The need of new impressions is so great in prison that, when I walked in our narrow yard, I always kept my eyes fixed upon the high gilt spire of the fortress cathedral. This was the only thing in my surroundings which changed its aspect, and I liked to see it glittering like pure gold ‘when the sun shone from a clear blue sky, or assuming a fairy aspect when a light bluish haze lay upon the town, or becoming steel gray when dark clouds obscured the sky.
During these walks I occasionally saw the daughter of ‘the governor, a girl of eighteen or nineteen, as she came out from her father’s apartment and had to walk a few steps in our yard in order to reach the entrance gate, the only issue from the building. She always hurried along, with her eyes cast down, as if she felt ashamed of being the ‘daughter of a jailer. Her younger brother, on the con- trary, a cadet whom I also saw once or twice in the yard, always looked straight in my face with such a frank ex- 304 MEMOIRS OF A REVOLUTIONIST pression of sympathy that I was struck with it and even mentioned it to some one after my release. Four or five years later, when he was already an officer, he was exiled to Siberia. He had joined the revolutionary party, and must have helped, I suppose, to carry on correspondence with prisoners in the fortress.
Winter is gloomy at St. Petersburg for those who cannot be out in the brightly lighted streets. It was still gloomier, of course, in a casemate. But dampness was even worse than darkness. The casemates are so damp that in order to drive away moisture they must be overheated, and I felt almost suffocated; but when at last I obtained my request,. that the Epes should be kept lower than before, the outer wall became dripping with moisture, and the paper was as if a pail of water had been poured upon it every | day, — the consequence being that I suffered a great deal | from rheumatism.
With all that I was cheerful, continuing to write and to: draw maps in the darkness, sharpening my lead pencils | with a broken piece of glass which I had managed to get hold of in the yard; I faithfully walked my five miles a_ day in the cell, and performed gymnastic feats with my | i oak stool. Time went on. But then sorrow crept into | my cell and nearly broke me down. My brother Alexander was arrested.
Toward the end of December, 1874, I was allowed an | interview with him and our sister Héléne, in the fortress, in the presence of a gendarme officer. Interviews, granted | at long intervals, always bring both the prisoner and his relatives into a state of excitement. One sees beloved faces | and hears beloved voices, knowing that the vision will last but a few moments; one feels so near to the other, and yet so far off, as there can be no intimate conversation before a stranger, an enemy and a spy. Besides, my brother and | ARREST OF MY BROTHER 309 aster felt anxious for my health, upon which the dark, sloomy winter days and the dampness had already marked heir first effects. We parted with heavy hearts.
A week after that interview I received, instead of an expected letter from my brother concerning the printing of my book, a short note from Polakéff. He informed me that henceforward he would read the proofs, and that I should have to address to him everything relative to the printing. From the very tone of the note I understood at once that something must be wrong with my brother. If it were only illness, Polakéff would have mentioned it. Days of fearful anxiety came upon me. Alexander must have been arrested, and I must have been the cause of it! Life suddenly ceased to have any meaning forme. My walks, my gymnastics, my work, lost interest. All the day long I went ceaselessly up and down my cell, thinking of nothing but Alexander’s arrest. For me, an unmarried man, im- prisonment was only personal inconvenience; but he was married, he passionately loved his wife, and they now had a boy, upon whom they had concentrated all the love that they had felt for their first two children.
_ Worst of all was the incertitude. What could he have done ® or what reason had he been arrested? What ‘were they going to do with him? Weeks passed; my ‘anxiety became deeper and deeper; but there was no news, ‘till at last I heard in a roundabout way that he had been ‘arrested for a letter written to P. L. Lavroff.
T learned the details much later. After his last interview with me he wrote to his old friend, who at that time was editing a Russian socialist review, “ Forward,” in London. He mentioned in this letter his fears about my health; he spoke of the many arrests which were then being made in Russia; and he freely expressed his hatred of the despotic ‘rule. The letter was intercepted at the post-office by the Third Section, and they came on Christmas Eve to search 356 MEMOIRS OF A REVOLUTIONIST his apartments. They carried out their search in an even more brutal manner than usual. After midnight half a4 dozen men made an irruption into his flat, and turned everything upside down. ‘The very walls were examined; the sick child was taken out of its bed, that the bedding and the mattresses might be inspected. They found no- thing, — there was nothing to find.
