Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art

In a word, Olga was in great favor with the peaceful citizens of Talutorovsk. The hatred of the police towards her was all the greater for that reason. Her proud and independent disposition would not permit her to submit to the stupid and humiliating exigencies of the representatives of the Government. Those representatives, barbarous and overbearing as they were, considered every attempt to defend personal dignity a want of respect toward themselves – nay, a provocation, and neglected no occasion of taking their revenge. There was always a latent war between Olga and her guardians, a war of the weak, bound hand and foot, against the strong, armed at all points; for the police have almost arbitrary power over the political prisoners who are under their surveillance. In this very unequal struggle, however, Olga did not always come off the worst, as often happens in the case of those who, proud, daring, and fearing nothing, are always ready to risk everything for the merest trifle. One of these conflicts, which lasted four days and kept the whole of the little town in a state of excitement by its dramatic incidents, was so singular that it deserves to be related.

Olga had sent from her parents a parcel of books, which, in her position, was a gift indeed. She went to the Ispravnik to get them, but met with an unforeseen obstacle. Among the books sent to her was a translation of the “Sociology” of Herbert Spencer, and the Ispravnik mistook it for a work on Socialism, and would not on any account give it up to her. In vain Olga pointed out to him that the incriminated book had been published at St. Petersburg with the license of the Censorship; that sociology and socialism were very different things, etc. The Ispravnik was stubborn. The discussion grew warm. Olga could not restrain some sharp remarks upon the gross ignorance of her opponent, and ended by telling him that his precautions were utterly useless, as she had at home a dozen books like that of Herbert Spencer.

“Oh! you have books like this at home, have you?” exclaimed the Ispravnik. “Very well; we’ll come and search the house this very day.”

“No,” exclaimed Olga, in a fury; “you will do nothing of the kind; you have no right, and if you dare to come I will defend myself.”

With these words she left the place, thoroughly enraged.

War was declared, and the rumor spread throughout the town, and everywhere excited a kind of timorous curiosity.

Directly Olga reached her home she shut herself up and barricaded the door. The Ispravnik, on his side, prepared for the attack. He mustered a band of policemen, with some poniatye, or citizen-witnesses, and sent them to the enemy’s house.

Finding the entrance closed and the door barricaded, the valorous army began to knock energetically, and ordered the inmate to open.

“I will not open the door,” replied the voice of Olga within.

“Open, in the name of the law.”

“I will not open the door. Break it in! I will defend myself.”

At this explicit declaration the band became perplexed. A council of war was held. “We must break open the door,” they all said. But as all these valiant folks had families, wives, and children whom they did not wish to leave orphans, no one cared to face the bullets of this mad-woman, whom they knew to be capable of anything. Each urged his neighbor onward, but no one cared to go forward himself.

Recourse was had to diplomacy.

“Open the door, miss.”

No reply.

“Please to open the door, or you will repent it.”

“I will not open the door,” replied the firm voice of the besieged.

What was to be done? A messenger was sent to the Ispravnik to inform him that Olga Liubatovitch had shut herself up in her house, had pointed a pistol at them, and had threatened to blow out the brains of the first who entered.

The Ispravnik, considering that the task of leadership would fall to him as supreme chief (and he also had a family), did not care to undertake the perilous enterprise. His army, seeing itself thus abandoned by its leader, was in dismay; it lost courage; demoralisation set in, and after a few more diplomatic attempts, which led to nothing, it beat a disgraceful retreat. A select corps of observation remained, however, near the enemy’s citadel, intrenched behind the hedges of the adjoining kitchen-gardens. It was hoped that the enemy, elated by the victory in this first encounter, would make a sortie, and then would be easily taken, in flank and rear, surrounded, and defeated.

But the enemy displayed as much prudence as firmness. Perceiving the manœuvres of her adversaries, Olga divined their object, and did not issue from the house all that day, or the day after, or even on the third day. The house was provided with provisions and water, and Olga was evidently prepared to sustain a long siege.

