A BRAVE OFFICER—MY MILITARY SERVICE—THE TRIAL—FURTHER EXAMINATIONS
On one of the first days of my imprisonment in Odessa I had a small passage-at-arms. I was pacing my cell, when I suddenly heard voices raised outside the door. I went and looked through the peephole. It was the officer of the day on his rounds of inspection, and he seemed to be questioning one of the soldiers about his duties. I was going to draw back again, when the words, “Get away from there, you scoundrel!” struck my ears; and only after a moment did I realise they were addressed to me. I was extremely surprised, for the officers generally behaved quite politely to the “politicals.”
I instantly withdrew from the door without a word, but I resolved to teach this gentleman a lesson in manners. So that evening, when the deputy-governor paid his usual visit to my cell, accompanied by the officer, without appearing to notice the latter I asked if prisoners were forbidden to look through the peephole.
“No, of course not,” said the deputy-governor. “How could anyone prevent you?”
“Then, will you please tell me if a prisoner should be abused by an officer for doing so?”
“Certainly not.”
I then related what had occurred, and requested the official to give me particulars in writing next morning 84as to this officer’s name and position, so that I should know how to state my complaint about him.
Next day my gendarme told me this promising young lieutenant had been round more than once during the night, telling him and the policeman what they were to say if there were any inquiry. Evidently the young fellow was in some trepidation, as he had thus humbled himself before his inferiors. I felt rather sorry for him, and thinking he had a sufficient warning, I took no further steps in the matter.
My case, meanwhile, was running its course. About the middle of September the examining magistrate read me the document that was the outcome of his labours. According to paragraph so-and-so of the statute-book, it set forth, he must hand me over to the Prosecutor of the Military Court. I at once entered a protest, calling attention to the extradition treaty, which enjoined my being tried by the ordinary civil law, not by any special tribunal. Whereupon the magistrate showed me a paper, in which the Minister of Justice informed him that after the conclusion of the examination he must act according to such and such a paragraph, which enacted that crimes committed by any person belonging to the army must be dealt with by a court-martial.
“When the crime of which you are accused was committed,” said the magistrate, “you were serving in the army.”
This makes another retrospective digression necessary, that I may tell the reader something about my youth and my brief military career.
Led by the spirit of the times and my own convictions, I had donned peasant’s dress and gone “among the people,” to return home in the autumn of 1875 disenchanted and discouraged after my propagandist efforts. Like many youths of those days, I was filled with impetuous 85longings. I wanted to use my young strength, and yearned after great deeds; but what I should begin upon I hardly knew.
When I returned from my campaign I found very few of my old companions in Ki?v. Some were in prison, others were scattered to the four winds. It was just at this time that insurrections had broken out in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Numbers of young men, among whom were many Socialists, had joined the volunteer corps, and I found a very warlike spirit abroad. The fight for freedom on the heights of the Balkans was the topic of the day. A youth of twenty was naturally carried away by this tide; and I was preparing to go off to the war and fight in the struggle to release an oppressed people from the Turkish yoke, but I was too late, the waves were retreating. Volunteers wrote from the scene of action letters that were only disheartening. The situation was of such a nature that young people—for the most part not inured to the hardships of guerrilla warfare—were not only useless, but an encumbrance to the fighters; and our friends advised that no more such should be sent out. So I had to give up my project.
However, I had got the war fever, and was altogether at a loose end; so I resolved to serve my time in the Russian Army as a volunteer, although it was a year sooner than was necessary. Doubtless I was moved to this partly by the consideration that as a soldier I should have opportunities of continuing my propagandist work, and also by the thought that military training might be of use to me hereafter.
According to the then existing regulations I had only six months to serve as a volunteer of the second class. Thus it came about that in the end of October, 1875, I became a private soldier in the 130th regiment of infantry at Ki?v. But it also happened that only four months later I had to leave the service, as I will now explain. One of my friends, a student named Semen 86Luryè, implicated in the “Case of the 193,”[38] was at this time imprisoned at Ki?v. The all-powerful adjutant of gendarmerie, Baron Gèhkin, had borrowed large sums of money from the parents of Luryè, and thanks to this circumstance the prisoner was allowed opportunities for escaping. I rendered him some assistance in his flight, and suspicion falling upon me, my dwelling was searched by the gendarmes. My arrest seemed imminent; and being a soldier, I should have been brought before a court-martial, which in those days of heavy sentences would have sealed my fate, so I went into hiding until the intentions of the gendarmerie should become clear. In a few days it was evident that Baron Gèhkin (who might come in for a good deal of blame, as he had allowed the fugitive many favours) would be sure to hush the thing up, so far as possible. It therefore seemed my simplest plan to report myself again on duty, when I should be punished for five days’ absence without leave, but at worst not very severely. Things, however, turned out differently. My regiment belonged to the 33rd division, at the head of which was Vannòvsky, later Minister of War, and subsequently of Education. He hated the volunteers; and I, who by no means took kindly to subordination and discipline, was not in his good books. As ill-luck would have it, just at the time of my absence the General had ordered up my battalion of volunteers; so when I now reported myself I was taken straight to him, and he sent me off at once to headquarters for trial. I was accused of desertion; and over and above that I had brought upon myself a charge of insulting an officer on duty, because I had objected to being called “thou” and roughly handled by the officer on guard. The affair looked rather bad for me, and flight seemed the only remedy. I succeeded in making good my escape with the help of two 87of my comrades, who brought me civilian’s clothes into the bath-house. I dressed myself in them, and passed the sentry at the door unrecognised. This was in February, 1876, from which time until the autumn of 1877 I was free, but an “illegal,” as I have already said. In the autumn of 1877 I was again arrested, as related in chapter i., and in the following spring I once more escaped.
