knew him or her personally.

IV

Of all the towns of Switzerland that I know, La Chaux-de-Fondsis perhaps the least attractive. It lies on ahigh plateau entirely devoid of any vegetation, open tobitterly cold winds in the winter, when the snow liesas deep as at Moscow, and melts and falls again as oftenas at St. Petersburg. But it was important to spread our(370)ideas in that centre, and to give more life to the local propaganda.Pindy, Spichiger, Albarracin, the two Blanquists,Ferré and Jeallot, were there, and from time totime I could pay visits to Guillaume at Neuchâtel, and toSchwitzguébel in the valley of St. Imier.

A life full of work that I liked began now for me.We held many meetings, distributing ourselves our announcementsin the cafés and the workshops. Once aweek we held our section meetings, at which the mostanimated discussions took place, and we went also topreach anarchism at the gatherings convoked by thepolitical parties. I travelled a good deal, visiting othersections and helping them.

During that winter we won the sympathy of many,but our regular work was very much hampered by acrisis in the watch trade. Half the workers were out ofwork or only partially employed, so that the municipalityhad to open dining rooms to provide cheap meals at costprice. The co-operative workshop established by theanarchists at La Chaux-de-Fonds, in which the earningswere divided equally among all the members, had greatdifficulty in getting work, in spite of its high reputation,and Spichiger had to resort several times to wool-combingfor an upholsterer in order to get his living.

We all took part, that year, in a manifestation withthe red flag at Bern. The wave of reaction spread toSwitzerland, and the carrying of the workers’ banner wasprohibited by the Bern police in defiance of the constitution.It was necessary, therefore, to show that at leasthere and there the workers would not have their rightstrampled underfoot, and would offer resistance. We allwent to Bern on the anniversary of the Paris Commune,to carry the red flag in the streets, notwithstanding theprohibition. Of course there was a collision with thepolice in which two comrades received sword cuts andtwo police officers were rather seriously wounded. Butthe red flag was carried safe to the hall, where a most(371)animated meeting was held. I hardly need say that theso-called leaders were in the ranks, and fought like allthe rest. The trial involved nearly thirty Swiss citizens,all themselves demanding to be prosecuted, and thosewho had wounded the two police officers coming forwardspontaneously to say that they had done it. A greatdeal of sympathy was won to the cause during the trial;it was understood that all liberties have to be defendedjealously, in order not to be lost. The sentences wereconsequently very light, not exceeding three months’ imprisonment.

However, the Bern Government prohibited the carryingof the red flag anywhere in the canton; and the JuraFederation thereupon decided to carry it, in defiance ofthe prohibition, in St. Imier, where we held our congressthat year. This time most of us were armed, and readyto defend our banner to the last extremity. A body ofpolice had been placed in a square to stop our column; adetachment of the militia was kept in readiness in an adjoiningfield, under the pretext of target practice—wedistinctly heard their shots as we marched through thetown. But when our column appeared in the square, andit was judged from its aspect that aggression would resultin serious bloodshed, the mayor let us continue our marchundisturbed to the hall where the meeting was to be held.None of us desired a fight; but the strain of that marchin fighting order, to the sound of a military band, wassuch that I do not know what feeling prevailed in most ofus during the first moments after we reached the hall—reliefat having been spared an undesired fight, or regretthat the fight did not take place. Man is a very complexbeing.

Our main activity, however, was in working out thepractical and theoretical aspects of anarchist socialism,and in this direction the federation has undoubtedly accomplishedsomething that will last.

(372)

We saw that a new form of society is germinating inthe civilized nations, and must take the place of the oldone: a society of equals, who will not be compelled tosell their hands and brains to those who choose to employthem in a haphazard way, but who will be able to applytheir knowledge and capacities to production, in an organismso constructed as to combine all the efforts for procuringthe greatest sum possible of well-being for all, whilefull, free scope will be left for every individual initiative.This society will be composed of a multitude of associations,federated for all the purposes which require federation:trade federations for production of all sorts—agricultural,industrial, intellectual, artistic; communes for consumption,making provision for dwellings, gas works, suppliesof food, sanitary arrangements, etc.; federations of communesamong themselves, and federations of communeswith trade organizations; and finally, wider groups coveringthe country, or several countries, composed of menwho collaborate for the satisfaction of such economic, intellectual,artistic, and moral needs as are not limited toa given territory. All these will combine directly, bymeans of free agreements between them, just as the railwaycompanies or the postal departments of differentcountries co-operate now, without having a central railwayor postal government, even though the former are actuatedby merely egoistic aims and the latter belong to differentand often hostile States; or as the meteorologists, theAlpine clubs, the lifeboat stations in Great Britain, thecyclists, the teachers, and so on, combine for all sorts ofwork in common, for intellectual pursuits, or simply forpleasure. There will be full freedom for the developmentof new forms of production, invention, and organization;individual initiative will be encouraged, and the tendencytoward uniformity and centralization will be discouraged.

Moreover, this society will not be crystallized intocertain unchangeable forms, but will continually modifyits aspect, because it will be a living, evolving organism;(373)no need of government will be felt, because free agreementand federation can take its place in all those functionswhich governments consider as theirs at the presenttime, and because, the causes of conflict being reduced innumber, those conflicts which may still arise can be submittedto arbitration.

None of us minimized the importance and depth ofthe change which we looked for. We understood thatthe current opinions upon the necessity of private ownershipin land, factories, mines, dwelling houses, and soon, as a means of securing industrial progress, and ofthe wage-system as a means of compelling men to work,would not soon give way to higher conceptions ofsocialized ownership and production. We knew that atedious propaganda and a long succession of struggles,individual and collective revolts against the now prevailingforms of property, of individual self-sacrifice, ofpartial attempts at reconstruction and partial revolutionswould have to be lived through, before the current ideasupon private ownership would be modified. And weunderstood also that the now current ideas concerningthe necessity of authority—in which all of us have beenbred—would not and could not be abandoned by civilizedmankind all at once. Long years of propagandaand a long succession of partial acts of revolt againstauthority, as well as a complete revision of the teachingsnow derived from history, would be required before mencould perceive that they had been mistaken in attributingto their rulers and their laws what was derived in realityfrom their own sociable feelings and habits. We knewall that. But we also knew that in preaching change inboth these directions we should be working with the tideof human progress.

When I made a closer acquaintance with the workingpopulation and their sympathizers from the better educatedclasses, I soon realized that they valued theirpersonal freedom even more than they valued their(374)personal well-being. Fifty years ago the workers wereready to sell their personal liberty to all sorts of rulers,and even to a Cæsar, in exchange for a promise ofmaterial well-being, but now this was no longer the case.I saw that the blind faith in elected rulers, even if theywere taken from amongst the best leaders of the labourmovement, was dying away amongst the Latin workers.‘We must know first what we want, and then we can doit best ourselves,’ was an idea which I found widelyspread among them—far more widely than is generallybelieved. The sentence which was put in the statutes ofthe International Association: ‘The emancipation of theworkers must be accomplished by the workers themselves,’had met with general sympathy and had taken root inminds. The sad experience of the Paris Commune onlyconfirmed it.

When the insurrection broke out, considerablenumbers of men belonging to the middle classes themselveswere prepared to make, or at least to accept, anew start in the social direction. ‘When my brother andmyself, coming out of our little room, went out in thestreets,’ Elisée Reclus said to me once, ‘we were askedon all sides by people belonging to the wealthier classes:“Tell us what is to be done? We are ready to try anew start;” but we were not prepared yet to make thesuggestions.’

Never before had a government been as fairly representativeof all the advanced parties as the Council ofthe Commune, elected on March 25, 1871. All shadesof revolutionary opinion—Blanquists, Jacobinists, Internationalists—wererepresented in it in a true proportion.And yet the workers themselves, having no distinctideas of social reform to impress upon their representatives,the Commune Government did nothing in thatdirection. The very fact of having been isolated fromthe masses and shut up in the Hôtel de Ville paralysedthem. For the very success of socialism, the ideas of(375)no-government, of self-reliance, of free initiative of theindividual—of anarchism, in a word—had thus to bepreached side by side with those of socialized ownershipand production.

We certainly foresaw that if full freedom is left tothe individual for the expression of his ideas and foraction, we should have to face a certain amount ofextravagant exaggerations of our principles. I had seenit in the Nihilist movement in Russia. But we trusted—andexperience has proved that we were right—thatsocial life itself, supported by a frank, open-mindedcriticism of opinions and actions, would be the mosteffective means for threshing out opinions and for divestingthem of the unavoidable exaggerations. We acted,in fact, in accordance with the old saying that freedomremains still the wisest cure for freedom’s temporaryinconveniences. There is, in mankind, a nucleus ofsocial habits, an inheritance from the past, not yet dulyappreciated, which is not maintained by coercion and issuperior to coercion. Upon it all the progress of mankindis based, and so long as mankind does not begin todeteriorate physically and mentally, it will not be destroyedby any amount of criticism or of occasionalrevolt against it. These were the opinions in which Igrew confirmed more and more in proportion as my experienceof men and things increased.

We understood, at the same time, that such a changecannot be produced by the conjectures of one man ofgenius, that it will not be one man’s discovery, but thatit must result from the constructive work of the masses,just as the forms of judicial procedure which were elaboratedin the early mediæval ages, the village community,the guild, the mediæval city, or the foundations of internationallaw, were worked out by the people.

Many of our predecessors had undertaken to pictureideal commonwealths, basing them upon the principle ofauthority, or, on some rare occasions, upon the principle(376)of freedom. Robert Owen and Fourier had given theworld their ideals of a free, organically developing society,in opposition to the pyramidal ideals which had beencopied from the Roman Empire or from the RomanChurch. Proudhon had continued their work, and Bakúnin,applying his wide and clear understanding of thephilosophy of history to the criticism of present institutions,‘built up while he was demolishing.’ But all thatwas only preparatory work.

The International Workingmen’s Association inaugurateda new method of solving the problems ofpractical sociology by appealing to the workers themselves.The educated men who had joined the associationundertook only to enlighten the workers as to whatwas going on in different countries of the world toanalyse the obtained results, and, later on, to aid theworkers in formulating their conclusions. We did notpretend to evolve an ideal commonwealth out of ourtheoretical views as to what a society ought to be, butwe invited the workers to investigate the causes of thepresent evils, and in their discussions and congresses toconsider the practical aspects of a better social organizationthan the one we live in. A question raised at aninternational congress was recommended as a subjectof study to all labour unions. In the course of the yearit was discussed all over Europe, in the small meetingsof the sections, with a full knowledge of the local needsof each trade and each locality; then the work of thesections was brought before the next congress of eachfederation, and finally it was submitted in a more elaborateform to the next international congress. The structureof the society which we longed for was thus worked out,in theory and practice, from beneath, and the JuraFederation took a large part in that elaboration of theanarchist ideal.

For myself, placed as I was in such favourableconditions, I gradually came to realize that anarchism(377)represents more than a mere mode of action and a mereconception of a free society; that it is part of a philosophy,natural and social, which must be developed ina quite different way from the metaphysical or dialecticmethods which have been employed in sciences dealingwith man. I saw that it must be treated by the samemethods as natural sciences; not, however, on the slipperyground of mere analogies, such as Herbert Spenceraccepts, but on the solid basis of induction applied tohuman institutions. And I did my best to accomplishwhat I could in that direction.

V

Two congresses were held in the autumn of 1877 inBelgium: one of the International Workingmen’s Associationat Verviers, and the other an InternationalSocialist congress at Ghent. The latter was especiallyimportant, as it was known that an attempt would bemade by the German social democrats to bring all thelabour movement of Europe under one organization,subject to a central committee, which would be the oldgeneral council of the International under a new name.It was therefore necessary to preserve the autonomy ofthe labour organizations in the Latin countries, and we didour best to be well represented at this congress. I wentunder the name of Levashóff; two Germans, the compositorWerner and the engineer Rinke, walked nearlyall the distance from Basel to Belgium; and although wewere only nine anarchists at Ghent, we succeeded inchecking the centralization scheme.

Twenty-two years have passed since; a number ofInternational Socialist congresses have been held, andat every one of them the same struggle has been renewed—thesocial democrats trying to enlist all the labourmovement of Europe under their banner and to bring it(378)under their control, and the anarchists opposing and preventingit. What an amount of wasted force, of bitterwords exchanged and efforts divided, simply becausethose who have adopted the formula of ‘conquest ofpower within the existing states’ do not understand thatactivity in this direction cannot embody all the socialistmovement! From the outset socialism took threeindependent lines of development, which found theirexpression in Saint-Simon, Fourier, and Robert Owen.Saint-Simonism has developed into social democracy,and Fourierism into anarchism; while Owenism is developing,in England and America, into trade-unionism,co-operation, and the so-called municipal socialism, andremains hostile to social democratic state socialism, whileit has many points of contact with anarchism. Butbecause of failure to recognize that the three marchtoward a common goal in three different ways, andthat the two latter bring their own precious contributionto human progress, a quarter of a century has beengiven to endeavours to realize the unrealizable Utopiaof a unique labour movement of the social democraticpattern.

The Ghent congress ended for me in an unexpectedway. Three or four days after it had begun, the Belgianpolice learned who Levashóff was, and received theorder to arrest me for a breach of police regulationswhich I had committed in giving at the hotel an assumedname. My Belgian friends warned me. Theymaintained that the clerical ministry which was in powerwas capable of giving me up to Russia, and insisted uponmy leaving the congress at once. They would not letme return to the hotel; Guillaume barred the way,telling me that I should have to use force against himif I insisted upon returning thither. I had to go withsome Ghent comrades, and as soon as I joined them,muffled calls and whistling came from all corners of a(379)dark square over which groups of workers were scattered.It all looked awfully mysterious. At last, after muchwhispering and subdued whistling, a group of comradestook me under escort to a social democrat worker, withwhom I had to spend the night, and who received me,anarchist though I was, in the most touching way as abrother. Next morning I left once more for England,on board a steamer, provoking a number of good-naturedsmiles from the British custom-house officers, who wantedme to show them my luggage, while I had nothing toshow but a small hand-bag.

I did not stay long in London. In the admirablecollections of the British Museum I studied the beginningsof the French Revolution—how revolutions cometo break out; but I wanted more activity, and soon wentto Paris. A revival of the labour movement was beginningthere, after the rigid suppression of the Commune.With the Italian Costa and the few anarchist friends wehad among the Paris workers, and with Jules Guesdeand his colleagues who were not strict social democratsat that time, we started the first socialist groups.

Our beginnings were ridiculously small. Half adozen of us used to meet in cafés, and when we hadan audience of a hundred persons at a meeting we felthappy. No one would have guessed then that two yearslater the movement would be in full swing. But Francehas its own ways of development. When a reaction hasgained the upper hand, all visible traces of a movementdisappear. Those who fight against the current are few.But in some mysterious way, by a sort of invisible infiltrationof ideas, the reaction is undermined; a new currentsets in, and then it appears, all of a sudden, that the ideawhich was thought to be dead was there alive, spreadingand growing all the time; and as soon as public agitationbecomes possible, thousands of adherents, whose existencenobody suspected, come to the front. ‘There areat Paris,’ old Blanqui used to say, ‘fifty thousand men(380)who never come to a meeting or to a demonstration;but the moment they feel that the people can appearin the streets to manifest their opinion, they are thereto storm the position.’ So it was then. There were nottwenty of us to carry on the movement, not two hundredopenly to support it. At the first commemoration ofthe Commune, in March 1878, we surely were not twohundred. But two years later the amnesty for the Communewas voted, and the working population of Pariswas in the streets to greet the returning Communards;it flocked by the thousand to cheer them at the meetings,and the socialist movement took a sudden expansion,carrying with it the Radicals.

The time had not yet come for that revival, however,and one night, in April 1878, Costa and a French comradewere arrested. A police-court condemned themto imprisonment for eighteen months as Internationalists.I escaped arrest only by mistake. The police wantedLevashóff, and went to arrest a Russian student whosename sounded very much like that. I had given my realname, and continued to stay at Paris under that namefor another month. Then I was called to Switzerland.

VI

During this stay at Paris I made my first acquaintancewith Turguéneff. He had expressed to our commonfriend, P. L. Lavróff, the desire to see me, and, as a trueRussian, to celebrate my escape by a small friendly dinner.It was with almost a feeling of worship that I crossedthe threshold of his room. If by his ‘Sportsman’s Notebook’he rendered to Russia the immense service ofthrowing odium upon serfdom (I did not know at thattime that he took a leading part in Hérzen’s powerful‘Bell’), he has rendered no less service through his laternovels. He has shown what the Russian woman is, what(381)treasuries of mind and heart she possesses, what she maybe as an inspirer of men; and he has taught us how menwho have a real claim to superiority look upon women,how they love. Upon me, and upon thousands of mycontemporaries, this part of his teaching made an indelibleimpression, far more powerful than the best articles uponwomen’s rights.

His appearance is well known. Tall, strongly built,the head covered with soft and thick grey hair, he wascertainly beautiful; his eyes gleamed with intelligence,not devoid of a touch of humour, and his whole mannertestified to that simplicity and absence of affectation whichare characteristic of the best Russian writers. His finehead revealed a vast development of brain power, and whenhe died, and Paul Bert, with Paul Reclus (the surgeon),weighed his brain, it so much surpassed the heaviest brainthen known—that of Cuvier—reaching something overtwo thousand grammes, that they would not trust to theirscales, but got new ones, to repeat the weighing.

His talk was especially remarkable. He spoke, ashe wrote, in images. When he wanted to develop anidea, he did not resort to arguments, although he was amaster in philosophical discussions; he illustrated hisidea by a scene presented in a form as beautiful as if ithad been taken out of one of his novels.

‘You must have had a great deal of experience inyour life amongst Frenchmen, Germans, and other peoples,’he said to me once. ‘Have you not remarked that thereis a deep, unfathomable chasm between many of theirconceptions and the views which we Russians hold onthe same subjects—points upon which we can neveragree?’

I replied that I had not noticed such points.

‘Yes, there are some. Here is one of them. Onenight, we were at the first representation of a new play.I was in a box with Flaubert, Daudet, Zola.... (I amnot quite sure whether he named both Daudet and Zola,(382)but he certainly named one of the two.) All were menof advanced opinions. The subject of the play was this:A woman had separated from her husband. She hadhad a new love and had settled with another man. Thisman was represented in the play as an excellent person.For years they had been quite happy. Her two children—agirl and a boy—were babies at the moment of theseparation; now, they had grown, and throughout allthese years they had considered the man as their realfather. The girl was about eighteen and the boy aboutseventeen. The man treated them quite as a father, theyloved him, and he loved them. The scene representedthe family meeting at breakfast. The girl comes in, approachesher supposed father, and he is going to kiss her—whenthe boy, who has learned in some way that theyare not his children, rushes forward towards him, andshouts out: “Don’t dare!” N’osez pas!

‘The hall was brought down by this exclamation.There was an outburst of frantic applause. Flaubert andthe others joined in it. I was disgusted. “Why,” I said,“this family was happy; the man was a better father tothese children than their real father, ... their motherloved him and was happy with him.... This mischievous,perverted boy ought simply to be flogged for whathe has said....” It was of no use. I discussed forhours with them afterwards: none of them could understandme!’