It was clear that if no one would risk his life, which naturally no one was disposed to risk, nothing could be done save to reduce her by hunger. But who, in that case, could tell how long the scandal of this flagrant rebellion would last? And then, who could guarantee that this Fury would not commit suicide instead of surrendering? And then, what complaints, what reprimands from superiors!

In this perplexity, the Ispravnik resolved to select the least among many evils, and on the fourth day he raised the siege.

Thus ended the little drama of July 1878, known in Siberia as the “Siege of Olga Liubatovitch.” The best of the joke was, however, that she had no arms of a more warlike character than a pen-knife and some kitchen utensils. She herself had not the slightest idea what would have happened had they stormed her house, but that she would have defended herself in some way or other is quite certain.

The Ispravnik might have made her pay for her rebellion by several years of confinement, but how could he confess to his superiors the cowardice of himself and his subordinates? He preferred, therefore, to leave her in peace. But he chafed in secret, for he saw that the partisans of the young Socialist – and they were far from few – ridiculed himself and his men behind their backs. He determined to vindicate his offended dignity at all cost, and, being of a stubborn disposition, he carried out his resolve in the following manner.

A fortnight after the famous siege, he sent a message to Olga to come to his office at eight o’clock in the morning. She went. She waited an hour; two hours; but no one came to explain what she was wanted for. She began to lose patience, and declared that she would go away. But the official in attendance told her that she must not go; that she must wait; such were the orders of the Ispravnik. She waited until eleven o’clock. No one came. At last a subaltern appeared, and Olga addressed herself to him and asked what she was wanted for. The man replied that he did not know, that the Ispravnik would tell her when he came in. He could not say, however, when the Ispravnik would arrive.

“In that case,” said Olga, “I should prefer to return some other time.”

But the police officer declared that she must continue to wait in the antechamber of the office, for such were the orders of the Ispravnik. There could be no doubt that all this was a disgraceful attempt to provoke her, and Olga, who was of a very irascible disposition, replied with some observations not of the most respectful character, and not particularly flattering to the Ispravnik or his deputy.

“Oh! that’s how you treat the representatives of the Government in the exercise of their functions, is it?” exclaimed the deputy, as though prepared for this. And he immediately called in another policeman as a witness, and drew up a statement of the charge against her.

Olga went away. But proceedings were taken against her before the district judge, the very man whom she had cured of delirium tremens, who sentenced her to three days’ solitary confinement. It was confinement in a dark, fetid hole, full of filth and vermin.

Merely in entering it, she was overcome with disgust. When she was released, she seemed to have passed through a serious illness. It was not, however, the physical sufferings she had undergone so much as the humiliation she had endured which chafed her proud disposition.

From that time she became gloomy, taciturn, abrupt. She spent whole days shut up in her room, without seeing anybody, or wandered away from the town into the neighboring wood, and avoided people. She was evidently planning something. Among the worthy citizens of Talutorovsk, who had a compassionate feeling towards her, some said one thing, some another, but no one foresaw such a tragic ending as that of which rumors ran on July 27.

In the morning the landlady entered her room and found it empty. The bed, undisturbed, clearly showed that she had not slept in it. She had disappeared. The first idea which flashed through the mind of the old dame was that Olga had escaped, and she ran in all haste to inform the Ispravnik, fearing that any delay would be considered as a proof of complicity.

The Ispravnik did not lose a moment. Olga Liubatovitch being one of the most seriously compromised women, he feared the severest censure, perhaps even dismissal, for his want of vigilance. He immediately hastened to the spot in order to discover if possible the direction the fugitive had taken. But directly he entered the room he found upon the table two letters signed and sealed, one addressed to the authorities, the other to the sister of Olga, Vera Liubatovitch, who had also been banished to another Siberian town. These letters were immediately opened by the Ispravnik, and they revealed the mournful fact that the young girl had not taken to flight, but had committed suicide. In the letter addressed to the authorities she said, in a few lines, that she died by her own hand, and begged that nobody might be blamed. To her sister she wrote more fully, explaining that her life of continuous annoyance, of inactivity, and of gradual wasting away, which is the life of a political prisoner in Siberia, had become hateful to her, that she could no longer endure it, and preferred to drown herself in the Tobol. She finished by affectionately begging her sister to forgive her for the grief she might cause her and her friends and companions in misfortune.

