Chapter II: Part 2

Physically she was like a novelist's heroine. She had golden hair and her eyes were blue. A lissom figure, a musical voice, a charming laugh.[27] Pure with a maiden's modesty, chaste with a virginal shyness. So graceful and girlish that she never looked more than eighteen--even when she was twenty-six. Of such a sympathetic nature that when she became a nurse, sufferers whose nerves quivered in distress, claimed their agony abated as soon as she entered. Her mother she loved to adoration, and often at the risk of her life, she left her hiding-place to give Varvara Sergyevna the joy of folding her hunted child in her aching arms. Her father had human form, but was in reality a fiend, yet rejoice that he lived, for from his ultra-reactionary loins was born the white queen of the red revolution.

From her sixteenth year, Sonya was ready to die for the Cause--with a smile on her beautiful lips and a wave of her graceful hand, with the crimson banner above her head, and upon her bosom a red carnation. I speak figuratively. She would not have worn these things. She was altogether too simple.

Hers was a life full of pain, and in 1881 came the supreme sorrow. Her heart twitched with the torture, for Andrew Geliabov, the man she loved so fondly, was in the casemate of the fortress, and all knew, and Sonya knew too, that soon around his beloved neck would be a bluish streak. Yet her brilliant intellect was not dimmed or darkened. That will of iron and those nerves of steel, neither broke nor faltered. It was then that she arranged every detail for the assassination of Alexander II. She may have wept in private, but to her comrades she said with dry eyes, "When I give the signal, throw the bomb."

The appointed day came. In a metal-clad carriage, the czar drove to the parade. Behind him in a sledge rode Colonel Dvorjitsky. Burning eyes looked at a girl. A handkerchief fluttered in the air--Sonya's signal! Rysakov threw his bomb. The Emperor alighted--unhurt. Then Grinevetsky too, flung a blessed ball of Kibalkitch's make, and within a few hours the old despot and the young martyr passed out of the world.

Sophia Perovskaya inspired the greatest stanzas of the Poet of the Sierras, for usually the verse of the slangy Joaquin Miller is mediocre. But how grand are these!:

"A storm burst forth! From out the storm
The clean, red lightning leapt,
And lo, a prostrate royal form ...
And Alexander slept!
Down thru the snow, all smoking, warm
Like any blood, his crept.
Yea, one lay dead, for millions dead!
One red spot in the snow
For one long damning line of red,
Where exiles endless go--
The babe at breast, the mother's head
Bowed down and dying so.

And did a woman do this deed?
Then build her scaffold high,
That all may on her forehead read
The martyr's right to die!
Ring Cossack round on royal steed!
Now lift her to the sky!
But see! From out the black hood shines
A light few look upon!
Lorn exiles, see, from dark, deep mines,
A star at burst of dawn!...
A thud! A creak of hangman's lines!--
A frail shape jerked and drawn!..."

Before stepping upon the scaffold, Sophia Perovskaya wrote a note. (I know it has often been printed, but how can I help publishing it again?) Think you she laments that one so gifted should perish so young? Read:

"Mother, mother! Beloved, beloved one! If you only knew how cruelly I suffer at the thought of the sorrow and torture I have caused you, dearest--! I beg and beseech you not to rack your tender heart for my sake. Spare yourself, and think of all those who are round you at home, and who love you no less than I do--and need you constantly; and who, more than I, are entitled to your love and affection. Spare yourself too, for the sake of me, who would be so happy if only the agonizing thought of the sorrow I have caused you did not torture me so unspeakably. Sorrow not over my fate which I created for myself, as you know, at the strict behest of my conscience. You know that I could not have acted differently, that I was obliged to do what my heart ordered, that I had to go and leave you, beloved mother, when my country called me. Do not think that the death that inevitably awaits me has any terror for my soul. That which has happened is only, you know, what I have been expecting every day, every hour, during all those years, and what sooner or later, must overtake me and my friends. Soon, in the course of a few days, I must die for the cause, for the idea, for which I devoted my life and all the powers of my soul and body. How happy I should be then, dearest, beloved! Once more I beseech you not to mourn for me. You are well aware how ineffably I love you, I have always, always, loved you. By this love I conjure you to forgive your Sonya! Again and again I kiss your beloved hands, and on my knees, thank you for all you have given me during every moment of my life. On my knees I beseech you to bear to all the dear ones at home my last loving greetings! To-morrow I shall stand once more in the presence of my judges; probably for the last time. But my clothes are so shabby, and I wanted to tidy myself up a bit. Buy and send me, dearest mama, a little white collar and a pair of simple loose sleeves with links. Perhaps it will be vouchsafed us once again to meet. Till then, farewell! Do not forget my last fervent prayer, my last thought: forgive me and do not bewail me."

She was hanged in her twenties, but her name is as immortal as the eternal sun.]

Yes, this is her letter. "Buy and send me, dearest mama, a little white collar and a pair of simple loose sleeves with links."

A woman still--but glorified, radiant, resplendent--a woman all inspired, upraised, exalted, uplifted, aureoled.

FOOTNOTES:

[20] See the book on massacres by the ex-bureaucrat Prince Urusoff, in which the high official shows that the government itself is the chief pogrom-preparer. Translated by Herman Rosenthal.

[21] See "Within the Pale," by Michael Davitt. Also Bialik's "'Al Shechitah," either in the Jewish Quarterly Review or The Maccabean, January 1907. Translation by Helena Frank.