My brother very much resented this search. With his customary frankness, he said to the gendarme officer who conducted it: “‘ Against you, captain, I have no grievance, You have received little education, and you hardly under. stand what you are doing. But you, sir,” he continued, turning towards the procureur, “you know what part you are playing in these proceedings. You have received a4 university education. You know the law, and you know that you are trampling all law, such as it is, under yout feet, and covering the lawlessness of these men by your presence; you are simply — a scoundrel!”’ | They swore hatred against him. They kept him im. prisoned in the Third Section till May. My brother's child —a charming boy, whom illness had rendered still more affectionate and intelligent — was dying from con. sumption. The doctors said he had only a few days more to live. Alexander, who had never asked any favor of his enemies, asked them this time to permit him to see his child for the last time. He begged to be allowed to go home fot one hour, upon his word of honor to return, or to be taken there under escort. They refused. They could not deny themselves that vengeance. | The child died, and its mother was thrown once more¢ into a state bordering on insanity when my brother was told that he was to be transported to East Siberia, to a small town, Minusinsk. He would travel in a cart between twe gendarmes, and his wife might follow later, but could nol travel with him. | VINDICTIVENESS OF THE THIRD SECTION 357 ‘Tell me, at least, what is my crime,’ he demanded; ut there was no accusation of any sort against him beyond he letter. This transportation appeared so arbitrary, so auch an act of mere revenge on the part of the Third Sec- ion, that none of our relatives could believe that the exile yould last more than a few months. My brother lodged , complaint with the minister of the interior. The reply vas that the minister could not interfere with the will of he chief of the gendarmes. Another complaint was lodged vith the Senate. It was of no avail. Accouple of years later our sister Héléne, acting on her wn initiative, wrote a petition to the Tsar. Our cousin Dmitri, governor-general of Kharkoff, aide-de-camp of the Gmperor, and a favorite at the court, also deeply incensed ut this treatment by the Third Section, handed the petition sersonally to the Tsar, and in so doing added a few words in support of it. But the vindictiveness of the Romdnoffs was a family trait strongly developed in Alexander II. He wrote upon the petition, “ Pust posidit”? (Let him remain some time more). My brother stayed in Siberia twelve years, and never returned to Russia.
a a TE countless arrests which were made in the summer of 1874, and the serious turn which was given by the police to the prosecution of our circle, produced a deep change in the opinions of Russian youth. Up to that time the prevailing idea had been to pick out among the workers, and event the peasants, a number of men who should be prepared to become socialistic agitators. But the factories were now flooded with spies, and it was evident that, do what they might, both propagandists and workers would very soon be arrested and hidden forever in Siberia. Then began a great movement ‘‘to the people” in a new form, when several hundred young men and women, disregarding all precautions hitherto taken, rushed to the country, and, traveling through the towns and villages, incited the masses to revolution, almost openly distributing pamphlets, songs, and procla- mations. In our i this summer received the name of “the mad summer.’
The gendarmes lost their heads. They had not hands enough to make the arrest nor eyes enough to trace the steps of every propagandist. Yet not less than fifteen hun- dred persons were arrested during this hunt, and half of them were kept in prison for years, One day in the summer of 1875, in the cell that was = | to mine, I distinctly heard the light steps of heeled boots, and a few minutes later I caught fragments of a conver- sation. A feminine voice spoke from the cell, and a deep bass voice — evidently that of the sentry — grunted some- thing in reply. Then I recognized the sound of the colonel’s spurs, his rapid steps, his swearing at the sentry, and the ‘ CONVERSING THROUGH PRISON WALLS 399 click of the key in the lock. He said something, and a feminine voice loudly rephed: ‘‘ We did not talk. I only asked him to call the non-commissioned officer.” Then the door was locked, and I heard the colonel swearing in whispers at the sentry.
So I was alone no more. JI had a lady neighbor, who at jonce broke down the severe discipline which had hitherto - reigned amongst the soldiers. From that day the walls of the fortress, which had been mute during the last fifteen months, became animated. From all sides I heard knocks with the foot on the floor: one, two, three, four,...eleven knocks, twenty-four knocks, fifteen knocks; then an interruption, followed by three knocks and a long suc- cession of thirty-three knocks. Over and over again these knocks were repeated in the same succession, until the meighbor would: guess at last that they were meant for “ Kto vy?” (Who are you?) the letter v being the third etter in our alphabet. Thereupon conversation was soon established, and usually was conducted in the abridged alphabet; that is, the alphabet being divided into six rows ‘of five letters, each letter is marked by its row and its place in the row.