Without wasting a moment, the Ispravnik hastened to the Tobol, and there he found the confirmation of the revelation of Olga. Parts of her dress dangled upon the bushes, under which lay her bonnet, lapped by the rippling water. Some peasants said that on the previous day they had seen the young girl wandering on the bank with a gloomy and melancholy aspect, looking fixedly at the turbid waters of the river. The Ispravnik, through whose hands all the correspondence passed of the political prisoners banished to his district, recalled certain expressions and remarks that had struck him in the last letters of Olga Liubatovitch, the meaning of which now became clear.

There could no longer be any doubt. The Ispravnik sent for all the fishermen near, and began to drag the river with poles, casting in nets to recover the body. This, however, led to nothing. Nor was it surprising: the broad river was so rapid that in a single night it must have carried a body away – who knows how many leagues? For three days the Ispravnik continued his efforts, and stubbornly endeavored to make the river surrender its prey. But at last, after having worn out all his people and broken several nets against the stones and old trunks which the river mocked him with, he had to give up the attempt as unavailing.

II

The body of Olga, her heart within it throbbing with joy and uncertainty, had meanwhile been hurried away, not by the yellow waters of the Tobol, but by a vehicle drawn by two horses galloping at full speed.

Having made arrangements with a young rustic whom, in her visits to the neighboring cottages in a medical capacity, she had succeeded in converting to Socialism, Olga disposed everything so as to make it be believed that she had drowned herself, and on the night fixed secretly left her house and proceeded to the neighboring forest, where, at a place agreed upon, her young disciple was awaiting her. The night was dark. Beneath the thick foliage of that virgin forest nothing could be seen, nothing could be heard but the hootings of the owls, and sometimes, brought from afar, the howling of the wolves, which infest the whole of Siberia.

As an indispensable precaution, the meeting-place was fixed at a distance of about three miles, in the interior of the forest. Olga had to traverse this distance in utter darkness, guided only by the stars, which occasionally pierced through the dense foliage. She was not afraid, however, of the wild beasts, or of the highwaymen and vagrants who are always prowling round the towns in Siberia. It was the cemetery-keeper’s dog she was afraid of. The cemeteries are always well looked after in that country, for among the horrible crimes committed by the scum of the convicts one of the most common is that of disinterring and robbing the newly buried dead. Now the keeper of the cemetery of Talutorovsk was not to be trifled with; his dog still less so. It was a mastiff, as big as a calf, ferocious and vigilant, and could hear the approach of any one a quarter of a mile off. Meanwhile the road passed close to the cottage of the solitary keeper. It was precisely for the purpose of avoiding it that Olga, instead of following the road, had plunged into the forest, notwithstanding the great danger of losing her way.

Stumbling at every step against the roots and old fallen trunks, pricked by the thorny bushes, her face lashed by boughs elastic as though moved by springs, she kept on for two hours with extreme fatigue, sustained only by the hope that she would shortly reach the place of meeting, which could not be far off. At last indeed, the darkness began to diminish somewhat and the trees to become thinner, and a moment afterwards she entered upon open ground. She suddenly stopped, looked around, her blood freezing with terror, and recognised the keeper’s cottage. She had lost her way in the forest, and, after so many windings, had gone straight to the point she wished to avoid.

