Memoirs of a Revolutionist · Part IV · Chapter 4 16 (2/2)

One thing worried me. During the search in my house, I overheard the procureur whispering to the gendarme officer about going to make a search at the apartment of my friend Polakov, to whom the letter of Dmitri was addressed. Polakov was a young student, a very gifted zoologist and botanist, with whom I had made my Vitím expedition in Siberia. He was born of a poor Cossack family on the frontier of Mongolia, and, after having surmounted all sorts of difficulties, he had come to St. Petersburg, entered the university, where he had won the reputation of a most promising zoologist, and was then passing his final examinations. We had been great friends since our long journey, and had even lived together for a time at St. Petersburg, but he took no interest in my political activity.

I spoke of him to the procureur. “I give you my word of honor,” I said, “that Polakov has never taken part in any political affair. Tomorrow he has to pass an examination, and you will spoil forever the scientific career of a young man who has gone through great hardships, and has struggled for years against all sorts of obstacles, to attain his present position. I know that you do not much care for it, but he is looked upon at the university as one of the future glories of Russian science.”

The search was made, nevertheless, but a respite of three days was given for the examinations. A little later I was called before the procureur, who triumphantly showed 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 be kept until demand in due form is made.” The person to whom the note was addressed was not mentioned in the note. “This letter,” the procureur said, “was found at Mr. Polakov’s; and now, prince, his fate is in your hands. If you tell me who V. E. is, Mr. Polakov will be released; but if you refuse to do so, he will be kept as long as he does not make up his mind to give us the name of that person.”

Looking at the envelope, which was addressed in black chalk, and the letter, which was written in common lead pencil, I immediately remembered the circumstances under which the two had been written. “I am positive,” I exclaimed at once, “that the note and the envelope were not found together! It is you who have put the letter in the envelope.”

The procureur blushed. “Would you have me believe,” I continued, “that you, a practical man, did not notice that the two were written with different pencils? And now you are trying to make people think that the two belong to each other! Well, sir, then I tell you that the letter was not to Polakov.”

He hesitated for some time, but then, regaining his audacity, he said, “Polakov has admitted that this letter of yours was written to him.”

Now I knew he was lying. Polakov would have admitted everything concerning himself; but he would have preferred to be marched to Siberia rather than to involve another person. So, looking straight in the face of the procureur, I replied, “No, sir, he has never said that, and you know perfectly well that your words are not true.”

He became furious, or pretended to be so. “Well, then,” he said, “if you wait here a moment, I will bring you Polakov’s written statement to that effect. He is in the next room under examination.”

“Ready to wait as long as you like.”

I sat on a sofa, smoking countless cigarettes. The statement did not come, and never came.

Of course there was no such statement. I met Polakov in 1878 at Geneva, whence we made a delightful excursion to the Aletsch glacier. I need not say that his answers were what I expected them to be: he denied having any knowledge of the letter or of the person the letters V. E. represented. Scores of books used to be taken from me to him, and back to me, and the letter was found in a book, while the envelope was discovered in the pocket of an old coat. He was kept several weeks under arrest, and then released, owing to the intervention of his scientific friends. V. E. was not molested, and delivered my papers in due time.

I was not taken back to my cell, but half an hour later the procureur came in, accompanied by a gendarme officer. “Our examination,” he announced to me, “is now terminated; you will be removed to another place.”

Later on, each time I saw him I teased him with the question: “And what about Polakov’s statement?”

A four-wheeled cab stood at the gate. I was asked to enter it, and a stout gendarme officer, of Circassian origin, sat by my side. I spoke to him, but he only snored. The cab crossed the Chain Bridge, then passed the parade grounds and ran along the canals, as if avoiding the more frequented thoroughfares. “Are we going to the Litóvskiy prison?” I asked the officer, as I knew that many of my comrades were already there. He made no reply. The system of absolute silence which was maintained toward me for the next two years began in this four-wheeled cab; but when we went rolling over the Palace Bridge, I understood that I was on the way to the fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul.

I admired the beautiful river, knowing that I should not soon see it again. The sun was going down. Thick gray clouds were hanging in the west above the Gulf of Finland, while light clouds floated over my head, showing here and there patches of blue sky. Then the carriage turned to the left and entered a dark arched passage, the gate of the fortress.

“Now I shall have to remain here for a couple of years,” I remarked to the officer.

“No, why so long?” replied the Circassian, who now that we were within the fortress had regained the power of speech. “Your affair is almost terminated, and may be brought into court in a fortnight.”

“My affair,” I replied, “is very simple; but before bringing me to a court you will try to arrest all the socialists in Russia, and they are many, very many; in two years you will not have done.” I did not then realize how prophetic my remark was.

The carriage stopped at the door of the military commander of the fortress, and we entered his reception hall. General Korsakov, a thin old man, came in, with a peevish expression on his face. The officer spoke to him in a subdued voice, and the old man answered, “All right,” looking at him with a sort of scorn, and then turned his eyes toward me. It was evident that he was not at all pleased to receive a new inmate, and that he felt slightly ashamed of his role; but he seemed to add, “I am a soldier, and only do my duty.” Presently we got into the carriage again, but soon stopped before another gate, where we were kept a long time until a detachment of soldiers opened it from the inside. Proceeding on foot through narrow passages we came to a third iron gate, opening into a dark arched passage, from which we entered a small room where darkness and dampness prevailed.

Several noncommissioned officers of the fortress troops moved noiselessly about in their soft felt boots, without speaking a word, while the governor signed the Circassian’s book acknowledging the reception of a new prisoner. I was required to take off all my clothes, and to put on the prison dress⁠—a green flannel dressing-gown, immense woolen stockings of an incredible thickness, and boat-shaped yellow slippers, so big that I could hardly keep them on my feet when I tried to walk. I always hated dressing-gowns and slippers, and the thick stockings inspired me with disgust. I had to take off even a silk undergarment, which in the damp fortress it would have been especially desirable to retain, but that could not be allowed. I naturally began to protest and to make a noise about this, and after an hour or so it was restored to me by order of General Korsakov.

Then I was taken through a dark passage, where I saw armed sentries walking about, and was put into a cell. A heavy oak door was shut behind me, a key turned in the lock, and I was alone in a half-dark room.