Chapter VII: In Prison

“Cossacks”--Questioned--Taken--Five charges to account for--Accused
of being an agitator--Eighteen versts to the gendarmerie--A tedious
night--Back to Saratoff--“Take the dogs away”--Prison--Clamoring
for freedom--Discouragement--Parole--Release.

Sleep laid siege to us instantly we entered the warm room of the station-house. I noticed two girls asleep in a bed in one corner of the room, and a young man, rolled in an overcoat, on the bare floor, snoring loudly in the opposite corner. More than twenty hours had passed since we had slept and our painful night ride had wearied me excessively. Furthermore, I was faint with hunger and eager for a glass of hot tea. I dropped into a chair by the table and lolled back in it, nodding miserably, while the old woman of the station polished her samovar.

When I opened my eyes a rural policeman stood before me, and with him was the chief of the local police. We submitted gracefully to his long and searching examination. Who were we? What were we? What were we doing in that place? Where had we come from? Why did we go there? By whose authority were we traveling through the country? These, and many other questions, were rapidly put to us, and as promptly answered. We produced our American passports, our Russian credentials, our photographic permit. Still this officer persisted in trying to discover a flaw in one of our papers. Suddenly he pointed to the Saratoff stamp on the back of our passports. It is customary for travelers in Russia to send their passports to the police to be examined and stamped immediately upon arrival in every town of any size. This is almost invariably done through the hotel office. A few days before, when we had arrived in Saratoff, we had followed the custom and surrendered our passports to the hotel. In due course they had come back to us, properly stamped, as we had reason to believe. This chief of police put his finger on these Saratoff stamps and declared that they had not been put on by the police. We asked him how he accounted for them, and he replied: “You probably put them on yourselves!”

The tea and eggs had now been set on the table, and I called for two extra glasses and chairs, and begged the police-master and the _strajnik_ to join us at our modest breakfast, adding that we would all feel more like continuing conversation after we had drunk hot tea. The police-master wavered, but we pressed him until he and the _strajnik_ both fell to upon the eggs and the tea with as much apparent relish as my companion and I, who had been on the road since midnight.

“I have been pacing that road all night,” remarked the _strajnik_.

“What for?” I asked politely.

“You!” he rejoined.

We changed the topic for a few minutes and talked pleasantly of the weather, the spring ploughing, and other safe topics, hoping to bring out the friendly side of the men in order that we might find out what we were “in” for.

“The other day at Alexanderburg you photographed the priest,” at last said the chief of police.

We looked at him and laughed.

“What of it?” we asked.

“Antichrist!” he replied.

Ah! That was interesting. Several days before when passing through Alexanderburg we had found a village priest in the midst of a quaint Easter-time ceremony, going from house to house blessing the bread which was to be eaten immediately after the close of the Lenten fast. He had with him several acolytes and assistants and the picture they presented was full of color and quaint interest. We asked the priest if he objected to being photographed, and he not only readily consented, but expressed his pleasure at the suggestion. When we had taken several photographs of him and his followers we put a shining silver ruble on the plate he carried. Such unwonted liberality evidently had excited his suspicions to the extent that he had reported the matter to the police.

“You paid one ruble and a half (seventy-five cents) for two dinners at Mordwa,” went on the police-master impressively.

“What else?” we asked.

“At Tsaritzin you visited the free dining-rooms and photographed the village baths.”

We now realized that we had been followed every step of the way, or else a report had been received from each place we had passed through. The only village which the chief failed to mention was Pesky, from which we had just come. This was the one place where we had been indiscreet. The report of a spy upon the informal meeting which we had quite without forethought been instrumental in gathering the night before might easily have been construed to our serious disadvantage. Certainly we would be convicted for “propaganda”; possibly of a yet more serious offence, which would mean expulsion from the country, or worse.

We chatted with the two men in uniform with all the nonchalance we could muster, we plied them with tea and boiled eggs. At last the police-master, in a sudden burst of frankness, exclaimed: “It’s all a mistake! The man’s a fool!”

The man took from his pocket a paper and spread it on the table before us. “I have no right to do it,” he said, “but I want to convince you that I am not responsible. The _starshina_ wrote to the zemstvo _nachalnik_, who has ordered your arrest. We have had men posted on all the roads all night waiting for you.”

A _starshina_ is a man of the people, elected by the people every three years, to preside over the meetings of several villages in a given district, which are called to consider matters of local interest. The zemstvo nachalnik is a superior officer who presides over a larger district--a section of a government.

“Read this for yourselves,” said the police-master.