I was, of course, fully in accord with Turguéneff’spoint of view. I remarked, however, that his acquaintanceswere chiefly amongst the middle classes. Therethe difference from nation to nation is immense indeed.But my acquaintances were exclusively amongst theworkers, and there is an immense resemblance betweenthe workers, and especially amongst the peasants, of allnations.

In so saying, I was, however, quite wrong. After Ihad had the opportunity of making a closer acquaintance(383)with French workers, I often thought of the rightness ofTurguéneff’s remark. There is a real chasm indeed betweenthe conceptions which prevail in Russia uponmarriage relations and those which prevail in France:amongst the workers as well as in the middle classes;and upon many other points there is almost the samechasm between the Russian point of view and that ofother nations.

It was said somewhere, after Turguéneff’s death, thathe intended to write a novel upon this subject. If it wasbegun, the above mentioned scene must be in his manuscript.What a pity that he did not write that novel!He, a thorough ‘Occidental’ in his ways of thinking, couldhave said very deep things upon a subject which must haveso deeply affected him personally throughout his life.

Of all novel-writers of our century, Turguéneff hascertainly attained the greatest perfection as an artist,and his prose sounds to the Russian ear like music—musicas deep as that of Beethoven. His principalnovels—the series of ‘Dmítri Rúdin,’ ‘A Nobleman’sRetreat,’ ‘On the Eve,’ ‘Fathers and Sons,’ ‘Smoke,’and ‘Virgin Soil’—represent the leading ‘history-making’types of the educated classes of Russia, which evolved inrapid succession after 1848; all sketched with a fulnessof philosophical conception and humanitarian understandingand an artistic beauty which have no parallelin any other literature. Yet ‘Fathers and Sons’—anovel which he rightly considered his profoundest work—wasreceived by the young people of Russia with aloud protest. Our youth declared that the NihilistBazároff was by no means a true representation of hisclass; many described him even as a caricature ofNihilism. This misunderstanding deeply affected Turguéneff,and, although a reconciliation between him andthe young generation took place later on at St. Petersburg,after he had written ‘Virgin Soil,’ the wound inflictedupon him by these attacks was never healed.

(384)

He knew from Lavróff that I was an enthusiasticadmirer of his writings; and one day, as we were returningin a carriage from a visit to Antokólsky’s studio, heasked me what I thought of Bazároff. I frankly replied,‘Bazároff is an admirable painting of the Nihilist, butone feels that you did not love him as much as you didyour other heroes.’ ‘On the contrary, I loved him, intenselyloved him,’ Turguéneff replied, with unexpectedvigour. ‘When we get home I will show you my diary,in which I have noted how I wept when I had ended thenovel with Bazároff’s death.’

Turguéneff certainly loved the intellectual aspect ofBazároff. He so identified himself with the Nihilistphilosophy of his hero that he even kept a diary in hisname, appreciating the current events from Bazároff’spoint of view. But I think that he admired him morethan he loved him. In a brilliant lecture on Hamlet andDon Quixote, he divided the history-makers of mankindinto two classes, represented by one or the other of thesecharacters. ‘Analysis first of all, and then egoism, andtherefore no faith—an egoist cannot even believe in himself:’so he characterized Hamlet. ‘Therefore he is asceptic, and never will achieve anything; while DonQuixote, who fights against windmills, and takes a barber’splate for the magic helmet of Mambrin (who of ushas never made the same mistake?), is a leader of themasses, because the masses always follow those who,taking no heed of the sarcasms of the majority, or evenof persecutions, march straight forward, keeping theireyes fixed upon a goal which they may be alone to see.They search, they fall, but they rise again, and find it—andby right, too. Yet, although Hamlet is a sceptic,and disbelieves in Good, he does not disbelieve in Evil.He hates it; Evil and Deceit are his enemies; and hisscepticism is not indifferentism, but only negation anddoubt, which finally consume his will.’

These thoughts of Turguéneff give, I think, the true(385)key for understanding his relations to his heroes. Hehimself and several of his best friends belonged more orless to the Hamlets. He loved Hamlet, and admiredDon Quixote. So he admired also Bazároff. He representedhis superiority admirably well: he understood thetragic character of his isolated position; but he could notsurround him with that tender, poetical love which hebestowed, as on a sick friend, when his heroes approachedthe Hamlet type. It would have been out ofplace.

‘Did you know Mýshkin?’ he once asked me, in1878. At the trial of our circle Mýshkin revealed himselfas the most powerful personality. ‘I should like toknow all about him,’ he continued. ‘That is a man;not the slightest trace of Hamletism.’ And in so sayinghe was obviously meditating on this new type in theRussian movement, which did not exist in the phase thatTurguéneff described in ‘Virgin Soil,’ but was to appeartwo years later.

I saw him for the last time in the autumn of 1881.He was very ill, and worried by the thought that it washis duty to write to Alexander III.—who had just cometo the throne, and hesitated as to the policy he shouldfollow—asking him to give Russia a constitution, andproving to him by solid arguments the necessity of thatstep. With evident grief he said to me: ‘I feel that Imust do it, but I feel I shall not be able to do it.’ Infact, he was already suffering awful pains occasioned bya cancer in the spinal cord, and had the greatest difficultyeven in sitting up and talking for a few moments.He did not write then, and a few weeks later it wouldhave been useless. Alexander III. had announced ina manifesto his intention to remain the absolute ruler ofRussia.

(386)

VII

In the meantime affairs in Russia took quite a new turn.The war which Russia began against Turkey in 1877had ended in general disappointment. There was in thecountry, before the war broke out, a great deal of enthusiasmin favour of the Slavonians. Many believed,also, that the war of liberation in the Balkans wouldresult in a move in the progressive direction in Russiaitself. But the liberation of the Slavonian populationswas only partly accomplished. The tremendous sacrificeswhich had been made by the Russians wererendered ineffectual by the blunders of the higher militaryauthorities. Hundreds of thousands of men hadbeen slaughtered in battles which were only half victories,and the concessions wrested from Turkey were broughtto naught at the Berlin Congress. It was also widelyknown that the embezzlement of State money went onduring this war on almost as large a scale as during theCrimean war.

It was amidst the general dissatisfaction which prevailedin Russia at the end of 1877, that one hundredand ninety-three persons, arrested since 1873, in connectionwith our agitation, were brought before a highcourt. The accused, supported by a number of lawyersof talent, won at once the sympathies of the public.They produced a very favourable impression upon St.Petersburg society; and when it became known thatmost of them had spent three or four years in prison,waiting for this trial, and that no less than twenty-oneof them had either put an end to their lives by suicideor become insane, the feeling grew still stronger in theirfavour, even among the judges themselves. The courtpronounced very heavy sentences upon a few, and relativelylenient ones upon the remainder; saying thatthe preliminary detention had lasted so long, and wasso hard a punishment in itself, that nothing could justly(387)be added to it. It was confidently expected that theEmperor would still further mitigate the sentences. Ithappened, however, to the astonishment of all, that herevised the sentences only to increase them. Thosewhom the court had acquitted were sent into exile inremote parts of Russia and Siberia, and from five totwelve years of hard labour were inflicted upon thosewhom the court had condemned to short terms of imprisonment.This was the work of the chief of theThird Section, General Mézentsoff.

At the same time, the chief of the St. Petersburgpolice, General Trépoff, noticing, during a visit to thehouse of detention, that one of the political prisoners,Bogolúboff, did not take off his hat to greet the omnipotentsatrap, rushed upon him, gave him a blow, and,when the prisoner resisted, ordered him to be flogged.The other prisoners, learning the fact in their cells, loudlyexpressed their indignation, and were in consequencefearfully beaten by the warders and the police. TheRussian political prisoners bore without murmuring allhardships inflicted upon them in Siberia, or through hardlabour, but they were firmly decided not to toleratecorporal punishment. A young girl, Véra Zasúlich,who did not even personally know Bogolúboff, took arevolver, went to the chief of police, and shot at him.Trépoff was only wounded. Alexander II. came to lookat the heroic girl, who must have impressed him by herextremely sweet face and her modesty. Trépoff had somany enemies at St. Petersburg that they managed tobring the affair before a common-law jury, and VéraZasúlich declared in court that she had resorted to armsonly when all means for bringing the affair to publicknowledge and obtaining some sort of redress had beenexhausted. Even the St. Petersburg correspondent ofthe London ‘Times,’ who had been asked to mentionthe affair in his paper, had not done so, perhaps thinkingit improbable. Then, without telling anyone about(388)her intentions, she went to shoot Trépoff. Now thatthe affair had become public, she was quite happy toknow that he was but slightly wounded. The jury acquittedher unanimously; and when the police tried torearrest her, as she was leaving the court-house, theyoung men of St. Petersburg, who stood in crowds atthe gates, saved her from their clutches. She wentabroad, and soon was among us in Switzerland.

This affair produced quite a sensation throughoutEurope. I was at Paris when the news of the acquittalcame, and had to call that day on business at the officesof several newspapers. I found the editors glowing withenthusiasm, and writing forcible articles in honour of thisRussian girl. Even the ‘Revue des Deux Mondes,’ in itsreview of the year 1878, declared that the two personswho had most impressed public opinion in Europe duringthe year were Prince Gortchakóff at the Berlin Congressand Véra Zasúlich. Their portraits were givenside by side in several almanacs. Upon the workers ofWestern Europe the devotion of Véra Zasúlich produceda profound impression.

During the same year, 1878, without any plot havingbeen formed, four attempts were made against crownedheads in close succession. The workman Hoedel, andafter him Dr. Nobiling, shot at the German Emperor;a few weeks later, a Spanish workman, Oliva Moncási,followed with an attempt to shoot the King of Spain,and the cook Passanante rushed with his knife upon theKing of Italy. The governments of Europe could notbelieve that such attempts upon the lives of three kingsshould have occurred without there being at the bottomsome international conspiracy, and they jumped to theconclusion that the anarchist Jura Federation was thecentre of that conspiracy.

More than twenty years have passed since then, andI can say most positively that there was absolutely noground whatever for such a supposition. However, all(389)the European governments fell upon Switzerland, reproachingher with harbouring revolutionists who organizedsuch plots. Paul Brousse, the editor of our Juranewspaper, the ‘Avant-Garde,’ was arrested and prosecuted.The Swiss judges, seeing there was not theslightest foundation for connecting Brousse or the JuraFederation with the recent attempts, condemned Brousseto only a couple of months’ imprisonment for his articles;but the paper was suppressed, and all the printing officesof Switzerland were asked by the federal governmentnot to publish this or any similar paper. The JuraFederation was thus silenced.

Besides, the politicians of Switzerland, who lookedwith an unfavourable eye on the anarchist agitation intheir country, acted privately in such a way as to compelthe leading Swiss members of the Jura Federation eitherto retire from public life or to starve. Brousse wasexpelled from Switzerland. James Guillaume, who foreight years had maintained against all obstacles the‘Bulletin’ of the federation, and made his living chieflyby teaching, could obtain no employment, and was compelledto leave Switzerland and remove to France.Adhémar Schwitzguébel, boycotted in the watch tradeand burdened by a large family, had finally to retirefrom the movement. Spichiger was in the same condition,and emigrated. It thus happened that I, aforeigner, had to undertake the editing of a paper forthe federation. I hesitated, of course, but there wasnothing else to be done, and with two friends, Dumartherayand Herzig, I started a new fortnightly atGeneva, in February 1879, under the title of ‘Le Révolté.’I had to write most of it myself. We had onlytwenty-three francs to start the paper, but we all set towork to get subscriptions, and succeeded in issuing ourfirst number. It was moderate in tone, but revolutionaryin substance, and I did my best to write it in such astyle that complicated historical and economical questions(390)should be comprehensible to every intelligent worker.Six hundred was the utmost limit which the edition ofour previous papers had ever attained. We printed twothousand copies of ‘Le Révolté,’ and in a few days notone was left. It was a success, and it still continues, atParis, under the title of ‘Temps Nouveaux.’

Socialist newspapers have often a tendency to becomemere annals of complaints about existing conditions.The oppression of the workers in the mine, the factory,and the field is related; the misery and sufferings of theworkers during strikes are told in vivid pictures; theirhelplessness in the struggle against their employers is insistedupon; and this succession of hopeless efforts, describedevery week, exercises a most depressing influenceupon the reader. To counterbalance that effect, theeditor has to rely chiefly upon burning words, by meansof which he tries to inspire his readers with energy andfaith. I thought, on the contrary, that a revolutionarypaper must be, above all, a record of those symptomswhich everywhere announce the coming of a new era, thegermination of new forms of social life, the growing revoltagainst antiquated institutions. These symptomsshould be watched, brought together in their intimateconnection, and so grouped as to show to the hesitatingminds of the greater number the invisible and often unconscioussupport which advanced ideas find everywhere,when a revival of thought takes place in society. Tomake one feel in sympathy with the throbbing of thehuman heart all over the world, with its revolt againstage-long injustice, with its attempts at working out newforms of life—this should be the chief duty of a revolutionarypaper. It is hope, not despair, which makes successfulrevolutions.

Historians often tell us how this or that system ofphilosophy has accomplished a certain change in humanthought, and subsequently in institutions. But this isnot history. The greatest social philosophers have only(391)caught the indications of coming changes, have understoodtheir inner relations, and, aided by induction andintuition, have foretold what was to occur. Sociologistshave also drawn plans of social organizations, by startingfrom a few principles and developing them to their necessaryconsequences, like a geometrical conclusion from afew axioms; but this is not sociology. A correct socialforecast cannot be made unless one keeps an eye on thethousands of signs of the new life, separating the occasionalfacts from those which are organically essential,and building the generalization upon that basis.

This was the method of thought with which I endeavouredto familiarize our readers—using plain comprehensiblewords, so as to accustom the most modest ofthem to judge for himself whereunto society is moving,and himself to correct the thinker if the latter comesto wrong conclusions. As to the criticism of what exists,I went into it only to disentangle the roots of the evils,and to show that a deep-seated and carefully-nurturedfetishism with regard to the antiquated survivals of pastphases of human development, and a widespread cowardiceof mind and will, are the main sources of all evils.

Dumartheray and Herzig gave me full support in thatdirection. Dumartheray was born in one of the poorestpeasant families in Savoy. His schooling had not gonebeyond the first rudiments of a primary school. Yethe was one of the most intelligent men I ever met. Hisappreciations of current events and men were so remarkablefor their uncommon good sense that they were oftenprophetic. He was also one of the finest critics of thecurrent socialist literature, and was never taken in by themere display of fine words, or would-be science. Herzigwas a young clerk, born at Geneva; a man of suppressedemotions, shy, who would blush like a girl when he expressedan original thought, and who, after I was arrested,when he became responsible for the continuance of thejournal, by sheer force of will learned to write very well.(392)Boycotted by all Geneva employers, and fallen with hisfamily into sheer misery, he nevertheless supported thepaper till it became possible to transfer it to Paris.

To the judgment of these two friends I could trustimplicitly. If Herzig frowned, muttering, ‘Yes—well—itmay go,’ I knew that it would not do. And whenDumartheray, who always complained of the bad state ofhis spectacles when he had to read a not quite legiblywritten manuscript, and therefore generally read proofsonly, interrupted his reading by exclaiming, ‘Non, ça neva pas!’ I felt at once that it was not the proper thing,and tried to guess what thought or expression provokedhis disapproval. I knew there was no use asking him,‘Why will it not do?’ He would have answered: ‘Ah,that it not my affair; that’s yours. It won’t do; that isall I can say.’ But I felt he was right, and I simply satdown to rewrite the passage, or, taking the composingstick, set up in type a new passage instead.

I must own that we had also hard times with ourpaper. No sooner had we issued five numbers than theprinter asked us to find another printing office. For theworkers and their publications the liberty of the Press inscribedin the Constitutions has many limitations besidethe paragraphs of the law. The printer had no objectionto our paper—he liked it; but in Switzerland all printingoffices depend upon the government, which employs themmore or less in issuing statistical reports and the like; andour printer was plainly told that if he continued to harbourour paper he need not expect to have any more ordersfrom the Geneva government. I made the tour of all theFrench-speaking part of Switzerland and saw the headsof all the printing offices, but everywhere, even from thosewho did not dislike the tendency of the paper, I receivedthe same reply: ‘We could not live without orders fromthe government, and we should have none if we undertookto print “Le Révolté.”’

(393)

I returned to Geneva in very low spirits, but Dumartheraywas only the more ardent and hopeful. ‘It’s allvery simple,’ he said. ‘We buy our own printing planton a three months’ credit, and in three months we shallhave paid it.’ ‘But we have no money, only a fewhundred francs,’ I objected. ‘Money? nonsense! Weshall have it! Let us only order the type at once andimmediately issue our next number and money willcome!’ Once more he had judged quite right. Whenour next number came out from our own ImprimerieJurassienne, and we had told our difficulties and issueda couple of small pamphlets besides—all of us helpingin the printing—the money came in, mostly in coppersand silver, but it came. Over and over again in my life Ihave heard complaints among the advanced parties aboutthe want of money, but the longer I live the more I ampersuaded that our chief difficulty does not lie so much inmoney as in men who would march firmly and steadilytowards a given aim in the right direction and inspireothers. For twenty-one years our paper has now continuedto live from hand to mouth, appeals for funds appearingon the front page almost in every number; but aslong as there is a man who sticks to it and puts all hisenergy into it, as Herzig and Dumartheray did at Geneva,and Grave has done for the last sixteen years at Paris,the money comes in and the printing expenses are moreor less covered, mainly by the pennies of the workers.For a paper, as for everything else, men are of an infinitelygreater value than money.

We started our printing office in a tiny room, andour compositor was a Little Russian, who undertook toput our paper in type for the very modest sum of sixtyfrancs a month. So long as he had his plain dinnerevery day, and the possibility of going occasionallyto the opera, he cared for nothing more. ‘Going tothe Turkish bath, John?’ I asked him once as I methim at Geneva in the street, with a brown paper(394)parcel under his arm. ‘No, removing to a new lodging,’he replied in his melodious voice, with his usualsmile.

Unfortunately, he knew no French. I used to writemy manuscript to the best of my caligraphic ability—oftenthinking with regret of the time I had wastedin the writing classes of our good Ebert at school—butJohn would read a French manuscript in the mostfantastical way, and would set up in type the mostextraordinary words of his own invention; but as he‘kept the space,’ and the length of his lines had not tobe altered for making the corrections, there were onlya dozen letters in each line to be changed, and wemanaged to do it pretty well. We were on excellentterms with him, and I soon learned some ‘comping’under his direction. The paper was always ready intime to take the proofs to a Swiss comrade who was theresponsible editor, and to whom we pedantically submittedthem before going to print, and then one of uscarted the formes to a printing office. Our ImprimerieJurassienne soon became widely known for its publications,especially for its pamphlets, which Dumartherayinsisted upon never selling at more than one penny.Quite a new style had to be worked out for such pamphlets.I must say that I often had the wickedness ofenvying those writers who could use any amount ofpages for developing their ideas, and were allowed tomake the well-known excuse of Talleyrand: ‘I have nothad the time to be short.’ When I had to condense theresults of several months’ work—upon, let me say, theorigins of law—into a penny pamphlet, I had to giveextra time in order to be short. But we wrote for theworkers, and twopence for a pamphlet is often too muchfor them. The result was that our penny and halfpennypamphlets sold by the scores of thousands, and werereproduced in every other country in translations. Myleaders from that period were edited later on, while I(395)was in prison, by Elisée Reclus, under the title of ‘TheWords of a Rebel,’ ‘Paroles d’un Révolté.’

