XIV
Every revolutionist meets a number of spies and “agents provocateurs” in his way, and I have had my fair share of them. All governments spend considerable sums of money in maintaining this kind of reptile. However, they are mainly dangerous to young people only. One who has had some experience of life and men soon discovers that there is about these creatures something which puts him on his guard. They are recruited from the scum of society, amongst men of the lowest moral standard, and if one is watchful of the moral character of the men he meets with, he soon notices something in the manners of these “pillars of society” which shocks him, and then he asks himself the question: “What has brought this man to me? What in the world can he have in common with us?” In most cases this simple question is sufficient to put one on his guard.
When I first came to Geneva, the agent of the Russian government who had been commissioned to spy upon the refugees was well-known to all of us. He went under the title of Count; but as he had no footman and no carriage on which to emblazon his coronet and arms, he had had them embroidered on a sort of mantle which covered his tiny dog. We saw him occasionally in the cafés, without speaking to him; he was, in fact, an “innocent” who simply bought in the kiosks all the publications of the exiles, very probably adding to them such comments as he thought would please his chiefs.
Different men began to pour in, as Geneva began to fill up with refugees of the young generation; and yet, in one way or another, they also became known to us.
When a stranger appeared on our horizon, he was asked with the usual nihilist frankness about his past and his present prospects, and it soon appeared what sort of person he was. Frankness in mutual intercourse is altogether the best way for bringing about proper relations between men. In this case it was invaluable. Numbers of persons whom none of us had known or heard of in Russia—absolute strangers to the circles—came to Geneva, and many of them, a few days or even hours after their arrival, stood on the most friendly terms with the colony of refugees; but in some way or other the spies never succeeded in crossing the threshold of familiarity. A spy might name common acquaintances, he might give the best accounts, sometimes correct, of his past in Russia; he might possess in perfection the nihilist slang and manners, but he never could assimilate that sort of nihilist ethics which had grown up amongst the Russian youth; and this alone kept him at a distance from our colony. Spies can imitate anything else but ethics.
When I was working with Reclus, there was at Clarens one such individual, from whom we all kept aloof. We knew nothing bad about him, but we felt that he was not “ours,” and as he tried only the more to penetrate into our society, we became suspicious of him. I never had said a word to him, and consequently he especially sought after me. Seeing that he could not approach me through the usual channels, he began to write me letters, giving me mysterious appointments for mysterious purposes in the woods and in similar places. For fun, I once accepted his invitation and went to the spot, with a good friend following me at a distance; but the man, who probably had a confederate, must have noticed that I was not alone, and did not appear. So I was spared the pleasure of ever saying to him a single word. Besides, I worked at that time so hard that every minute of my time was taken up either with the Geography or Le Révolté, and I entered into no conspiracies. However, we learned later on that this man used to send to the Third Section detailed reports about the supposed conversations which he had had with me, my supposed confidences, and the terrible plots which I was manipulating at St. Petersburg, against the Tsar’s life! All that was taken for ready money at St. Petersburg, and in Italy, too. When Cafiero was arrested one day in Switzerland, he was shown formidable reports of Italian spies, who warned their government that Cafiero and I, loaded with bombs, were going to enter Italy. The fact was that I never was in Italy and never had had any intention of visiting the country.
In point of fact, however, the spies do not always make up reports out of whole cloth. They often tell things that are true, but all depends upon the way a story is told. We passed some most merry moments about a report which was addressed to the French government by a French spy who followed my wife and myself as we were traveling in 1881 from Paris to London. The spy, probably playing a double part, as is often done, had sold that report to Rochefort, who published it in his paper. Everything that the spy had stated was correct—but the way he had told it!
He wrote, for instance: “I took the next compartment to the one that Kropotkin had taken with his wife.” Quite true; he was there. We noticed him, for he had managed at once to attract our attention by his sullen, unpleasant face. “They spoke Russian all the time, in order not to be understood by the passengers.” Very true again; we spoke Russian, as we always do. “When they came to Calais, they both took a bouillon.” Most correct again: we took a bouillon. But here the mysterious