We read. The general charge against us was “propaganda.” But when we read the specific charges they were all so ridiculous that we sat back in dumb amazement:

1. We had photographed a priest--therefore we “were antichrist.”

2. We had paid one ruble and a half for two meals. The comment to this was to the effect that “no one would throw away money like this who did not have an ulterior motive for winning the goodwill of the people.”

3. One of us (namely, myself) had a small pointed beard and “looked like a Jew.”

4. This man (namely, myself) had false hair.

5. This same man smoked a gold pipe.

The first two clauses were understandable. We had photographed the priest--asked his permission and then given him a ruble. And we had paid seventy-five cents for our meals and were willing to admit that we might properly have paid less, but the woman who had prepared these meals was very old and her abject poverty aroused our pity.

The other “charges” were less clear. I have been mistaken for French, German, Swedish, and Russian at one time or another, but never before has any one suggested I might be Jewish. As for my hair being false--I have worn it since birth. I never saw a gold pipe, that I can recall. I certainly never owned one.

“There must be something back of all this,” said my companion when we had read the paper to the end.

The conclusion drawn from these charges, as penned at the bottom of the page, was that all these strange and unusual things about us made us suspicious persons, and “probably we were propagandists.”

The fact that there was no reference to Pesky only added to our fears, and forced us to the conclusion that this preliminary, and seemingly slight, report against us was merely as a blind, and an excuse for taking us into custody. The more serious charges would be forthcoming at the proper moment, we were convinced. However, we agreed to assume nothing, and to shake free of the threatening entanglement as speedily as possible. It soon developed that we were anticipating, without reckoning with our captors. Any little man of brief authority may order an arrest, but, as we were destined to learn, only a governor or governor-general may order a release. And the way from a remote village _starshina_ to the governor is long and tedious.

“Since we must appear before a magistrate, or whatever corresponds to a magistrate, let us go and have it over with him,” I said, when the last egg was eaten and our samovar exhausted. “We can leave the luggage here.”

“But it is eighteen versts,” answered the police-master.

“Eighteen versts!” I had supposed we were to be taken across the road, or around the corner.

“You may as well pay your driver,” the police-master went on.

We reluctantly dismissed our man and sadly watched the fresh horses which had been made ready for us unharnessed and returned to their stable.

Prisoners we literally were, despite the goodwill of the police-master that we had been at such pains to win. The soldier who had first intruded upon us was left to guard us while the police-master retired to write his report to his superior, to whom we were to be delivered in the next village, eighteen versts away. We were not permitted to leave the room, but several men about the station joined us and freely sympathized with us. One took occasion to warn us that we would surely be thoroughly searched at some near period, and if we had any compromising letters or papers about us we had better get rid of them. It so happened that I had in my portfolio a letter from a friend in New York in which was described a scheme which had been launched in America in aid of “Free Russia.” This scheme included the issuance of a series of facsimile greenbacks stamped “The United States of Russia.” I knew well enough that that letter would unquestionably incriminate us under the present circumstances. By stealth I succeeded in extracting the letter from its place and tearing it into small pieces, but how to get rid of it was a puzzle. I carried the torn pieces in the palm of my hand for a long time. Nor did I see a chance to drop them until the wagon was being made ready which was to carry us on our way. While the police-master and the soldier were talking together, I succeeded in dropping the little ball of torn paper unnoticed into a hole in the ground. Then, as I turned round, I tripped over a peat brick, which fell over the hole.

A discussion arose as to the number of horses we should have. The government furnished only one, the police-master told us, but we might have two more by paying for them ourselves. The idea of paying to be carried to prison did not appeal to either of us, so it was finally decided to give us two, inasmuch as there would be four men in the wagon, including our guard and the driver.

The wagon was a kind of basket on trucks. There were no seats. An armful of straw was placed in the bottom and on this we sat. There was a simple seat for the driver, and the _strajnik_ who was to accompany us shared the driver’s seat, only his back was to the horses and his feet in the wagon, his legs so spread apart that mine stretched between his. His rifle lay across his knees and his saber rested against his side.

“Fiercesome prisoners you have,” I ventured.

“Every man who has two legs and uses them is liable to arrest these days,” he replied.

By the time Liski was reached we were on fairly friendly terms with our guard.

We were taken directly to the local gendarmerie, which was all the jail the town possessed. The room we were led to was of moderate size, containing two benches, a table, and a bed. An armed guard was placed in the room with us, and periodically changed every few hours, up to the time of our leaving, the following day. The priestoff, and indeed every official of authority, was away, and we were informed that we must await the return of either the priestoff or zemstvo nachalnik. Toward evening we grew very hungry, for since early morning we had had nothing to eat, and then only the inevitable tea and boiled eggs. “We must feed you. We are bound to do that!” said the gracious chief of the gendarmes. But at seven o’clock there was still no food forthcoming.