France was always the chief object of our aims, but‘Le Révolté’ was severely prohibited in France, and thesmugglers have so many good things to import intoFrance from Switzerland that they did not care toendanger their trade by meddling with papers. I wentonce with them, crossing in their company the Frenchfrontier, and found that they were very brave andreliable men, but I could not induce them to undertakethe smuggling in of our paper. All we could do wasto send it in sealed envelopes to about a hundred personsin France. We charged nothing for postage, leaving itto the voluntary contributions of our subscribers tocover our extra expenses—which they always did—butwe often thought that the French police were missinga splendid opportunity for ruining ‘Le Révolté,’ by subscribingto a hundred copies and sending no voluntarycontributions.

For the first year we had to rely entirely upon ourselves;but gradually Elisée Reclus took a greaterinterest in the work, and finally joined us, giving aftermy arrest more life than ever to the paper. Reclus hadinvited me to aid him in the preparation of the volumeof his monumental geography, which dealt with theRussian dominions in Asia. He knew Russian himself,but he thought that, as I was well acquainted withSiberia, I might aid him in a special way; and as thehealth of my wife was poor, and the doctor had orderedher to leave Geneva with its cold winds at once, weremoved early in the spring of 1880 to Clarens, whereElisée Reclus lived at that time. We settled aboveClarens, in a small cottage overlooking the blue watersof the lake, with the pure snow of the Dent du Midi inthe background. A streamlet that thundered like amighty torrent after rains, carrying away immense rocksin its narrow bed, ran under our windows, and on the(396)slope of the hill opposite rose the old castle of Châtelard,of which the owners, up to the revolution of the burlapapei (the burners of the papers) in 1799, levied uponthe neighbouring serfs feudal taxes on the occasion oftheir births, marriages, and deaths. Here, aided by mywife, with whom I used to discuss every event and everyproposed paper, and who was a severe literary critic ofmy writings, I produced the best things that I wrotefor ‘Le Révolté,’ among them the address ‘To theYoung,’ which was spread in hundreds of thousands ofcopies in all languages. In fact, I worked out here thefoundation of nearly all that I have written later on.Contact with educated men of similar ways of thinkingis what we anarchist writers, scattered by proscriptionall over the world, miss, perhaps, more than anythingelse. At Clarens I had that contact with Elisée Reclusand Lefrançais, in addition to permanent contact withthe workers, which I continued to maintain; and althoughI worked much for the geography, I was able to produceeven more than usually for the anarchist propaganda.

VIII

In Russia, the struggle for freedom was taking a moreand more acute character. Several political trials hadbeen brought before high courts—the trial of ‘thehundred and ninety-three,’ of ‘the fifty,’ of ‘the Dolgúshincircle,’ and so on—and in all of them the samething was apparent. The youth had gone to the peasantsand the factory workers, preaching socialism to them;socialist pamphlets, printed abroad, had been distributed;appeals had been made to revolt—in some vague, indeterminateway—against the oppressive economical conditions.In short, nothing was done that is not donein the socialist agitation in every other country of theworld. No traces of conspiracy against the Tsar, nor(397)even of preparations for revolutionary action, werefound; in fact, there were none. The great majorityof our youth were at that time hostile to such action.Nay, looking now over that movement of the years1870-78, I can confidently say that most of them wouldhave felt satisfied if they had been simply allowed tolive by the side of the peasants and the factory-workers,to teach them, to collaborate with them, either individuallyor as members of the local self-government, in anyof the thousand capacities in which an educated andearnest man or woman can be useful to the masses ofthe people. I knew the men and say so with full knowledgeof them.

Yet the sentences were ferocious—stupidly ferocious,because the movement, which had grown out of theprevious state of Russia, was too deeply rooted to becrushed down by mere brutality. Hard labour for six,ten, twelve years in the mines, with subsequent exileto Siberia for life, was a common sentence. There weresuch cases as that of a girl who got nine years’ hardlabour and life exile to Siberia, for giving one socialistpamphlet to a worker: that was all her crime. Anothergirl of fourteen, Miss Gukóvskaya, was transported forlife to a remote village of Siberia, for having tried, likeGoethe’s Klärchen, to excite an indifferent crowd todeliver Koválsky and his friends when they were goingto be hanged—an act the more natural in Russia, evenfrom the authorities’ standpoint, as there is no capitalpunishment in our country for common-law crimes, andthe application of the death penalty to ‘politicals’ wasthen a novelty, a return to almost forgotten traditions.Thrown into the wilderness, this young girl soon drownedherself in the Yeniséi. Even those who were acquittedby the courts were banished by the gendarmes to littlehamlets in Siberia and North-east Russia, where theyhad to starve on the government allowance of six shillingsper month. There are no industries in such(398)hamlets, and the exiles were strictly prohibited fromteaching.

As if to exasperate the youth still more, their condemnedfriends were not sent direct to Siberia. Theywere locked up first for a number of years, in centralprisons, which made them envy the convict’s life in aSiberian mine. These prisons were awful indeed. Inone of them—‘a den of typhoid fever,’ as the priest ofthat particular gaol said in a sermon—the mortalityreached twenty per cent. in twelve months. In thecentral prisons, in the hard labour prisons of Siberia, inthe fortress, the prisoners had to resort to the strike ofdeath, the famine strike, to protect themselves from thebrutality of the warders, or to obtain conditions—somesort of work, or reading, in their cells—that would savethem from being driven into insanity in a few months.The horror of such strikes, during which men andwomen refused to take any food for seven or eightdays in succession, and then lay motionless, their mindswandering, seemed not to appeal to the gendarmes.At Khárkoff, the prostrated prisoners were tied up withropes and fed artificially, by force.

Information of these horrors leaked out from theprisons, crossed the boundless distances of Siberia, andspread far and wide among the youth. There was atime when not a week passed without disclosing somenew infamy of that sort, or even worse.

Sheer exasperation took hold of our young people.‘In other countries,’ they began to say, ‘men have thecourage to resist. An Englishman, a Frenchman, wouldnot tolerate such outrages. How can we tolerate them?Let us resist, arms in hand, the nocturnal raids of thegendarmes; let them know, at least, that since arrestmeans a slow and infamous death at their hands, theywill have to take us in a mortal struggle.’ At Odessa,Koválsky and his friends met with revolver shots thegendarmes who came one night to arrest them.

(399)

The reply of Alexander II. to this new move wasthe proclamation of a state of siege. Russia was dividedinto a number of districts, each of them under a governor-general,who received the order to hang offenders pitilessly.Koválsky and his friends—who, by the way,had killed no one by their shots—were executed. Hangingbecame the order of the day. Twenty-three personsperished in two years, including a boy of nineteen, whowas caught posting a revolutionary proclamation at arailway station: this act was the only charge againsthim. He was a boy, but he died like a man.

Then the watchword of the revolutionists became‘self-defence:’ self-defence against the spies who introducedthemselves into the circles under the mask offriendship, and denounced members right and left, simplybecause they would not be paid if they did not denouncelarge numbers of persons; self-defence against thosewho ill-treated prisoners; self-defence against the omnipotentchiefs of the state police.

Three functionaries of mark and two or three smallspies fell in that new phase of the struggle. GeneralMézentsoff, who had induced the Tsar to double thesentences after the trial of the hundred and ninety-three,was killed in broad daylight at St. Petersburg; a gendarmecolonel, guilty of something worse than that, hadthe same fate at Kíeff; and the Governor-General ofKhárkoff—my cousin, Dmítri Kropótkin—was shot ashe was returning home from a theatre. The centralprison, in which the first famine strike and artificialfeeding took place, was under his orders. In reality, hewas not a bad man—I know that his personal feelingswere somewhat favourable to the political prisoners;but he was a weak man and a courtier, and he hesitatedto interfere. One word from him would have stoppedthe ill-treatment of the prisoners. Alexander II. likedhim so much, and his position at the court was sostrong, that his interference very probably would have(400)been approved. ‘Thank you; you have acted accordingto my own wishes,’ the Tsar said to him, a couple ofyears before that date, when he came to St. Petersburgto report that he had taken a peaceful attitude in a riotof the poorer population of Khárkoff, and had treatedthe rioters very leniently. But this time he gave hisapproval to the gaolers, and the young men of Khárkoffwere so exasperated at the treatment of their friendsthat one of them shot him.

However, the personality of the Emperor was keptout of the struggle, and down to the year 1879 noattempt was made on his life. The person of theLiberator of the serfs was surrounded by an aureolewhich protected him infinitely better than the swarmsof police officials. If Alexander II. had shown at thisjuncture the least desire to improve the state of affairsin Russia; if he had only called in one or two of thosem*n with whom he had collaborated during the reformperiod, and had ordered them to make an inquiry intothe conditions of the country, or merely of the peasantry;if he had shown any intention of limiting the powers ofthe secret police, his steps would have been hailed withenthusiasm. A word would have made him ‘theLiberator’ again, and once more the youth would haverepeated Hérzen’s words: ‘Thou hast conquered, Galilean.’But just as during the Polish insurrection thedespot awoke in him, and, inspired by Katkóff, he resortedto hanging, so now again, following the adviceof the same evil genius, Katkóff, he found nothing to dobut to nominate special military governors—for hanging.

Then, and then only, a handful of revolutionists—theExecutive Committee—supported, I must say, by thegrowing discontent in the educated classes, and even inthe Tsar’s immediate surroundings, declared that waragainst absolutism which, after several attempts, endedin 1881 in the death of Alexander II.

(401)

Two men, I have said already, lived in AlexanderII., and now the conflict between the two, which hadgrown during all his life, assumed a really tragic aspect.When he met Solovióff, who shot at him and missed thefirst shot, he had the presence of mind to run to thenearest door, not in a straight line, but in zigzags, whileSolovióff continued to fire; and he thus escaped with buta slight tearing of his overcoat. On the day of his death,too, he gave a proof of his undoubted courage. In theface of real danger he was courageous; but he continuallytrembled before the phantasms of his own imagination.Once he shot at an aide-de-camp, when the latterhad made an abrupt movement, and Alexander thoughthe was going to attempt his life. Merely to save hislife, he surrendered entirely all his imperial powers intothe hands of those who cared nothing for him, but onlyfor their lucrative positions.

He undoubtedly retained an attachment to the motherof his children, even though he was then with the PrincessDolgorúki, whom he married immediately after the deathof the Empress. ‘Don’t speak to me of the Empress; itmakes me suffer too much,’ he more than once said toLóris Mélikoff. And yet he entirely abandoned theEmpress Marie, who had stood faithfully by his sidewhile he was the Liberator; he let her die in the palacein complete neglect, having by her side only two ladiesentirely devoted to her, while he stayed himself inanother palace, and paid her only short official visits. Awell-known Russian doctor, now dead, told his friendsthat he, a stranger, felt shocked at the neglect withwhich the Empress was treated during her last illness—deserted,of course, by the ladies of the court, whor*served their courtesies for the Princess Dolgorúki.

When the Executive Committee made the daringattempt to blow up the Winter Palace itself, AlexanderII. took a step which had no precedent. He created asort of dictatorship, vesting unlimited powers in Lóris(402)Mélikoff. This General was an Armenian, to whomAlexander II. had once before given similar dictatorialpowers, when the bubonic plague broke out on theLower Vólga, and Germany threatened to mobilize hertroops and put Russia under quarantine if the plaguewere not stopped. Now, when he saw that he could nothave confidence in the vigilance even of the Palace police,Alexander II. gave dictatorial powers to Lóris Mélikoff,and as Mélikoff had the reputation of being a Liberal,this new move was interpreted in the sense that theconvocation of a National Assembly would soon follow.However, no new attempts against his life having beenmade immediately after that explosion, he regainedconfidence, and a few months later, before Mélikoff hadbeen allowed to do anything, the dictator became simplya Minister of the Interior.

The sudden attacks of sadness of which I havealready spoken, during which Alexander II. reproachedhimself with the reactionary character his reign hadassumed, now took the shape of violent paroxysms oftears. He would sit weeping by the hour, fillingMélikoff with despair. Then he would ask his minister,‘When will your constitutional scheme be ready?’But if, two days later, Mélikoff said that it was ready,the Emperor seemed to have forgotten all about it.‘Did I mention it?’ he would ask. ‘What for? Wehad better leave it to my successor. That will be hisgift to Russia.’

When rumours of a new plot reached him, he wasready to undertake something, in order to give satisfactionto the Executive Committee; but when everythingseemed to be quiet among the revolutionists, heturned his ear again to his reactionary advisers, andlet things go. At any moment Mélikoff expected dismissal.

In February 1881 Mélikoff reported that a new plothad been laid by the Executive Committee, but its plan(403)could not be discovered by any amount of searching.Thereupon Alexander II. decided that a sort of consultativeassembly of delegates from the provinces shouldbe called. Always under the idea that he would sharethe fate of Louis XVI., he described this gathering as anAssemblée des Notables, like the one convoked by LouisXVI. before the National Assembly in 1789. Thescheme had to be laid before the council of state, butthen again he hesitated. It was only on the morningof March 1 (13), 1881, after a new warning by LórisMélikoff, that he ordered it to be brought before thecouncil on the following Thursday. This was on Sunday,and he was asked by Mélikoff not to go out to theparade that day, there being immediate danger of anattempt on his life. Nevertheless, he went. He wantedto see the Grand duch*ess Catherine (daughter of hisaunt, Hélène Pávlovna, who had been one of the leadersof the reform party in 1861), and to carry her thewelcome news, perhaps as an expiatory offering to thememory of the Empress Marie. He is said to have toldher, ‘Je me suis décidé à convoquer une Assemblée desNotables.’ However, this belated and half-hearted concessionhad not been announced, and on his way back tothe Winter Palace he was killed.

It is known how it happened. A bomb was thrownunder his iron-clad carriage, to stop it. Several Circassiansof the escort were wounded. Rysakóff, who flungthe bomb, was arrested on the spot. Then, although thecoachman of the Tsar earnestly advised him not to getout, saying that he could drive him still in the slightlydamaged carriage, he insisted upon alighting. He feltthat his military dignity required him to see the woundedCircassians, to condole with them as he had done withthe wounded during the Turkish war, when a mad stormingof Plevna, doomed to end in a terrible disaster, wasmade on the day of his fête. He approached Rysakóff andasked him something; and as he passed close by another(404)young man, Grinevétsky, who stood there with a bomb,Grinevétsky threw the bomb between himself and theTsar, so that both of them should be killed. Both werefearfully wounded, and lived but a few hours.

There Alexander II. lay upon the snow, abandoned byevery one of his followers! All had disappeared. Itwas some cadets, returning from the parade, who liftedthe dying Tsar and put him in a sledge, covering hisshivering body with a cadet mantle. And it was one ofthe terrorists, Emeliánoff, with a bomb wrapped in apaper under his arm, who, at the risk of being arrestedon the spot and hanged, rushed with the cadets to thehelp of the wounded man. Human nature is full of thesecontrasts.

Thus ended the tragedy of Alexander the Second’slife. People could not understand how it was possiblethat a Tsar who had done so much for Russia shouldhave met his death at the hands of revolutionists. Tome, who had the chance of witnessing the first reactionarysteps of Alexander II. and his gradual deterioration, whohad caught a glimpse of his complex personality, andseen in him a born autocrat, whose violence was butpartially mitigated by education, a man possessed ofmilitary gallantry, but devoid of the courage of thestatesman, a man of strong passions and weak will—itseemed that the tragedy developed with the unavoidablefatality of one of Shakespeare’s dramas. Its last act wasalready written for me on the day when I heard himaddress us, the promoted officers, on June 13, 1862, immediatelyafter he had ordered the first executions inPoland.

IX

A wild panic seized the court circles at St. Petersburg.Alexander III., who, notwithstanding his colossal statureand force, was not a very courageous man, refused to(405)move to the Winter Palace, and retired to the palace ofhis grandfather, Paul I., at Gatchina. I know that oldbuilding, planned as a Vauban fortress, surrounded bymoats and protected by watch towers, from the tops ofwhich secret staircases lead to the Emperor’s study. Ihave seen the trap-doors in the study for suddenly throwingan enemy on the sharp rocks in the water underneath,and the secret staircase leading to underground prisonsand to an underground passage which opens on a lake.All the palaces of Paul I. had been built on a similarplan. In the meantime, an underground gallery, suppliedwith automatic electric appliances to protect it from beingundermined by the revolutionists, was dug round theAníchkoff palace in which Alexander III. resided whenhe was heir-apparent.

A secret league for the protection of the Tsar wasstarted. Officers of all grades were induced by triplesalaries to join it, and to undertake voluntary spying inall classes of society. Amusing scenes followed, of course.Two officers, without knowing that they both belongedto the league, would entice each other into a disloyal conversation,during a railway journey, and then proceed toarrest each other, only to discover at the last moment thattheir pains had been labour lost. This league still existsin a more official shape, under the name of Okhrána(Protection), and from time to time frightens the presentTsar with all sorts of concocted dangers, in order to maintainits existence.

A still more secret organization, the Holy League, wasformed at the same time, under the leadership of thebrother of the Tsar, Vladímir, for the purpose of opposingthe revolutionists in different ways, one of whichwas to kill those of the refugees who were supposed tohave been the leaders of the late conspiracies. I was ofthis number. The grand duke violently reproached theofficers of the league for their cowardice, regretting thatthere were none among them who would undertake to(406)kill such refugees; and an officer, who had been a pagede chambre at the time I was in the corps of pages, wasappointed by the league to carry out this particular work.

The fact is that the refugees abroad did not interferewith the work of the Executive Committee at St. Petersburg.To pretend to direct conspiracies from Switzerland,while those who were at St. Petersburg acted under apermanent menace of death, would have been sheer nonsense;and as Stepniák and I wrote several times, noneof us would have accepted the dubious task of formingplans of action without being on the spot. But, of course,it suited the plans of the St. Petersburg police to maintainthat they were powerless to protect the Tsar becauseall plots were devised abroad, and their spies—I knowit well—amply supplied them with the desired reports.

Skóbeleff, the hero of the Turkish war, was also askedto join this league, but he blankly refused. It appearsfrom Lóris Mélikoff’s posthumous papers, part of whichwere published by a friend of his at London, that whenAlexander III. came to the throne, and hesitated to convokethe Assembly of Notables, Skóbeleff even made anoffer to Lóris Mélikoff and Count Ignátieff (‘the lyingPasha,’ as the Constantinople diplomatists used to nicknamehim) to arrest Alexander III., and compel him tosign a constitutional manifesto; whereupon Ignátieff issaid to have denounced the scheme to the Tsar, and thusto have obtained his nomination as prime minister, inwhich capacity he resorted, with the advice of M. Andrieux,the ex-prefect of police at Paris, to various stratagemsin order to paralyze the revolutionists.

