Читать книгу Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, March 1885 - Various - Страница 2

On the evening of February 11, 1879, several friends of the revolutionary cause, of whom I was one, met at Yvitchevitche's lodgings, in the house Kossarovsky, Yleanski Street, Kieff, the town where I was then living. After a short conversation, Anton, myself, and several others left the house with the intention of passing the rest of the evening with our friend, Madame Babitchev. The inevitable samovar was bubbling on the table, our hospitable hostess gave us a warm welcome, cigarettes were lighted, conversation was joined, and an hour or more passed very pleasantly.

Anton was the first to leave, and he could hardly have reached the street when we were startled by a loud report like the firing of a pistol. We stared at each other in consternation, and Strogov, running into the ante-room, looked through the window and listened at the door, in order to find out what had happened. In a few minutes he came back with satisfactory tidings. Nothing unusual seemed to be stirring in the street; and he attributed the report we had heard to the banging of a door in a neighboring café. So we resumed our conversation and our tea-drinking with quiet minds. But five minutes later we were again disturbed; this time by sounds the character of which there was no mistaking. The trampling of heavy feet in the vestibule, hurried exclamations, words of command, and the rattling of arms, told us only too well with whom we had to do.

The police were upon us.

Notwithstanding our desire to resist, we knew that we should be compelled to yield without a blow. There was not a weapon amongst us. A few seconds were passed in anxious thought. Then the double-winged doors were thrown violently open, and we saw that the ante-room was occupied by a detachment of soldiers, with bayonets lowered and ready to charge. From the right flank came the words, loud and clear: “Will you surrender, gentlemen? I am the officer in command of the detachment.”

I looked round and recognized in the officer with the gendarme uniform and drawn sword, Soudeikin in person, then a subaltern in the Kieff gendarmerie, later the famous chief of the political police of the capital.

Despite the imposing military array, the haughty bearing of the officer, the glittering bayonets and stern looks of the soldiers, and the unpleasant sense of having fallen into their toils, the whole affair seemed to me just a little amusing, and I could not help smiling, and saying, in answer to Soudeikin's summons, “Are we then a fortress, Mr. Officer, that you call upon us to surrender?”

“No; but your comrades…” the rest of the sentence, owing to the din, I did not catch.

“What comrades?” I asked.

“You will soon see,” replied Soudeikin.

Then he ordered his men to search us, after which we were to be taken to the police office.

The searching over, we were surrounded by thirty or forty soldiers, with arms at the trail, and conducted to the Libed police station. Even before we reached our destination we could see that something unusual had happened. The building was lighted up, and there was an excited crowd about the door. After mounting the staircase we were led into the waiting-room. It was filled with armed men. Pushing my way with some difficulty through the press, I saw on the other side of the room several of our friends. But, my God, what a state they were in! Posen and Steblin Kamensky were bound hand and foot; the cords so tightly drawn that their elbows, forced behind their backs, actually touched. Close to them were Mesdames Arnfeld, Sarandovitch, and Patalizina. It was evident that something extraordinary had befallen in the house of Kossarovsky, shortly after we left. I could not, however, ask our friends any questions, for that would have been taken as proof that we were acquainted. Yet, from a few words dropped here and there, I soon learnt what had come to pass. They had resisted the police, a gendarme had been killed, and all whom we had left at the meeting arrested.

I had hardly made this discovery when a disturbance was heard in the next room – trampling of feet, loud exclamations, and voices in contention, one of which I seemed to know. The next moment a man burst into the reception-room, literally dragging behind him two gendarmes, who tried in vain to stop him. His dishevelled hair, pale face, and flaming eyes, showed that he had been engaged in a struggle beyond his strength.

In a few minutes he was garotted and forced into a seat near us.

“Separate the prisoners one from another!” cried Colonel Novitzki.

On this each of us was immediately surrounded by four soldiers.

“If they resist, use your bayonets!” said the colonel.

After a short interval we were called one after another into the next room. I was called the last. On responding to the summons I found myself in the presence of several gendarmes and officers of police, by whom I was searched a second time.

“Have the goodness to state your name,” said Colonel Novitzki, after the operation was completed.

“I would rather not,” I answered.

“In that case I shall tell you who you are.”

“You will do me a great pleasure,” I replied.

“You are called Debagorio Mokrievitch,” said the colonel.

“Yes, that is your name,” put in Soudeikin.

“I am delighted to make your acquaintance, colonel,” I answered, giving the military salute.

It would have been useless to deny my identity. My mother, my brother, and my sister were living at Kieff, and I did not want to have them compelled to confront the police and ordered to recognize me.