This was the last time I saw Kotliarèvsky. I learned afterwards in Siberia, from comrades arriving there, that though he had dealt fairly by me, his conduct of some political trials had been considered altogether too mean; it not only drew down on him the bitter hatred of the accused, but was too much even for his superiors, and he was withdrawn from the cases. About three years ago he was President of the Courts at Vilna; where he is now (1902) I do not know.
This interview convinced me still further that the Government would not be content to restrict themselves to prosecuting me in the Gorinòvitch case. Every morning I awoke wondering what would happen next; but day after day went by without anything fresh. July came, then August, and I was still waiting in my cell. One day towards the end of August gendarmes again came for me, and I was ordered to prepare for a journey; it had at last been decided to send me to Odessa. While the carriage conveyed me through the streets I sadly took leave of my beloved Petersburg, which I could never hope to see again.
CHAPTER IX
A RAY OF HOPE—AN UNHEARD-OF RÉGIME—THE HUNGER-STRIKE—OUR CLUB—A SECRET ALLY
My removal to Odessa went off without any noteworthy incident. The change of scene, the railway journey, the sight of people, their doings, their speech, all had a reviving effect on me; but the company of three gendarmes did not allow me to forget for an instant that I was a prisoner on my way to judgment. The idea of escape, however, never left me, and once at least circumstances seemed favourable. It was night; we were already nearing Odessa. I had been dozing, and when I awoke I saw that all three gendarmes were fast asleep. My heart began to thump wildly, and my plan was made in an instant: to get my scissors out of their hiding-place, cut off my beard, stride over the sleeping gendarmes, step out on to the footboard of the train, and jump off. But as this flashed through my mind, one gendarme opened his eyes, waked the others by shaking them violently, and scolded them with a most self-righteous air for not keeping guard. I feigned sleep, and the scene was over.
In Odessa a prison van with barred windows awaited me. I was taken at first to a prison for political offenders, under the rule of the gendarmerie. While my belongings were being searched, the scissors suddenly fell on the floor, to the no small astonishment of the warder, a former gendarme.
“Nice order they keep in Petersburg! Prisoners are allowed to have scissors there!” he exclaimed. He imagined I had brought them openly in my luggage, and of course I left him in his pride at being cleverer than his colleagues in the capital.
In this prison conditions were very much like those in the Fortress of Peter and Paul: rather large, dark cells, tolerably good food, the same strict, formal bearing of the gendarmes, and the same all-pervading silence. In order at once to draw attention to the stipulations of the extradition treaty, I expressed my astonishment at being again put into a prison for “politicals.” Whether on account of this protest or because of an order from Petersburg I do not know, but after a few days I was removed to the prison for ordinary criminals.
It was evening, an evening that I shall never forget. They put me into a cell, and when the door closed behind me I could at first see nothing, the cell was so dark, and only the feeble rays of a lamp shone through a little window in the door. When my eyes had begun to accustom themselves to the dimness I set to work to take stock of my quarters. The cell was circular, and contained no bed, chair, nor table; only the customary wooden tub, a water-bucket, also of wood, and some straw on the floor—nothing else. I was much surprised, and thought there must have been some mistake. I went to the door, and saw through the peephole that two armed soldiers were on guard, while on a bench close by sat a gendarme and a policeman. I had been in many prisons, but this state of things was new to me.
“Look here! What is all this? Where are the bedstead and mattress?” I asked, sticking my head through the little window.
“Don’t know,” said the gendarme briefly.