If the Russian Liberals had shown even moderatecourage and some power of organized action at thattime, a National Assembly would have been convoked.From the same posthumous papers of Lóris Mélikoff,it appears that Alexander III. was willing for a timeto convoke a National Assembly. He had made up hismind to do so, and had announced it to his brother. Old(407)Wilhelm I. supported him in this intention. It was onlywhen he saw that the Liberals undertook nothing, whilethe Katkóff party was busy at work in the oppositedirection—M. Andrieux advising him to crush the nihilistsand indicating how it ought to be done (the ex-prefect’sletter to this effect was published in the saidpapers)—that Alexander III. finally resolved on declaringthat he would continue to be an absolute ruler ofthe Empire.

A few months after the death of Alexander II. Iwas expelled from Switzerland by order of the federalcouncil. I did not take umbrage at this. Assailed bythe monarchical powers on account of the asylum whichSwitzerland offered to refugees, and menaced by theRussian official press with a wholesale expulsion of allSwiss governesses and ladies’ maids, who are numerousin Russia, the rulers of Switzerland, by banishing me,gave some sort of satisfaction to the Russian police.But I very much regret, for the sake of Switzerland itself,that that step was taken. It was a sanction given tothe theory of ‘conspiracies concocted in Switzerland,’and it was an acknowledgment of weakness, of whichother powers took advantage at once. Two years later,when Jules Ferry proposed to Italy and Germany thepartition of Switzerland, his argument must have beenthat the Swiss Government itself had admitted thatSwitzerland was ‘a hotbed of international conspiracies.’This first concession led to more arrogant demands,and has certainly placed Switzerland in a far less independentposition than it might otherwise have occupied.

The decree of expulsion was delivered to me immediatelyafter I had returned from London, whereI was present at an anarchist congress in July 1881.After that congress I had stayed for a few weeks inEngland, writing the first articles on Russian affairs fromour standpoint, for the ‘Newcastle Chronicle.’ TheEnglish press, at that time, was an echo of the opinions(408)of Madame Novikóff—that is, of Katkóff and the Russianstate police—and I was most happy when Mr. JosephCowen agreed to give me the hospitality of his paperin order to state our point of view.

I had just joined my wife in the high mountainswhere she was staying, near the abode of Elisée Reclus,when I was asked to leave Switzerland. We sent thelittle luggage we had to the next railway station andwent on foot to Aigle, enjoying for the last time thesight of the mountains that we loved so much. Wecrossed the hills by taking short cuts over them, andlaughed when we discovered that the short cuts led tolong windings; and when we reached the bottom ofthe valley, we tramped along the dusty road. Thecomical incident which always comes in such caseswas supplied by an English lady. A richly dresseddame, reclining by the side of a gentleman in a hiredcarriage, threw several tracts to the two poorly dressedtramps, as she passed them. I lifted the tracts fromthe dust. She was evidently one of those ladies whobelieve themselves to be Christians, and consider it theirduty to distribute religious tracts among ‘dissoluteforeigners.’ Thinking we were sure to overtake thelady at the railway station, I wrote on one of the pamphletsthe well-known verse relative to the rich and theKingdom of God, and similarly appropriate quotationsabout the Pharisees being the worst enemies of Christianity.When we came to Aigle, the lady was takingrefreshments in her carriage. She evidently preferredto continue the journey in this vehicle along the lovelyvalley, rather than to be shut up in a stuffy railwaytrain. I returned her the pamphlets with politeness,saying that I had added to them something that shemight find useful for her own instruction. The ladydid not know whether to fly at me or to accept thelesson with Christian patience. Her eyes expressedboth impulses in rapid succession.

(409)

My wife was about to pass her examination for thedegree of Bachelor of Science at the Geneva University,and we settled, therefore, in a tiny town of France,Thonon, situated on the Savoy coast of the Lake ofGeneva, and stayed there a couple of months.

As to the death sentence of the Holy League, awarning reached me from one of the highest quartersof Russia. Even the name of the lady who was sentfrom St. Petersburg to Geneva to be the head centre ofthe conspiracy became known to me. So I simplycommunicated the fact to the Geneva correspondentof the ‘Times,’ asking him to publish the informationif anything should happen, and I put a note to thateffect in ‘Le Révolté.’ After that I did not troublemyself more about it. My wife did not take it so lightly,and the good peasant woman, Madame Sansaux, whogave us board and lodgings at Thonon, and who hadlearned of the plot in a different way (through her sister,who was a nurse in the family of a Russian agent), bestowedthe most touching care upon me. Her cottagewas out of town, and whenever I went to town at night—sometimesto meet my wife at the railway station—shealways found a pretext to have me accompanied byher husband with a lantern. ‘Wait only a moment,Monsieur Kropótkin,’ she would say; ‘my husband isgoing that way for purchases, and you know he alwayscarries a lantern!’ Or else she would send her brotherto follow me at a distance, without my noticing it.

X

In October or November 1881, as soon as my wife hadpassed her examination, we removed from Thonon toLondon, where we stayed nearly twelve months. Fewyears separate us from that time, and yet I can say thatthe intellectual life of London and of all England was(410)quite different then from what it became a little later.Everyone knows that in the forties England stood almostat the head of the socialist movement in Europe; butduring the years of reaction that followed, this greatmovement, which had deeply affected the working classes,and in which all that is now put forward as scientific oranarchist socialism had already been said, came to astandstill. It was forgotten in England as well as onthe Continent, and what the French writers describeas ‘the third awakening of the proletarians’ had notyet begun in Britain. The labours of the agriculturalcommission of 1871, the propaganda amongst theagricultural labourers, and the previous efforts of theChristian socialists had certainly done something to preparethe way; but the outburst of socialist feeling inEngland which followed the publication of HenryGeorge’s ‘Progress and Poverty’ had not yet takenplace.

The year that I then passed in London was a yearof real exile. For one who held advanced socialistopinions, there was no atmosphere to breathe in. Therewas no sign of that animated socialist movement whichI found so largely developed on my return in 1886.Burns, Champion, Hardie, and the other labour leaderswere not yet heard of; the Fabians did not exist;Morris had not declared himself a socialist; and thetrade unions, limited in London to a few privilegedtrades only, were hostile to socialism. The only activeand outspoken representatives of the socialist movementwere Mr. and Mrs. Hyndman, with a very few workersgrouped round them. They had held in the autumn of1881 a small congress, and we used to say jokingly—butit was very nearly true—that Mrs. Hyndman had receivedall the congress in her house. Moreover, themore or less socialist radical movement which was certainlygoing on in the minds of men did not assertit*elf frankly and openly. That considerable number of(411)educated men and women who appeared in public lifefour years later, and, without committing themselves tosocialism, took part in various movements connectedwith the well-being or the education of the masses, andwho have now created in almost every city of Englandand Scotland a quite new atmosphere of reform and anew society of reformers, had not then made themselvesfelt. They were there, of course; they thought andspoke; all the elements for a widespread movementwere in existence; but, finding none of those centres ofattraction which the socialist groups subsequently became,they were lost in the crowd; they did not knowone another, or remained unconscious of their ownselves.

Tchaykóvsky was then in London, and, as in yearspast, we began a socialist propaganda amongst theworkers. Aided by a few English workers whose acquaintancewe had made at the congress of 1881, orwhom the prosecutions against John Most had attractedto the socialists, we went to the Radical clubs, speakingabout Russian affairs, the movement of our youth towardthe people, and socialism in general. We had ridiculouslysmall audiences, seldom consisting of more thana dozen men. Occasionally some grey-bearded Chartistwould rise from the audience and tell us that all wewere saying had been said forty years before, and wasgreeted then with enthusiasm by crowds of workers, butthat now all was dead, and there was no hope of revivingit.

Mr. Hyndman had just published his excellent expositionof Marxist socialism under the title of ‘Englandfor All’; and I remember, one day in the summer of1882, earnestly advising him to start a socialist paper.I told him with what small means we began editing ‘LeRévolté,’ and predicted a certain success if he wouldmake the attempt. But so unpromising was the generaloutlook, that even he thought the undertaking would be(412)a certain failure, unless he had the means to defray allits expenses. Perhaps he was right; but when, less thanthree years later, he started ‘Justice,’ it found a heartysupport among the workers, and early in 1886 therewere three socialist papers, and the Social DemocraticFederation was an influential body.

In the summer of 1882 I spoke, in broken English,before the Durham miners at their annual gathering; Idelivered lectures at Newcastle, Glasgow, and Edinburghabout the Russian movement, and was received withenthusiasm, a crowd of workers giving hearty cheersfor the Nihilists, after the meeting, in the street. Butmy wife and I felt so lonely at London, and our effortsto awaken a socialist movement in England seemed sohopeless, that in the autumn of 1882 we decided toremove again to France. We were sure that in FranceI should soon be arrested; but we often said to eachother, ‘Better a French prison than this grave.’

Those who are prone to speak of the slowness ofevolution ought to study the development of socialism inEngland. Evolution is slow; but its rate is not uniform.It has its periods of slumber and its periods of suddenprogress.

XI

We settled once more in Thonon, taking lodgings withour former hostess, Madame Sansaux. A brother of mywife, who was dying of consumption, and had come toSwitzerland, joined us.

I never saw such numbers of Russian spies as duringthe two months that I remained at Thonon. To beginwith, as soon as we had engaged lodgings, a suspiciouscharacter, who gave himself out for an Englishman, tookthe other part of the house. Flocks, literally flocks ofRussian spies besieged the house, seeking admission(413)under all possible pretexts, or simply tramping in pairs,trios, and quartettes in front of the house. I canimagine what wonderful reports they wrote. A spymust report. If he should merely say that he has stoodfor a week in the street without noticing anythingmysterious, he would soon be put on the half-pay list ordismissed.

It was then the golden age of the Russian secretpolice. Ignátieff’s policy had borne fruit. There weretwo or three bodies of police competing with one another,each having any amount of money at their disposal, andcarrying on the boldest intrigues. Colonel Sudéikin,for instance, chief of one of the branches—plotting witha certain Degáeff, who after all killed him—denouncedIgnátieff’s agents to the revolutionists, and offered tothe terrorists all facilities for killing the minister of theinterior, Count Tolstóy, and the Grand Duke Vladímir;adding that he himself would then be nominated ministerof the interior, with dictatorial powers, and the Tsarwould be entirely in his hands. This activity of theRussian police culminated, later on, in the kidnappingof the Prince of Battenberg from Bulgaria.

The French police, also, were on the alert. Thequestion, ‘What is he doing at Thonon?’ worried them.I continued to edit ‘Le Révolté,’ and wrote articles forthe ‘Encyclopædia Britannica’ and the ‘NewcastleChronicle.’ But what reports could be made out ofthat? One day the local gendarme paid a visit to mylandlady. He had heard from the street the rattlingof some machine, and wished to report that I had inthe house a secret printing press. So he came in myabsence and asked the landlady to show him the press.She replied that there was none, and suggested thatperhaps the gendarme had overheard the noise of hersewing-machine. But he would not be convinced byso prosaic an explanation, and actually compelled thelandlady to use the machine, while he listened inside(414)the house and outside, to make sure that the rattling hehad heard was the same.

‘What is he doing all day?’ he asked the landlady.

‘He writes.’

‘He cannot write all day long.’

‘He saws wood in the garden at midday, and hetakes walks every afternoon between four and five.’ Itwas in November.

‘Ah, that’s it! When the dusk is coming on?’ (Ala tombée de la nuit?) And he wrote in his note-book,‘Never goes out except at dusk.’

I could not well explain at that time this specialattention of the Russian spies; but it must have hadsome connection with the following. When Ignátieffwas nominated prime minister, advised by the ex-prefectof Paris, Andrieux, he hit on a new plan. He sent aswarm of his agents into Switzerland, and one of themundertook the publication of a paper which slightly advocatedthe extension of provincial self-government inRussia, but whose chief purpose was to combat the revolutionists,and to rally to its standard those of therefugees who did not sympathize with terrorism. Thiswas certainly a means of sowing division. Then, whennearly all the members of the Executive Committeehad been arrested in Russia, and a couple of them hadtaken refuge at Paris, Ignátieff sent an agent to Paristo offer an armistice. He promised that there shouldbe no further executions on account of the plots duringthe reign of Alexander II., even if those who had escapedarrest fell into the hands of the government; thatChernyshévsky should be released from Siberia; andthat a commission should be nominated to revise thecases of all those who had been exiled to Siberia withouttrial. On the other side, he asked the ExecutiveCommittee to promise to make no attempts against theTsar’s life until his coronation was over. Perhaps thereforms in favour of the peasants, which Alexander III.(415)intended to make, were also mentioned. The agreementwas made at Paris, and was kept on both sides.The terrorists suspended hostilities. Nobody was executedfor complicity in the former conspiracies; thosewho were arrested later on under this indictment wereimmured in the Russian Bastille at Schlüsselburg, wherenothing was heard of them for fifteen years, and wheremost of them still are. Chernyshévsky was broughtback from Siberia, and ordered to stay at Astrakhan,where he was severed from all connection with the intellectualworld of Russia, and soon died. A commissionwent through Siberia, releasing some of the exiles, andspecifying terms of exile for the remainder. My brotherAlexander received from it an additional five years.

While I was at London, in 1882, I was also told oneday that a man who pretended to be a bonâ fide agent ofthe Russian government, and could prove it, wanted toenter into negotiations with me. ‘Tell him that if hecomes to my house I will throw him down the staircase,’was my reply. The consequence of it was, I suppose,that while Ignátieff considered the Tsar guaranteed fromthe attacks of the Executive Committee, he thought thatthe anarchists might make some attempt and wantedtherefore to have me out of the way.

XII

The anarchist movement had taken a considerable developmentin France during the years 1881 and 1882.It was generally believed that the French mind washostile to communism, and within the InternationalWorkingmen’s Association ‘collectivism’ was preachedinstead. Collectivism meant then the possession of theinstruments of production in common, each separategroup having, however, to settle for itself whether theconsumption of produce should be on individualistic or(416)communistic lines. In reality, the French mind washostile only to the monastic communism, to the phalanstèreof the old schools. When the Jura Federation,at its congress of 1880, boldly declared itself anarchist-communist—thatis, in favour of free communism—anarchismwon wide sympathy in France. Our paperbegan to spread in that country, letters were exchangedin great numbers with French workers, and an anarchistmovement of importance rapidly developed at Paris andin some of the provinces, especially in the Lyons region.When I crossed France in 1881, on my way fromThonon to London, I visited Lyons, St. Etienne, andVienne, lecturing there, and I found in these cities a considerablenumber of workers ready to accept our ideas.

By the end of 1882 a terrible crisis prevailed in theLyons region. The silk industry was paralysed, andthe misery among the weavers was so great that crowdsof children stood every morning at the gates of thebarracks, where the soldiers gave away what they couldspare of their bread and soup. This was the beginningof the popularity of General Boulanger, who hadpermitted this distribution of food. The miners of theregion were also in a very precarious state.

I knew that there was a great deal of fermentation,but during the eleven months I had stayed at London Ihad lost close contact with the French movement. A fewweeks after I returned to Thonon I learned from thepapers that the miners of Monceau-les-Mines, incensed atthe vexations of the ultra-Catholic owners of the mines,had begun a sort of movement; they were holding secretmeetings, talking of a general strike; the stone crosseserected on all the roads round the mines were throwndown or blown up by dynamite cartridges, which arelargely used by the miners in underground work, andoften remain in their possession. The agitation at Lyonsalso took a more violent character. The anarchists, whowere rather numerous in the city, allowed no meeting of(417)the opportunist politicians to be held without obtaining ahearing for themselves—storming the platform, as a lastresource. They brought forward resolutions to the effectthat the mines and all necessaries for production, as wellas the dwelling-houses, ought to be owned by the nation;and these resolutions were carried with enthusiasm, tothe horror of the middle classes.

The feeling among the workers was growing every dayagainst the opportunist town councillors and political leadersas also against the Press, who made light of a very acutecrisis, and undertook nothing to relieve the widespreadmisery. As is usual at such times, the fury of the poorerpeople turned especially against the places of amusem*ntand debauch, which become only the more conspicuousin times of desolation and misery, as they impersonatefor the worker the egotism and dissoluteness of thewealthier classes. A place particularly hated by theworkers was the underground café at the Théatre Bellecour,which remained open all night, and where, in thesmall hours of the morning, one could see newspaper menand politicians feasting and drinking in company with gaywomen. Not a meeting was held but some menacing allusionwas made to that café, and one night a dynamitecartridge was exploded in it by an unknown hand. Asocialist working-man, who was occasionally there, jumpedto blow out the lighted fuse of the cartridge, and waskilled, while a few of the feasting politicians were slightlywounded. Next day a dynamite cartridge was explodedat the doors of a recruiting bureau, and it was said thatthe anarchists intended to blow up the huge statue of theVirgin which stands on one of the hills of Lyons. Onemust have lived at Lyons or in its neighbourhood torealize the extent to which the population and the schoolsare still in the hands of the Catholic clergy, and to understandthe hatred that the male portion of the populationfeel toward the clergy.

A panic now seized the wealthier classes of Lyons.(418)Some sixty anarchists—all workers, and only one middle-classman, Emile Gautier, who was on a lecturing tour inthe region—were arrested. The Lyons papers undertookat the same time to incite the government to arrest me,representing me as the leader of the agitation, who hadcome from England in order to direct the movement.Russian spies began to parade again in conspicuous numbersin our small town. Almost every day I receivedletters, evidently written by spies of the internationalpolice, mentioning some dynamite plot, or mysteriouslyannouncing that consignments of dynamite had beenshipped to me. I made quite a collection of these letters,writing on each of them ‘Police Internationale,’ and theywere taken away by the police when they made a searchin my house. But they did not dare to produce theseletters in court, nor did they ever restore them to me. InDecember, the house where I stayed was searched inRussian fashion, and my wife, who was going to Geneva,was arrested at the station in Thonon, and also searched.But of course nothing was found to compromise me oranyone else.

Ten days passed, during which I was quite free to goaway, if I had wished to do so. I received several lettersadvising me to disappear—one of them from an unknownRussian friend, perhaps a member of the diplomatic staff,who seemed to have known me, and who wrote that Imust leave at once, because otherwise I should be thefirst victim of an extradition treaty which was about tobe concluded between France and Russia. I remainedwhere I was; and when the ‘Times’ inserted a telegramsaying that I had disappeared from Thonon, I wrote aletter to the paper giving my address, and declaring thatsince so many of my friends were arrested I had no intentionof leaving.