“Can you not find us some bread and cheese?” we asked.

“Cheese! People here do not know how to hold their mouths for cheese!” replied our guard.

“Plain bread, then,” we said. Any food would be better than none. The gendarme told us that he had had nothing since morning, either, and that when the famine was on they all became accustomed to living on next to nothing. He was most philosophical about it. The milk, he explained, was not good, and all food, except black bread, and eggs, and tea, was scarce. We did not relish the idea of being detained long in that kind of a place, so we begged our guards to hurry us on to Saratoff that night, for we were told that the return of the proper authorities was a matter of complete uncertainty and if we wished we might be transferred to Saratoff.

This we did desire most ardently. The distance to Saratoff was fifty-eight versts, and we were promised an immediate start if fresh horses could be procured in the village. Two gendarmes were commissioned to secure these horses. For a long time they did not return, and when they did it was with the report that there were not two horses in the village in condition to start that night, so we reluctantly abandoned all hope of pushing on before the following day, and then turned our attention once more to the food question, which was fast becoming serious. A samovar was promised us “directly.”

Earlier in the day we had attempted to send a message to friends in Saratoff, but were prevented. We now learned that telegraphic communication between this place and Saratoff had been temporarily resumed, whereupon we thought to inform friends of our plight in case the situation developed the serious aspect which we had reason to believe it might. My companion broached the matter to our guard, who called another guard, who said he would go with one of us to the telegraph office. My companion started. At the very door of the office they were overtaken by a messenger from the chief of the gendarmes, forbidding us to send out any message by telegraph or otherwise. This made us feel more than ever that we had been acquainted with only part of the report concerning us. Furthermore, our guards were extremely watchful of us. Their attitude clearly indicated that they were impressed with our importance--or possible importance.

In the meantime I grew restless in the stuffy room where we were confined, and asked that I might go out for a breath of air. My request was granted, but a guard with a gun accompanied me. Some small boys were at play in the road. Their game was a ball-game played with a miniature catapult. I watched them a little while and then made to join them. This seemed to please them, and until dark stopped us I continued to play with the boys--my guard standing by all the while, amused, and ever watchful.

On his way back from the telegraph office my companion succeeded in negotiating with some one for four eggs, which were boiled for us, and served when the samovar was at last ready. Weary and worn with our long journey, without sleep and still very hungry, we stretched out on narrow wooden benches shortly after nine o’clock, and I, at least, slept soundly till five o’clock in the morning. The only bed in the room was used by our guards. They did not lie down, but reclined against the pillows, their rifles always in their hands ready for instant use.

A little before seven o’clock the following morning we were en route for Saratoff. As on the previous day, we had two horses, and a wagon without seats. Our driver proved to be an out-and-out revolutionist. He freely damned the army, the police, and every representative of the government. He even rebelled at sharing his seat with our guard, and tried to make him walk. He sympathized with all who fell under the finger of the authorities, whether for political or criminal offenses. Such recklessness of speech is unusual and is accounted for by the fact that this uncouth lout felt physically superior to the guard, and had little terror of his authority. A few versts out of the town he held his horses to a slow walk. “Why don’t you go faster?” we asked.

“You’ll soon enough be under lock and key,” he answered cheerfully. “Make the most of the sunshine while you have it. God knows when you’ll get more of it.”

Midway my interpreter suddenly remembered a letter in his pocket-book which contained the names and addresses of several prominent revolutionists. His tardy recollection of this document startled us both, for there seemed to be no way of disposing of it, our guard was so painfully watchful. We succeeded in transferring it under our coats from his hand to mine, and I slowly and patiently tore it to small bits, and, as often as seemed possible, dropped one bit at a time out of the wagon. This was a long and delicate business, for if we had been discovered it would have added one more embarrassing charge against us. From the point where we effected the transfer of the paper from his hands to mine to the point where the last scrap was dropped was twelve versts.

The long, dusty ride to Saratoff came to an end early in the afternoon. At the edge of the town we asked our guard to permit us to stop at a fruit-store and purchase oranges, but this he curtly refused. We found a sweet revenge for this in a moment. The axle of our wagon suddenly broke and threw us all out into the street. When it was found that it would be impossible to immediately repair the damage our guard ordered us to pick up our luggage and march on. This we politely declined to do. Go with him we would--there was no alternative. But carry our luggage we certainly would not. We also reminded him that he was responsible for it, as well as ourselves, whereupon he gathered our bags and blankets under his arm and struggled on with them, sweating like a stevedore, his gun and saber very much in the way. That we made an unusual spectacle was evident from the attention bestowed upon us by the townspeople.

