The narrow lane which separated the Corps of Pages from the Apráxin Dvor was in a deplorable state. The shops which lined it were full of brimstone, oil, turpentine, and the like, and immense tongues of fire of many hues, thrown out by explosions, licked the roofs of the wing of the Corps, which bordered the lane on its other side. The windows and the pilasters under the roof began already to smoulder, while the pages and some cadets, after having cleared the lodgings, pumped water through a small fire engine, which received at long intervals scanty supplies from old-fashioned barrels, which had to be filled with ladles. A couple of firemen who stood on the hot roof continually shouted out, ‘Water! Water!’ in tones which were heartrending. I could not stand these cries, and rushed into the Sadóvaya street, where, by sheer force, I compelled the driver of one of the barrels belonging to a police fire brigade to enter our yard and to supply our pump with water. But when I attempted to do the same once more, I met with an absolute refusal from the driver, ‘I shall be court-martialled,’ he said, ‘if I obey you.’ On all sides my comrades urged me, ‘Go and find somebody—the chief of the police, the grand duke, anyone—and tell them that without water we shall have to abandon the Corps to the fire.’ ‘Ought we not to report to our director?’ somebody would remark. ‘Bother the whole lot! you won’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 the Bank. Several officers stood there, indeed, around a general in whom I recognized the Governor-General of St. Petersburg, Prince Suvóroff. The gate, however, was locked, and a Bank official who stood at it refused to let 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, his first question was, ‘Who has sent you?’ ‘Nobody—the comrades,’ was my reply. ‘So you say the Corps will soon be on fire?’ ‘Yes.’ He started at once, and seizing in the street an empty hatbox, covered his head with it, in order to protect himself from the scorching heat that came from the burning shops of the Apráxin Dvor 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 and the buildings of our Corps, of which the window frames and the pilasters were smouldering, on the other side. Prince Suvóroff acted resolutely. ‘There is a company of soldiers in your garden,’ he said to me: ‘take a detachment and clear that lane—at once. A hose from the 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 conical lumps of sugar concealed in their képis, they were enjoying the warm night under the trees, cracking nuts. No one cared to move till an officer interfered. The lane was cleared, and the pump kept going. The comrades were delighted, and every twenty minutes we relieved the men who directed the jet of water, standing by their side in an almost unbearable heat.
About three or four in the morning it was evident that bounds had been put to the fire; the danger of its spreading to the Corps was over, and after having quenched my thirst with half a dozen glasses of tea, in a small ‘white inn’ which happened to be open, I fell, half dead from fatigue, on the first bed that I found unoccupied in the hospital of the corps.
Next morning I woke up early and went to see the site of the conflagration, when on my return to the corps I met the Grand Duke Michael, whom I accompanied, as was my duty, on his round. The pages, with their faces quite black from the smoke, with swollen eyes and inflamed lids, some of them with their hair burned, raised their heads from the pillows. It was hard to recognize them. They were proud, though, of feeling that they had not been merely ‘white hands,’ and had worked 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 to the Amúr—whether I had friends there? whether the Governor-General knew me? and, learning that I had no relatives in Siberia and knew nobody there, he exclaimed, ‘But how are you going, then? They may send you to a lonely Cossack village. What will you be doing there? I had better write about you to the Governor-General, to recommend you.’
After such an offer I was sure that my father’s objection would be removed; and so it was. I was free to go to Siberia.
This great conflagration became a turning-point not only in the policy of Alexander II., but also in the history of Russia in that part of the century. That it was not a mere accident was self-evident. Trinity and the day of the Holy Ghost are great holidays in Russia, and there was nobody inside the market except a few watchmen; besides, the Apráxin market and the timber yards took fire at the same time, and the conflagration at St. Petersburg was followed by similar disasters in several provincial towns. The fire was lit by somebody, but by whom? This question remains unanswered to the present time.
Katkóff, the ex-Whig, who was inspired with personal hatred of Hérzen, and especially of Bakúnin, with whom he had once to fight a duel, on the very day after the fire accused the Poles and the Russian revolutionists of being the cause of it; and that opinion prevailed at St. Petersburg and Moscow.
Poland was preparing then for the revolution which broke out in the following January, and the secret revolutionary government had concluded an alliance with the London refugees, and had its men in the very heart of the St. Petersburg administration. Only a short time after the conflagration occurred, the Lord Lieutenant of Poland, Count Lüders, was shot at by a Russian officer; and when the grand duke Constantine was nominated in his place (with intention, it was said, of making Poland a separate kingdom for Constantine) he also was immediately shot at, on June 26. Similar attempts were made in August against the Marquis Wielepólsky, the Polish leader of the pro-Russian Union party. Napoleon III. maintained among the Poles the hope of an armed intervention in favour of their independence. In such conditions, judging from the ordinary narrow military standpoint, to destroy the Bank of Russia and several Ministries, and to spread a panic in the capital might have been considered a good plan of warfare; but there never was the slightest scrap of evidence forthcoming to support this hypothesis.