It would have been best not to return at all to my apartment, but I was broken down with fatigue after the exertions of the last few days, and went home. There was no police raid during that night. I looked through the heaps of my papers, destroyed everything that might be compromising for anyone, packed all my things, and prepared to leave. I knew that my apartment was watched, but I hoped that the police would not pay me a visit before late in the night, and that at dusk I could slip 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 understood what she meant, and went quickly down the staircase and out of the house. One cab only stood at the gate; I jumped into it. The driver took me to the great Perspective of Névsky. There was no pursuit at first, and I thought myself safe; but presently I noticed another cab running full speed after us; our horse was delayed somehow, and the other cab passed ours.
To my astonishment, I saw in it one of the two arrested weavers, accompanied by someone else. He waved his hand as if he had something to tell me. I told my cabman to stop. ‘Perhaps,’ I thought, ‘he has been released from arrest, and has an important communication to make to me.’ But as soon as we stopped, the man who was with the weaver—he was a detective—shouted loudly, ‘Mr. Borodín, Prince Kropótkin, I arrest you!’ He made a signal to the policeman, of whom there are hosts along the main thoroughfare of St. Petersburg, and at the same time jumped into my cab and showed me a paper which bore the stamp of the St. Petersburg police. ‘I have an order to take you before the Governor-General for an explanation,’ he said. Resistance was impossible—a couple of policemen were already close by—and I told my cabman to turn round and drive to the Governor-General’s house. The weaver remained in his cab and followed us.
It was now evident that the police had hesitated for ten days to arrest me, because they were not sure that Borodín and I were the same person. My response to the weaver’s call had settled their doubts.
It so happened that just as I was leaving my house a young man came from Moscow, bringing me a letter from a friend, Voinarálsky, and another from Dmítri, addressed to our friend Polakóff. The former announced the establishment of a secret printing office at Moscow, and was full of cheerful news concerning the activity in that city. I read it and destroyed it. As the second letter contained nothing but innocent friendly chat, I took it with me. Now that I was arrested I thought it would be better to destroy it, and, asking the detective to show me his paper again, I took advantage of the time that he was fumbling in his pocket to drop the letter on the pavement without his noticing it. However, as we reached the Governor-General’s house 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 representative of the judicial authorities, the procureur or public prosecutor. This functionary plays the part of a straw man, who is paraded by the State police during their searches: he gives an aspect of legality to their proceedings. It was many hours before that gentleman was found and brought to perform his functions as a sham representative of justice. I was taken back to my house, and a most thorough search of all my papers was made: this lasted till three in the morning, but did not reveal a scrap of paper that could tell against me or anyone else.
From my house I was taken to the Third Section, that omnipotent institution which has ruled in Russia from the beginning of the reign of Nicholas I. down to the present time—a true ‘state in the state.’ It began under Peter I. in the Secret Department, where the adversaries of the founder of the Russian military empire were subjected to the most abominable tortures, under which they expired; it was continued in the Secret Chancelry during the reigns of the Empresses, when the Torture Chamber of the powerful Minich inspired all Russia with terror; and it received its present organization from the iron despot, Nicholas I., who attached to it the corps of gendarmes—the chief of the gendarmes becoming a person far more dreaded in the Russian Empire than the Emperor himself.
In every province of Russia, in every populous town, nay, at every railway station, there are gendarmes who report directly to their own generals or colonels, who in turn correspond with the chief of the gendarmes; and the latter, seeing the Emperor every day, reports to him what he finds necessary to report. All functionaries of the empire are under gendarme supervision; it is the duty of the generals and colonels to keep an eye upon the public and private life of every subject of the Tsar—even upon the governors of the provinces, the ministers, and the grand dukes. The Emperor himself is under their close watch, and as they are well informed of the petty chronicle of the palace, and know every step that the Emperor takes outside his palace, the chief of the gendarmes becomes, so to speak, a confidant of the most intimate affairs of the rulers of Russia.
At this period of the reign of Alexander II. the Third Section was absolutely all-powerful. The gendarme colonels made searches by the thousand without troubling themselves in the least about the existence of laws and law courts in Russia. They arrested whom they liked, kept people imprisoned as long as they pleased, and transported hundreds to North-east Russia or Siberia according to the fancy of general or colonel; the signature of the Minister of the Interior was a mere formality, because he had no control over them and no knowledge of their doings.
It was four o’clock in the morning when my examination began. ‘You are accused,’ I was solemnly told, ‘of having belonged to a secret society which has for its object the overthrow of the existing form of government, and of conspiracy against the sacred person of his Imperial Majesty. Are you guilty of this crime?’
‘Till I am brought before a court where I can speak publicly, I will give you no replies whatever.’