I learned the details much later. After his last interview with me he wrote to his old friend, who at that time was editing a Russian socialist review, Forward, in London. He mentioned in this letter his fears about my health; he spoke of the many arrests which were then being made in Russia; and he freely expressed his hatred of the despotic rule. The letter was intercepted at the post-office by the Third Section, and they came on Christmas Eve to search his apartments. They carried out their search in an even more brutal manner than usual. After midnight half a dozen men made an irruption into his flat, and turned everything upside down. The very walls were examined; the sick child was taken out of its bed, that the bedding and the mattresses might be inspected. They found nothing—there was nothing to find.
My brother very much resented this search. With his customary frankness, he said to the gendarme officer who conducted it: “Against you, captain, I have no grievance. You have received little education, and you hardly understand what you are doing. But you, sir,” he continued, turning towards the procureur, “you know what part you are playing in these proceedings. You have received a university education. You know the law, and you know that you are trampling all law, such as it is, under your feet, and covering the lawlessness of these men by your presence; you are simply—a scoundrel!”
They swore hatred against him. They kept him imprisoned in the Third Section till May. My brother’s child—a charming boy, whom illness had rendered still more affectionate and intelligent—was dying from consumption. The doctors said he had only a few days more to live. Alexander, who had never asked any favor of his enemies, asked them this time to permit him to see his child for the last time. He begged to be allowed to go home for one hour, upon his word of honor to return, or to be taken there under escort. They refused. They could not deny themselves that vengeance.
The child died, and its mother was thrown once more into a state bordering on insanity when my brother was told that he was to be transported to East Siberia, to a small town, Minusínsk. He would travel in a cart between two gendarmes, and his wife might follow later, but could not travel with him.
“Tell me, at least, what is my crime,” he demanded; but there was no accusation of any sort against him beyond the letter. This transportation appeared so arbitrary, so much an act of mere revenge on the part of the Third Section, that none of our relatives could believe that the exile would last more than a few months. My brother lodged a complaint with the minister of the interior. The reply was that the minister could not interfere with the will of the chief of the gendarmes. Another complaint was lodged with the Senate. It was of no avail.
A couple of years later our sister Hélène, acting on her own initiative, wrote a petition to the Tsar. Our cousin Dmitri, governor-general of Kharkov, aide-de-camp of the Emperor, and a favorite at the court, also deeply incensed at this treatment by the Third Section, handed the petition personally to the Tsar, and in so doing added a few words in support of it. But the vindictiveness of the Romanovs was a family trait strongly developed in Alexander II. He wrote upon the petition, “Pust posidít” (Let him remain some time more). My brother stayed in Siberia twelve years, and never returned to Russia.
IV
The countless arrests which were made in the summer of 1874, and the serious turn which was given by the police to the prosecution of our circle, produced a deep change in the opinions of Russian youth. Up to that time the prevailing idea had been to pick out among the workers, and eventually the peasants, a number of men who should be prepared to become socialistic agitators. But the factories were now flooded with spies, and it was evident that, do what they might, both propagandists and workers would very soon be arrested and hidden forever in Siberia. Then began a great movement “to the people” in a new form, when several hundred young men and women, disregarding all precautions hitherto taken, rushed to the country, and, traveling through the towns and villages, incited the masses to revolution, almost openly distributing pamphlets, songs, and proclamations. In our circles this summer received the name of “the mad summer.”
The gendarmes lost their heads. They had not hands enough to make the arrest nor eyes enough to trace the steps of every propagandist. Yet not less than fifteen hundred persons were arrested during this hunt, and half of them were kept in prison for years.
One day in the summer of 1875, in the cell that was next to mine, I distinctly heard the light steps of heeled boots, and a few minutes later I caught fragments of a conversation. A feminine voice spoke from the cell, and a deep bass voice—evidently that of the sentry—grunted something in reply. Then I recognized the sound of the colonel’s spurs, his rapid steps, his swearing at the sentry, and the click of the key in the lock. He said something, and a feminine voice loudly replied: “We did not talk. I only asked him to call the noncommissioned officer.” Then the door was locked, and I heard the colonel swearing in whispers at the sentry.
So I was alone no more. I had a lady neighbor, who at once broke down the severe discipline
