Strange tales of a nihilist

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y I. A Crooked Fate i

J II. On Trackless Snow, 28

I. A Crooked Fate

Brief forewords are necessary to this record of facts.

I, Vladimir Mikhalovitch, subject of the Tzar, now in exile in England, hereby make a free and full confession of my secret alliance with the socalled Nihilist Party.

At the outset it is my earnest desire to disabuse the minds of English readers that the Party of Freedom is a mere murder league. Unfortunately, English novelists, unacquainted with Russian life, ignorant of the true objects of the organization, of its inner working, and only recognizing its far reaching influence, have surrounded it with a glamour and mystery that would be highly amusing to us were it not for the fact that their sensational and sanguinary narratives

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injure our cause. So little does the average Englishman know of the conditions of life under the Tzar, that an argument in favor of Nihilism would be useless and wearisome, therefore I leave him to decide for himself, after reading the exciting episodes of an adventurous career, whether Autocracy or Freedom is to be preferred.

Before closing this preface, I have one declaration to make. We, who are struggling to effect a change for the better in the internal and economical condition of the Russian people, look with envy upon every Englishman, at the same time regarding him as a brother. To overthrow Tzardom by murder is not our object, although, alas ! human life has been sacrificed, as my narrative will show. We desire peace; and while staying our hand, and refraining from dealing the blows that are at this moment in our power to strike at the Imperial Autocracy, we are living in the expectation that the flood of popular indignation will sweep off the face of the Russian soil the present ruinous and shameful system of organized robbery and tyranny, and create something better than the existing brutality and corruption that has plunged so many millions in abject misery.

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Prior to narrating the exciting incidents of my career, it will be necessary, in order that it should be rightly understood why I lifted a hand against the rule of the Great White Tzar, to describe the tragic events which led to the overflow of my indignation against tyranny, and subsequent alliance with the Brothers of Freedom.

I commenced life under a disadvantage, for I am a Jew.

In Russia the law declares all Hebrews to be “aliens whose several rights are regulated by special ordinances,” and my race is regarded as a pariah caste in consequence. The memory of my earlier years it is unnecessary to recall. My father, Isaac Mikhalovitch, was a well known operator on the Bourse at St. Petersburg, and he and my mother moved in good society. Our house in the Liteinaia was well known to people with long sounding titles and longer pedigrees, and, as children, my sister Mascha and I had made a practice of standing upon the stairs on Thursday nights, watching the arrival of the uniformed and decorated men and handsome ladies who attended the fetes which my parents gave weekly during the season.

Mascha, who was three years my junior, was petted by the guests and servants none the less than I had been, for we were a parr of overindulged children, and lived a life of uninterrupted happiness.

At last I arrived at an age when departure from home was compulsory, and one eventful, day I bade farewell to those I loved and was drafted to Vologda to perform my military service. From a life of luxurious ease to a soldier’s existence in the barren district around Lake Kubinskoi was by no means a pleasurable change, especially as, according to law, no Jew can rise to the rank of officer, although he is bound to serve in the rank and file like all other Russians. Nevertheless, I endured the wearying monotony of eternal drilling, receiving occasional letters that came from my distant home like brief rays of sunshine upon my otherwise dark, unhappy life. Suddenly, when I had been at Vologda about two years, they ceased. Several times I wrote, but received no answer. I telegraphed, but with the same result. I wrote to relatives in Petersburg inquiring the cause of my parents’ strange silence, yet even these letters remained unanswered.

Unable to obtain leave of absence, the days passed slowly, and I grew sorely puzzled at the mystery.

Imagine my feelings when one morning a comrade, who had had a Novoe Vrentya sent to him, handed me the newspaper and, pointing to a line, asked :

“Is he any relation of yours?”

I looked eagerly where he indicated. My heart stood still, and the paper fell from my nerveless grasp.

It was an announcement to the effect that “Isaac Mikhalovitch, Jew, of the Liteinaia, St. Petersburg,” had formed one of the convoy of prisoners exiled by administrative process to Siberia during the past week !

Ignorant of the whereabouts of my mother and sister, and apprehensive regarding their future, I continued my military service until the day arrived when I was free to return and seek them.