Her first impulse was to run away as fast as her remaining strength would enable her, but a moment afterwards a thought flashed through her mind which restrained her. No sound came from the cottage; all was silent. What could this indicate but the absence of the occupant? She stood still and listened, holding her breath. In the cottage not a sound could be heard, but in another direction she heard, in the silence of the night, the distant barking of a dog, which seemed, however, to be approaching nearer. Evidently the keeper had gone out, but at any moment might return, and his terrible dog was perhaps running in front of him, as though in search of prey. Fortunately from the keeper’s house to the place of appointment there was a path which the fugitive had no need to avoid, and she set off and ran as fast as the fear of being seized and bitten by the ferocious animal would allow her. The barking, indeed, drew nearer, but so dense was the forest that not even a dog could penetrate it. Olga soon succeeded in reaching the open ground, breathless, harassed by the fear of being followed and the doubt that she might not find any one at the place of appointment. Great was her delight when she saw in the darkness the expected vehicle, and recognised the young peasant.

To leap into the vehicle and to hurry away was the work of an instant. In rather more than five hours of hard driving they reached Tumen, a town of about 18,000 inhabitants, fifty miles distant from Talutorovsk. A few hundred yards from the outskirts the vehicle turned into a dark lane and very quietly approached a house where it was evidently expected. In a window on the first floor a light was lit, and the figure of a man appeared. Then the window was opened, and the man, having recognised the young girl, exchanged a few words in a low tone with the peasant who was acting as driver. The latter, without a word, rose from his seat, took the young girl in his arms, for she was small and light, and passed her on like a baby into the robust hands of the man, who introduced her into his room. It was the simplest and safest means of entering unobserved. To have opened the door at such an unusual hour would have awakened people, and caused gossip.

The peasant went his way, wishing the young girl all success, and Olga was at last able to take a few hours rest. Her first step had succeeded. All difficulties were far indeed, however, from being overcome; for in Siberia it is not so much walls and keepers as immeasurable distance which is the real gaoler.

In this area, twice as large as all Europe, and with a total population only twice that of the English capital, towns and villages are only imperceptible points, separated by immense deserts absolutely uninhabitable, in which if any one ventured he would die of hunger, or be devoured by wolves. The fugitive thus has no choice, and must take one of the few routes which connect the towns with the rest of the world. Pursuit is therefore extremely easy, and thus, while the number of the fugitives from the best-guarded prisons and mines amounts to hundreds among the political prisoners, and to thousands among the common offenders, those who succeed in overcoming all difficulties and in escaping from Siberia itself may be counted on the fingers.

There are two means of effecting an escape. The first, which is very hazardous, is that of profiting, in order to get a good start, by the first few days, when the police furiously scour their own district only, without giving information of the escape to the great centres, in the hope, which is often realised, of informing their superiors of the escape and capture of the prisoner at the same time. In the most favorable cases, however, the fugitive gains only three or four days of time, while the entire journey lasts many weeks, and sometimes many months. With the telegraph established along all the principal lines of communication, and even with mere horse patrols, the police have no difficulty whatever in making up for lost time, and exceptional cleverness or good fortune is necessary in order to keep out of their clutches. But this method, as being the simplest and comparatively easy, as it requires few preparations and but little external assistance, is adopted by the immense majority of the fugitives, and it is precisely for this reason that ninety-nine per cent. of them only succeed in reaching a distance of one or two hundred miles from the place of their confinement.

Travelling being so dangerous, the second mode is much more safe – that of remaining hidden in some place of concealment, carefully prepared beforehand, in the province itself, for one, two, three, six months, until the police, after having carried on the chase so long in vain, come to the conclusion that the fugitive must be beyond the frontiers of Siberia, and slacken or entirely cease their vigilance. This was the plan followed in the famous escape of Lopatin, who remained more than a month at Irkutsk, and of Debagorio Mokrievitch, who spent more than a year in various places in Siberia before undertaking his journey to Russia.

Olga Liubatovitch did not wish, however, to have recourse to the latter expedient, and selected the former. It was a leap in the dark. But she built her hopes upon the success of the little stratagem of her supposed suicide, and the very day after her arrival at Tumen she set out towards Europe by the postal and caravan road to Moscow.

