Safe out of the gate, I perceived, to my terror, that the carriage was occupied by a civilian who wore a military cap. He sat without turning his head to me. ‘Sold!’ was my first thought. The comrades had written in their last letter, ‘Once in the street, don’t give yourself up: there will be friends to defend you in case of need,’ and I did not want to jump into the carriage if it was occupied by an enemy. However, as I got nearer to the carriage I noticed that the man in it had sandy whiskers which seemed to be those of a warm friend of mine. He did not belong to our circle, but we were personal friends, and on more than one occasion I had learned to know his admirable, daring courage, and how his strength suddenly became herculean when there was danger at hand. ‘Why should he be there? Is it possible?’ I reflected, and was going to shout out his name, when I caught myself in good time, and instead clapped my hands, while still running, to attract his attention. He turned his face to me—and I knew who it was.
‘Jump in, quick, quick!’ he shouted in a terrible voice, 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 been bought on purpose—started at full gallop. Scores of voices yelling, ‘Hold them! Get them!’ resounded behind us, my friend meanwhile helping me to put on an elegant overcoat and an opera hat. But the real danger was not so much in the pursuers as in a soldier who was posted at the gate of the hospital, about opposite to the spot where the carriage had to wait. He could have prevented my jumping into the carriage or could have stopped the horse by simply rushing a few steps forward. A friend was consequently commissioned to divert this soldier by talking. He did this most successfully. The soldier having been employed at one time in the laboratory of the hospital, my friend gave a scientific turn to their chat, speaking about the microscope and the wonderful things one sees through it. Referring to a certain parasite of the human body, he asked, ‘Did you ever see what a formidable tail it has?’ ‘What, man, a tail?’ ‘Yes it has; under the microscope it is as big as that.’ ‘Don’t tell me any of your tales!’ retorted the soldier. ‘I know better. It was the first thing I looked at under the microscope.’ This animated discussion took place just as I ran past them and sprang into the carriage. It sounds like fable, but it is fact.
The carriage turned sharply into a narrow lane, past the same wall of the yard where the peasants had been piling wood, and which all of them had now deserted in their run after me. The turn was so sharp that the carriage was nearly upset, when I flung myself inward, dragging toward me my friend; this sudden movement righted the carriage.
We trotted through the narrow lane and then turned to the left. Two gendarmes were standing there, at the door of a public-house, and gave to the military cap of my companion the military salute. ‘Hush! hush!’ I said to him, for he was still terribly excited. ‘All goes well; the gendarmes salute us!’ The coachman thereupon turned his face toward me, and I recognized in him another friend, who smiled with happiness.
Everywhere we saw friends, who winked to us or gave us a Godspeed as we passed at the full trot of our beautiful horse. Then we entered the large Nevsky Perspective, turned into a side street, and alighted at a door, 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 laughed and cried at the same time, bidding me hurry to put on another dress and to crop my conspicuous beard. Ten minutes later my friend and I left the house and took a cab.
In the meantime the officer of the guard at the prison and the hospital soldiers had rushed out into the street, doubtful as to what measures they should take. There was not a cab for a mile round, every one having been hired by my friends. An old peasant woman from the crowd was wiser than all the lot. ‘Poor people,’ she said, as if talking to herself, ‘they are sure to come out on the Perspective, and there they will be caught if somebody runs along that lane, which leads straight to the Perspective.’ She was quite right, and the officer ran to the tramway car which stood close by, and asked the men to let him have their horses to send somebody on horseback to the Perspective. But the men obstinately refused to give up their horses, and the officer did not use force.
As to the violinist and the lady who had taken the gray house, they too rushed out and joined the crowd with 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 islands where the St. Petersburg aristocracy go on bright spring days to see the sunset, and called on the way, in a remote street, at a barber’s shop to shave off my beard, which operation changed me, of course, but not very much. We drove aimlessly up and down the islands, but, having been told not to reach our night quarters till late in the evening, did not know where to go. ‘What shall we do in the meantime?’ I asked my friend. He also pondered over that question. ‘To Donon’s!’ he suddenly called out to the cabman, naming one of the best St. Petersburg restaurants. ‘No one will ever think of looking for you at Donon’s,’ he calmly remarked. ‘They will hunt for you everywhere else, but not there; and we shall have a dinner, and a drink, too, in honour of your successful escape.’
What could I reply to so reasonable a suggestion? So we went to Donon’s, passed the halls flooded with light and crowded with visitors at the dinner hour, and took a separate room, where we spent the evening till the time came when we were expected. The house where we had first alighted was searched less than two hours after we left, as were also the apartments of nearly all our friends. Nobody thought of making a search at Donon’s.
A couple of days later I was to take possession of an apartment which had been engaged for me, and which I could occupy under a false passport. But the lady who was to take me in a carriage to that house took the precaution of visiting it first by herself. It was densely surrounded by spies. So many of my friends had come to inquire whether I was safe there that the suspicions of the police had been aroused. Moreover, my portrait had been printed by the Third Section, and hundreds of copies had been distributed to policemen and watchmen. All the detectives who knew me by sight were looking for me in the streets; while those who did not were accompanied by soldiers and warders who had seen me during my imprisonment. The Tsar was furious that such an escape should have taken place in his capital in full daylight, and had given the order, ‘He must be found.’