Although my comrades in the “nobles’ room” were most sympathetic companions to me, I had a great wish to be transferred to the room inhabited by my friend Stefanòvitch, and permission for this had to be asked of the “tom-cat.” He at first refused it, on the excuse that he must get the governor’s sanction; but I heard in a roundabout way that he pretended to fear lest if Stefanòvitch and I got together we might manage to escape. This was arrant nonsense, as since the gendarmes had had charge of the prison there had been no faintest possibility of escaping from it; but the “tom-cat” had to find some pretext or other for tormenting us. A few weeks later he finally gave his consent, and I became my friend’s “chum” in the “Sanhedrin room.”
The whole aspect of life in this apartment differed materially from that in the “nobles’ room.” A good many of the inmates were artisans, and some of the others had a turn for manual work, in consequence of which the room had quite the look of a workshop. The possession of tools was forbidden, but they had them notwithstanding, though nothing of the kind was ever to be seen when an inspection took place. These inspections, though minute, were “superficial,” as the gendarmerie expressed it; that is, we were never personally searched, so we simply put our tools in our pockets when the inspection began.
Some of our workmen were past masters in their craft. Hrùstchov, a hero of the “May days,” was one of these, and another proficient was the locksmith Bubnovsky. With scraps of iron, old nails, and such-like he made a tiny lathe that could go into his pocket. With this little lathe he fashioned all the parts of a clock, and, though he had never been a watchmaker, produced a most artistic timepiece, that later found place in a Siberian museum. Almost all kinds of handiwork were carried on in our workshop, many of them having been learned entirely from books. Patience and endurance—lessons taught by prison life—had fruitful results when applied to such ends; and the theoretical studies that were undertaken, one comrade learning from another, also profited by those qualities. Knowledge was eagerly sought after in this room, and the quondam students helped the working-men. Yatzèvitch and Zlatopòlsky came there every day to give instruction in mathematics and natural science; Fomitchov occupied the chair of Russian languages, and so on. On this account our room was sometimes called “the Academy.”
Among the workmen a certain Karl Ivanein interested me much. By birth a Finn, but thoroughly Russified, his passion was for the finer branches of literature, and in these he was very well read. He was an enthusiastic adherent of Tolstoi’s teaching, and any hostile criticism of that sage stung his proselyte to eager defence. His was a highly gifted but eccentric character: soon after I became acquainted with him he was released from prison and sent to live in the penal settlement, where in a very little while he committed suicide.
Fomin and Fomitchov were noted among the other students in our room for their determined industry. Fomin I had known in Switzerland, where he had lived for some time as a refugee. He had been an officer of infantry; was arrested for making propaganda among the soldiers, and imprisoned in Vilna, but escaped by the help of a comrade. He could not long endure to remain abroad, and returned to Russia, where he managed to conceal himself for a time, but was arrested in 1882 in Petersburg and condemned to twenty years’ penal servitude. While in Kara he occupied himself with the study of natural science, particularly mineralogy.
Of Fomitchov I had heard much, as a very active revolutionist, but had never met him before. The son of a poor sacristan, he had studied in Odessa, where in 1877 he was arrested, and charged before a court-martial with making propaganda among soldiers; but even under martial law it was found impossible to convict him, and he was set free amid the applause of the onlookers, who gave both him and his counsel a perfect ovation. Soon afterwards, however, he was again imprisoned, and was condemned together with Lisogùb, Tchubàrov, and others, his sentence being penal servitude for life. In consequence of his attempted escape while on the journey, which I have already mentioned,[[92]] he was chained to the wheelbarrow[[93]] for a year. He busied himself with historical studies, more especially in Russian history, and had read a great deal on that subject; but unfortunately our library was one-sided in this branch, and only provided him with voluminous and rather out-of-date works, such as those of Schlosser, Weber, Mommsen, Soloviev, and Kostomarov. It may have been partly owing to the bias of these guides, partly to some odd twist in his own mind, but anyhow our friend Fomitchov—a clever and extremely painstaking student, an excellent comrade, and a man of strong character generally—came to adopt most extraordinary views for a political prisoner. He was not only an ardent patriot and Russsophil; but also—which seemed especially incomprehensible—an extreme monarchist, and a passionate upholder of the Romanov dynasty! A political offender, a convict for life, yet a fanatic for Russian absolutism: a strange combination, truly! If a man holding such opinions had petitioned for pardon it would have seemed only logical; not one of us would have seen anything dishonourable in his taking such a step, but Fomitchov abstained from doing so. He persisted in the curious view that it was his duty to abide his fate and wear out his life in a Siberian prison, as expiation of his rebellion against the Tsar, of whose wise policy for the government of his subjects Fomitchov had now not the slightest doubt. It might have been confidently asserted that among all the courtiers and dignitaries surrounding him, Alexander III. had no more loyal and devoted adherent than this political convict in Kara prison. The most unjust and cruel ukase of the Tsar’s Government found in Fomitchov a defender who could always discover therein some salutary principle intended to promote the welfare of the people. That people he loved beyond everything, even to the sacrificing of his own life, if need were; and therefore was he compelled to be for ever attempting the theoretical reconciliation of governmental Tsarism with the people’s good. Any attack on the Tsar incensed him to such a degree that he would often break off all intercourse with anyone who made His Majesty the object of hostile comment. Many of us seriously doubted if the man could rightly be considered sane.
Naturally Fomitchov stood alone in this exaggeration of royalist enthusiasm, but as a Russophil he found many sympathisers. A certain number among us were firmly persuaded that Russian social and domestic conditions were far superior to those of Western Europe, and disputes about this supposed Russian perfection were endless; they were the occasion of many a wager, and not infrequently caused serious estrangements between friends, or—as our double-Dutch expressed it—“climatic disturbances.” This strange belief in the superiority of backward Russia was a ruling craze of the time in our country. The entire progressive press was Russophil in that sense; and the tendency had manifested itself even in Socialist literature, in the passionate insistence that, Russian conditions being perfectly different from those of any other country, the revolutionary struggle must proceed on essentially distinct lines. I must confess that I was often pained to hear men suffering for their convictions giving vent to opinions so strongly resembling the arguments of hardened reactionaries.
One of the most strenuous advocates of these views in our room was a man who—strange to say—bore the reputation of being among the ablest in the prison. Nicholas Posen had been a village school-teacher who had taken no specially active part in the revolutionary movement, but had chanced to participate in armed resistance to the gendarmerie at Kiëv, and had been brought to trial in consequence, together with Maria Kovalèvskaya and others. He had been condemned to fourteen years and ten months’ “katorga,” subsequently increased by another fourteen years, for an attempt to escape from prison in Irkutsk. He was well educated and intelligent, but he had no political convictions worth mentioning. He had a passion for argument, and would discuss anything and everything by the hour, always ready to prove any given proposition, and seizing any pretext for a debate—a philosophical problem, or any everyday trifle. Serious study was not his forte, and his everlasting chatter disturbed others at their work; hardly had his eyes opened in the morning before his tongue was set in motion, and it never rested all day long.
A favourite theme with him was speculation about the day’s food: “What do you think we shall have for supper to-night?” he would ask, buttonholing somebody; “I am sure they are making ‘everyone-likes-it.’” “Perhaps; but perhaps it is mince and groats,” his interlocutor might say, just to please him by falling in with his humour. Then Posen’s tongue would be loosened, and he would prove his important point beyond question, giving all his reasons; he would dilate on it for half an hour, and would wind up with, “Will you back your opinion?”
“All right, we’ll have something on it; what shall it be?”