I discovered with great pleasure that I had at my left my friend Serdukoéff, with whom I could soon talk about every- thing, especially when we used our cipher. But intercourse with men brought its sufferings as well as its joys. Under- neath me was lodged a peasant, whom Serdukéff knew. ‘He talked to him by means of knocks; and eveh against my will, often unconsciously during my,work, I followed their conversations. I also spoketohim. Now, if solitary confinement without any sort of work is hard for educated men, it is infinitely harder for a peasant who is accustomed to physical work, and not at all wont to spend years in reading. Our peasant friend felt quite miserable, and having been kept for nearly two years in another prison 360 MEMOIRS OF A REVOLUTIONIST before he was brought to the fortress, — his crime was that he had listened to socialists, — he was 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, evidences that his reason was failing, until his talk became at last that of a lunatic. Frightful noises and wild cries came next from the lower story; our neighbor was mad, but was still kept for several months in the casemate before he was removed to an asylum, from which he never emerged. To witness the destruction of a man’s mind, under such conditions, was terrible. Iam sure it must have contributed to increase the nervous irritability of my good and true friend Serdukoff. When, after four years of imprisonment, he was acquitted by the court and released, he shot himself.
One day J received a quite unexpected visit. The Grand Duke Nicholas, brother of Alexander LL., who was inspect- ing the fortress, entered my cell, followed only by his aidede-camp. The door was shut behind him. He rapidly approached me, saying, ‘‘ Good-day, Kropétkin.” He knew me personally, and spoke in a familiar, good-natured tone, as | to an old acquaintance. “How is it possible, Kropotkin, | that you, a page de chambre, a sergeant of the corps of pages, | should be mixed up in this business, and now be here in this horrible casemate? ”’ “‘ very one has his own opinions,” was my reply.
“Opinions! So your opinions were that you must stir | up a revolution? ” What was I to reply? Yes? ‘Then the construction | which 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 school when trying to | AN UNEXPECTED VISIT 361 obtain “avowals” from a cadet. Yet I could not say No: it would have been a lie. I did not know 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 a rather sharp way, “I have given my replies to the examining magistrate, and have nothing to add.”
“‘ But understand, Kropétkin, please,” he said then, in the most familiar tone, ‘‘ that I don’t speak to you as an examin- ing magistrate. I speak quite as a private person, — quite as a private man,” he repeated, lowering his voice.
Thoughts went whirling in my head. To play the part of Marquis Posa? To tell the Emperor through the grand duke of the desolation of Russia, the ruin of the peasantry, the arbitrariness of the officials, the terrible famines in pro- spect? To say that we wanted to help the peasants out of their desperate condition, to make them raise their heads, and by all this try to influence Alexander II.? These ‘thoughts followed one another in rapid succession, till at ast I said to myself: “‘ Never! Nonsense! They know all that. They are enemies of the 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. “ Was it not in Siberia, with the Decembrists, that you began to entertain such ideas?”’
“No; I knew only one Decembrist, and with him T had no talks worth speaking of.”
“Was it then at St. Petersburg that you got them?” ‘¢T was always the same.” ‘Why! Were you such in the corps of pages?” he asked me with terror.
“Tn the corps I was a boy, and what is indefinite in boyhood grows definite in manhood.”
3862 MEMOIRS OF A REVOLUTIONIST He asked me some other similar questions, and as he spoke I distinctly saw what he was driving at. He was trying to obtain avowals, and my imagination vividly: pic- tured him saying to his brother: “All these examining magistrates 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 to me something to this effect, “How could you have anything to do with all these people, — peasants and people with no | names? ”? — J sharply turned upon him and said, “I have told you already that I have given my replies to the ex- — amining magistrate.” Then he abruptly left the cell.
Later, the soldiers of the guard made quite a legend of | that visit. The person who came in a carriage to carry me | away at the time of my escape wore a military cap, and, having sandy whiskers, bore a faint resemblance to the Grand Duke Nicholas. So a tradition grew up amongst the soldiers of the St. Petersburg garrison that it was the grand duke himself who came to rescue me and kidnapped | me. ‘Thus are legends created even in times of newspapers and biographical dictionaries, V Two years had passed. Several of my comrades had died, several had become insane, but nothing was heard yet of our case coming before a court.
My health gave way before the end of the second year. The oak stool now seemed heavy in my hand, and the five ‘miles became an endless distance. As there were about sixty of us in the fortress, and the winter days were short, ‘we were taken out for a walk in the yard for twenty ‘minutes only every third day. I did my best to maintain my energy, but the “arctic wintering ”’ without an inter- ‘ruption in the summer got the better of me. I had brought ‘back from my Siberian journeys slight symptoms of scurvy; ‘now, in the darkness and dampness of 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 that the ‘Third Section had completed the preliminary inquest. The : é case” had been transmitted to the judicial authorities, : and consequently we were removed to a prison attached to ‘the court of justice, — the house of detention.