To preserve the continuity of this narrative, events must be here described which were afterward related to me by Mascha. It appeared that from some unknown cause my unfortunate father had fallen into disfavor with the Tzar, although nothing was known of it until one night.

during the progress of a ball at home, half a dozen men from the Okhrannoe Otdelenie^ or “Security Section,” entered and arrested him. A fortnight later he was sent, without trial, to the mines of the Trans-Baikal, after which all he possessed was confiscated by the government, and my mother and sister turned into the streets to starve.

Our relations were poor and could do little to assist them, therefore, in order to hide their poverty, Mascha and her mother went to Mstislavl, a small, sleepy town in the Government of Moghiley, where for nearly a year they earned a precarious livelihood by doing needlework and making lace. But the year 1882 was disastrous to Russia, for a terrible famine spread over the land, and, alas ! for my unfortunate family, its effects were keenly felt in Moghilev. At the time I arrived at St. Petersburg in search of them, they had no work and were absolutely starving.

Stretched upon a straw mattress in the corner of a cold, bare room, lay my mother, her thin, haggard face, protruding cheek bones, and sunken eyes, showing unmistakably that death was at hand.

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Mascha stood, pale and motionless, looking down upon her sorrowfully. In the gray light of the brief autumn day the meager room presented a woeful aspect, being almost devoid of furniture, and the fire in the round, discolored stove having gone out several days ago. Notwithstanding her plain, shabby dress, it was certain that Mascha was beautiful ; all Mstislavl, if called upon, would bear witness to this fact. About eighteen years of age, she was tall, slender, graceful, with beautifully rounded throat and arms, light, wavy hair drawn back upon her brow, a dazzling complexion, and eyes of that childlike blue that presupposes a purity of soul. When she smiled her charms were enhanced by an expression of indescribable simplicity and frankness.

At this moment, however, she presented a sad picture, for her hair had fallen disheveled about her handsome face., and her eyes were red with weeping. As her mother tossed wearily upon her pallet, moaning in pain, Mascha fell upon her knees and kissed the cold, drawn face.

“Are you suffering much, mother dearest?” she asked tenderly, smoothing away the dark hair from the clammy forehead.

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“Yes; I — I’m sinking fast, my child,’’ she replied in a faint, hoarse voice. “I shall leave you very soon, Mascha, and you will be alone, with no other protector except God, to whose mercy I confide you. Trust in Him in the hours of affliction or misfortune, and by His infinite power He will guide your footsteps and protect you from all harm.’’ She paused, and added, “Though you may be scoffed at and persecuted by orthodox Russians, never forget that you are one of God’s chosen, and while resenting insult, always refrain from revenge.’’

“I can’t bear to hear you talk like this,’’ cried my sister, bursting into tears. “You must not — you shall not die!’’ Springing suddenly to her feet, she stifled her sobs, and said, “You shan’t starve ! I’ll save you, even if compelled to beg bread from the Gentiles. I shall not be long, and I will bring you food.’’

With these words she threw a cloak around her shoulders, and opening the door, disappeared, while her mother closed her wearied eyes, and prayed earnestly for succor.

Through the old, uncleanly Ghetto — the quarter in which Jews were suffered to reside — Mascha wandered aimlessly, wondering where

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she could discover a person generous enough to give her a morsel of bread. She knew it was useless to ask for food of the people of her own faith, for they were in terrible distress also. Owing to the failure of the harvest for two consecutive seasons, food was so scarce in Western Russia, that in many places the peasants were subsisting on grass and roots, while hundreds were dying daily of sheer starvation. But worst of all, the feeling against the Jews had become greatly embittered from the fact that the mujiks, in their ignorant fanaticism, had been taught to believe by the village popes that the Hebrews had brought the famine upon the land. Hence Jew-baiting had become rife. Unfortunate Israelites were cuffed and assaulted in the open streets, and were unable to obtain redress, and in dozens of towns in Little and Central Russia the Ghettos had been looted and afterward burned.