[22] See the "Report of the Duma Commission on the Pogrom at Bialystok," published in the London Jewish Chronicle, July 1906. Reprinted in its entirety in the American Jewish Year Book, 1906-1907. At Kishineff, the wife of Fanorissi Siss had nails driven thru her eyes. See also Book II of "Gillette's Social Redemption," and Kropotkin's letter in the London Times, July 25, 1908.

[23] See "Russia from Within," by Alexander Ular. This truthful volume contains many horrible revelations concerning the fearfully cruel and corrupt Grand Dukes.

[24] For a well-edited "Table of Pogroms" see American Jewish Year Book, 1906-1907. Out of hundreds of examples, here is one: On the last day of October 1905, a frightful carnage overtook the Jews in Odessa. Their financial loss amounted to at least one million rubles, and six thousand of them were killed and injured. The Self-Defense was well organized, but when they fought too valiantly, the police surrounded them and shot them down. The janitors were ordered to point out Jewish flats to the mob. An imperial Ukase was published, thanking the troops for their excellent work. Nineteen officers who tried to prevent the wholesale butchery were transfered to obscure posts, while Neidhardt who was Prefect of Police at this time was promoted to the position of Governor of Nishni-Novgorod. I purposely quote very modern instances, so English readers will see that the crimes of the Romanoffs are not things of the past.

[25] See "The Revolution in the Baltic Provinces." The author's name is withheld for obvious reasons, but the terrible little book is edited by J. Ramsay MacDonald, a well-known member of Parliament. The reader of nervous temperament will not find the chapter on the "Torture Chambers of Riga," at all enjoyable.

[26] For numerous instances see the "Red Reign," by Kellogg Durland. From every standpoint this is one of the most admirable works that has appeared on Russia.

[27] "She had the ready laugh of a girl, and laughed with so much heartiness, and so unaffectedly, that she really seemed a young lass of sixteen.... At dinner time, when all met, there was chatting and joking as tho nothing was at stake, and it was then that Sophia Perovskaya--at the very moment when she had in her pocket a loaded revolver intended to blow up everything and everybody into the air--most frequently delighted the company with her silver laugh."--STEPNIAK.

THE FORTRESS OF PETER AND PAUL

A strange feeling came over me when I saw that I was being conveyed
to this prison, used by the Government of the Czars for political
offenders only; a place never spoken of in Russia without a
shudder.--LEO DEUTSCH: _Sixteen Years in Siberia_.

The Circle of Chaykovsky exerted an immense influence all over the empire, forming branches in every province, and producing the greatest of the Russian Revolutionists. Yet the particular group to which Kropotkin belonged was daily decreasing, on account of the imprisonment of its members.

In January 1874, the police became so vigilant that the remaining comrades thought it wise for Stepniak to leave St. Petersburg. But this noble and lovable giant, whose simplicity earned him the epithet of "Baby," refused to obey. He protested warmly, and remained at his risky post until the Nihilists actually forced him to depart to a safer city.

It was also time for Kropotkin--who had become famous by his speeches to the 'prostoi narod'--to conceal himself, but in his case a strange circumstance prevented. He had just completed his essay on the glacial formations, and it was necessary to read it at a meeting of the Geographical Society. When he finished, an animated discussion began, but laurels were on Kropotkin's head; it was admitted that all old theories concerning the diluvial period in Russia were erroneous. This paper produced such an excellent impression that it was proposed to nominate the author president of the Physical Geography section. So Kropotkin sat among the fine gentlemen, and shook hands with the dignified professors, and smilingly thanked the learned savants for the honors they conferred upon him, but inwardly he asked himself if he would not spend that very night in the prison of the Third Section.

His guess was not a bad one. He was soon arrested. After certain tedious formalities, he was put in a cab. A colossal Circassian sat at his side. The genial Kropotkin spoke to him, but the mass of meat only snored. Many of Kropotkin's comrades were already entombed in Litovsky prison, but his question if he too were going there was unanswered. Then the cab crossed Palace Bridge, and it was no longer necessary to interrogate the guardian. Peter Kropotkin knew he was bound for that silent coffin of stone which darkly rises like a Hell-on-Earth--the Fortress of Saint Peter and Saint Paul.

He leaned over and looked at the flowing Neva, knowing he would not soon see the graceful river again. Over the gulf of Finland, clouds were hanging, but the prisoner searched for patches of blue sky. The sun was going down, wearily perhaps, but proudly, for as it slowly sank below the horizon it left behind it gossamer colors of sapphire and scarlet, with glint and glow of gold. (And the officer snored.)

The carriage turned to the left and entered a dark passage. Kropotkin was now within the gate of the Cemetery for the Living, the mouldy, murderous Tomb of Torture. Thru his mind flashed all the horrors of this famous prison whose dreaded name is uttered only in a voice hushed and awed.[28] Within these walls the Decembrists became martyrs. Here Nechaev--in the gloomy Alexis ravelin[29]--was kept a prisoner for life. Here Perovskaya had been confined. Here was incarcerated the poet-prince Odoevsky, about whose early death the banished Lermontov wrote so tender an elegy.