To journey by post in Russia, a travelling passport (podorojna) must be obtained, signed by the governor. Olga certainly had none, and could not lose time in procuring one. She had, therefore, to find somebody in possession of this indispensable document whom she could accompany. As luck would have it, a certain Soluzeff, who had rendered himself famous a few years before by certain forgeries and malversations on a grand scale, had been pardoned by the Emperor and was returning to Russia. He willingly accepted the company of a pretty countrywoman, as Olga represented herself to him to be, who was desirous of going to Kazan, where her husband was lying seriously ill, and consented to pay her share of the travelling expenses. But here another trouble arose. This Soluzeff, being on very good terms with the gendarmes and the police, a whole army of them accompanied him to the post-station. Now Olga had begun her revolutionary career at sixteen, she was arrested for the first time at seventeen, and during the seven years of that career had been in eleven prisons, and had passed some few months in that of Tumen itself. It was little short of a miracle that no one recognised the celebrated Liubatovitch in the humble travelling companion of their common friend.

At last, however, the vehicle set out amid the shouts and cheers of the company. Olga breathed more freely. Her tribulations were not, however, at an end.

I need not relate the various incidents of her long journey. Her companion worried her. He was a man whom long indulgence in luxury had rendered effeminate, and at every station said he was utterly worn out, and stopped to rest himself and take some tea with biscuits, preserves, and sweets, an abundance of which he carried with him. Olga, who was in agonies, as her deception might be found out at any moment, and telegrams describing her be sent to all the post-stations of the line, had to display much cunning and firmness to keep this poltroon moving on without arousing suspicions respecting herself. When, however, near the frontier of European Russia, she was within an ace of betraying herself. Soluzeff declared that he was incapable of going any farther, that he was thoroughly knocked up by this feverish hurry-skurry, and must stop a few days to recover himself. Olga had some thought of disclosing everything, hoping to obtain from his generosity what she could not obtain from his sluggish selfishness. There is no telling what might have happened if a certain instinct, which never left Olga even when she was most excited, had not preserved her from this very dangerous step.

A greater danger awaited her at Kazan. No sooner had she arrived than she hastened away to take her ticket by the first steamboat going up the Volga towards Nijni-Novgorod. Soluzeff, who said he was going south, would take the opposite direction. Great, therefore, was her surprise and bewilderment when she saw her travelling companion upon the same steamer. She did everything she could to avoid him, but in vain. Soluzeff recognised her, and, advancing towards her, exclaimed in a loud voice: —

“What! you here? Why, you told me your husband was lying ill in the Kazan Hospital.”

Some of the passengers turned round and looked, and among them the gendarme who was upon the boat. The danger was serious. But Olga, without losing her self-possession, at once invented a complete explanation of the unexpected change in her itinerary. Soluzeff took it all in, as did the gendarme who was listening.

At Moscow she was well known, having spent several months in its various prisons. Not caring to go to the central station, which is always full of gendarmes on duty, she was compelled to walk several leagues, to economise her small stock of money, and take the train at a small station, passing the night in the open air.

Many were the perils from which, thanks to her cleverness, she escaped. But her greatest troubles awaited her in the city she so ardently desired to reach, St. Petersburg.

When a Nihilist, after a rather long absence, suddenly reaches some city without previously conferring with those who have been there recently, his position is a very singular one. Although he may know he is in the midst of friends and old companions in arms, he is absolutely incapable of finding any of them. Being “illegal” people, or outlaws, they live with false passports, and are frequently compelled to change their names and their places of abode. To inquire for them under their old names is not to be thought of, for these continuous changes are not made for mere amusement, but from the necessity, constantly recurring, of escaping from some imminent danger, more or less grave. To go to the old residence of a Nihilist and ask for him under his old name would be voluntarily putting one’s head into the lion’s mouth.