As I walked through the park to meet the Smiths, I heard someone call, “Miss Bronte!” It was a man perhaps twenty-eight years old, brown-haired, dressed in a brown coat and trousers. He hurried up to me, smiling radiantly.
“It is Miss Charlotte Bronte, the authoress, isn’t it?” he said.
“It is,” I said warily. I was often recognized by strangers who’d read Jane Eyre, but it usually happened at literary gatherings or in Yorkshire, where everyone knew everyone else. It had never happened in a public place in London. “Have we met?”
“We shook hands after Mr. Thackeray’s lecture last night.”
I took a closer look at him. He had pink, boyish features, a slight build, and a habit of tilting his head. His eyes were large, brown, protuberant, and shining with earnestness. His clothing was neat and clean, but frayed at the collar and cuffs, his shoes polished but worn. He didn’t look familiar, but there had been such a big crowd at the salon, I could easily have forgotten him. “Well, it’s a pleasure to see you again, Mr…?”
“Oliver Heald.” Seizing my hand in both of his, he pumped it vigorously. His hands were warm and moist. “I’m so glad we ran into each other! I’ve been so wanting a chance to talk to you. I love Jane Eyre. I’ve read it ten times. It’s my favorite book.”
He held my hand too long. He stood too close, leaning toward me, his earnest brown eyes gazing into my face. As I stammered my thanks, I backed away, but he followed.
“I can’t wait to tell everyone at school that I met you.” Mr. Heald added, “I teach geography.” That he was a teacher didn’t surprise me. His diction was that of an educated man, and I could imagine him with a class of boys who did mocking imitations of him. “I heard that you were once a teacher, too. Is it so?”
“Yes.”
“But you went on to become a famous authoress.” He confided, “I write a little, too. Were you also a governess?” When I admitted as much, he seemed gratified. “I hope you’ll pardon me for saying that you are exactly as I pictured Jane Eyre.”
Too many people have likened me to her. Although I am aware of the resemblances, it embarrasses me. I made polite, modest disclaimers as I sought a chance to escape.
“You are unmarried?” Mr. Heald inquired.
I owned that I was, although my spinsterhood is a tender subject that I don’t care to discuss. People assume that it is due to my plain appearance. They don’t know that I have turned down four marriage proposals, including Slade’s. I was beginning to be annoyed by Mr. Heald.
He greeted my admission with delight. “I, too, am unattached.”
This conversation was going in a direction that I did not like. “Sir, it’s been a pleasure speaking with you, but my friends are waiting for me. I must go now.”
When I joined the Smiths at our carriage, I forgot Mr. Heald. He was a chance encounter of no significance-or so I believed at the time. My thoughts returned to John Slade.
I knew I must go back to Bedlam, for another look at that lunatic.
4
As I write my story, I become ever more aware that there is much more to it than what I personally experienced. The whole of it includes crucial dimensions that I can never know as intimately as do the people who shaped them. I can only conjecture at the scenery, sensations, and emotions involved. That is the limitation of writing from the first-person point of view, as I did when I wrote Jane Eyre. The characters other than Jane, the narrator, could be portrayed only as she saw them. They depended on her to bear witness to their actions and feelings and bring them to life. I faced the same problem when I penned the story of my adventures of 1848. Many things important to understanding the big picture happened to people besides myself; yet I am the sole narrator. My solution was to recreate the story’s hidden dimensions using my imagination, my knowledge of the facts, and my skill as an author. I will employ the same strategy now.
Reader, forgive me if I take liberties with the details. Be assured that my narrative captures the essential truth. Here I will begin with the story of the man around whom my story revolves.
The secret adventures of John Slade
1848 December. A blizzard assailed Moscow. Its rooftops, domes, turrets, and spires disappeared into the swirling white sky. Snow from earlier falls mounded the walls of the buildings, lay piled along every street. Sleighs zoomed through the city, their runners creaking, their harnesses jingling, their horses blowing jets of vapor out of ice-caked nostrils.
John Slade leaned into the wind that blew cold, stinging snowflakes against his face as he strode along Tverskaya Street. After two months in Moscow, he blended perfectly with the Russians. He appeared to be one among hundreds of men muffled in fur-lined greatcoat, hat, and boots. No one could tell he was English. After days spent exploring the city and striking up conversations with strangers, he had learned where to find the people he wanted to meet.
He turned onto a side street lined with restaurants and taverns. Lights burned in windows fogged with steam. He entered the Cafe Philipov. Heat from a blazing fire and the sweet, Oriental-smelling smoke from Russian cigarettes engulfed him. Young men, engaged in loud, fervent conversation, crowded around the tables. Waiters served tea from samovars. Slade sat in a corner by himself. He shed his outdoor garments, lit a cigarette, and ordered tea. Listening to the other men nearest him, he learned their names and occupations.
“Damn the censors!” said one unkempt, shaggy-haired fellow named Fyodor, a writer for a progressive journal. “They suppress all my articles!”
“The Tsar doesn’t want ideas about freedom to spread from the West to the populace,” said Alexander, dignified and bespectacled, who taught philosophy at Moscow University.
Their companion was a burly, bearded poet named Peter; he thumped the table with his fist. “Revolution is coming, whether His Royal Highness wants it or not!”
Slade hitched his chair up to their table. “Revolution has already come to most of Europe, and often failed, thanks to the Tsar. He has sent his army to crush rebellions wherever he could. He is determined to keep revolution from spreading here. No wonder he’s known as the Policeman of Europe. If you want things to change, you’ll have to do more than talk.”
The men turned to Slade. “And who are you?” Fyodor asked.
“Ivan Zubov,” Slade said. “I’m a journalist from St. Petersburg.”
He spoke Russian perfectly, a result of his natural aptitude for languages and intensive study with native experts. For months before he’d come to Moscow, he’d lived in St. Petersburg, where the experts had drilled, coached, and groomed him. He’d practiced in that city until he was confident that he had mastered the role he’d chosen as his disguise. But the men regarded him with suspicion: they couldn’t afford to trust any stranger who wandered into their haunt. As Slade prepared to convince them that he was a fellow radical, the door burst open. In rushed a dozen big, stern-faced men wearing gray greatcoats and hoods, armed with clubs and pistols. Someone exclaimed, “It’s the Third Section!”
Slade knew that the Third Section was the Tsar’s secret service, the branch of the government charged with maintaining surveillance on the citizens, censoring publications, and uncovering plots against the Tsar and his regime. It employed many police, spies, informants, and agents provocateur, and had arrested hundreds of intellectuals who embraced Western notions of government reform. It had evidently learned that these intellectuals liked to gather at the Cafe Philipov.
Customers jumped up from the tables and rushed toward the back door. Slade didn’t want to be arrested any more than his new acquaintances did. He followed them. The Third Section policemen lunged after the departing horde. They attacked men too drunk or too slow to run. As they wielded their clubs, Slade heard bones crack and cries of pain. He evaded the policemen who grabbed at him, but Alexander the professor wasn’t so agile. A policeman caught him. He called for help. Peter and Fyodor hurried to his rescue, but Slade shouted, “Go! I’ll save your friend!”
He seized the policeman who had begun beating Alexander. The policeman rounded on Slade, club swinging.