To return to my present narrative. I made two protests against the magistrate’s decision to send me before a court-martial: one directed to the president of the Military Court in Odessa, and one to Nabòkov, the Minister of Justice. I called Bogdanòvitch to witness that the Government of Baden had only surrendered me on condition that I should be brought before an ordinary court, and tried by civil, not martial law. If a military court were to try me for desertion and insulting an officer, that would be against the conditions of the treaty, which laid down that I should only be answerable on the Gorinòvitch count.
As was to be foreseen, my petitions were set aside without further parley; and soon after, my indictment, signed by the Public Prosecutor of the Courts-martial, was put before me. This indictment left me in no doubt as to what kind of trial I was to have. Certainly the facts relating to the assault on Gorinòvitch were given; but nothing whatever was said as to the motives, nor as to the circumstances that led to it. Of course, the prosecutor had not failed to make use of the most stringent articles in the Russian Criminal Code. The heaviest punishment authorised therein (for parricide and such-like crimes) is penal servitude for life, and it was the very article dealing with that sentence which was cited in my case. According to the law this penalty is capable of various degrees of mitigation under certain extenuating circumstances: e.g. it may be reduced to twenty years’ 88penal servitude when the victim of the assault survives, even though against the intention of his assailant; and further, the term of years is to be shortened by a third if the perpetrator be under age at the date of the crime. In accordance with this, the Public Prosecutor asked for thirteen years and four months as my sentence, that being the maximum penalty to which I could be liable under the terms of the extradition treaty. Even then, the proclamation made at the time of Alexander III.’s accession might come into consideration; by it judges were authorised to remit the punishments for any crime committed before the date of the proclamation. In my case there was no hope of this permission being used; and I looked upon this whole travesty of justice as a formality which had to be gone through, but otherwise of no significance. I therefore declined the assistance of the advocate assigned to me (some candidate for a military post), and prepared to endure the unpleasant ordeal as best I could.
The day of the trial came. A great van with barred windows rumbled into the prison yard. I was put into it, a sergeant of police took his seat beside me, and the door was fastened outside with a mighty padlock. The gendarme who had been so long my companion in captivity mounted the box; a company of infantry escorted us, and the cortège was finally surrounded by Cossacks on horseback. The Chief of Police led the van, and a commissary of police formed the rearguard. It might have been supposed that at least a dozen robber chiefs, each with his horde of banditti, were being transported through the town. As we passed along the streets this unusual procession aroused the attention of the public, and I saw people crowding to the windows. Meanwhile I chatted quietly with the police-sergeant. It seemed that he had been on duty in Ki?v twenty years before, and knew my family.
“Who would have thought that little Deutsch I often used to see would ever come to this!” said he, and began 89following up old recollections, talking of my father and our house. My thoughts flew back over the years, and scenes of my childhood rose before me.
The court was filled with a carefully selected “public,” consisting of officers and their womenfolk, people connected with the law, and other representatives of the official world. The examination of the witnesses produced nothing of any interest. Most of those originally called were either dead or had disappeared, and those few who did attend made inconclusive statements, their memories being vague after the lapse of eight years—some, indeed, refused to answer on that account. The principal witness, Gorinòvitch himself, for some reason did not appear, but his deposition was read. I on my side took little part in the proceedings, and had renounced my right to call witnesses for the defence. But I was moved and excited; the large audience, mostly hostile, that gazed on me worked on my feelings. I sought for a familiar face, but saw nobody I knew except the Public Prosecutor of the Civil Courts, who had conducted my examination in prison.
After the hearing of witnesses the Military Prosecutor took up his parable. His speech was a verbal reiteration of the formal indictment which I had already seen. All my interest was to hear what motives he would assign. As he could impute to me neither “selfish ends” nor “personal hatred,” he gave “revenge” as the reason of the assault; but of course he had to abstain carefully from suggesting any motive for this “revenge,” as he dared not mention the word “political.” The order to keep dark at all costs the political character of the case led to perfectly irreconcilable accounts of what happened. The Public Prosecutor informed the court that I had been arrested in 1877, and had made such and such admissions in the course of examination, but that I had subsequently “withdrawn” from justice. He dared not say that I had escaped from prison at Ki?v; and it was still funnier when he had 90to explain that I had “withdrawn” from my military service.
