[27] "She had the ready laugh of a girl, and laughed with so much heartiness, and so unaffectedly, that she really seemed a young lass of sixteen.... At dinner time, when all met, there was chatting and joking as tho nothing was at stake, and it was then that Sophia Perovskaya—at the very moment when she had in her pocket a loaded revolver intended to blow up everything and everybody into the air—most frequently delighted the company with her silver laugh."—Stepniak.
THE FORTRESS OF PETER AND PAUL
A strange feeling came over me when I saw that I was being conveyed to this prison, used by the Government of the Czars for political offenders only; a place never spoken of in Russia without a shudder.—Leo Deutsch: Sixteen Years in Siberia.
he Circle of Chaykovsky exerted an immense influence all over the empire, forming branches in every province, and producing the greatest of the Russian Revolutionists. Yet the particular group to which Kropotkin belonged was daily decreasing, on account of the imprisonment of its members.
In January 1874, the police became so vigilant that the remaining comrades thought it wise for Stepniak to leave St. Petersburg. But this noble and lovable giant, whose simplicity earned him the epithet of "Baby," refused to obey. He protested warmly, and remained at his risky post until the Nihilists actually forced him to depart to a safer city.
It was also time for Kropotkin—who had become famous by his speeches to the 'prostoi narod'—to conceal himself, but in his case a strange circumstance prevented. He had just completed his essay on the glacial formations, and it was necessary to read it at a meeting of the Geographical Society. When he finished, an animated discussion began, but laurels were on Kropotkin's head; it was admitted that all old theories concerning the diluvial period in Russia were erroneous. This paper produced such an excellent impression that it was proposed to nominate the author president of the Physical Geography section. So Kropotkin sat among the fine gentlemen, and shook hands with the dignified professors, and smilingly thanked the learned savants for the honors they conferred upon him, but inwardly he asked himself if he would not spend that very night in the prison of the Third Section.
His guess was not a bad one. He was soon arrested. After certain tedious formalities, he was put in a cab. A colossal Circassian sat at his side. The genial Kropotkin spoke to him, but the mass of meat only snored. Many of Kropotkin's comrades were already entombed in Litovsky prison, but his question if he too were going there was unanswered. Then the cab crossed Palace Bridge, and it was no longer necessary to interrogate the guardian. Peter Kropotkin knew he was bound for that silent coffin of stone which darkly rises like a Hell-on-Earth—the Fortress of Saint Peter and Saint Paul.
