He leaned over and looked at the flowing Neva, knowing he would not soon see the graceful river again. Over the gulf of Finland, clouds were hanging, but the prisoner searched for patches of blue sky. The sun was going down, wearily perhaps, but proudly, for as it slowly sank below the horizon it left behind it gossamer colors of sapphire and scarlet, with glint and glow of gold. (And the officer snored.)
The carriage turned to the left and entered a dark passage. Kropotkin was now within the gate of the Cemetery for the Living, the mouldy, murderous Tomb of Torture. Thru his mind flashed all the horrors of this famous prison whose dreaded name is uttered only in a voice hushed and awed.[28] Within these walls the Decembrists became martyrs. Here Nechaev—in the gloomy Alexis ravelin[29]—was kept a prisoner for life. Here Perovskaya had been confined. Here was incarcerated the poet-prince Odoevsky, about whose early death the banished Lermontov wrote so tender an elegy.
The carriage stopped before another gate which was opened by soldiers. Here Catherine II.[30] buried alive all who opposed her abominations. Here the terrible Minich tortured his enemies until they expired from the agony. Here Princess Tarakanova was locked in a cell which filled with water, causing the rats to climb upon her body to save themselves from drowning. Here in the awful loneliness of the silent dungeons, an army of unfortunates had gone insane.
The carriage rested again and Kropotkin was taken to a third iron gate which opened into a dark room where he could vaguely see several soldiers in soft felt boots gliding noiselessly about as if they were phantoms from another world. He recalled that here was caged much of the winged glory of Russian Literature—Ryleev, the poet of freedom whose forbidden ballads Kropotkin's mother copied in her note-books; Griboyedov who wrote one immortal masterpiece[31] and then put pen no more to paper because the censor mutilated his work beyond recognition; Shevchenko who dipped his quill in a soul of tears and wrote heart-breaking poetry about his fellow-serfs; Dostoyevsky, the sensitive novelist who described so well the injured and insulted; Pisarev, a truly marvellous critic whose voice was a trumpet-call arousing the youth to a higher life; Chernishevsky, the profoundest thinker of his time, as great a genius as the race of man has produced.[32] These—and how many more!—had spent weary years in the fortress where he was now walking.
He remembered that in one of these cells the dauntless Karakozov was frightfully maltreated by being deprived of sleep. The gendarmes, who were changed every two hours, were ordered to keep him awake. Karakozov was inventive, and as he sat on his small stool he would cross his legs, and swing one of them to make his tormentors believe he was up; meanwhile he would steal a nap, continuing to swing his leg. When the gendarmes—depraved, imbruted blood-spillers—discovered the deception, they shook him every few moments whether he swung his limb or not. It is also quite certain that all his joints were crushed, for when he was taken out from the fortress to be hanged, he looked like a lump of rubber or heap of jelly. His head, arms, legs, trunk, were altogether loose as if they contained no bones or only broken ones. It was terrible to see the strenuous efforts he made to ascend the scaffold.
Kropotkin was taken to another black hall where armed sentries were moving. He thought of the mighty Bakunin, who was kept in an Austrian prison chained to the wall for two years, and then spent six more in this Fortress of Peter and Paul, and yet came out as fresh and pink as a boy.
He was put into a cell—a casemate originally intended for a cannon. A heavy oak door was shut behind him, a huge key turned in the lock, and the prince who had slept in the lap of an empress, who had been petted by Nicholas I., and who as sergeant of the corps of pages became the closest personal attendant of Alexander II., was left alone in a darksome reduit.
The prisoner examined his cell. High up in the granite wall a hole was cut. Kropotkin dragged his stool there, looked out and listened. Emptiness—no sound. He tapped the walls—no response. He struck the floor with his foot—no reply. He spoke to the sentry—no answer. The coldness, the dampness, the darkness were bad enuf, but this utter silence, this intense stillness, this grave-like deadness were maddening.
No human being addressed him; no living thing held intercourse with him—except the pigeons which came morning and afternoon to his window to receive food thru the grating. Only the bells of the fortress cathedral were heard. Every quarter of an hour they chimed to the glory of Jesus, and every midnight they pealed forth, "God save the Czar."
Then all was mute ... and nothing more....