Russia during these troublous times presents a dreary picture. At a period when the intellectual activity of Europe is at its height, she still groans under the unrestricted despotism of an autocrat. Here the effects of progress that obtain elsewhere seem inverted. Such advance as is made in civilization and knowledge is used to buttress imperial tyranny and the knout is wielded more cruelly than ever before. We behold liberal institutions overthrown and a whole people held in bondage worse than slavery. We hear of families torn asunder, of innocent men condemned to life-long exile in Siberia, simply because they have aroused the suspicion or incurred the ill-will of those in authority. Force in its most brutal form holds sway throughout the Empire.
What wonder then that the discontented masses writhe in their despair and seek redress! What wonder that Nihilism should flourish and the service of dynamite be enlisted to accomplish what moral suasion failed to achieve! The years beginning with 1879 were disastrous for Russia. They marked the decadence of those reforms which ten years before had given promise of such glorious results.
In one of the most populous portions of Kief, in the shadow of the Petcherskoi convent, stood a large, modern house. As is the case with the generality of Russian dwellings, it was tenanted by a number of families who came and went, beat their children, ill-treated their servants and transacted their daily affairs, rarely becoming acquainted with each other.
It was a many-storied building, of plain exterior. The lower floor was occupied by the worthy family of Pavel Kodasky, a clerk in the employ of the government. His wife filled the responsible position of concierge to the immense house. The third and fourth floors were the abode of families equally worthy but unimportant to our story, while the upper floors were inhabited by a vast number of students and officers who, in consideration of cheap rent and convenient proximity to the university and the barracks, had here furnished themselves with comfortable bachelors' quarters.
The second floor still remains to be spoken of. It was occupied by a young officer of prepossessing appearance, who was widely known in the aristocratic circles of Kief. The dark-eyed Russian beauties adored him for his handsome bearing, his flashing eyes, his gallant and fearless demeanor; the gay young officers and dandies that hovered about the Governor's court admired him for his reckless habits, his daring escapades and his lavish expenditure of a fortune which seemed inexhaustible.
Loris Drentell, the young lieutenant of the Seventh Cossack Regiment, might well be thankful to Fortuna for the gifts she had lavished upon him. The reader will remember having met the young man before, when he was but a baby in his nurse's arms at the Drentell villa at Lubny. The promise he then gave of becoming a spoiled child was fully realized. Indulged by his father and neglected by his mother, his every wish gratified as soon as expressed, enjoying unlimited freedom in the use of a vast fortune, Loris developed a disposition in which indolence, recklessness and unprincipled ambition contended for the mastery. The young man was unscrupulous and vindictive and he obeyed no law save that of his own unbridled will. He was a type of a class of Russian aristocrats whose social position and wealth enable them to tyrannize over their associates and dependants.
Reckless and fearless as Loris was known to be, none suspected that this gay and pampered youth, this officer of the Imperial troops, was the acknowledged head of a Nihilist club. None but a chosen few knew that this apparently peaceful dwelling, with its many stories and multitudinous inhabitants, was the meeting-place of a powerful band of would-be patriots, whose mission it was to inaugurate a constitutional government by the aid of dynamite. Here was the unsuspected centre from which thousands of Nihilist documents were scattered to the ends of Russia. Here were concealed papers which if discovered would have consigned many of the greatest in Russia to Siberia or the scaffold, and here it was that the frightful engine of destruction—Nihilism—had its cradle. So great was the caution observed by the members of the secret organization that the wary and vigilant police did not dream of its existence.
Loris was walking impatiently up and down his parlor, now looking at the clock, now gazing expectantly through his window up and down the street.
"He is late," exclaimed the young man, anxiously. "I wonder what detains him."
He began nervously to roll a cigarette, without however leaving his watch at the window. Finally he smiled with satisfaction.