In the night of December 21, my brother-in-law diedin my arms. We knew that his illness was incurable, butto see a young life extinguished in your presence, after a(419)brave struggle against death, is terrible. We both werequite broken down. Three or four hours later, as the dullwinter morning was dawning, gendarmes came to the houseto arrest me. Seeing in what a state my wife was, I askedto remain with her till the burial was over, promisingupon my word of honour to be at the prison door at agiven hour; but this was refused, and the same night Iwas taken to Lyons. Elisée Reclus, notified by telegraph,came at once, bestowing on my wife all the gentleness ofhis great heart; friends came from Geneva; and althoughthe funeral was an absolutely civil one, which was anovelty in that little town, half of the population was atthe burial, to show my wife that the hearts of the poorerclasses and the simple Savoy peasants were with us, andnot with their rulers. When my trial was going on, thepeasants followed it with sympathy, and used to comeevery day from the mountain villages to town to get thepapers.

Another incident which profoundly touched me was thearrival at Lyons of an English friend. He came on behalfof a gentleman well known and esteemed in the Englishpolitical world, in whose family I had spent many happyhours at London in 1882. He was the bearer of a considerablesum of money for the purpose of obtaining myrelease on bail, and he transmitted me at the same timethe message of my London friend that I need not care inthe least about the bail, but must leave France immediately.In some mysterious way he managed to see mefreely—not in the double-grated iron cage in which I wasallowed interviews with my wife—and he was as much affectedby my refusal to accept the offer he came to makeas I was by this touching token of friendship on the part ofone who, with his wonderfully excellent wife, I had alreadylearnt to esteem so highly.

The French government wanted to have one of thosegreat trials which produce an impression upon the population,but there was no possibility of prosecuting the(420)arrested anarchists for the explosions. It would have requiredbringing us before a jury, which in all probabilitywould have acquitted us. Consequently, the governmentadopted the Machiavellian course of prosecutingus for having belonged to the International Workingmen’sAssociation. There is in France a law, passedimmediately after the fall of the Commune, under whichmen can be brought before a simple police court forhaving belonged to that association. The maximumpenalty is five years’ imprisonment; and a police courtis always sure to pronounce the sentences which arewanted by the government.

The trial began at Lyons in the first days of January1883, and lasted about a fortnight. The accusation wasridiculous, as everyone knew that none of the Lyonsworkers had ever joined the International, and it entirelyfell through, as may be seen from the followingepisode. The only witness for the prosecution was thechief of the secret police at Lyons, an elderly man, whowas treated at the court with the utmost respect. Hisreport, I must say, was quite correct as concerns thefacts. The anarchists, he said, had taken hold of thepopulation, they had rendered opportunist meetings impossiblebecause they spoke at each such meeting,preaching communism and anarchism, and carrying withthem the audiences. Seeing that so far he had been fairin his testimony, I ventured to ask him a question:‘Did you ever hear the name of the International Workingmen’sAssociation spoken of at Lyons?’

‘Never,’ he replied sulkily.

‘When I returned from the London congress of 1881,and did all I could to have the International reconstitutedin France, did I succeed?’

‘No. They did not find it revolutionary enough.’

‘Thank you,’ I said, and turning toward the procureurI added, ‘There you have all your case overthrown byyour own witness!’

(421)

Nevertheless, we were all condemned for havingbelonged to the International. Four of us got themaximum sentence, five years’ imprisonment and ahundred pounds’ fine; the remainder got from fouryears to one year. In fact, our accusers never tried toprove anything concerning the International. It wasquite forgotten. We were simply asked to speak aboutanarchism, and so we did. Not a word was said aboutthe explosions; and when one or two of the Lyonscomrades wanted to have this point cleared up, theywere bluntly told that they were not prosecuted for that,but for having belonged to the International—to which Ialone belonged.

There is always some comical incident in such trials,and this time it was supplied by a letter of mine. Therewas nothing upon which to base the whole accusation.Scores of searches had been made at the French anarchists’,but only two letters of mine had been found.The prosecution tried to make the best of them. Onewas written to a French worker, who felt despondentand disheartened. I spoke to him in my letter about thegreat times we were living in, the great changes coming,the birth and spreading of new ideas, and so on. Theletter was not long, and little capital was made out of itby the procureur. As to the other letter, it was twelvepages long. I had written it to another French friend,a young shoemaker. He earned his living by makingshoes in his own room for a shop. On his left side heused to have a small iron stove, upon which he himselfcooked his daily meal, and upon his right a small stoolupon which he wrote long letters to the comrades, withoutleaving his shoemaker’s low bench. After he had madejust as many pairs of shoes as were required for coveringthe expenses of his extremely modest living, and forsending a few francs to his old mother in the country, hewould spend long hours in writing letters in which hedeveloped the theoretical principles of anarchism with(422)admirable good sense and intelligence. He is now awriter, well known in France and generally respected forthe integrity of his character. Unfortunately, at thattime he would cover eight or twelve pages of notepaperwithout having put one single full-stop, or even a comma.I once sat down and wrote a long letter in which I explainedto him how our thoughts subdivide into groupsof sentences, which must be marked by full-stops; intoseparate sentences which must be separated by stops,and finally into secondary ones which deserve the charityof being marked at least with commas. I told him howmuch it would improve his writings if he took this simpleprecaution.

This letter was read by the prosecutor before thecourt, and elicited from him most pathetic comments:‘You have heard, gentlemen, this letter’—he went on,addressing the court. ‘You have listened to it. Thereis nothing particular in it at first sight. He gives alesson of grammar to a worker.... But’—and here hisvoice vibrated with accents of deep emotion—‘it was notin order to help a poor worker in instruction which he,owing probably to his laziness, failed to get at school.It was not to help him in earning an honest living....No, gentlemen—it was written in order to inspire himwith hatred for our grand and beautiful institutions, inorder only the better to infuse him with the venom ofanarchism, in order to make of him only a more terribleenemy of society.... Cursed be the day that Kropótkinput his foot on the soil of France!’ he exclaimed with awonderful pathos.

We could not help laughing like boys all the time hedelivered that speech; the judges stared at him as if totell him that he was overdoing his rôle, but he seemednot to notice anything, and, carried on by his eloquence,he went on speaking with more and more theatricalgestures and intonations. He really did his best toobtain his reward from the Russian government.

(423)

Very soon after the condemnation the presidingmagistrate was promoted to the magistracy of an assizecourt. As to the procureur and another magistrate—onewould hardly believe it—the Russian government offeredthem the Russian cross of Sainte-Anne, and they wereallowed by the republic to accept it! The famousRussian alliance had thus its origin in the Lyons trial.

This trial, which lasted a fortnight, during whichmost brilliant anarchist speeches, reported by all thepapers, were made by such first-rate speakers as theworker Bernard and Emile Gautier, and during whichall the accused took a very firm attitude, preaching allthe time our doctrines, had a powerful influence in spreadinganarchist ideas in France, and assuredly contributedto some extent to the revival of socialism in othercountries. As to the condemnation, it was so littlejustified by the proceedings that the French Press—withthe exception of the papers devoted to the government—openlyblamed the magistrates. Even the moderate‘Journal des Economistes’ blamed the condemnation,which ‘nothing in the proceedings of the court couldhave made one foresee.’ The contest between the accusersand ourselves was won by us, in the public opinion.Immediately a proposition of amnesty was brought beforethe Chamber, and received about a hundred votes in supportof it. It came up regularly every year, each timesecuring more and more votes, until we were released.

XIII

The trial was over, but I remained for another coupleof months at the Lyons prison. Most of my comradeshad lodged an appeal against the decision of the policecourt and we had to wait for its results. With four morecomrades I refused to take any part in that appeal to ahigher court, and continued to work in my pistole. A(424)great friend of mine, Martin—a clothier from Vienne—tookanother pistole by the side of the one which I occupied,and as we were already condemned, we were allowedto take our walks together; and when we had somethingto say to each other between the walks, we used to correspondby means of taps on the wall, just as in Russia.

Already during my sojourn at Lyons I began torealize the awfully demoralising influence of the prisonsupon the prisoners, which brought me later to condemnunconditionally the whole institution.

The Lyons prison is a ‘modern’ prison, built inthe shape of a star, on the cellular system. The spacesbetween the rays of the star-like building are occupiedby small asphalte-paved yards, and, weather permitting,the inmates are taken to these yards to work outdoors.They mostly beat out the unwound silk cocoons to obtainfloss silk. Flocks of children are also taken at certainhours to these yards. Thin, emasculated, underfed—theshadows of children—I often watched them from mywindow. Anæmia was plainly written on all the littlefaces and manifest in their thin, shivering bodies; andnot only in the dormitories but also in the yards, in thefull light of the sun, they themselves increased theiranæmia. What will become of these children after theyhave passed through that schooling and come out withtheir health ruined, their will annihilated, their energyweakened? Anæmia, with its weakened energy and unwillingnessto work, its enfeebled will, weakened intellect,and perverted imagination, is responsible for crime to aninfinitely greater extent than plethora, and it is preciselythis enemy of the human race which is bred inprison. And then, the teachings which the children receivein these surroundings! Mere isolation, even ifit were rigorously carried out—and it cannot be—wouldbe of little avail; the whole atmosphere of every prisonis an atmosphere of glorification of that sort of gamblingin ‘clever strokes’ which constitutes the very essence of(425)theft, swindling, and all sorts of similar anti-social deeds.Whole generations of future prisoners are bred in thesenurseries which the state supports and society tolerates,simply because it does not want to hear its own diseasesspoken of and dissected. ‘Imprisoned in childhood:prison-bird for life,’ was what I heard afterwards fromall those who were interested in criminal matters. Andwhen I saw these children and realized what they hadto expect in the future, I could not but continually askmyself: ‘Which of them is the worst criminal—this childor the judge who condemns every year hundreds of childrento this fate?’ I gladly admit that the crime of thesejudges is unconscious. But are, then, all the ‘crimes’ forwhich people are sent to prison as conscious as they aresupposed to be?

There was another point which I vividly realized sincethe very first weeks of my imprisonment, but which, insome inconceivable way, escapes the attention of boththe judges and the writers on criminal law—namely,that imprisonment in an immense number of cases isa punishment which strikes quite innocent people farmore severely than the condemned prisoners themselves.

Nearly every one of my comrades, who representeda fair average of the working-men population, hadeither their wife and children to support, or a sister oran old mother who depended for their living upon hisearnings. Now, being left without support, these womendid their best to get work, and some of them got it, butnone of them succeeded in earning regularly even asmuch as fifteen pence a day. Nine francs (less thaneight shillings), and often six shillings a week, to supportthemselves and their children was all they couldearn. And that meant evidently underfeeding, privationsof all sorts, and the deterioration of the health ofthe wife and the children: weakened intellect, weakenedenergy and will. I thus realized that what was goingon in our law courts was in reality a condemnation of(426)quite innocent people to all sorts of hardships, in mostcases even worse than those to which the condemnedman himself is submitted. The fiction is that the lawpunishes the man by inflicting upon him a variety ofphysical and degrading hardships. But man is such acreature that whatever hardships be imposed upon him,he gradually grows accustomed to them. As he cannotmodify them he accepts them, and after a certain timehe puts up with them, just as he puts up with a chronicdisease, and grows insensible to it. But what, duringhis imprisonment, becomes of his wife and children, thatis, of the innocent people who depend upon him forsupport? They are punished even more cruelly than hehimself is. And in our routine habits of thought no oneever thinks of the immense injustice which is thus committed.I realized it only from actual experience.

In the middle of March 1883, twenty-two of us whohad been condemned to more than one year of imprisonment,were removed in great secrecy to the centralprison of Clairvaux. It was formerly an abbey of St.Bernard, of which the great Revolution had made ahouse for the poor. Subsequently it became a house ofdetention and correction, which went among the prisonersand the officials themselves under the well-deserved nicknameof ‘house of detention and corruption.’

So long as we were kept at Lyons we were treatedas the prisoners under preliminary arrest are treated inFrance; that is, we had our own clothes, we could getour own food from a restaurant, and one could hire fora few francs per month a larger cell, a pistole. I tookadvantage of this for working hard upon my articles forthe ‘Encyclopædia Britannica’ and the ‘NineteenthCentury.’ Now, the treatment we should have at Clairvauxwas an open question. However, in France it isgenerally understood that, for political prisoners, theloss of liberty and forced inactivity are in themselves(427)so hard that there is no need to inflict additional hardships.Consequently, we were told that we should remainunder the régime of preliminary detention. Weshould have separate quarters, retain our own clothes,be free from compulsory work, and be allowed to smoke.‘Those of you,’ the governor said, ‘who wish to earnsomething by manual work, will be enabled to do so bysewing stays or engraving small things in mother-of-pearl.This work is poorly paid; but you could not beemployed in the prison workshops for the fabrication ofiron beds, picture frames, and so on, because that wouldrequire your lodging with the common-law prisoners.’Like the other prisoners we were allowed to buy fromthe prison canteen some additional food and a pint ofclaret every day, both being supplied at a very low priceand of good quality.

The first impression which Clairvaux produced uponme was most favourable. We had been locked up andhad been travelling all the day, from two or three o’clockin the morning, in those tiny cupboards into which thecellular railway carriages are usually divided. When wereached the central prison we were taken temporarily tothe cellular, or punishment quarters, and were introducedinto the usual but extremely clean cells. Hot food, plainbut of excellent quality, had been served to us notwithstandingthe late hour of the night, and we had beenoffered the opportunity of having the half-pint of verygood vin du pays (local wine) which was sold to theprisoners by the prison canteen, at the extremely lowprice of 24 centimes (less than 2½d.) per quart. Thegovernor and the warders were most polite to us.

Next day the governor of the prison took me to seethe rooms which he intended to give us, and when I remarkedthat they were all right but only a little toosmall for such a number—we were twenty-two—andthat overcrowding might result in illness, he gave usanother set of rooms in what was in olden times the(428)house of the superintendent of the abbey, and now wasthe hospital. Our windows looked out upon a littlegarden, and beyond it we had beautiful views of the surroundingcountry. In another room on the same landingold Blanqui had been kept the last three or fouryears before his release. Before that he had been imprisonedin the cellular house.

Besides the three spacious rooms which were givento us, a smaller room was spared for Gautier and myself,so that we could pursue our literary work. We probablyowed this last favour to the intervention of a considerablenumber of English men of science who, as soon asI was condemned, had addressed a petition to the Presidentasking for my release. Many contributors to the‘Encyclopædia Britannica,’ as well as Herbert Spencerand Swinburne, had signed, while Victor Hugo hadadded to his signature a few warm words. Altogether,public opinion in France received our condemnationvery unfavourably; and when my wife had mentionedat Paris that I required books, the Academy of Sciencesoffered the use of its library, and Ernest Renan, in acharming letter, put his private library at her service.

We had a small garden, where we could play nine-pinsor jeu de boules. We managed, moreover, to cultivatea narrow bed running along the wall, and, on asurface of some eighty square yards, we grew almost incrediblequantities of lettuces and radishes, as well assome flowers. I need not say that we at once organizedclasses, and during the three years that we remained atClairvaux I gave my comrades lessons in cosmography,geometry, or physics, also aiding them in the study oflanguages. Nearly every one learned at least onelanguage—English, German, Italian, or Spanish—whilea few learned two. We also managed to do some book-binding,having learned how from one of those excellentEncyclopédie Roret booklets.

At the end of the first year, however, my health(429)again gave way. Clairvaux is built on marshy ground,upon which malaria is endemic, and malaria, with scurvy,laid hold of me. Then my wife, who was studying atParis, working in Würtz’s laboratory and preparing totake an examination for the degree of Doctor of Science,abandoned everything, and came to stay in the hamlet ofClairvaux, which consists of less than a dozen housesgrouped at the foot of an immense high wall whichencircles the prison. Of course, her life in that hamlet,with the prison wall opposite, was anything but gay;yet she stayed there till I was released. During thefirst year she was allowed to see me only once in twomonths, and all interviews were held in the presence ofa warder, who sat between us. But when she settled atClairvaux, declaring her firm intention to remain there,she was soon permitted to see me every day, in one ofthe small guard-houses of the warders, within the prisonwalls, and food was brought me from the inn where shestayed. Later, we were even allowed to take a walk inthe governor’s garden, closely watched all the time, andusually one of my comrades joined us in the walk.

I was quite astonished to discover that the centralprison of Clairvaux had all the aspects of a small manufacturingtown, surrounded by orchards and cornfields,all encircled by an outer wall. The fact is that if in aFrench central prison the inmates are perhaps more dependentupon the fancies and caprices of the governor andthe warders than they seem to be in English prisons, thetreatment of the prisoners is far more humane than it isin the corresponding lock-ups on this side of the Channel.The mediæval spirit of revenge which still prevails inEnglish prisons has long since been given up in France.The imprisoned man is not compelled to sleep on planks,or to have a mattress on alternate days only; the day hecomes to the prison he gets a decent bed and retains it.He is not compelled either to do degrading work, suchas to climb a wheel, or to pick oakum; he is employed, on(430)the contrary, in useful work, and this is why the Clairvauxprison has the aspect of a manufacturing town in which ironfurniture, picture-frames, looking-glasses, metric measures,velvet, linen, ladies’ stays, small things in mother-of-pearl,wooden shoes, and so on, are fabricated by the nearly1,600 men who are kept there.

Moreover, if the punishment for insubordination isvery cruel, there is none of the flogging which still goeson in English prisons: such a punishment would be absolutelyimpossible in France. Altogether, the centralprison at Clairvaux may be described as one of the bestprisons in Europe. And yet, the results obtained at Clairvauxare as bad as in any one of the lock-ups of the oldtype. ‘The watchword nowadays is to say that prisonersare reformed in our prisons,’ one of the members of theprison administration once said to me. ‘This is all nonsense,and I shall never be induced to tell such a lie.’

The pharmacy at Clairvaux was underneath the roomswhich we occupied, and we occasionally had some contactwith the prisoners who were employed in it. One of themwas a grey-haired man in his fifties, who ended his termwhile we were there. It was touching to learn how heparted with the prison. He knew that in a few monthsor weeks he would be back, and begged the doctor tokeep the place at the pharmacy open for him. This wasnot his first visit to Clairvaux, and he knew it wouldnot be the last. When he was set free he had not a soulin the world to whom he might go to spend his old age.‘Who will care to employ me?’ he said. ‘And whattrade have I? None! When I am out I must go to myold comrades; they, at least, will surely receive me as anold friend.’ Then would come a glass too much of drinkin their company, excited talk about some capital fun—somecapital ‘new stroke’ to be made in the way of theft—and,partly from weakness of will, partly to oblige hisonly friends, he would join in it, and would be locked up(431)once more. So it had been several times before in hislife. Two months passed, however, after his release, andhe was not yet back to Clairvaux. Then the prisoners,and the warders too, began to feel uneasy about him.‘Has he had time to move to another judicial district, thathe is not yet back? One can only hope that he has notbeen involved in some bad affair,’ they would say, meaningsomething worse than theft. ‘That would be a pity:he was such a nice, quiet man.’ But it soon appearedthat the first supposition was the right one. Word camefrom another prison that the old man was locked upthere, and was now endeavouring to be transferred toClairvaux.

