One case that especially moved me was that of Rubìnok, a young student from Moscow University, aged only nineteen, highly gifted, and developed intellectually far beyond his years. He was condemned to three years’ exile in Eastern Siberia, and was eventually sent to one of the most forsaken corners of the earth—in the province of Yakutsk, beyond the arctic circle. While there he was somehow or other set upon by the half-savage natives and nearly killed, in consequence of which violent treatment he lost his reason and became permanently insane.
There was much said in our prison (and throughout Moscow, too) about the fate of another young student of the Peter Rasoumòvsky Academy. His name was Kovalièv; he had been arrested on some trifling count, and confined in the police prison. A certain officer of the guard, Belino-Bshezòvsky, was also there, under examination for some criminal offence. This representative of our gilded youth entered into league with the gendarmerie to take advantage of the young student’s inexperience; and they planned no less than the concoction of a false attempt at assassination. The officer pretended to Kovalièv that he himself belonged to the revolutionists, and tempted the boy with the suggestion of killing the Public Prosecutor of the Moscow Courts (the present Minister of Justice, Mouravièv). The unwary youth fell into the trap, and the agent provocateur furnished him with a loaded revolver; then, when Kovalièv was to be examined by the Public Prosecutor, he was suddenly seized on his way to the office by the gendarmes (instructed, of course, by Belino-Bshezòvsky), searched, and the weapon found on him. He was at once charged with being caught in an attempt to murder the Public Prosecutor. In his despair he tried to commit suicide, but was prevented. The provocative rôle played by the gendarmerie was here too flagrant to be concealed, and the representations of the victim’s father were successful in rescuing him from their clutches. An order was sent from Petersburg to hush up the affair. Rumours were current everywhere that Mouravièv had been privy to the action of the gendarmerie, his attempted assassination being designed to fix public notice upon him and bring him to the front. But I have no means of knowing how far there was any foundation for this report.
CHAPTER XIV
A NOT INCORRUPTIBLE INSPECTOR—BROKEN FETTERS—RESISTANCE TO THE SHAVING PROCESS—VISITORS IN THE PRISON
In this Moscow prison we “politicals” had frequent opportunities of intercourse, and we soon managed to get news of the outer world. This was partly through our discovery that one of the inspectors was accessible to bribes. This man—we will call him Smirnòv—was about five-and-twenty, his family an impoverished branch of the smaller rural nobility. His sister was the mistress of a personage of some importance, and he owed his situation as prison inspector to her influence. Reckless, daring, and up to all sorts of dodges, he was ready for any adventure, and would not even have recoiled from committing a crime if it had seemed likely to be profitable to him. Scarcely able to read and write, he had an almost superstitious reverence for anything like education, and that made him anxious to ingratiate himself with us “politicals.” He was doubly delighted at being useful to us: first, because it flattered his vanity, and secondly, because we were very willing to reward his services with coin of the realm. He had a special affection for me, and often came to my cell for a gossip about all sorts of things. Of his own accord he suggested that he might help me to escape; but I turned every plan over and over, and could see none likely of success.
“Just listen, though,” he said once; “we can work it out like this: I can disguise you as a lamplighter or a stove-cleaner, and take you out of the prison with me, and then we can go abroad together.”
This might indeed have been managed, but there was much to be said against it; above all, the feeling of solidarity with my comrades prevented me from wishing to escape alone. The other two, my neighbours, had severer sentences than mine to undergo, and I could not have borne to leave them behind. We should have needed a considerable sum of money, which I had not at command; and then, besides, I should have had this man on my hands for the rest of our lives. All this led me to decline his offer.
Meanwhile, my companions had a plan of their own for breaking through the wall and so getting free, and although they had kept their preparations carefully secret, Smirnòv got an inkling of them.
“Do you think I don’t know your comrades want to get out?” he said to me one day. “Only tell them to manage so that I don’t get into trouble. I shan’t betray them.”
I promised him he should not be let in for anything, and told my comrades; but they very soon saw their plan was not feasible, and gave it up. We had no reason to fear that this man would tell tales of us, he was too much in our hands; but on one occasion I forced him to give information to the authorities, as I will now relate.
It had come to our knowledge that the ordinary criminals in this prison managed to disembarrass themselves of their fetters, not only at night, but through the day, and that this was winked at by the officials. I therefore resolved to follow their example, and get rid of my chains, but openly, not in secret.