First we were marched to the office of the priestoff, but he was out of town. Then to the office of the Espravnik, and he was out of town. “Then you must go _somewhere_,” said our guard.

“Do you mean to prison?”

“Yes. Until the priestoff comes.”

Again we made an effort to communicate with friends.

“Take the dogs away--don’t stand there talking.”

We turned at these words and looked upon the watchman. He, at least, had not been impressed with our importance from our appearance. The prison to which we were conducted was near by, and a messenger had evidently announced our coming, for we were led immediately and without ceremony to a cell about ten feet long by five feet broad, one of a row, each one just like the next. The face of an old man with gray beard was pressed against the peep-hole of the adjoining cell. We entered the one to which we were assigned--both of us in one--and the heavy timber door banged shut behind us.

The cell was mostly below the ground. Flush with the ceiling was a small window which looked out level with the ground. At one end of the cell was a bare wooden platform, like a wide shelf. This was the only bed provided. In a corner near to the ceiling was a small icon. Other furniture there was none.

Many initials and names were inscribed on the walls, most of them cut with a knife or other sharp instrument.

We settled ourselves as best we could and tried to devise a plan of release. The vermin which always swarm in Russian prisons were not slow in discovering us, and it early became evident that we must sooner or later submit to their persistent attacks. It was, indeed, several weeks before I entirely got rid of the effects of these pestiferous creatures.

In due time a keeper came to inform us we might send for any food or drink that we desired. This was an improvement over the gendarmerie where we had passed the previous night, but we were now bent on getting out rather than upon making ourselves permanently comfortable. We put a few questions to the guard, which he answered readily.

“What kind of prisoners are usually put into this cell?”

“Anybody.”

“Civil and criminal prisoners as well as political?”

“Yes. Anybody.”

“How long are we to remain here?”

“Till the priestoff comes.”

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know.”

“When will he be here?”

“I don’t know.”

“Have you no idea what time he will arrive? Will it be in an hour, or not until night?”

“Oh, he is away. He may be back in a week, or he may not be here for a month.”

“And we must wait for him--perhaps a month?”

“Yes.”

We then explained to him at length that we were American citizens, that we should be taken immediately before some authority and given ample satisfaction for such treatment. After much argument he consented to take a message for us to a certain superior officer’s assistant. The answer came back, “The prisoners must wait till the priestoff comes.”

We sent a more imperative message, demanding that some one be sent to us without delay.

“Nothing’s to be done. Keep still,” was the answer returned.

A story had recently been told us of a German subject who had been arrested in that very province and all trace of him lost. The German government had pressed its inquiries, but to no end. The man had disappeared as completely as if the earth had swallowed him. At last, after two years, he was found in a prison like ours. He had been locked up there and forgotten. Our arrest might work out in the same way--a most discouraging

For taking this photograph the author was charged with being “antichrist”]

thought. In the first place, the real charges against us might be serious in themselves, and whether they were or not, we were in prison, no one in the world knew of our whereabouts, and we might lie there till we rotted without discovering any means of escape or rescue. It is this absolute uncertainty of the outcome that makes arrest in Russia so distinctly unpleasant. After reflecting upon thoughts like these for a time, my companion and I began to feel a bit desperate.

The plan we finally adopted was a simple one: In the door of our cell was a small window looking into the corridor. Every time we heard a footstep up or down the corridor we placed our faces close to the little window and raised our voices right lustily in a prolonged _miserere_. We fairly yelled ourselves hoarse. At last an officer had to come to see who the two disturbers were. By this man we sent a third appeal to the commanding officer of the prison, and a third message was brought back to us:

“I command the prisoners to be silent.”

* * * * *

The third day of our arrest we were paroled pending an investigation by order of the governor--who, by the way, was M. Stolypin, soon to be introduced to the world as the prime minister of Russia. Nothing of a serious nature was discovered against us, and in due time we were released. There was no apology, no explanation. The espravnik ventured to congratulate us that we were not flogged by some of the gendarmes. This often happens, he told us, and we were lucky to have escaped.

We had evidently run amuck of the unutterably stupid police administration which the peasants are finding intolerable. During the year 1906 I was arrested five times, and this instance is thoroughly characteristic of each performance. A traveler, like myself, finds it inconvenient and annoying. The peasants find it brutal and not infrequently cruel. Whatever of faith has been lost in the Czar, the direct aim of the _jacquerie_ of the next few years will be the landlords and the police administration.