The old prisoners were the most pitiful sight. Manyof them had begun their prison experience in childhoodor early youth, others at a riper age. But ‘once in prison,always in prison,’ such is the saying derived from experience.And now, having reached or passed over the age ofsixty, they knew that they must end their lives in a gaol.To quicken their departure from life the prison administrationused to send them to the workshops where felt sockswere made out of all sorts of woollen refuse. The dust inthe workshop soon gave these old men consumption, whichfinally released them. Then four fellow prisoners wouldcarry the old comrade to the common grave, the graveyardwarder and his black dog being the only two beingsto follow him; and while the prison priest would marchin front of the procession, mechanically reciting his prayerand looking round at the chestnut or fir-trees along theroad, and the four comrades carrying the coffin wouldenjoy their momentary escape out of prison, the black dogwould be the only being affected by the solemnity of theceremony.

When the reformed central prisons were introducedin France, it was believed that the principle of absolutesilence could be maintained in them. But it is so contraryto human nature that its strict enforcement had to(432)be abandoned. In fact, even solitary confinement is noobstacle to intercourse between the prisoners.

To the outward observer the prison seems to be quitemute; but in reality life goes on in it as busily as in asmall town. In suppressed voices, by means of whispers,hurriedly dropped words, and scraps of notes, every newsof any interest spreads immediately all over the prison.Nothing can happen either among the prisoners themselves,or in the cour d’honneur, where the lodgings of theadministration are situated, or in the village of Clairvaux,where the employers of the factories live, or in the wideworld of Paris politics, but that it is communicated atonce throughout all the dormitories, workshops, and cells.Frenchmen are of too communicative a nature for theirunderground telegraph ever to be stopped. We had nointercourse with the common-law prisoners, and yet weknew all the news of the day. ‘John, the gardener, is backfor two years.’ ‘Such an inspector’s wife has had a fearfulscrimmage with So-and-So’s wife.’ ‘James, in the cells,has been caught transmitting a note of friendship to Johnfrom the framers’ workshop.’ ‘That old beast So-and-Sois no more minister of justice: the ministry has been upset.’And so on; and when the news goes that ‘Jack hasgot two five-penny packets of tobacco in exchange for twoflannel spencers,’ it flies round the prison in no time.

Demands for tobacco were continually pouring inupon us; and when a small lawyer detained in theprison wanted to transmit to me a note, in order to askmy wife, who was staying in the village, to see fromtime to time his wife, who was also there, quite a numberof men took the liveliest interest in the transmission ofthat message, which had to pass I do not know howmany hands before it reached its goal. And when therewas something that might specially interest us in a paper,this paper, in some unaccountable way, would reach us,with a little stone wrapped into it, to help its beingthrown over a high wall.

(433)

Cellular imprisonment is no obstacle to communication.When we came to Clairvaux and were firstlodged in the cellular quarter, it was bitterly cold inthe cells; so cold, indeed, that when I wrote to mywife, who was then at Paris, and she got my letter, shedid not recognize the writing, my hand being so stiffwith the cold. The order came to heat the cells asmuch as possible; but do what they might, the cellsremained as cold as ever. It appeared afterwards thatall the hot-air tubes in the cells were choked with scrapsof paper, bits of notes, penknives, and all sorts of smallthings which several generations of prisoners had concealedin the pipes.

Martin, the same friend of mine whom I have alreadymentioned, obtained permission to serve part of histime in cellular confinement. He preferred isolationto life in a room with a dozen comrades, and went toa cell in the cellular building. To his great astonishmenthe found that he was not at all alone in his cell.The walls and the keyholes spoke round him. In a dayor two all the inmates of the cells knew who he was,and he had acquaintances all over the building. Quitea life goes on, as in a beehive, between the seeminglyisolated cells; only that life often takes such a characteras to make it belong entirely to the domain of psychopathy.Kraft-Ebbing himself had no idea of the aspectsit takes with certain prisoners in solitary confinement.

I will not repeat here what I have said in a book,‘In Russian and French Prisons,’ which I published inEngland in 1886, soon after my release from Clairvaux,upon the moral influence of prisoners upon prisoners.But there is one thing which must be said. The prisonpopulation consists of heterogeneous elements; but,taking only those who are usually described as ‘thecriminals’ proper, and of whom we have heard so muchlately from Lombroso and his followers, what struck memost as regards them was that the prisons, which are(434)considered as a preventive measure against anti-socialdeeds, are exactly the institutions for breeding themand for rendering these offences worse and worse aftera man has received prison education. Everyone knowsthat the absence of education, the dislike of regularwork acquired since childhood, the physical unpreparednessfor sustained effort, the love of adventure when itreceives a wrong direction, the gambling propensities,the absence of energy and an untrained will, and carelessnessabout the happiness of others, are the causeswhich bring this category of men before the courts.Now I was deeply impressed during my imprisonmentby the fact that it is exactly these defects of humannature—each one of them—which the prison breeds inits inmates; and it is bound to breed them because itis a prison, and will breed them so long as there areprisons. Incarceration in a prison necessarily, fatally,destroys the energy of a man, and still more kills hiswill. In prison life there is no room for exercising one’swill. To possess one’s own will in prison means surelyto get into trouble. The will of the prisoner must bekilled, and it is killed. Still less is there room forexercising one’s natural sympathies, everything beingdone to destroy free contact with those outside theprison and within it with whom the prisoner may havefeelings of sympathy. Physically and mentally he isrendered less and less prepared for sustained effort; andif he has had formerly a dislike for regular work, thisdislike is only the more increased during his prison years.If, before he first came to the prison, he soon felt tiredby monotonous work, which he could not do properly,or had a grudge against underpaid overwork, his dislikenow becomes hatred. If he doubted about the socialutility of current rules of morality, now, after havingcast a critical glance upon the official defenders of theserules, and learned his comrades’ opinions of them, heopenly casts the rules overboard. And if he has got(435)into trouble in consequence of a morbid developmentof the passionate sensual side of his nature, now, afterhaving spent a number of years in prison, this morbidcharacter is still more developed—in many cases to anappalling extent. In this last direction—the most dangerousof all—prison education is most effective.

In Siberia I had seen what sinks of filth, and whatworkshops of physical and moral deterioration the dirty,overcrowded, ‘unreformed’ Russian prisons were, andat the age of nineteen I imagined that if there were lessovercrowding in the rooms, and a certain classificationof the prisoners, and healthy occupations were providedfor them, the institution might be substantially improved.Now, I had to part with these illusions. I could convincemyself that as regards their effects upon theprisoners, and their results for society at large, the best‘reformed’ prisons—whether cellular or not—are as badas, or even worse, than the dirty lock-ups of old. Theydo not ‘reform’ the prisoners. On the contrary, in theimmense, overwhelming majority of cases, they exerciseupon them the most deteriorating effect. The thief,the swindler, the rough man, and so on, who has spentsome years in a prison, comes out of it more ready thanever to resume his former career; he is better preparedfor it; he has learned how to do it better; he is moreembittered against society, and he finds a more solidjustification for being in revolt against its laws andcustoms; necessarily, unavoidably, he is bound to gofarther and farther along the anti-social path which firstbrought him before a law court. The offences he willcommit after his release will be graver than those whichfirst got him into trouble; and he is doomed to finish hislife in a prison or in a hard-labour colony. In the above-mentionedbook I wrote that prisons are ‘universities ofcrime, maintained by the state.’ And now, thinking ofit at fifteen years’ distance, in the light of my subsequentexperience, I can only confirm that statement of mine.

(436)

Personally I have no reason whatever to complain ofthe years I have spent in a French prison. For an activeand independent man the restraint of liberty and activityis in itself so great a privation that all the remainder, allthe petty miseries of prison life, are not worth speakingof. Of course, when we heard of the active political lifewhich was going on in France, we resented very muchour forced inactivity. The end of the first year, especiallyduring a gloomy winter, is always hard for theprisoner. And when spring comes, one feels morestrongly than ever the want of liberty. When I sawfrom our windows the meadows assuming their greengarb, and the hills covered with a spring haze, or when Isaw a train flying into a dale between the hills, I certainlyfelt a strong desire to follow it, to breathe the air of thewoods, to be carried along with the stream of humanlife into a busy town. But one who casts his lot with anadvanced party must be prepared to spend a number ofyears in prison, and he need not grudge it. He feelsthat even during his imprisonment he remains not quitean inactive part of the stream of human progress whichspreads and strengthens the ideas which are dear to him.

At Lyons my comrades, my wife, and myself certainlyfound the warders a very rough set of men. But aftera couple of encounters all was set right. Moreover, theprison administration knew that we had the Paris presswith us, and they did not want to draw upon themselvesthe thunders of Rochefort or the cutting criticisms ofClémenceau. And at Clairvaux there was no need ofsuch a restraint. All the administration had been reneweda few months before we came thither. A prisonerhad been killed by warders in his cell, and his corpse hadbeen hanged to simulate suicide; but this time the affairleaked out through the doctor; the governor was dismissed,and altogether a better tone prevailed in theprison. I took back from Clairvaux the best recollectionsof its governor; and altogether, while I was there,(437)I more than once thought that, after all, men are oftenbetter than the institutions to which they belong. Buthaving no personal griefs, I can all the more freely, andmost unconditionally condemn the institution itself, as asurvival from the dark past, wrong in its principles, anda source of unfathomable evil to society.

One thing more I must mention as it struck me,perhaps, even more than the demoralising effects ofprisons upon their inmates. What a nest of infectionis every prison, and even a law court for its neighbourhood—forthe people who live about them. Lombrosohas made very much of the ‘criminal type’ which hebelieves to have discovered amongst the inmates of theprisons. If he had made the same efforts to observepeople who hang about the law courts—detectives, spies,small solicitors, informers, people preying upon simpletons,and the like—he would have probably concludedthat his ‘criminal type’ has a far greater geographicalextension than the prison walls. I never saw such acollection of faces of the lowest human type, sunk farbelow the average type of mankind, as I saw by thescore round and within the Palais de Justice at Lyons.Certainly not within the prison walls of Clairvaux.Dickens and Cruikshank have immortalized a few ofthese types; but they represent quite a world whichgravitates round the law courts, and infuses its infectionfar and wide around them. And the same is true ofeach central prison like Clairvaux. Quite an atmosphereof petty thefts, petty swindlings, spying and corruptionof all sorts spreads like a blot of oil round every prison.

I saw all this; and if before my condemnation Ialready knew that society is wrong in its present systemof punishments, after I left Clairvaux I knew that it isnot only wrong and unjust in this system, but that it issimply foolish when, in its partly unconscious and partlywilful ignorance of realities, it maintains at its own expensethese universities of crime and these sinks of corruption,(438)acting under the illusion that they are necessary as abridle to the criminal instincts of man.

XIV

Every revolutionist meets a number of spies and agentsprovocateurs in his path, and I have had my fair shareof them. All governments spend considerable sums ofmoney in maintaining this kind of reptile. However,they are mainly dangerous to young people. One whohas had some experience of life and men soon discoversthat there is about these creatures something which putshim on his guard. They are recruited from the scum ofsociety, amongst men of the lowest moral standard, andif one is watchful of the moral character of the men hemeets with, he soon notices something in the manners ofthese ‘pillars of society’ which shocks him, and then heasks himself the question: ‘What has brought this personto me? What in the world can he have in commonwith us?’ In most cases this simple question is sufficientto put a man upon his guard.

When I first came to Geneva, the agent of theRussian government who had been commissioned to spythe refugees was well known to all of us. He wentunder the name of Count Something; but as he had nofootman and no carriage on which to emblazon hiscoronet and arms, he had had them embroidered on asort of mantle which covered his tiny dog. We sawhim occasionally in the cafés, without speaking to him;he was, in fact, an ‘innocent’ who simply bought in thekiosques all the publications of the exiles, very probablyadding to them such comments as he thought would pleasehis chiefs.

Different men began to pour in when Geneva waspeopled with more and more refugees of the younggeneration; and yet, in one way or another, they alsobecame known to us.

(439)

When a stranger appeared on our horizon, he wasasked with usual nihilist frankness about his past andhis present prospects, and it soon appeared what sort ofperson he or she was. Frankness in mutual intercourseis altogether the best way for bringing about properrelations between men. In this case it was invaluable.Numbers of persons whom none of us had known orheard of in Russia—absolute strangers to the circles—cameto Geneva, and many of them, a few days or evenhours after their arrival, stood on the most friendlyterms with the colony of refugees; but in some way oranother the spies never succeeded in crossing the thresholdof familiarity. A spy might make common acquaintances;he might give the best accounts, sometimescorrect, of his past in Russia; he might possess in perfectionthe nihilist slang and manners, but he never couldassimilate the particular kind of nihilist ethics which hadgrown up amongst the Russian youth—and this alonekept him at a distance from our colony. Spies can imitateanything else but those ethics.

When I was working with Reclus there was at Clarensone such individual, from whom we all kept aloof. Weknew nothing bad about him, but we felt that he was not‘ours,’ and as he tried only the more to penetrate into oursociety, we became suspicious of him. I had never said aword to him, and consequently he was especially after me.Seeing that he could not approach me through the usualchannels, he began to write me letters, giving me mysteriousappointments for mysterious purposes in the woods andin similar places. For fun, I once accepted his invitationand went to the spot, with a good friend following me ata distance; but the man, who probably had a confederate,must have noticed that I was not alone, and did not appear.So I was spared the pleasure of ever saying to him a singleword. Besides, I worked at that time so hard that everyminute of my time was taken up either with the Geographyor ‘Le Révolté,’ and I entered into no conspiracies. However,(440)we learned later on that this man used to send to theThird Section detailed reports about the supposed conversationswhich he had had with me, my supposed confidences,and the terrible plots which I was concocting atSt. Petersburg against the Tsar’s life! All that was takenfor ready money at St. Petersburg. And in Italy, too.When Cafiero was arrested one day in Switzerland, he wasshown formidable reports of Italian spies, who warned theirgovernment that Cafiero and I, loaded with bombs, weregoing to enter Italy. The fact was that I never was inItaly, and never had had any intention of visiting thecountry.

In point of fact, however, the spies do not alwaysfabricate reports wholesale. They often tell things thatare true, but all depends upon the way a story is told.We passed some merry moments about a report whichwas addressed to the French government by a French spywho followed my wife and myself as we were travellingin 1881 from Paris to London. The spy, probably playinga double part—as they often do—had sold that reportto Rochefort, who published it in his paper. Everythingthat the spy had told in this report was correct—but theway he had told it!

He wrote for instance: ‘I took the next compartmentto the one that Kropótkin had taken with his wife.’ Quitetrue; he was there. We noticed him, for he had managedat once to attract our attention by his sullen, unpleasantface. ‘They spoke Russian all the time, in order not to beunderstood by the other passengers.’ Very true again:we spoke Russian as we always do. ‘When they came toCalais, they both took a bouillon.’ Most correct again:we took a bouillon. But here the mysterious part of thejourney begins. ‘After that, they both suddenly disappeared,and I looked for them in vain, on the platformand elsewhere; and when they reappeared, he was in disguise,and was followed by a Russian priest, who never(441)left him until they reached London, where I lost sight ofthe priest.’ All that was true again. My wife had aslight toothache, and I asked the keeper of the restaurantto let us go into his private room, where the tooth couldbe stopped. So we had disappeared indeed; and as wehad to cross the Channel, I put my soft felt hat into mypocket and put on a fur cap: so I was ‘in disguise.’ Asto the mysterious priest, he was also there. He was nota Russian, but this is irrelevant: he wore at any rate thedress of the Greek priests. I saw him standing at thecounter and asking something which no one understood.‘Agua, agua,’ he repeated in a woful tone. ‘Give thegentleman a glass of water,’ I said to the waiter. Whereuponthe priest began to thank me for my interventionwith a truly Eastern effusion. My wife took pity on himand spoke to him in different languages, but he understoodnone but modern Greek. It appeared at last that he knewa few words in one of the South Slavonian languages, andwe could make out: ‘I am a Greek; Turkish embassy,London.’ We told him, mostly by signs, that we toowere going to London, and that he might travel with us.

The most amusing part of the story was that I reallyfound for him the address of the Turkish embassy, evenbefore we had reached Charing Cross. The train stoppedat some station on the way, and two elegant ladies enteredour already full third-class compartment. Both had newspapersin their hands. One was English, and the other—atall, nice-looking person, who spoke good French—pretendedto be English. After having exchanged a fewwords, she asked me à brûle-pourpoint: ‘What do youthink of Count Ignátieff?’ And immediately after that:‘Are you soon going to kill the new Tsar?’ I was clearas to her profession from these two questions; but, thinkingof my priest, I said to her: ‘Do you happen to knowthe address of the Turkish embassy?’ ‘Street So-andso, number So-and-so,’ she replied without hesitation, likea schoolgirl in a class. ‘You could, I suppose, also give(442)the address of the Russian embassy?’ I asked her, andthe address having been given with the same readiness,I communicated both to the priest. When we reachedCharing Cross, the lady was so obsequiously anxious toattend to my luggage, and even to carry a heavy packageherself with her gloved hands, that I finally told her, muchto her surprise: ‘Enough of that; ladies do not carrygentlemen’s luggage. Go away!’

But to return to my trustworthy French spy. ‘Healighted at Charing Cross’—he wrote in his report—‘butfor more than half an hour after the arrival of the train hedid not leave the station, until he had ascertained thateveryone else had left it. I kept aloof in the meantime,concealing myself behind a pillar. Having ascertainedthat all passengers had left the platform, they both suddenlyjumped into a cab. I followed them nevertheless,and overheard the address which the cabman gaveat the gate to the policeman—12, street So-and-so—andran after the cab. There were no cabs in the neighbourhood;so I ran up to Trafalgar Square, where I got one. Ithen drove after him, and he alighted at the above address.’

All facts in this narrative are true again—the addressand the rest; but how mysterious it all reads. I hadwarned a Russian friend of my arrival, but there was adense fog that morning, and my friend overslept himself.We waited for him half an hour, and then, leaving ourluggage in the cloak-room, drove to his house.

‘There they sat till two o’clock with drawn curtains,and then a tall man came out of the house, andreturned one hour later with their luggage.’ Even theremark about the curtains was correct: we had to lightthe gas on account of the fog, and drew down the curtainsto get rid of the ugly sight of a small Islingtonstreet wrapped in a dense fog.

When I was working with Elisée Reclus at ClarensI used to go every fortnight to Geneva to see to the(443)bringing out of ‘Le Révolté.’ One day as I came to ourprinting office, I was told that a Russian gentlemanwanted to see me. He had already seen my friendsand had told them that he came to induce me to start apaper like ‘Le Révolté’ in Russian. He offered for thatpurpose all the money that might be required. I wentto meet him in a café, where he gave me a German name—Tohnlehm,let us say—and told me that he was anative of the Baltic provinces. He boasted of possessinga large fortune in certain estates and manufactures, andhe was extremely angry with the Russian Government,for their Russianizing schemes. On the whole he produceda somewhat indefinite impression, so that myfriends insisted upon my accepting his offer; but I didnot much like the man from first sight.