Tt was an immense show prison, recently built on the model of the French and Belgian prisons, consisting of four stories of small cells, each of which had a window overlook- ing an inner yard and a door opening on an iron balcony; “the balconies of the several stories were connected by iron staircases.
For most of my comrades the transfer to this prison was _agreat relief. There was much more life in it than in the fortress; more opportunity for correspondence, for seeing 364 MEMOIRS OF A REVOLUTIONIST one’s relatives, and for mutual intercourse. Tapping on the walls continued all day long undisturbed, and I was able in this way to relate to a young neighbor the history of the Paris Commune from the beginning to the end. It took, however, a whole week’s tapping.
As to my health, it grew even worse than it had lately been in the fortress. I could not bear the close atmosphere of the tiny cell, which measured only four steps from one corner to another, and where, as soon as the steampipes were set to work, the temperature changed from a glacial cold to an unbearable heat. Having to turn so often, I be- came giddy after a few minutes’ walk, and ten minutes of outdoor exercise, in the corner of a yard inclosed between high brick walls, did not refresh me in the least. As to the prison doctor, who did not want 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 happening that one of my relatives, married to a lawyer, lived a few doors from the court. But my digestion had become so bad that I was soon able to eat nothing but a small piece of bread and one or two eggs a day. My strength rapidly | failed, and the general opinion was that I should not live more than a few months. When climbing the staircase | which led to my cell in the second story, I had to stop two ] or three times to rest, and I remember an elderly soldier — from the escort once commiserating me and saying, “‘ Poor — man, you won’t live till the end of the summer.”
My relatives now became very much alarmed. My sister | Héléne tried to obtain my release on bail, but the procu- | reur, Shubin, replied to her, with a sardonic smile, “If you bring me a doctor’s certificate that he will die in ten days, I will release him.” He had the satisfaction of seeing my sister fall into a chair and sob aloud in his presence, She succeeded, however, in gaining her request that I should IN THE MILITARY HOSPITAL 363 be visited by a good physician, — the chief doctor of the military hospital of the St. Petersburg garrison. He was a bright, intelligent, aged general, who examined me in the most scrupulous manner, and concluded that I had no organic disease, but was suffering simply from a want of oxidation of the blood. “Air is all that you want,’ he said. Then he stood a few moments in hesitation, and added in a de- cided manner, “No use talking, you cannot remain here; you must be transferred.”
Some ten days later I was transferred to the military hospital, which is situated on the outskirts of St. Peters- burg, and has a special small prison for the officers and soldiers who fall ill when they are under trial. Two of my comrades had already been removed to this hospital prison, when it was certain that they would soon die of consumption.
In the hospital I began at once to recover. I was given a spacious room on the ground floor, close by the room of the military guard. It had an immense grated window looking south, which opened on a small boulevard with two rows of trees; and beyond the boulevard there was a wide space where two hundred carpenters were engaged in build- ing wooden shanties for typhoid patients. Every evening they gave an hour or so to singing in chorus, — such a ‘chorus as is formed only in large carpenters’ artéls. A sentry marched up and down the boulevard, his box standing opposite my room. My window was kept open all the day, and I battened in the rays of the sun, which I had missed for such a long time. I breathed the balmy air of May with a full chest, and my health improved rapidly, — too rapidly, I began to think. I was soon able to digest light food, gained strength, -and resumed my work with renewed energy. Seeing no way in which I could finish the second volume of my work, 366 MEMOIRS OF A REVOLUTIONIST I wrote a résumé of it, which was printed in the first volume.
In the fortress I had heard from a comrade who had been in the hospital prison that it would not be hard for me to escape from it, and I made my presence there known to my friends. However, escape proved far more difficult than I had been led to believe. A stricter supervision than had ever before been heard of was exercised over me. The sentry in the passage was placed at my door, and I was never let out of my room. The hospital soldiers and the officers of the guard who occasionally entered it seemed to be afraid to stay more than a minute or two.: Various plans were made by my friends to liberate me, — some of them very amusing. I was, for instance, to file through the iron bars of my window. Then, on a rainy night, when the sentry on the boulevard was dozing in his’ box, two friends were to creep up from behind and over turn the box, so that it would fall upon the sentry and catch him like a mouse in a trap, without hurting him. 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 soldiers whis- pered to meone day. Ididso. The doctor supported my demand, and every afternoon, at four, I was allowed to take. an hour’s walk in the prison yard. I had to keep on the green flannel dressing-gown which is worn by the hospital patients, but my boots, my vest, and my es were delivered to me every day.