I began my defence by the declaration that I had no desire to plead for any mitigation of sentence, as was proved by my not denying that I had fully intended to kill Gorinòvitch, though there was no proof of this save my own avowal.[39] I was ready to face the consequences, and my only wish was that the story should be truthfully told, that things might appear in their true light. With that in view I would put clearly before the court the reasons why my comrades and I had come to the resolution of putting Gorinòvitch to death. Scarcely, however, had I uttered the words, “We had formed a ‘circle’ in Elisavetgrad,” than the presiding general, Grodèkov, interrupted me with the observation that under the conditions of the trial I must refrain from any allusion to political offences.
Of course, under such terms a true exposition of the real character of the affair could not possibly be made, the events could not even be narrated with any coherence. For instance, when I began again, “While Gorinòvitch was in prison in Ki?v,” the president stopped me instantly, and said that was out of order; and though I then carefully avoided mentioning names of persons or places, or any political occurrence, I was continually interrupted by the president, and threatened with being silenced altogether or removed from court. I really did not see how to put things so as to make out the simplest statement; and I soon concluded this so-called speech of defence, in which I was not allowed to defend myself, and scarcely to speak. Even then the Military Prosecutor carried the comedy so far as to wax indignant over my “contradictory statements.” I answered him briefly, and declined to make any concluding remarks.
The deliberation of the court was very short, and the 91sentence was of course in accordance with the Public Prosecutor’s demand—thirteen years and four months’ penal servitude.
I was then escorted back to prison; and although I had always expected this sentence, I felt in a certain sense relieved as if a weight had fallen from my shoulders. Everything was now settled once for all. Uncertainty, as I have said, is a prisoner’s hardest trial; and I had only now to wonder whither I should be sent. As I had been tried as an ordinary criminal, I might be despatched to Kara, in Siberia, where were old friends and acquaintances of mine, and where the prison life was comparatively bearable. Or they could send me to the island of Saghalien, where—as all Russia knows—the conditions are horrible. But what frightened me most of all was the thought that the Government (who by having to stick more or less to the extradition treaty had been prevented from sentencing me to such a severe punishment as they would have liked) might still find some excuse for aggravating my penalty, and send me to be buried alive in the Schlüsselburg fortress. The building of that prison had just been finished, and everyone was saying that as it was intended for the most dangerous of the “politicals,” a murderously cruel régime was to be enforced there.
A week after the trial the president of the court-martial came to inform me officially of the sentence. I was taken into the office, where General Grodèkov had entrenched himself behind a wide table, so that he was well separated from me; but even so he commanded the sentries to stand between us with fixed bayonets, and seemed terribly apprehensive of what I might do to him. I was much amused, and my guards were very contemptuous, as I gathered from their subsequent comments while I was being taken back to my cell. Indeed, I have never seen any civilian take so many precautions when speaking with a convict as this seasoned warrior thought necessary.
Although the proceedings against me were concluded, I 92still had to undergo further examinations, but in the character of a witness. First there appeared one day a captain of gendarmerie, accompanied by the Public Prosecutor. He addressed the following question to me:—
“A letter was found in your cell at Freiburg; it contained an address. You were to arrange for the despatch of books from this address. Can you tell me what the books were, and who was the writer of the letter? And remember,” he continued, “that through our possession of this address a number of persons in Vilna have been arrested. If you will tell us who was the actual writer, the others will be set at liberty.”
I knew this trick well enough, and replied calmly—
“You seem to think it not dishonourable to reveal the names of one’s correspondents. I cannot agree with you.”
The young man looked embarrassed, and hastily brought our interview to an end.
It was true that the authorities in Baden had consented to give up all my papers to the Russian Government; an excess of zeal they might well have spared, for in consequence many absolutely innocent people were molested by the secret police. I myself was to blame, having unfortunately omitted to destroy this address when I was sorting my papers with Professor Thun.
Another time I was called up by an examining magistrate, who showed me a letter from the Ministry of Justice, instructing him to examine me concerning some events connected with the murder of General Mezentzev. He read me the deposition of a certain Goldenberg; according to which I had met Goldenberg one day in the horse-market of Kharkov, and had mentioned to him that it was S. Kravtchìnsky[40] who had stabbed the chief of gendarmerie.
I did indeed recollect walking in the horse-market with Goldenberg, and that he had told me how he himself had 93in that very place killed the governor of Kharkov, Prince Kropotkin. Whether I had said anything about the part played by Kravtchìnsky in the assault on Mezentzev I could not remember. The thought shot through my mind that Kravtchìnsky had perhaps been captured abroad like myself, and that the Russian Government were wanting to get him extradited too. The statement of Goldenberg, which only repeated the words of another, was not sufficient evidence for that, and they desired my testimony in addition. I therefore did not refuse to speak on this occasion, but made a statement tending to counteract that of Goldenberg. I told them I had certainly talked to Goldenberg about the assassination; but that I had merely mentioned rumours which ascribed the deed sometimes to me, sometimes to Kravtchìnsky. Fortunately my alarm was unnecessary: Kravtchìnsky was already in London and out of danger.