The carriage stopped before another gate which was opened by soldiers. Here Catherine II.[30] buried alive all who opposed her abominations. Here the terrible Minich tortured his enemies until they expired from the agony. Here Princess Tarakanova was locked in a cell which filled with water, causing the rats to climb upon her body to save themselves from drowning. Here in the awful loneliness of the silent dungeons, an army of unfortunates had gone insane.

The carriage rested again and Kropotkin was taken to a third iron gate which opened into a dark room where he could vaguely see several soldiers in soft felt boots gliding noiselessly about as if they were phantoms from another world. He recalled that here was caged much of the winged glory of Russian Literature--Ryleev, the poet of freedom whose forbidden ballads Kropotkin's mother copied in her note-books; Griboyedov who wrote one immortal masterpiece[31] and then put pen no more to paper because the censor mutilated his work beyond recognition; Shevchenko who dipped his quill in a soul of tears and wrote heart-breaking poetry about his fellow-serfs; Dostoyevsky, the sensitive novelist who described so well the injured and insulted; Pisarev, a truly marvellous critic whose voice was a trumpet-call arousing the youth to a higher life; Chernishevsky, the profoundest thinker of his time, as great a genius as the race of man has produced.[32] These--and how many more!--had spent weary years in the fortress where he was now walking.

He remembered that in one of these cells the dauntless Karakozov was frightfully maltreated by being deprived of sleep. The gendarmes, who were changed every two hours, were ordered to keep him awake. Karakozov was inventive, and as he sat on his small stool he would cross his legs, and swing one of them to make his tormentors believe he was up; meanwhile he would steal a nap, continuing to swing his leg. When the gendarmes--depraved, imbruted blood-spillers--discovered the deception, they shook him every few moments whether he swung his limb or not. It is also quite certain that all his joints were crushed, for when he was taken out from the fortress to be hanged, he looked like a lump of rubber or heap of jelly. His head, arms, legs, trunk, were altogether loose as if they contained no bones or only broken ones. It was terrible to see the strenuous efforts he made to ascend the scaffold.

Kropotkin was taken to another black hall where armed sentries were moving. He thought of the mighty Bakunin, who was kept in an Austrian prison chained to the wall for two years, and then spent six more in this Fortress of Peter and Paul, and yet came out as fresh and pink as a boy.

He was put into a cell--a casemate originally intended for a cannon. A heavy oak door was shut behind him, a huge key turned in the lock, and the prince who had slept in the lap of an empress, who had been petted by Nicholas I., and who as sergeant of the corps of pages became the closest personal attendant of Alexander II., was left alone in a darksome reduit.

The prisoner examined his cell. High up in the granite wall a hole was cut. Kropotkin dragged his stool there, looked out and listened. Emptiness--no sound. He tapped the walls--no response. He struck the floor with his foot--no reply. He spoke to the sentry--no answer. The coldness, the dampness, the darkness were bad enuf, but this utter silence, this intense stillness, this grave-like deadness were maddening.

No human being addressed him; no living thing held intercourse with him--except the pigeons which came morning and afternoon to his window to receive food thru the grating. Only the bells of the fortress cathedral were heard. Every quarter of an hour they chimed to the glory of Jesus, and every midnight they pealed forth, "God save the Czar."

Then all was mute ... and nothing more....

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!"

BROTHERS

The worst is, that the gendarmes cannot live without political
plots; if they have none to deal with in reality, they must invent
some; otherwise they run the risk of seeing their budget diminished
for the next year. This is the reason why alarming reports as to
future political attempts circulate as a rule a few weeks and even
months before the renewal of the special budget serving to pay this
sort of people.--MAXIM KOVALEVSKY: _Russian Political
Institutions_.

So time crept on with crippled feet, halting and limping on its broken crutches, held back by heavy ball and clanking chain. Thru the five feet of granite the sun could not penetrate, but grief came in thru the mortar. No oxygen passed the Judas, but with noisy wings sorrow flew in the embrasure. The oaken doors held freedom out, but sadness passed the bars of iron.

A great blow came to Kropotkin. He heard news which sickened him. Life lost its meaning. His stool remained unused in the corner.[33] All the day long, and during the endless hours of night, he wandered up and down his cell like a dazed animal. Friendly faces could not see him, but distress was his warder, and despair became his familiar visitor. He had learnt of the arrest of his brother Alexander[34]--the Sasha for whom he had saved the tiny tea-cakes.

The history of Peter Kropotkin can never be written and the name of Alexander left out. Tho only a year older, Sasha was in advance of him intellectually. This alone shows what a remarkable child he was, for Peter also was precocious: at twelve he dropped his title of prince, signing himself merely P. Kropotkin; at fourteen he wrote articles in favor of a constitution; and while still at school, he became the author of a text-book on physics which was printed for the use of his class-mates.

But more than anyone else, it was Sasha who opened unknown vistas to him, who stimulated his mind, who guided his studies, and directed his reading.

"What happiness," wrote Kropotkin many years later, "it was for me to have such a brother! To him I owe the best part of my development."

However, we soon forget Sasha's abilities--great as they were--in the contemplation of his white soul, of his spotless character, of his open heart, of his affectionate and exceptional personality.

When he grew to manhood, he departed from Russia. His spirit was too lofty to exist in this blood-soaked hell of ghoulish czars. He needed freedom like the eagle needs the mountain crag. Had he shared his brother's views, he would have remained to work and die for the Cause. But as it was his opinion that a popular uprising was an impossibility, he could take no part in political agitation, and he went to Switzerland with wife and child. Here his great scientific work assumed monumental proportions; it was to be a nineteenth century counterpart of the renowned _Tableau de la Nature_ of the Encyclopaedists. He labored in love, for science was to him what it was to Darwin.