I shall never forget my first walk. When I was taleele | | out, I saw before me a yard full three hundred paces long’ and more than two hundred paces wide, all covered with | grass. The gate was open, and through it I could see the | street, the immense hospital opposite, and the people who | passed by. I stopped on the doorsteps of the prison, unable for a moment to move when I saw that yard and that gate, | PLANNING TO ESCAPE 367 At one end of the yard stood the prison, —a narrow building, about one hundred and fifty paces long, —at each end of which was a sentry box. The two sentries paced up and down in front of the building, and had tramped out a footpath in the green. Along this footpath I was told to walk, and the two sentries continued to walk up and down, — so that I was never more than ten or fifteen paces from the one or the other. Three hospital soldiers took their seats on the doorsteps.
At the opposite end of this spacious yard wood for fuel was being unloaded from a dozen carts, and piled up along the wall by a dozen peasants. The whole yard was inclosed by a high fence made of thick boards. Its gate was open to let the carts in and out.
This open gate fascinated me. ‘I must not stare at it,” 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 my friends to communicate to them the welcome news. ‘I feel well- nigh unable to use the cipher,’ I wrote with a tremulous hand, tracing almost illegible signs instead of figures. “This nearness of liberty makes me tremble as if I were in afever. They took me out to-day in the yard; its gate ‘was open, and no sentry near it. Through this unguarded gate I will run out; my sentries will not catch me,” —and I gave the plan of the escape. ‘A lady is to come in an open carriage to the hospital. She is to alight, and the car- riage to wait for her in the street, some fifty paces from the gate. When I am taken out, at four, I shall walk for a while with my hat in my hand, and somebody who passes by the gate will take it as the signal that all is right within ‘the prison. Then you must return a signal: ‘The street is clear.’ Without it I shall not start; once beyond the gate [ must not be recaptured. Light or sound only can _be used for your signal. The coachman may send a flash of light, —the sun’s rays reflected from his lacquered hat 368 MEMOIRS OF A REVOLUTIONIST upon the main hospital building; or, still better, the sound o a song continued as long as the street is clear; unless yor can occupy the little gray bungalow which I see from th yard, and signal to me from its window. The sentry will ru after me like a dog after a hare, describing a curve, while | run in a straight line, and I will keep five or ten paces ir advance of him. In the street, I shall spring into the car riage and we shall gallop away. If the sentry shoots — well, that cannot be helped; it lies beyond our foresight and then, against a certain death in prison, the thing i well worth the risk.”
Counter proposals were made, but that plan was ultimatel} adopted. The matter was taken in hand by our circle people who never had known me entered into it, as if it were the release of the dearest of their brothers. However the attempt was beset with difficulties, and time went wit terrible rapidity. I worked hard, writing late at night; but my health improved, nevertheless, at a speed which ] found appalling. When I was let out into the yard for the first time, I could only creep like a tortoise along the footpath; now I felt strong enough to run. True, I con: tinued to go at the same tortoise pace, lest my walks should be stopped; but my natural vivacity might betray me at any moment. And my comrades, in the mean time, had to enlist more than a score of people in the affair, to find a reliable horse and an experienced coachman, and to arrange hundreds of unforeseen details which always spring up around such conspiracies. The preparations took a month or so, and any day I might be moved back to the house of detention. | At last the day of the escape was settled. June 29, Old Style, is the day of St. Peter and St. Paul. My friends, throwing a touch of sentimentalism into their enterprise, wanted to set me free on that day. They had let me A FORTUNATE FAILURE 369 know that in reply to my signal “All right within” they would signal “‘ All right outside”’ by sending up a red toy balloon. Then the carriage would come, and a song would be sung to let me know when the street was open.
I went out on the 29th, took off my hat, and waited for the balloon. But nothing of the kind was to be seen. Half an hour passed. I heard the rumble of a carriage in the street; I heard a man’s voice singing a song unknown to me; but there was no balloon.
The hour was over, and with a broken heart I returned tomy room. ‘Something must have gone wrong,” I said to myself.