From the café he took me to his rooms in an hotel,and there began to show less reserve and to appear morelike himself and in a still more unpleasant light. ‘Don’tdoubt my fortune,’ he said to me; ‘I have made acapital invention. There’s a lot of money in it. I shallpatent it, and get a considerable sum for it, and give itall for the cause of the revolution in Russia.’ And heshowed me, to my astonishment, a miserable candlestick,the originality of which was that it was awfully ugly andhad three bits of wire to put the candle in. The pooresthousewife would not have cared for such a candlestick,and even if it could have been patented, no ironmongerwould have paid the patentee more than a couple ofsovereigns. ‘A rich man placing his hopes on such acandlestick! This man,’ I thought to myself, ‘can neverhave seen better ones,’ and my opinion about him wasmade up: ‘He was no rich man at all, and the moneyhe offered was not his own.’ So I bluntly told him:‘Very well, if you are so anxious to have a Russianrevolutionary paper, and hold the flattering opinion aboutmyself which you have expressed, you will have to putyour money in my name at a bank, and at my entire(444)disposal. But I warn you that you will have absolutelynothing to do with the paper.’ ‘Of course, of course,’he said, ‘but just see to it, and sometimes advise you,and aid you in smuggling it into Russia.’ ‘No, nothingof the sort! You need not see me at all.’ My friendsthought that I was too hard upon the man, but sometime after that a letter was received from St. Petersburgwarning us that we would have the visit of a spy of theThird Section—Tohnlehm by name. The candlestickhad thus rendered us a good service.

Candlesticks, or anything else, these people almostalways betray themselves in one way or another. Whenwe were at London in 1881 we received, on a foggymorning, the visit of two Russians. I knew one of themby name; the other, a young man whom he recommendedas his friend, was a stranger. He had volunteered toaccompany his friend on a few days’ visit to England.As he was introduced by a friend, I had no suspicionswhatever about him; but I was very busy that daywith some work, and asked another friend who stayedclose by to find them rooms and to take them about tosee London. My wife had not yet seen London either,and she went with them. In the afternoon she returnedsaying to me: ‘Do you know, I dislike that man verymuch. Beware of him.’ ‘But why? What’s the matter?’I asked. ‘Nothing, absolutely nothing; but he is surelynot “ours.” By the way he treated the waiter in a café,and the way he handles money, I saw at once that he isnot “ours,” and if he is not—why should he come to us?’She was so certain of her suspicions that, while she performedher duties of hospitality, she nevertheless managednever to leave that young man alone in my study,even for one minute. We had a chat, and the visitorbegan to exhibit himself more and more under such alow moral aspect that even his friend blushed for him,and when I asked more details about him, the explanations(445)he gave were even still less satisfactory. We wereboth on our guard. In short, they both left London in acouple of days, and a fortnight later I got a letter frommy Russian friend, full of excuses for having introducedto me the young man who, they had found out, at Paris,was a spy in the service of the Russian embassy. Ilooked then into a list of Russian secret service agentsin France and Switzerland which we, the refugees, hadreceived lately from the Executive Committee—they hadtheir men everywhere at St. Petersburg—and I foundthe name of that young man on the list, with one letteronly altered in it.

To start a paper, subsidized by the police, with apolice agent at its head, is an old plan, and the prefectof the Paris police, Andrieux, resorted to it in 1881. Iwas with Elisée Reclus in the mountains when we receiveda letter from a Frenchman, or rather a Belgian,who announced to us that he was going to start ananarchist paper at Paris and asked our collaboration.The letter, full of flatteries, produced upon us an unpleasantimpression, and Reclus had moreover somevague reminiscence of having heard the name of thewriter in some unfavourable connection. We decided torefuse collaboration, and I wrote to a Paris friend thatwe must first of all ascertain from whence the moneycame with which the paper was going to be started. ‘Itmay come from the Orleanists—an old trick of the family—andwe must know its origin.’ My Paris friend, witha workman’s straightforwardness, read that letter at ameeting at which the would-be editor of the paper waspresent. He simulated offence, and I had to answerseveral letters on this subject; but I stuck to my words:‘If the man is in earnest, he must show us the origin ofthe money.’

And so he did at last. Pressed by questions he saidthat the money came from his aunt—a rich lady of(446)antiquated opinions who yielded, however, to his fancyof having a paper and had parted with the money.The lady was not in France; she was staying at London.We insisted nevertheless upon having her name andaddress, and our friend Malatesta volunteered to seeher. He went with an Italian friend who was connectedwith the second-hand trade in furniture. They foundthe lady occupying a small flat, and while Malatestaspoke to her and was more and more convinced that shewas simply playing the aunt’s part in the comedy, thefurniture-friend, looking round at the chairs and tables,discovered that all of them had been taken the day before—probablyhired—from a second-hand furniture dealer,his neighbour. The labels of the dealer were still fastenedto the chairs and the tables. This did not prove much,but naturally reinforced our suspicions. I absolutely refusedto have anything to do with the paper.

The paper was of an unheard-of violence. Burning,assassination, dynamite bombs—there was nothing butthat in it. I met the man, the editor of the paper, asI went to the London congress, and the moment I sawhis sullen face, and heard a bit of his talk, and caught aglance of the sort of women with whom he always wentabout, my opinions concerning him were settled. Atthe congress, during which he introduced all sorts ofterrible resolutions, the delegates kept aloof from him;and when he insisted upon having the addresses ofanarchists all over the world, the refusal was made inanything but a flattering manner.

To make a long story short, he was unmasked acouple of months later, and the paper was stopped forever on the very next day. Then, a couple of yearsafter that, the prefect of police, Andrieux, published his‘Memoirs,’ and in this book he told all about the paperwhich he had started and the explosions which hisagents had organized at Paris, by putting sardine boxesfilled with ‘something’ under the statue of Thiers.

(447)

One can imagine the quantities of money all thesethings cost the French and every other nation.

I might write several chapters on this subject, butI will mention only one more story of two adventurersat Clairvaux.

My wife stayed in the only inn of the little villagewhich has grown up under the shadow of the prisonwall. One day the landlady entered her room with amessage from two gentlemen, who came to the hoteland wanted to see my wife. The landlady intercededwith all her eloquence in their favour. ‘Oh, I know theworld,’ she said, ‘and I may assure you, madame, thatthey are the most correct gentlemen. Nothing couldbe more comme-il-faut. One of them gave the name ofa German officer. He is surely a baron or a “milord,”and the other is his interpreter. They know you perfectlywell. The baron is going now to Africa, perhapsnever to return, and he wants to see you before heleaves.’

My wife looked at the address of the message, whichwas: ‘A Madame la Principesse Kropotkine,’ and neededno further proof of the comme-el-faut of the two gentlemen.As to the contents of the message, they were evenworse than the address. Against all rules of grammarand common-sense the ‘baron’ wrote about a mysteriouscommunication which he had to make. She refusedpoint-blank to receive the baron and his interpreter.

Thereupon the baron wrote to my wife letter uponletter, which she returned unopened. All the villagesoon became divided into two parties—one siding withthe baron and led by the landlady, and the other againsthim, and headed, as a matter of fact, by the landlady’shusband. Quite a romance was circulated. ‘The baronhad known my wife before her marriage. He haddanced with her many times at the Russian embassy inVienna. He was still in love with her, but she, the(448)cruel one, refused even to allow him to cast a glance ather before he went upon his perilous expedition....’

Then came the mysterious story of a boy whom wewere said to conceal. ‘Where is their boy?’ the baronwanted to know. ‘They have a son, six years old bythis time—where is he?’ ‘She never would part witha boy if she had one,’ the one party said. ‘Yes, theyhave one, but they conceal him,’ the other party maintained.

For us two, this contest was a very interesting revelation.It proved that our letters were not only readby the prison authorities, but that their contents weremade known to the Russian embassy as well. WhenI was at Lyons, and my wife went to see Elisée Reclusin Switzerland, she wrote to me once that ‘our boy’ wasgoing on well; his health was excellent, and they allspent a very nice evening at the anniversary of his fifthbirthday. I knew that she meant ‘Le Révolté,’ whichwe often used to name in conversation ‘our gamin’—ournaughty boy. But now that these gentlemen were inquiringabout ‘our gamin,’ and even designated socorrectly his age, it was evident that the letter hadpassed through other hands than those of the governor.It was well to know such a thing.

Nothing escapes the attention of village folk in thecountry, and the baron soon awakened suspicions. Hewrote a new letter to my wife, even more loquaciousthan the former ones. Now, he asked her pardon forhaving tried to introduce himself as an acquaintance.He owned that she did not know him; but neverthelesshe was a well-wisher. He had to make to her a mostimportant communication. My life was in danger andhe wanted to warn her. The baron and his secretarytook an outing in the fields to read together that letterand to consult about its tenor—the forest-guard followingthem at a distance—but they quarrelled about it,and the letter was torn to pieces and thrown in the(449)fields. The forester waited till they were out of sight,gathered the pieces, connected them, and read the letter.In one hour’s time the village knew that the baron hadnever really been acquainted with my wife; the romancewhich was so sentimentally repeated by the baron’s partycrumbled to pieces.

‘Ah, then, they are not what they pretended to be,’the brigadier de gendarmerie concluded in his turn;‘then they must be German spies’—and he arrestedthem.

It must be said in his excuse that a German spy hadreally been at Clairvaux shortly before. In time of warthe vast buildings of the prison might serve as depôts forprovisions or barracks for the army, and the GermanGeneral Staff was surely interested to know the innercapacity of the prison buildings. A jovial travellingphotographer came accordingly to our village, madefriends with everyone by photographing them for nothing,and was admitted to photograph, not only the inside ofthe prison yards, but also the dormitories. Having donethis, he travelled to some other town on the easternfrontier, and was there arrested by the French authoritiesas a man found in possession of compromising militarydocuments. The brigadier, fresh from the impression ofthe photographer’s visit, jumped to the conclusion that thebaron and his secretary were also German spies, and tookthem in custody to the little town of Bar-sur-Aube.There they were released next morning, the local paperstating that they were not German spies but ‘personscommissioned by another more friendly power.’

Now public opinion turned entirely against the baronand his secretary, who had to live through more adventures.After their release they entered a small villagecafé, and there ventilated their griefs in German in afriendly conversation over a bottle of wine. ‘You werestupid, you were a coward,’ the would-be interpretersaid to the would-be baron. ‘If I had been in your place,(450)I would have shot that examining magistrate with thisrevolver. Let him only repeat that with me—he willhave these bullets in his head!’ And so on.

A commercial traveller who quietly sat in the cornerof the room, rushed at once to the brigadier to report theconversation which he had overheard. The brigadiermade at once an official report, and once more arrestedthe secretary—a pharmacist from Strasburg. He wastaken before a police court at the same town of Bar-sur-Aube,and got a full month’s imprisonment for ‘menacesuttered against a magistrate in a public place.’ At lastthe two adventurers left Clairvaux.

These spy adventures ended in a comical way. Buthow many tragedies—terrible tragedies—we owe to thesevillains! Precious lives lost, and whole families wrecked,simply to get an easy living for such swindlers. Whenone thinks of the thousands of spies going about theworld in the pay of all governments; of the traps theylay for all sorts of artless people; of the lives they sometimesbring to a tragical end, and the sorrows they sowbroadcast; of the vast sums of money thrown away inthe maintenance of that army recruited from the scum ofsociety; of the corruption of all sorts which they pour intosociety at large, nay, even into families, one cannot butbe appalled at the immensity of the evil which is thusdone. And this army of villains is not only limited tothose who play the spy on revolutionists or to the militaryespionage system. In this country there are papers,especially in the watering towns, whose columns arecovered with advertisem*nts of private detective agencieswhich undertake to collect all sorts of information fordivorce suits, to spy upon husbands for their wives andupon wives for their husbands, to penetrate into familiesand entrap simpletons, and who will undertake anythingwhich may be asked of them, for a corresponding sum ofmoney. And while people feel scandalized at the espionage(451)villainies lately revealed in the highest military spheresof France, they do not notice that amongst themselves,perhaps under their own roofs, the same and even worsethings are being committed by both the official and privatedetective agencies.

XV

Demands for our release were continually raised, both inthe Press and in the Chamber of Deputies—the more soas about the same time that we were condemned LouiseMichel was condemned, too—for robbery. Louise Michel,who always gives literally her last shawl or cloak to thewoman who is in need of it, and who never could be compelled,during her imprisonment, to have better food, becauseshe always gave her fellow prisoners what was sentto her, was condemned, together with another comrade,Pouget, to nine years’ imprisonment for highway robbery!That sounded too bad even for the middle-class opportunists.She marched one day at the head of a processionof the unemployed, and, entering a baker’s shop, took afew loaves from it and distributed them to the hungrycolumn: this was her robbery. The release of the anarchiststhus became a war-cry against the government,and in the autumn of 1885 all my comrades save threewere set at liberty by a decree of President Grévy. Thenthe outcry on behalf of Louise Michel and myself becamestill louder. However, Alexander III. objected to it;and one day the prime minister, M. Freycinet, answeringan interpellation in the Chamber, said that ‘diplomaticdifficulties stood in the way of Kropótkin’s release.’Strange words in the mouth of the prime minister of anindependent country; but still stranger words have beenheard since in connection with that ill-omened alliance ofFrance with imperial Russia.

At last, in the middle of January 1886, both Louise(452)Michel and Pouget, as well as the four of us who were stillat Clairvaux, were set free.

We went to Paris and stayed there for a few weekswith our friend, Elie Reclus—a writer of great power inanthropology, who is often mistaken outside France forhis younger brother, the geographer, Elisée. A closefriendship has united the two brothers from early youth.When the time came for them to enter a university, theywent from a small country place in the valley of the Girondeto Strasburg, making the journey on foot—accompanied,as true wandering students, by their dog; andwhen they stayed at some village it was the dog which gothis bowl of soup, while the two brothers’ supper very oftenconsisted of bread only, with a few apples. From Strasburgthe younger brother went to Berlin, whereto he wasattracted by the lectures of the great Ritter. Later on,in the forties, they were both at Paris. Elie Reclus becamea convinced Fourierist, and both saw in the republicof 1848 the coming of a new era of social evolution. Consequently,after Napoleon III.’s coup d’état, they bothhad to leave France, and emigrated to England. Whenthe amnesty was voted, and they returned to Paris, Elieedited there a Fourierist co-operative paper which waswidely spread among the workers. It is not generallyknown, but may be interesting to note, that Napoleon III.—whoplayed the part of a Cæsar, interested, as behovesa Cæsar, in the conditions of the working classes—usedto send one of his aides-de-camp to the printing office ofthe paper, each time it was printed, to take to the Tuileriesthe first sheet issued from the press. He was, later on,even ready to patronize the International Workingmen’sAssociation, on the condition that it should put in one ofits reports a few words of confidence in the great socialistplans of the Cæsar; and he ordered its prosecution whenthe Internationalists refused point-blank to do anythingof the sort.

When the Commune was proclaimed, both brothers(453)heartily joined it and Elie accepted the post of keeperof the National Library and the Louvre museum underVaillant. It was, to a great extent, to his foresight andto his hard work that we owe the preservation of theinvaluable treasures of human knowledge and art accumulatedin these two institutions; otherwise theywould have perished during the bombardment of Parisby the armies of Thiers, and the subsequent conflagration.A passionate lover of Greek art, and profoundlyacquainted with it, he had had all the most preciousstatues and vases of the Louvre packed and stored inthe caves, while the greatest precautions were taken toprotect the building of the National Library from theconflagration which raged round it. His wife, a courageous,worthy companion of the philosopher, followed inthe streets by her two little boys, organized in the meantimein her own quarter of the town the feeding of thepopulation which had been reduced to sheer destitutionby a second siege. During the final few weeks of itsexistence, the Commune at last realized that a supply offood to the population, which was deprived of the meansof earning it for itself, ought to have been the Commune’sfirst duty, and volunteers organized the relief. It wasby mere accident that Elie Reclus, who had kept to hispost till the last moment, escaped being shot by theVersailles troops; and a sentence of deportation havingbeen pronounced upon him—for having dared to acceptso necessary a service under the Commune—he wentwith his family into exile. Now, on his return to Paris,he had resumed the work of his life—ethnology. Whatthis work is may be judged from a few, very few,chapters of it published in book form under the title of‘Primitive Folk’ and ‘The Australians,’ as well as fromthe history of the origin of religions, which he nowlectures upon at the École des Hautes Études, at Brussels—afoundation of his brother. In the whole of theethnological literature there are not many works imbued(454)to the same extent with a thorough and sympatheticunderstanding of the true nature of primitive man. Asto his ‘Origin of Religions’ (which is being publishedin the review, ‘Société Nouvelle,’ and its continuation‘Humanité Nouvelle’), it is, I venture to say, the bestwork on the subject that has been published—undoubtedlysuperior to Herbert Spencer’s attempt in the same direction,because Herbert Spencer, with all his immenseintellect, does not possess that understanding of the artlessand simple nature of the primitive man which ElieReclus possesses to a rare perfection, and to which hehas added an extremely wide knowledge of a ratherunderrated branch of folk-psychology—the evolution andtransformation of beliefs. It is needless to speak ofElie Reclus’s infinite good nature and modesty, or ofhis superior intelligence and vast knowledge of all subjectsrelating to humanity; it is all comprehended inhis style. With his unbounded modesty, his calmmanner and his deep philosophical insight, he is thetype of the Greek philosopher of antiquity. In a societyless fond of patented tuition and of piecemeal instruction,and more appreciative of the development of widehumanitarian conceptions, he would be surrounded byflocks of pupils, like one of his Greek prototypes.

A very animated socialist and anarchist movementwas going on at Paris while we stayed there. LouiseMichel lectured every night, and aroused the enthusiasmof her audiences, whether they consisted of working menor were made up of middle-class people. Her alreadygreat popularity became still greater and spread evenamongst the university students, who might hate advancedideas but worshipped in her the ideal woman; somuch so that a riot, caused by someone speaking disrespectfullyof Louise Michel in the presence of students,took place one day in a café. The young people tookup her defence and made a fearful uproar, smashing allthe tables and glasses in the café. I also lectured once(455)on anarchism, before an audience of several thousandpeople, and left Paris immediately after that lecture, beforethe government could obey the injunctions of thereactionary and the pro-Russian press, which insisted uponmy being expelled from France.

From Paris we went to London, where I found oncemore my two old friends, Stepniák and Tchaykóvsky.The socialist movement was in full swing, and life inLondon was no more the dull, vegetating existence thatit had been for me four years before.

We settled in a small cottage at Harrow. We caredlittle about the furniture of our cottage, a good part ofwhich I made myself with the aid of Tchaykóvsky—hehad been in the meantime in the United States and hadlearned some carpentering—but we rejoiced immenselyat having a small plot of heavy Middlesex clay in ourgarden. My wife and myself went with much enthusiasminto small culture, the admirable results of whichI began to realize after having made acquaintance withthe writings of Toubeau, and some Paris maraîchers(gardeners), and after our own experiment in the prisongarden at Clairvaux. As for my wife, who had typhoidfever soon after we settled at Harrow, the work in thegarden during the period of convalescence was morecompletely restorative for her than a stay at the verybest sanatorium.

