It was not difficult to guess who these "bad people" were who took such a keen interest in my doings, and who wanted to examine my apartment in my absence. Any doubts I had on the subject were soon removed. On the morrow and following days I noticed that whenever I went out, and wherever I might walk or drive, I was closely followed by two unsympathetic-looking individuals--so closely that when I turned round sharp they ran into me. The first and second times this little accident occurred they received a strong volley of unceremonious vernacular; but when we became better acquainted we simply smiled at each other knowingly, as the old Roman Augurs are supposed to have done when they met in public unobserved.
There was no longer any attempt at concealment or mystification. I
knew I was being shadowed, and the shadowers could not help perceiving that I knew it. Yet, strange to say, they were never changed!
The reader probably assumes that the secret police had somehow got wind of my relations with the revolutionists. Such an assumption presupposes on the part of the police an amount of intelligence and perspicacity which they do not usually possess. On this occasion they were on an entirely wrong scent, and the very day when I first noticed my shadowers, a high official, who seemed to regard the whole thing as a good joke, told me confidentially what the wrong scent was. At the instigation of an ex-ambassador, from whom I had the misfortune to differ in matters of foreign policy, the Moscow Gazette had denounced me publicly by name as a person who was in the habit of visiting daily the Ministry of Foreign Affairs--
doubtless with the nefarious purpose of obtaining by illegal means secret political information--and the police had concluded that I
was a fit and proper person to be closely watched. In reality, my relations with the Russian Foreign Office, though inconvenient to the ex-ambassador, were perfectly regular and above-board--
sanctioned, in fact, by Prince Gortchakoff--but the indelicate attentions of the secret police were none the less extremely unwelcome, because some intelligent police-agent might get onto the real scent, and cause me serious inconvenience. I determined, therefore, to break off all relations with Dimitri Ivan'itch and his friends, and postpone my studies to a more convenient season;
but that decision did not entirely extricate me from my difficulties. The collection of revolutionary pamphlets was still in my possession, and I had promised to return it. For some little time I did not see how I could keep my promise without compromising myself or others, but at last--after having had my shadowers carefully shadowed in order to learn accurately their habits, and having taken certain elaborate precautions, with which I need not trouble the reader, as he is not likely ever to require them--I
paid a visit secretly to Dimitri Ivan'itch in his small room, almost destitute of furniture, handed him the big parcel of pamphlets, warned him not to visit me again, and bade him farewell.
Thereupon we went our separate ways and I saw him no more. Whether he subsequently played a leading part in the movement I never could ascertain, because I did not know his real name; but if the conception which I formed of his character was at all accurate, he probably ended his career in Siberia, for he was not a man to look back after having put his hand to the plough. That is a peculiar trait of the Russian revolutionists of the period in question.
Their passion for realising an impossible ideal was incurable.
Many of them were again and again arrested; and as soon as they escaped or were liberated they almost invariably went back to their revolutionary activity and worked energetically until they again fell into the clutches of the police.
From this digression into the sphere of personal reminiscences I
return now and take up again the thread of the narrative.
We have seen how the propaganda and the agitation had failed, partly because the masses showed themselves indifferent or hostile, and partly because the Government adopted vigorous repressive measures. We have seen, too, how the leaders found themselves in face of a formidable dilemma; either they must abandon their schemes or they must attack their persecutors. The more energetic among them, as I have already stated, chose the latter alternative, and they proceeded at once to carry out their policy. In the course of a single year (February, 1878, to February, 1879) a whole series of terrorist crimes was committed; in Kief an attempt was made on the life of the Public Prosecutor, and an officer of gendarmerie was stabbed; in St. Petersburg the Chief of the Political Police of the Empire (General Mezentsef) was assassinated in broad daylight in one of the central streets, and a similar attempt was made on his successor (General Drenteln); at Kharkof the Governor (Prince Krapotkin) was shot dead when entering his residence. During the same period two members of the revolutionary organisation, accused of treachery, were "executed" by order of local Committees. In most cases the perpetrators of the crimes contrived to escape. One of them became well known in Western Europe as an author under the pseudonym of Stepniak.
Terrorism had not the desired effect. On the contrary, it stimulated the zeal and activity of the authorities, and in the course of the winter of 1878-79 hundreds of arrests--some say as many as 2,000--were made in St. Petersburg alone. Driven to desperation, the revolutionists still at large decided that it was useless to assassinate mere officials; the fons et origo mali must be reached; a blow must be struck at the Tsar himself! The first attempt was made by a young man called Solovyoff, who fired several shots at Alexander II. as he was walking near the Winter Palace, but none of them took effect.
