Not only did no one speak to him, he was not even permitted to speak to himself. When the killing silence first began to oppress him, he hummed a tune. Then the spirit of song took hold of him, and he raised his voice. He sang from his favorite opera, Glinka's Ruslan and Ludmila—"Have I then to say farewell to love forever?"
"Sir," said a bass voice thru the food-window, "do not sing!"
A few days later, Peter Kropotkin could not sing.
FOOTNOTES:
[28] See the "Memoirs of a Revolutionist."
[29] See the "Russian Bastille" by Simon O. Pollock in the International Socialist Review, March 1907.
[30] If anyone cares to know to what sexual depravities royal ladies can descend, let him read what Dr. W. W. Sanger says about Empress Elizabeth and the two Catherines in his valuable "History of Prostitution." The number of lovers they caressed was surpassed only by the number of thinkers they tortured. The first-named had a reputation for humaneness. Does this mean that during her reign no one was exiled? No, it means that during her reign only 80,000 of her subjects were knouted and deported to Siberia.
[31] Prophetically named "The Misfortune of Having Brains." (Gore ot Uma).
[32] For a brief but sympathetic sketch of Chernishevsky by one who knew him personally, see the "Russian Revolt" by Edmund Noble. It contains this sentence: "Such was the cost of trying to be a Cobden or a Bright in Russia!"