By the end of the summer a heavy stroke fell uponus. We learned that my brother Alexander was nolonger alive.

During the years that I had been abroad before myimprisonment in France, we had never correspondedwith each other. In the eyes of the Russian government,to love a brother who is persecuted for his politicalopinions is in itself a sin. To maintain relations withhim after he has become a refugee is a crime. A subjectof the Tsar must hate all the rebels against the supreme(456)ruler’s authority—and Alexander was in the clutchesof the Russian police. I persistently refused thereforeto write to him or to any of my relatives. After theTsar had written on the petition of our sister Hélène,‘Let him remain there,’ there was no hope of a speedyrelease for my brother. Two years after that, a committeewas nominated to settle terms for those who hadbeen exiled to Siberia without judgment for an undeterminedtime, and my brother got five years. Thatmade seven with the two years he had already beenkept there. Then a new committee was nominatedunder Lóris Mélikoff, and added another five years.My brother was thus to be liberated in October 1886.That made twelve years of exile, first in a tiny townof East Siberia, and afterwards at Tomsk—that is inthe lowlands of West Siberia, where he had not eventhe dry and healthy climate of the high prairies fartherEast.

When I was imprisoned at Clairvaux, he wrote tome, and we exchanged a few letters. He wrote thatas our letters would be read by the Russian police inSiberia and by the French prison authorities in France,we might as well write to each other under this doublesupervision. He spoke of his family life, of his threechildren whom he characterized admirably well, and ofhis work. He earnestly advised me to keep a watchfuleye upon the development of science in Italy, whereexcellent and original researches are made, but remainunknown in the scientific world until they have beenre-manufactured in Germany; and he gave me hisopinions about the probable march of political life inRussia. He did not believe in the possibility with usin a near future, of constitutional rule on the patternof the West European parliaments; but he looked forward—andfound it quite sufficient for the moment—tothe convocation of a sort of deliberative NationalAssembly (Zémskiy Sobór or Etats Généraux). It would(457)not vote new laws, but would only work out the schemesof laws to which the imperial power and the Council ofState would give their definitive form and the finalsanction.

Above all he wrote to me about his scientific work.He always had a decided leaning towards astronomy,and when we were at St. Petersburg he had publishedin Russia an excellent summary of all our knowledgeof the shooting stars. With his fine critical mind hesoon saw the strong or the weak points of different hypotheses;and without sufficient knowledge of mathematics,but endowed with a powerful imagination, he succeededin grasping the results of the most intricate mathematicalresearches. Living with his imagination amongstthe moving celestial bodies, he realized their complexmovements often better than some mathematicians—especiallythe pure algebraists—realize them, becausethey often lose sight of the realities of the physical worldto see only the formulæ and their logical connections.Our St. Petersburg astronomers spoke to me with greatappreciation of that work of my brother. Now heundertook to study the structure of the universe: toanalyze the data and the hypotheses about the worldsof suns, star-clusters, and nebulæ in the infinite space,and to disentangle their probable grouping, their life,and the laws of their evolution and decay. The Púlkovaastronomer, Gyldén, spoke highly of this new work ofAlexander, and introduced him by correspondence toMr. Holden in the United States, from whom I hadlately the pleasure of hearing, at Washington, an appreciativeestimate of my brother’s researches. Science isgreatly in need, from time to time, of such scientificspeculations of a higher standard, made by a scrupulouslylaborious, critical, and at the same time, imaginativemind.

But in a small town of Siberia, far away from allthe libraries, unable to follow the progress of science,(458)he had only succeeded in embodying in his work theresearches which had been done up to the date of hisexile. Some capital work had been done since—heknew it—but how could he get access to the necessarybooks so long as he remained in Siberia? The approachof the term of his liberation did not inspire him withhope either. He knew that he would not be allowed tostay in any of the university towns of Russia or ofWestern Europe, but that his exile to Siberia would befollowed by a second exile, perhaps even worse than thefirst, to some hamlet of Eastern Russia.

Despair took possession of him. ‘A despair likeFaust’s takes hold of me at times,’ he wrote to me.When the time of his liberation was coming, he sent hiswife and children to Russia, taking advantage of one ofthe last steamers before the close of the navigation, and,on a gloomy night, the despair of Faust put an end tohis life....

A dark cloud hung upon our cottage for manymonths—until a flash of light pierced it. It came nextSpring, when a tiny being, a girl who bears my brother’sname, came into the world, and at whose helpless cryI overheard in my heart quite new chords vibrating.

XVI

In 1886 the socialist movement in England was in fullswing. Large bodies of workers had openly joined itin all the principal towns, as well as a number of middle-classpeople, chiefly young, who helped it in differentways. An acute industrial crisis prevailed that year inmost trades, and every morning, and often all the daylong, I heard groups of workers going about in the streetssinging ‘We’ve got no work to do,’ or some hymn, andbegging for bread. People flocked at night into Trafalgar(459)Square to sleep there in the open air, under the wind andrain, between two newspapers; and one day in Februarya crowd, after having listened to the speeches of Burns,Hyndman, and Champion, rushed into Piccadilly andbroke a few windows in the great shops. Far more important,however, than this outbreak of discontent, wasthe spirit which prevailed amongst the poorer portion ofthe working population in the outskirts of London. Itwas such that if the leaders of the movement, who wereprosecuted for the riots, had received severe sentences,a spirit of hatred and revenge, hitherto unknown in therecent history of the labour movement in England, butthe symptoms of which were very well marked in 1886,would have been developed, and would have impressedits stamp upon the subsequent movement for a long timeto come. However, the middle classes seemed to haverealized the danger. Considerable sums of money wereimmediately subscribed in the West End for the reliefof misery in the East End—certainly quite inadequateto relieve a widely spread destitution, but sufficient toshow, at least, good intentions. As to the sentenceswhich were passed upon the prosecuted leaders, theywere limited to two and three months’ imprisonment.

The amount of interest in socialism and all sorts ofschemes of reform and reconstruction of society wasvery great in all layers of society. Beginning with theautumn and throughout the winter, I was asked tolecture over the country, partly on prisons, but mainlyon anarchist socialism, and I visited in this way nearlyevery large town of England and Scotland. As I had,as a rule, accepted the first invitation I received to staythe night after the lecture, it consequently happened thatI stayed one night in a rich man’s mansion, and the nextnight in the narrow abode of a working family. Everynight I saw considerable numbers of people of all classes;and whether it was in the worker’s small parlour, or inthe reception-rooms of the wealthy, the most animated(460)discussions went on about socialism and anarchism tilla late hour of the night—with hope in the workman’shome, with apprehension in the mansion, but everywherewith the same earnestness.

In the mansions, the main question was to know,‘What do the socialists want? What do they intend todo?’ and next, ‘What are the concessions which it isabsolutely necessary to make at some given moment inorder to avoid serious conflicts?’ In these conversationsI seldom heard the justice of the socialist contentionmerely denied, or described as sheer nonsense. But Ifound also a firm conviction that a revolution was impossiblein England; that the claims of the mass of theworkers had not yet reached the precision nor the extentof the claims of the socialists, and that the workers wouldbe satisfied with much less; so that secondary concessions,amounting to a prospect of a slight increase of well-beingor of leisure, would be accepted by the working classesof England as a pledge in the meantime of still more inthe future. ‘We are a left-centre country, we live bycompromises,’ I was once told by an old member ofParliament, who had had a wide experience of the life ofhis mother country.

In workmen’s dwellings too, I noticed a difference inthe questions which were addressed to me in England tothose which I was asked on the Continent. Generalprinciples, of which the partial applications will bedetermined by the principles themselves, deeply interestthe Latin workers. If this or that municipal councilvotes funds in support of a strike, or organizes the feedingof the children at the schools, no importance isattached to such steps. They are taken as a matter offact. ‘Of course, a hungry child cannot learn,’ a Frenchworker says. ‘It must be fed.’ ‘Of course, the employerwas wrong in forcing the workers to strike.’This is all that is said, and no praise is given on accountof such minor concessions by the present individualist(461)society to communist principles. The thought of theworker goes beyond the period of such concessions, andhe asks whether it is the Commune, or the unions ofworkers, or the State which ought to undertake theorganization of production; whether free agreementalone will be sufficient to maintain Society in workingorder, and what would be the moral restraint if Societyparted with its present repressive agencies; whether anelected democratic government would be capable ofaccomplishing serious changes in the socialist direction,and whether accomplished facts ought not to precedelegislation? and so on. In England, it was upon aseries of palliative concessions, gradually growing in importance,that the chief weight was laid. But, on theother hand, the impossibility of state administration ofindustries seemed to have been settled long ago in theworkers’ minds, and what chiefly interested most of themwere matters of constructive realization, as well as howto attain the conditions which would make such a realizationpossible. ‘Well, Kropótkin, suppose that to-morrowwe were to take possession of the docks of our town.What’s your idea about how to manage them?’ I would,for instance, be asked as soon as we had sat down in asmall workman’s parlour. Or, ‘We don’t like the idea ofstate management of railways, and the present managementby private companies is organized robbery. Butsuppose the workers owned all the railways. Howcould the working of them be organized?’ The lack ofgeneral ideas was thus supplemented by a desire ofgoing deeper into the details of the realities.

Another feature of the movement in England wasthe considerable number of middle-class people whogave it their support in different ways, some of themfrankly joining it, while others helped it from the outside.In France or in Switzerland, the two parties—theworkers and the middle classes—not only stood arrayedagainst each other, but were sharply separated. So it(462)was, at least, in the years 1876-85. When I was inSwitzerland I could say that during my three or fouryears’ stay in the country I was acquainted with nonebut workers—I hardly knew more than a couple ofmiddle-class men. In England this would have beenimpossible. We found quite a number of middle-classmen and women who did not hesitate to appear openly,both in London and in the provinces, as helpers inorganizing socialist meetings, or in going about duringa strike with boxes to collect coppers in the parks.Besides, we saw a movement, similar to what we hadhad in Russia in the early seventies, when our youthrushed ‘to the people,’ though by no means so intense,so full of self-sacrifice, and so utterly devoid of the ideaof ‘charity.’ Here also, in England, a number of peoplewent in all sorts of capacities to live near to the workers:in the slums, in people’s palaces, in Toynbee Hall, andthe like. It must be said that there was a great deal ofenthusiasm at that time. Many probably thought thata social revolution had commenced, like the hero ofMorris’s comical play, ‘Tables Turned,’ who says thatthe revolution is not simply coming, but has alreadybegun. As always happens however with such enthusiasts,when they saw that in England, as everywhere,there was a long, tedious, preparatory, uphill work thathad to be done, very many of them retired from activepropaganda, and now stand outside of it as mere sympatheticonlookers.

XVII

I took a lively part in this movement, and with a fewEnglish comrades we started, in addition to the threesocialist papers already in existence, an anarchist-communistmonthly, ‘Freedom,’ which continues to live upto the present day. At the same time I resumed my(463)work on anarchism where I had had to interrupt it atthe moment of my arrest. The critical part of it waspublished during my Clairvaux imprisonment by EliséeReclus, under the title of ‘Paroles d’un Révolté.’ NowI began to work out the constructive part of an anarchist-communistsociety—so far as it can now be forecast—ina series of articles published at Paris in ‘La Révolté.’Our ‘boy,’ ‘Le Révolté,’ prosecuted for anti-militaristpropaganda, was compelled to change its title-page andnow appeared under a feminine name. Later on thesearticles were published in a more elaborate form in abook, ‘La Conquête du Pain.’

These researches caused me to study more thoroughlycertain points of the economic life of our present civilizednations. Most socialists had hitherto said that inour present civilized societies we actually produce muchmore than is necessary for guaranteeing full well-beingto all. It is only the distribution which is defective;and if a social revolution took place, nothing more wouldbe required than for everyone to return to his factory orworkshop, Society taking possession for itself of the‘surplus value’ or benefits which now go to the capitalist.I thought, on the contrary, that under the present conditionsof private ownership production itself had takena wrong turn, so as to neglect, and often to prevent, theproduction of the very necessaries for life on a sufficientscale. None of these are produced in greater quantitiesthan would be required to secure well-being for all; andthe over-production, so often spoken of, means nothingbut that the masses are too poor to buy even what isnow considered as necessary for a decent existence. Butin all civilized countries the production, both agriculturaland industrial, ought to and easily might be immenselyincreased so as to secure a reign of plenty for all. Thisbrought me to consider the possibilities of modern agriculture,as well as those of an education which wouldgive to everyone the possibility of carrying on at the(464)same time both enjoyable manual work and brain work.I developed these ideas in a series of articles in the‘Nineteenth Century,’ which are now published as a bookunder the title of ‘Fields, Factories, and Workshops.’

Another great question also engrossed my attention.It is known to what conclusions Darwin’s formula, ‘TheStruggle for Existence,’ had been developed by most ofhis followers, even the most intelligent of them, such asHuxley. There is no infamy in civilized society, or inthe relations of the whites towards the so-called lowerraces, or of the ‘strong’ towards the ‘weak,’ which wouldnot have found its excuse in this formula.

Already during my stay at Clairvaux I saw thenecessity of completely revising the formula itself of‘struggle for existence’ in the animal world, and its applicationsto human affairs. The attempts which hadbeen made by a few socialists in this direction had notsatisfied me, when I found in a lecture of a Russianzoologist, Prof. Kessler, a true expression of the lawof struggle for life. ‘Mutual aid,’ he said in that lecture,‘is as much a law of nature as mutual struggle; but forthe progressive evolution of the species the former is farmore important than the latter.’ These few words—confirmedunfortunately by only a couple of illustrations(to which Syévertsoff, the zoologist of whom I havespoken in an earlier chapter, added one or two more)—containedfor me the key of the whole problem. WhenHuxley published in 1888 his atrocious article, ‘TheStruggle for Existence: a Program,’ I decided to putin a readable form my objections to his way of understandingthe struggle for life, among animals as well asamong men, the materials for which I had accumulatedduring a couple of years. I spoke of it to my friends.However, I found that the comprehension of ‘strugglefor life’ in the sense of a war-cry of ‘Woe to the weak,’raised to the height of a commandment of nature revealedby science, was so deeply inrooted in this country(465)that it had become almost a matter of religion. Twopersons only supported me in my revolt against this misinterpretationof the facts of nature. The editor of the‘Nineteenth Century,’ Mr. James Knowles, with his admirableperspicacity, at once seized the gist of the matter,and with a truly youthful energy encouraged me to takeit in hand. The other was H. W. Bates, whom Darwinhas truly described in his autobiography as one of themost intelligent men whom he ever met. He was secretaryof the Geographical Society, and I knew him. WhenI spoke to him of my intention he was delighted with it.‘Yes, most assuredly write it,’ he said. ‘That is trueDarwinism. It is a shame to think of what “they” havemade of Darwin’s ideas. Write it, and when you havepublished it, I will write you a letter in that sense whichyou may publish.’ I could not have had better encouragement,and began the work which was publishedin the ‘Nineteenth Century’ under the titles of ‘MutualAid among Animals,’ ‘among Savages,’ ‘among Barbarians,’‘in the Mediæval City,’ and ‘among Ourselves.’Unfortunately I neglected to submit to Bates the firsttwo articles of this series, dealing with animals, whichwere published during his lifetime; I hoped to be soonready with the second part of the work, ‘Mutual Aidamong Men,’ but it took me several years before I completedit, and in the meantime Bates was no more amongus.

The researches which I had to make during thesestudies in order to acquaint myself with the institutionsof the barbarian period and with those of the mediævalfree cities, led me to another important research—thepart played in history by the state, since its last incarnationin Europe, during the last three centuries. Andon the other side, the study of the mutual-support institutionsat different stages of civilization, led me toexamine the evolutionist bases of the sense of justiceand of morality in man.

(466)

Within the last ten years the growth of socialism inEngland has taken a new aspect. Those who judge onlyby the numbers of socialist and anarchist meetings heldin the country, and the audiences attracted by these meetings,are prone to conclude that socialist propaganda isnow on the decline. And those who judge the progressof it by the numbers of votes that are given to those whoclaim to represent socialism in Parliament, jump to theconclusion that there is now hardly any socialist propagandain England. But the depth and the penetration ofthe socialist ideas can nowhere be judged by the numbersof votes given in favour of those who bring more or lesssocialism into their electoral programmes. Still less so inEngland. The fact is, that out of the three directions ofsocialism which were formulated by Fourier, Saint Simon,and Robert Owen, it is the latter which prevails inEngland and Scotland. Consequently it is not so muchby the numbers of meetings or socialist votes that theintensity of the movement must be judged, but by theinfiltration of the socialist point of view into the tradeunionist, the co-operative, and the so-called municipalsocialist movements, as well as the general infiltration ofsocialist ideas all over the country. Under this aspect,the extent to which the socialist views have penetrated isvast in comparison to what it was in 1886; and I do nothesitate to say that it is simply immense in comparison towhat it was in the years 1876-82. I may also add thatthe persevering endeavours of the tiny anarchist groupshave contributed, to an extent which makes us feel thatwe have not wasted our time, to spread the ideas of No-Government,of the rights of the individual, of local action,and free agreement—as against those of State all-mightiness,centralization, and discipline, which were dominanttwenty years ago.

Europe altogether is traversing now a very bad phaseof the development of the military spirit. This was anunavoidable consequence of the victory obtained by the(467)German military empire, with its universal military servicesystem, over France in 1871, and it was already then foreseenand foretold by many—in an especially impressiveform by Bakúnin. But the counter-current already beginsto make itself felt in modern life.

As to the way communist ideas, divested of theirmonastic form, have penetrated in Europe and America,the extent of that penetration has been immense duringthe twenty-seven years that I have taken an active part inthe socialist movement and could observe their growth.When I think of the vague, confused, timid ideas whichwere expressed by the workers at the first congresses ofthe International Workingmen’s Association, or whichwere current at Paris during the Commune insurrection,even amongst the most thoughtful of the leaders, andcompare them with those which have been arrived at to-dayby an immense number of working-men, I must saythey seem to me as two entirely different worlds.

There is no period in history—with the exception, perhaps,of the period of the insurrections in the twelfth andthe thirteenth centuries (which led to the birth of themediæval Communes), during which a similarly deepchange has taken place in the current conceptions ofSociety. And now, in my fifty-seventh year, I am evenmore deeply convinced than I was twenty-five years ago,that a chance combination of accidental circ*mstancesmay bring about in Europe a revolution far more importantand as widely spread as that of 1848; not in thesense of mere fighting between different parties, but inthe sense of a deep and rapid social reconstruction; andI am convinced that whatever character such movementsmay take in different countries, there will be displayed inall of them a far deeper comprehension of the requiredchanges than has ever been displayed within the last sixcenturies; while the resistance which such movementswill meet in the privileged classes will hardly have thecharacter of obtuse obstinacy which made revolutions(468)assume the violent character which they took in timespast.

To obtain this immense result was well worth theefforts which so many thousands of men and women ofall nations and all classes have made within the last thirtyyears.

THE ABERDEEN UNIVERSITY PRESS LIMITED

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 73882 ***