[5] See Darwin's "Descent of Man."
[6] Yet Kropotkin was not among the cruelest proprietors. To read what occurred on the estate of General Arakcheev is enuf to drive the stoutest mind insane. In the "Russki Archiv" is an account of a woman who by the most horrible tortures killed hundreds of her serfs, chiefly of the female sex, several of them young girls of eleven and twelve. Another woman murdered a serf boy by pricking him with a pen-knife, because he had neglected to take proper care of a rabbit. See Sir D. M. Wallace's "Russia." Also the "Memoirs of a Sportsman" and "Mumu" by Turgenev.
[7] Leonora B. Lang, who translated Rambaud's "Histoire de la Russie" from French to English, says there are about thirteen ways of spelling Patzinak. Ditto for Chernishevsky. The form which I have chosen is perhaps as proper as any, and simpler than most. An English reader is not supposed to be able to pronounce Tschernyschewskiy.
[8] See P. Kropotkin's "Memoirs of a Revolutionist."
[9] For an account of Herzen's influence, see the "Russian Revolutionary Movement," by Konni Zilliacus. This excellent volume which all should read is of especial interest to Finns.
EXPLORATIONS
And at the same time falls upon his ear the plaintive song of the Russian peasant; all wailing and lamentation, in which so many ages of suffering seem concentrated. His squalid misery, his whole life stands forth full of sorrow and outrage. Look at him; exhausted by hunger, broken down by toil, the eternal slave of the privileged classes, working without pause, without hope of redemption. For the government purposely keeps him ignorant, and every one robs him, every one tramples on him, and no one stretches out a hand to assist him. No one? Not so. The young man knows now "what to do." He will stretch forth his hand. He will tell the peasant how to free himself and how to become happy. His heart throbs for this poor sufferer who can only weep. The flush of enthusiasm mounts to his brow, and with burning glances he takes in his heart a solemn oath to concentrate all his life, all his strength, all his thoughts, to the liberation of this population which drains its life blood in order that he, the favored son of privilege, may live at his ease, study, and instruct himself. He will take off the fine clothes that burn into his very flesh; he will put on the rough coat and the wooden shoes of the peasant, and abandoning the splendid paternal palace which oppresses him like the reproach of a crime, he will go forth "among the people" in some remote district, and there, the slender and delicate descendant of a noble race, he will do the hard work of the peasant, enduring every privation in order to carry to him the words of redemption, the Gospel of our age,—Socialism. What matters to him if the cut-throats of the Government lay hands upon him? What to him are exile, Siberia, death? Full of his sublime idea, clear, splendid, vivifying as the mid-day sun, he defies suffering, and would meet death with a glance of enthusiasm and a smile of happiness.—Stepniak: Underground Russia.