Then he heard of Kropotkin's arrest. In a twinkling he left everything. He re-entered the gore-dripping cave of the Bloody Bear. For his loved brother's sake he breathed again the murderous miasma. Once more he walked in that cursed country where the nagaika of the cossack beats freedom to death.

Better than anyone else, he knew that if Kropotkin could not write, he would die. The Geographical Society and the Academy of Sciences wished the prisoner to finish a volume on the glacial period, and using this as a support, Sasha petitioned the authorities to allow his brother resume work. He made every scholar in the capital miserable, and plagued every scientific association until they agreed to support his application.

The fruit of this labor was that the governor entered Kropotkin's cell bearing precious gifts. It would take an Ippolit Mishkin in his most eloquent moment to describe the captive's unfathomable joy when he felt the paper beneath his palm and clutched in his hungry fingers, an inked pen!

In the presence of gendarmes, the brothers were permitted to see each other.[35] Sasha was much agitated. He hated the very sight of the uniforms of the executioners, and was too frank to keep his feelings to himself. Kropotkin was happy to see his honest face, his eyes full of love, and yet he wished him as far away as Zurich, for he knew that tho Sasha now came to the Third Section by day of his own free will, the time would come when he would be brought there by night under the escort of blue-garbed gendarmes.

Kropotkin was right. Sasha wrote a letter to his friend, the famous refugee and profound thinker, P. L. Lavrov, in which he mentioned his fears that his brother will fall ill in his armored chamber.

The Third Section intercepted the letter and arrested the writer. This was the story which leaked into Kropotkin's cell and broke him down.

There is a touching little poem by Nora Perry about two attractive young ladies who come home after the ball. It is late, and they sit on the bed in their pretty nightgowns, stockingless, slipperless, combing their beautiful hair. Their dresses and flowers and ribbons are scattered over the room. They talk of the evening's revel, and laugh idly at the waltz and merry quadrille. Yet the hearts of these girls are not quite as light as their lips, for they both love one man and they fall asleep dreaming of him--his face shines out like a star. Here the poetess leans over the alluring sleepers and whispers if they could but peep into the future, they would not be jealous of each other, for ere another year rolls by, one will be ready for bridal and the other for burial. The eyes of one will sparkle among her jewels; her cheeks will blush thru her curls, but the other will be in that cabalistic country where there is neither wish nor want.

A Russian student burning his papers.]

Yet is it not well that we cannot lift the mysterious veil and peer behind the darksome curtain? Otherwise would not we see future tragedies that would rob us of all strength to live thru the present?

Certain it is that had Kropotkin guessed the fate that was to befall Sasha, he would soon have left the fortress--carried out.

It may be a mooted point as to whether cossacks or gendarmes have been more successful in violating women, but all will agree that the former are pre-eminent in sabering students, while the latter receive the palm when it comes to searching houses. When half a dozen of them, accompanied by an officer,[36] burst into Sasha's flat after midnight, on Christmas eve, they excelled themselves. Against Alexander Kropotkin there was no accusation except that he had written a personal letter to a personal friend. Yet the Third Section kept him a prisoner for several months.

At this time his charming child, whom illness rendered still more affectionate and intelligent, was dying from consumption. It was not Sasha's nature to ask favors from his enemies, but when Death beckons with its bony finger, one cannot be proud. So Sasha asked permission to see his son for the last time. The request was refused. He begged to be allowed to go home for one hour, promising on his word of honor to return. The request was refused. Then the high-souled man cast his spirit in the dust before them and implored to be taken there in chains, and guarded by gendarmes. The request was refused.

The child died; the mother went half mad with grief; Sasha was told he would be transported to one of the loneliest towns in farthest Siberia; that he would travel in a cart between two gendarmes; that his wife could not go with him, but might follow later.

A year passed, and Sasha remained in exile. Another year, and he was still in Siberia. His sister Helene, without asking anyone, wrote a petition to the czar. She gave it to her cousin Dmitri Kropotkin, an unfeeling scoundrel who was afterwards killed by the revolutionist Goldenberg. At this time he was governor-general of Kharkoff, aide-de-camp of the emperor, and a favorite of the court. Heartless as he was, he thought it unjust for a non-political to be exiled so long, and he handed the petition personally to Alexander II., adding words of his own in support of it. Romanoff took the document and wrote upon it:

"Let him remain there."[37]

Ten years later. Sasha was still in bleak Siberia, cut off from his scientific work, severed from the intellectual world. A gloomy night--the wolves howled and Sasha lived. But these things could not go on forever. A silent night--the wail of the wolf ceased, and the soul of Sasha escaped.[38] Helene wrote no petitions to Death, but it was Death that liberated him.

FOOTNOTES:

[33] Determining to preserve his physical vigor, Kropotkin mapped out for himself a course in gymnastics. Among other feats, he made excellent if undignified use of his weighty oak stool. He balanced it on his nose and lifted it with his teeth; he put it on the end of his foot and raised it at right angles to his body; he turned it on its edges and twirled it like a wheel; he tossed it from one hand to the other, faster and faster; and he hurled it between, under, and across his legs.

