Everywhere we saw friends, who winked to us or gave us a Godspeed as we passed at the full trot of our beautiful horse. Then we entered the large Nevsky Prospekt, turned into a side street, and alighted at a door, sending away the coachman. I ran up a staircase, and at its top fell into the arms of my sister-in-law, who had been waiting in painful anxiety. She laughed and cried at the same time, bidding me hurry to put on another dress and to crop my conspicuous beard. Ten minutes later my friend and I left the house and took a cab.
In the meantime, the officer of the guard at the prison and the hospital soldiers had rushed out into the street, doubtful as to what measures they should take. There was not a cab for a mile round, every one having been hired by my friends. An old peasant woman from the crowd was wiser than all the lot. “Poor people,” she said, as if talking to herself, “they are sure to come out on the Prospekt, and there they will be caught if somebody runs along that lane, which leads straight to the Prospekt.” She was quite right, and the officer ran to the tramway car that stood close by, and asked the men to let them have their horses to send somebody on horseback to intercept us. But the men obstinately refused to give up their horses, and the officer did not use force.
As to the violinist and the lady who had taken the gray house, they too rushed out and joined the crowd with the old woman, whom they heard giving advice, and when the crowd dispersed they went away also.
It was a fine afternoon. We drove to the islands where all the St. Petersburg aristocracy goes on bright spring days to see the sunset, and called on the way, in a remote street, at a barber’s shop to shave off my beard, which operation changed me, of course, but not very much. We drove aimlessly up and down the islands, but, having been told not to reach our night quarters till late in the evening, did not know where to go. “What shall we do in the meantime?” I asked my friend. He also pondered over that question. “To Donon!” he suddenly called out to the cabman, naming one of the best St. Petersburg restaurants. “No one will ever think of looking for you at Donon,” he calmly remarked. “They will hunt for you everywhere else, but not there; and we shall have a dinner, and a drink too, in honor of the success of your escape.”
What could I reply to so reasonable a suggestion? So we went to Donon, passed the halls flooded with light and crowded with visitors at the dinner hour, and took a separate room, where we spent the evening till the time came when we were expected. The house where we had first alighted was searched less than two hours after we left, as were also the apartments of nearly all our friends. Nobody thought of making a search at Donon.
A couple of days later I was to take possession of an apartment which had been engaged for me, and which I could occupy under a false passport. But the lady who was to accompany me there in a carriage took the precaution of visiting the house first by herself. It was thickly surrounded by spies. So many of my friends had come to inquire whether I was safe there that the suspicions of the police had been aroused. Moreover, my portrait had been printed by the Third Section, and hundreds of copies had been distributed to policemen and watchmen. All the detectives who knew me by sight were looking for me in the streets; while those who did not were accompanied by soldiers and warders who had seen me during my imprisonment. The Tsar was furious that such an escape should have taken place in his capital in full daylight, and had given the order, “He must be found.”
It was impossible to remain at St. Petersburg, and I concealed myself in country houses in its neighborhood. In company with half a dozen friends, I stayed at a village frequented at this time of the year by St. Petersburg people bent on picnicking. Then it was decided that I should go abroad. But from a foreign paper we had learned that all the frontier stations and railway termini in the Baltic provinces and Finland were closely watched by detectives who knew me by sight. So I determined to travel in a direction where I should be least expected. Armed with the passport of a friend, and accompanied by another friend, I crossed Finland, and went northward to a remote port on the Gulf of Bothnia, whence I crossed to Sweden.
After I had gone on board the steamer, and it was about to sail, the friend who was to accompany me to the frontier told me the St. Petersburg news, which he had promised our friends not to tell me before. My sister Hélène had been arrested, as well as the sister of my brother’s wife, who had visited me in prison once a month after my brother and his wife went to Siberia.
My sister knew absolutely nothing of the preparations for my escape. Only after I had escaped a friend had hurried to her, to tell her the welcome news. She protested her ignorance in vain: she was taken from her children, and was kept imprisoned for a fortnight. As to the sister of my brother’s wife, she had known vaguely that something was to be attempted, but she had had no part in the preparations. Common sense ought to have shown the authorities that a person who had