The impossible had happened that day. Hundreds of children’s balloons are always on sale in St. Petersburg, near the Gostinoi Dvor. That morning there were none; not a single balloon was to be found. One was discovered at last, in the possession of a child, but it was old and would not fly. My friends rushed then to an optician’s shop, bought an apparatus for making hydrogen, and filled the balloon with it; but it would not fly any better: the hydrogen had not been dried. Time pressed. hen a lady attached the balloon to her umbrella, and, holding the um- brella high over her head, walked up and down in the street long the high wall of our yard; but I saw nothing of it, —the wall being too high, and the lady too short.
As it turned out, nothing could have been better than ‘that accident with the balloon. When the hour of my walk had passed, the carriage was driven along the streets which it was intended to follow after the escape; and there, in a narrow street, it was stopped by a dozen or more carts which were carrying wood to the hospital. The horses of the carts got into disorder, — some of them on the right side of the street, and some on the left, — and the carriage had to make its way at a slow pace amongst them; at a turning ‘it was actually blocked. If I had been in it, we should have been caught.
370 MEMOIRS OF A REVOLUTIONIST Now a whole system of signals was established along the streets through which we should have to go after the escape, in order to give notice if the streets were not clear. Fora couple of miles from the hospital my comrades took the position of sentries. One was to walk up and down with a handkerchief in his hand, which at the approach of the carts he was to put into his pocket; another was to sit on a stone and eat cherries, stopping when the carts came near; and so on. All these signals, transmitted along the streets, were finally to reach the carriage. My friends had also hired the gray bungalow that I had seen from the yard, and at an open window of that little house a violinist stood with his violin, ready to play when the signal “ Street clear” reached him.
The attempt had been settled for the next day. Further postponement would have been dangerous. In fact, the car- riage had been taken notice of by the hospital people, and something suspicious must have reached the ears of the authorities, as on the night before my escape I heard the patrol officer ask the sentry who stood opposite my window, “Where are your ball cartridges??? The soldier began to. take them ina clumsy way out of his cartridge pouch, spend- ing a couple of minutes before he got them. The patrol officer swore at him. ‘Have you not been told to-night to keep four ball cartridges in the pocket of your coat?” ‘And he stood by the sentry till the latter put four cartridges | into his pocket. ‘Look sharp!” he said as he turned. away.; | The new arrangements concerning the signals had to be communicated to me at once; and at two on the next day a lady —a dear relative of mine — came to the prison, ask: Ing that a watch might be transmitted to me. Everything | had to go through the hands of the procureur; but as this was simply a watch, without a box, it was passed along. In it was a tiny cipher note which contained the whole | A NEW PLAN OF ESCAPE 371 plan. When I read it I was seized 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 any one had chanced to open the lid of the watch. But I saw her calmly leave the prison and move slowly along the boulevard.
I came out at four, as usual, and gave my signal. I. heard next the rumble of the carriage, and a few minutes ‘ater the tones of the violin in the gray house sounded through our yard. But I was then at the other end of the building. When I got back to the end of my path which was nearest the gate, —about a hundred paces from it, — the sentry was close upon my heels. ‘‘ One turn more,” I thought — but before I reached the farther end of 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. Then a dozen heavily loaded carts entered the gate and moved to the other end of the yard.
Immediately, the violinist -—a good one, I must say — began a wildly exciting mazurka from Kontsky, as if to say, “Straight on now, — this is your time 17? T moved slowly to the nearer end of the footpath, trembling at the thought that the mazurka might stop before I reached it.
When I was there I turned round. The sentry had _ stopped five or six paces behind me; he was looking the other way. ‘Now or never!” I remember that thought ) flashing through my head. I flung off my green flannel ' dressing-gown and began to run.
For many days in succession I had practiced how to get rid of that immeasurably long and cumbrous garment. It was so long that I carried the lower part on my left arm, as ladies carry the trains of their riding habits. Do what I might, it would not come off in one movement. I cut the seams under the armpits, but that did not help. Then 372 MEMOIRS OF A REVOLUTIONIST I decided to learn to throw it off in two movements: one casting the end from my arm, the other dropping the gown on the floor. I practiced patiently in my room until I could do it as neatly as soldiers handle their rifles. “ One, two,” and it was on the ground.
I did not trust much to my vigor, and began to run rather slowly, to economize my strength. But no sooner had I taken a few steps than the peasants who were piling the wood at the other end shouted, “He runs! Stop him! Catch him!” and they hastened to intercept me at the gate. ‘Then I flew for my life. I thought of nothing but running, — not even of the pit which the carts had dug out at the gate. Run! run! full speed!