[34] That is, his arrest in 1875; for Alexander Kropotkin had previously been arrested and thrown into prison in 1858, for reading Emerson's essay on "Self-Reliance," which was loaned to him by a university professor. For a portrait and his noble behavior on this occasion, see George Kennan's world-known "Siberia and the Exile System."

[35] See Kropotkin's "Memoirs of a Revolutionist."

[36] "There is not depicted in Russian literature a single type of officer which inspires sympathy or commands respect."... "Each of these young officers knows a string of such anecdotes all relating to the same topic. Here we have a tipsy cornet who rushes among a crowd of Jews and scatters them with drawn saber. A sublieutenant sabers a student who had inadvertently jogged his elbow. An officer shoots dead a civilian who had ventured the remark that a gentleman never addressed ladies to whom he had not been introduced."--G. SAVITCH in La Revue.

[37] This is a typical drop in the ocean of his extreme cruelty.--Among those who contributed to my "Symposium on Humanitarians," (see August 1908 issue of the Medico-Pharmaceutical Critic and Guide), was the distinguished ex-ambassador to Germany and Russia, Andrew D. White, Ph.D., L.H.D., LL.D. He mentioned as one of his favorites, Alexander II. Naturally I could not understand such a barbaric choice. A little later, this eminent former President and Professor of Cornell University published his "Autobiography," and I found he was the apologist, admirer and friend of Pobedonostzeff! He speaks as highly of this relentless persecutor as of Leo Tolstoy! I deserve to have my face slapped for expecting Truth and Right from an official personage!

[38] He committed suicide by shooting himself.

THE OPEN GATE

The autumn night is dark as the crime of the traitor. But darker
still, piercing the mist like a gloomy vision, stands--the prison.
The sentinels are striding idly around, and in the deepness of the
night is heard their groanlike melancholy "Lis-ten!" Tho the walls
of the barrier are strong, tho the iron locks are unbreakable, tho
the eyes of the gaolers are keen, and everywhere are shining
bayonets, still the prison is not a morgue. Thou sentinel, be not
negligent, trust not the darkness, be careful, Lis-ten!...
MIKHAILOV.

The plague of the prisons was upon Kropotkin--he was sick with scurvy[39] and dying from insufficient oxidation of the blood. The wretches who lifted the shutter of the Judas and spied upon him, believed he would soon change his silent casemate for a silent coffin.

His relatives heard about his condition, and their alarm was great. His sister Helene tried to obtain his release on bail, but the procureur turned himself like a golden pheasant and said with a sinister smile, "If you bring me a doctor's certificate that he will die in ten days, I will release him." The girl fell in a chair and sobbed aloud. Shubin smiled again, for like Gorky's Tchizhik in _Orloff and his Wife_, he was fond of gratuitous entertainments.

But a prince is not a peasant, and Kropotkin was examined by a thoroly competent physician who ordered his transfer to the military hospital (where politicals were sent when it was thought they would soon require an undertaker).

Kropotkin improved at once. With a full chest he breathed the blest air which he had missed so long. The rays of the sun warmed him, and the scent of flowers gladdened his life. The immense window of his spacious room may have been grated, but it was never closed. He sat there all day gazing at the rows of trees. Later he was taken out for an hour's walk in the prison yard--large, and full of sweet growing grass. The first moment he entered it, he stopped on the doorstep unable to move. Before him was a gate, and it was open! He tried not to look at it, yet stared at it all the time.

The desire of the moth for the flame, the attraction of steel for loadstone, the bond between chlorine and hydrogen, the affinity of kalium for the halogens--what are these compared to the passion of a prisoner for an open gate?

Kropotkin trembled as if in a fever. From head to foot his body shook, while the heart leaped and his pulses throbbed. He soon managed to let his Circle know how near he was to liberty, and immediately the comrades determined to aid him in escaping. Plans and plots were devised and disposed of, till Kropotkin feared all would be too late. He violated the rules of hygiene, hoping to keep in bad health, for he knew his walks would be stopped as soon as the doctor pronounced him well. Alas! in spite of all his efforts, his weight increased, his eyes brightened, his complexion cleared, his digestion improved. All symptoms of scurvy left him,--the livid spots under the skin and the oozy spongy gums disappeared.

At last all was ready. The revolutionists were sentimental, and decided the escape should occur June 29th, Old Style, for this is the day of Peter and Paul. It was arranged that Kropotkin's signal that all was well should be the taking off of his hat, and if all were right outside, the comrades would send up a red toy balloon. The day of the "saints" came. At the usual time--four o'clock--Kropotkin was brought out for his walk. He took off his hat, and waited for the little balloon. But in the air no red ball arose, and at the end of an awful hour, he returned to his cell--sick, crushed and broken.

A peculiar thing had happened. Usually hundreds of balloons could be bought near the Gostinoi Dvor. Yet that day not a red one was seen--only blue and white ones were there. Later one was discovered in the possession of a child, but it was damaged and could not ascend. The comrades rushed into an optician's shop, bought an apparatus for making hydrogen, and filled the rubber with the gas. Had they pumped it full of fluorine, the result would not have been worse. No inflation occurred, and the unexpanded balloon did not fly--but time did. The comrades grew worried. Then a lady attached the useless toy to her umbrella, and holding it above her head walked along the prison wall. But Kropotkin saw nothing because the wall was high and the lady was short.

The next day, at two, another lady came to the prison, bringing Kropotkin a watch. Not dreaming that a pocket time-piece could contain anything dangerous, the authorities passed it along without examination. Kropotkin did not look at the hour, but pulled off the lid, and found a tiny cipher note containing a new plan. (Had one of the officials performed this operation the lady's life would have been forfeited.)

This time the comrades rented the bungalow opposite the hospital. A musician was there ready to play on his violin if all were well. For a mile around every cab had been hired to render pursuit difficult. But what was to be done with the soldier who was posted at the gate and who could easily prevent Kropotkin from gaining the street, by merely stepping in front of him with lowered bayonet? Ah, the comrades, like Chitchikoff in Gogol's _Dead Souls_, had an idea. This soldier had once worked in the laboratory of the hospital, and therefore they appointed one of their number to divert his attention by a discussion on microscopes.

At four o'clock Kropotkin was escorted to the yard. He waited a moment, wiped his brow as if it were hot, and took off his hat. From the little gray house a violin sounded. The tones fell sweetly on Kropotkin's ears. He moved toward the gate intending to run in a moment. Suddenly--the music ceased. His heart hurt. Something writhed. One painful minute passed ... Two ... Three ... Four ... Five ... Ten minutes ... No music ... A quarter of an hour.... Some heavily loaded carts entered the gate, and Kropotkin understood the cause of the interruption.

Immediately the violin trilled. Kropotkin listened with interest. The musician was talented, and performed with much feeling. You felt that if three of the strings broke, like Paganini he would still make ravishing music on the fourth. Moreover his technique was perfect. He was playing a mazurka from Kontsky--wild, eager, thrilling,--a mad mazurka. It attracted Kropotkin like a magnet. It pulled him to the end of the footpath. He trembled lest it should stop again, but the intoxicated sounds floated over the prison yard, louder and louder, with ever-increasing passion and freedom.

Kropotkin glanced at the sentry. This hero followed a line parallel to his, but five paces nearer the gate. He was supposed to walk directly behind the prisoner, but as Kropotkin always crawled feebly along at a snail's pace, the able-bodied sentry who was too vigorous to creep, hit upon the above device.

Five paces nearer the gate--that was bad. But the sentry was only a sentry, while Peter Kropotkin was a mathematician and a psychologist. He calculated that if he began to run, the soldier instead of heading directly for the gate to cut off his escape, would obey his natural instinct and endeavor to seize him as quickly as possible. He would thus describe two sides of a triangle, of which Kropotkin would describe the third alone.

Fortissimo--how loudly that violin played! Kropotkin ran!

No sooner had he taken a few steps than some peasants who were piling wood, shouted, "He runs! Stop him"! It was for the people that Kropotkin was in prison; it was for them that he descended from his high estate; it was for them that he was ready to die at any moment. But the blocks with the slanted brows did not understand. At night when they lay on their rotting straw, they thanked the good gods for sending them such good masters. Now they called out, "Stop him! Stop him!"[40]

When Kropotkin heard that cry, he fled with a speed equal to Commandant Masyukov's, when Madame Sigida struck him. Already the sentry--doing just what Kropotkin expected him to do--was at his heels. Three soldiers who were sitting on the doorstep, followed. The athletic sentinel was so confident he could outrun the invalid that he did not fire, but flung his rifle forward, trying to give the fleeing patient a bayonet-blow in the back. But it is never safe to take chances with even a sick runner, when he is sprinting for his life.

"Did you ever see what a big tail that louse has under the microscope?" asked the scientific comrade of the soldier at the gate.

"What, man! A tail? Why, man, you're crazy!"

"That's right. It has a tail as long as that."

"Come man, none of your tales now. Do you take me for a fool? I know a thing or two about the microscope myself."

"But I tell you it has. I aught to know better. That's the very first thing I saw under the microscope."

At this moment Kropotkin ran past them unnoticed, and tho usually much interested in convex lenses, took absolutely no part in the animated argument.

On gaining the street he was dumfounded to see that the huge man who occupied the carriage wore a military cap. The unhappy thought came to him that he had been betrayed. But on running nearer he saw it was a friend.

"Jump in! Jump in!" cried this modern Mikoula Selaninovich in a terrible voice, calling him a vile name. Leaning over to the coachman, he shoved a revolver in his face, screaming, "Gallop! Gallop! I will kill you, you----!!" using language abusive enuf to have made every foul-mouthed cossack in the cavalry stare in mute admiration.

Springing into the air from a forefoot, the beautiful horse--a famous trotter named Barbar--flew along as if it were shod not with steel but with wings. When the cause of Revolution is triumphant, this flying quadruped should receive a statue of purest gold, for two years later it rendered another magnificent service to the movement by bearing to safety the Nihilist Stepniak, after he helped assassinate the monstrous Mezentsov--murderer of many.[41]

Like lightning it leapt thru a narrow lane; they entered the immense Nevsky Prospect; they turned into a side-street; Kropotkin ran up a stair-case; the smiling comrade-coachman drove away. At the top of the steps waiting with painful anxiety was his sister-in-law. Physiologists claim it is impossible to do two things at one instant, but Kropotkin says that when he fell into her arms, she laughed and cried at once, and at the same time bade him change his clothes and crop his beard. Ten minutes later, he and his muscular Mikoula left the house, and took a cab. About an hour after, the house was searched, but as Kropotkin was not there, and it was necessary to arrest someone, the police took his sister and his sister-in-law.

Kropotkin was puzzled where to spend the time till evening, but his big friend knew. He called out to the cabman, "To Donon!" which has the same significance in Saint Petersburg that Delmonico has in New York, or Cecil in London, or Doree in Paris, or Bristol in Berlin, or Sacher in Vienna.

The decision was wise, for the police searched the dirty slums, but not the swell West End. So Kropotkin, dressed in an elegant costume, entered the aristocratic restaurant, and as he walks thru the halls flooded with light and crowded with guests, let us fill the biggest bumper with the richest wine, and quaff congratulations to the noblest prince that was ever imprisoned--and escaped.

Then softly let us retreat on tiptoe, and glance at his products for the bookshelf.

FOOTNOTES:

[39] For a description of this disease, see Professor Osler's "Principles and Practise of Medicine."----"In parts of Russia scurvy is endemic, at certain seasons reaching epidemic proportions; and the leading authorities upon the disorder, now in that country, are almost unanimous, according to Hoffmann, in regarding it as infectious."----This reference to a physician reminds me of an interesting little book which has just appeared, "Glimpses of Medical Europe," by Dr. Ralph L. Thompson. Writing of Russia he says, "In St. Petersburg are fine parks and theatres and comfortable hotels in abundance. But despite it all there is an odd feeling of oppression that strikes one the moment he lands on Russian soil, and one doesn't breathe freely till he is out of it all."... "Personally I wouldn't mind foregoing health, friends and money, to fame; but if it came to a question of living in Russia, I would choose to die unknown."

[40] For a work dealing with revolutionary workmen and peasants, see "Mother," by Maxim Gorky. See also the admirable "Russia's Message" by William English Walling. This book is illustrated with magnificent photographs, including the latest one of Kropotkin.

[41] The Russian Revolutionists are too modest. Stepniak in "Underground Russia," finds it necessary to mention that Mezentsov was stabbed to death in the streets of Saint Petersburg in full daylight, but he does not tell the reader that he himself was the author of the glorious deed. To find this out, we must go to another work; for instance, Konni Zilliacus's "Russian Revolutionary Movement," or Leo Deutsch's "Sixteen Years in Siberia," (see the English translation by Helen Chisholm). On the other hand Deutsch escaped in a romantic manner from the prison in Kiev, but in his book he refers to it so casually that if we wish to learn the facts we must go to another work; either Stepniak's, or Professor Thun's "Geschichte der revolutionaren Bewegung in Russland."

FROM THE PRINTING PRESS

You poets, painters, sculptors, musicians, if you understand your
true mission and the very interests of art itself, come with us.
Place your pen, your pencil, your chisel, your ideas at the service
of the revolution. Figure forth to us, in your eloquent style, or
your impressive pictures, the heroic struggles of the people
against their oppressors, fire the hearts of our youth with that
glorious revolutionary enthusiasm which inflamed the souls of our
ancestors; tell women what a noble career is that of a husband who
devotes his life to the great cause of social emancipation! Show
the people how hideous is their actual life, and place your hands
on the causes of its ugliness; tell us what a rational life would
be, if it did not encounter at every step the follies and ignomies
of our present social order.--P. KROPOTKIN: _An Appeal to the
Young_.

Peter Kropotkin's writings range from obscure articles in unknown papers read by a handful of faithful subscribers, to cloth-bound far-famed volumes translated into several languages; include contributions to periodicals as revolutionary as _Revolte_ and as respectable as the _Atlantic Monthly_; embrace all subjects from machinery to music, and from Tolstoyism to Terrorism.

Judged from a literary standpoint, his work is distinctly disappointing. It is styleless. But it has one redeeming feature: clearness. The man is straight. He is not ashamed of his ideas. He speaks right out. He is one of the few authors who writes for the peculiar purpose of being understood. He does not bury the flower of his thought in a wilderness of words.

It cannot be contended that Kropotkin gave up his style because he writes for workers who are unable to appreciate the beauty of literary composition. A man may refuse a title with an oath as Carlyle did, or give it up as Kropotkin himself did, but he who has a style relinquishes it not, for this is a gift besides which the 'boast of heraldry' is as a puppy's snappish yelp unto the lion's mighty roar.

Neither can it be claimed that Kropotkin's stylistic deficiency is due to the fact that he is an economist. So was Henry George, and yet there is a magical music in _Progress and Poverty_ which makes the phrases flow like a poem of Pushkin's.

Nor can it be argued that his style has been spoilt by the circumstance that he writes in various languages, for in none of his work is there epigram, imagery or imagination--the glorious trinity of the stylists. But what has a foreign tongue to do with it? Was not Kossuth just as much an artist in English as in his native pepper? Even when he cried that we must seize the opportunity by the _front hair_? Many waters cannot quench love, and strange alphabets do not wipe out style.

What is a stylist? He is one who handles words, who licks phrases into shape, who moulds clauses to his bidding, who compels a sentence to leave a deathless impression, who weaves a connected chain of harmony from the scattered links of language.

Kropotkin has written very much, but practice does not make a stylist any more than learning the rules in the _Rationale of Verse_ makes one capable of producing _The Raven_. The secret of style is revealed to few. Its essence is a mystery in which only a handful are initiated. The elusive occultism of art consists in this--that a single expression has the power to either damn a passage into oblivion, or to emblazon it forever in eternity.

To give a striking instance: When Edgar Poe first wrote _To Helen_, these lines composed the second stanza:

"On desperate seas long wont to roam,
Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
Thy Naiad airs have brought me home
To the beauty of fair Greece,
And the grandeur of old Rome."

In this case the concluding couplet is cheap and commonplace--"fair Greece" and "old Rome" being anemic expressions unfit to live. Poe amended it to read:

"To the glory that was Greece,
And the grandeur that was Rome."

Miracle of Art! This is not a change, but an apotheosis. We now have two lines which lay before us in gorgeous perfection a picture of the past; two lines as splendid as they were sickly, as magnificent as formerly they were mediocre. Yet the idea is the same in both cases. What then is it which makes so much difference? It is the manner of expression--it is style--it is art.

There is no reason why one man should be a stylist and another should not, but so it is. Huxley was a stylist; Darwin was not; Herzen, yes; Kropotkin, no.

Being anxious to know Kropotkin's exact attitude towards Art, I wrote to him asking categorically: "In your opinion, have exquisite poets like Keats and Pushkin--who never touched social questions, but celebrated only beauty--been of much benefit to mankind?"

He answered thus: "Not in a direct way, but perhaps _very much in an indirect way_: Pushkin by creating language,[42] and Keats by teaching love of nature. As to "exquisiteness," have we not had too much of those egotistic sweets?"

Closely analysed, and reduced to its ultimate elements, this answer shows that Kropotkin has no use for art per se. According to him Keats and Pushkin are benefactors not because of their beautiful verses, but because of other reasons. Exquisiteness he condemns altogether. He rejects the doctrine of Art for the sake of Art. He does not subscribe to the creed of Flaubert, Gautier, Bouilhet, Maupassant, Anatole France and Lafcadio Hearn.

I think Kropotkin is wrong, and I believe that because his work lacks artistic finish, much of it is doomed to perish.

Maxim Gorky, in speaking of a brief period when the Russian Censorship was somewhat suspended, said, "Books fell over the land like flakes of snow, but their effect was as sparks of fire!"

If Kropotkin wished to express the same idea, he would say it something like this: "Numerous books of all descriptions were published and distributed thruout Russia."

How fine Gorky's; how poor Kropotkin's. How vivid the former; how weak the latter. This is the difference between style and lack of it. Not in the entire range of Kropotkin's writings is there a single sentence in any way comparing with the above one of Gorky's; for he who writes without art holds a crippled pen. I may be mistaken, but in my opinion this single quotation from the Bitter One is worth all Kropotkin's _Freedom Pamphlets_. It is sublime in its similes and exquisite in its antitheses. There is a power in it which unchains enthusiasm and awakens intensity. "Books fell over the land like flakes of snow, but their effect was as sparks of fire." It is art. It is unforgettable, while to remember a phrase from _Modern Science and Anarchism_ is impossible.

With this introduction, we may proceed to examine his work, much of which is necessary and valuable, tho none of it is of primal or epoch-making importance. Stepniak is right when he says, "He is not a mere manufacturer of books. Beyond his purely scientific labors, he has never written any work of much moment." And as Herzen said of Ogaryov, we may remark of Kropotkin: "His chief life-work was the working out of such an ideal personality as he is himself."

The majority of prominent periodicals in England and America to which Kropotkin has contributed, are listed in the _Reader's Guide_ which can be found in any library, and those interested can look them up. Of course, many of these articles are first-class, but I can stop to mention only two. See _Russia and the Student Riots_ (_Outlook_, April 6, 1901), which deals with the disturbances which caused the young revolutionist, Peter Karpowitch, to kill Bogolepov, Minister of Public Instruction. It shows with painful clearness the extreme and useless savagery of that cruel, repulsive, Stead-praised, arch-murderer, Nicholas II.

See also the _Present Crisis in Russia_, (_North American Review_, May 1901). In this excellent essay he refers to the Procurator of the Holy Synod in these words: "Pobedonostzeff, a narrow-minded fanatic of the state religion, who--if it were only in his power--would have burnt at the stake all protestants against Orthodoxy and Catholicism."[43]

Who should answer this article, but Pobedonostzeff himself! (_Russia and Popular Education_, _N. A. R._ September 1901). How strange when Light and Darkness are arrayed against each other![44] Pobedonostzeff calls Kropotkin "a learned geographer and sociologist;" but says; "Tho a Russian, he (Kropotkin) does not understand Russia, and is incapable of understanding his country; for the soul of the Russian people is a closed book to him which he has never opened." It is noteworthy that he does not attempt to deny Kropotkin's charge that if it were only in his power he would burn at the stake all protestants against orthodoxy and catholicism. Doubtless he considers this his chief crown of glory.

There was a further response from Kropotkin, (_Russian Schools and the Holy Synod_, _N. A. R._ April 1902).

Among his pamphlets which are used assiduously by the anarchists of all countries for propaganda, and which often cause the arrest of the devoted distributer, are: _Anarchism: Its Philosophy and Ideal. The State: Its Historic Role. War. Law and Authority. The Paris Commune. Organized Vengeance--called Justice. Anarchist Communism: Its Basis and Principles. An Appeal to the Young. The Psychology of Revolution. The Wage System._ These tracts are valuable as eye-openers to uneducated workmen, but they possess no merit whatsoever for cultured liberals.