In these anti-Semitic excesses, Jews were treated worse than dogs, and ruthlessly murdered, without a hand being stretched forth to save them, while women were outraged in sight of their children, and various diabolical atrocities committed, which had raised the indignation of lO

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every other European nation. Murder and pillage ran riot through the Tzar’s domains side by side with the grim specter Famine, which had spread starvation and death from the ¥^hite Sea to the Caucasus.

The Ghetto at Mstislavl was the oldest quarter of the little town, consisting of one dark, evil smelling street, into which the sun never seemed to shine. The black wooden houses, with numerous poles projecting from the windows, further increased the darkness of the narrow lane. From end to end, Mascha walked through it, but found no one who could render her assistance. The place seemed deserted, for . the houses were all closed, and the usually noisy colony was hushed by death.

Leaving the Jews’ quarter, she made her way through the town and entered the market place, where a little business was still being carried on. Groups of mujiks, in their sheepskins, were standing about idly, their thin, pinched faces showing that they, too, were feeling the effect of the dearth of food. While wandering along, engrossed in her own sad thoughts, Mascha chanced to look up, and her eyes fell upon a buxom young woman who held a large piece of

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II bread in her hand, from which she was feeding a great, black dog.

The thought flashed across her mind that she must get food by some means, and save her mother’s/ life. Without a moment’s reflection, she stifled her pride, and, rushing wildly across to where the woman stood, begged for a portion of the bread.

“You ! Give bread to you !” cried the woman, with a harsh, brutal laugh. “You Hebrews are dogs, but this” — and she pointed to the animal at her feet — “this is a Christian dog, and I would rather feed him than you.”

“For my mother’s sake!” implored Mascha. “She’s dying!”

“Bah! If she dies it will be one Jewess the less. You people are our curse. Go home and die too !”

Ancf the woman spat upon her contemptuously, and, turning her back upon the supplicant, continued feeding the dog.

Mascha, crestfallen and dejected, was walking slowly away when she suddenly felt a heavy hand upon her shoulder.

“Now, girl; what do you want here?” inquired a rough, coarse voice.

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Glancing up quickly, she recognized the sinister features, and shifty feline eyes, of Ivan Osnavitsch, the ispravjiik^ or Chief of Police.

“I want bread ; my mother is starving,” she replied.

“Starving? Like all the other dogs that infest the Ghetto kennels, eh? Well, you’ve no right to beg of Christians. The law of the mir forbids it, and I ought to send you to prison as a vagabond. If you want food you should go to the governor. His Excellency has received relief for distribution, and if you call upon him he may probably give you some. Tell him that I sent you.”

“Oh, thank you,” she replied ; “I’ll go at once.”

Turning, she directed her steps hurriedly toward the palace of the government, about a mile from the town on the Lubkovo road, while the ispravnik laughed, muttering as he watched her retreating figure: “His Excellency is a connoisseur of pretty faces. He will thank me for sending her.”

Feeling that not a moment was to be lost, Mascha walked quickly along the dusty highway, which ran through a green, fertile country, beside the sedgy bank of the swiftly flowing Soj River,

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Only by repute was General Martianoff, the Governor of Mstislavl, known to her. She knew that by the inhabitants of the Ghetto he was dreaded as a cruel, drunken, and depraved official, and she had heard the rabbi warn them against breaking any of the thousand tyrannical laws which comprise the Swod, or penal code. A Russian district governor is locally as much of an autocrat as his Imperial Master, the Tzar. He can do exactly what he pleases with the poor, cringing wretches over whom he is given authority. He can condemn Jew or Gentile to prison without trial ; he can order anyone who displeases him to be publicly knouted ; and with his colleague, the ispravnik, and his myrmidons, can enforce inhuman tortures not a whit the less terrible than those of the Spanish Inquisition.

General Martianoff, a fair specimen of the average nachalniki^ ruled his district with the knout, and hating Jews, considered death without torture too good for them. He had even ordered unoffending Hebrews to be publicly flogged because their children omitted to doff their caps to government officials whom they ixiet in the streets !

It was of this harsh, inhuman governor that

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my poor, trusting sister, famished and desperate, sought aid for her dying mother.

The general was lazily smoking a cigar and reading the Novosti in his own well furnished room, when a man-servant entered, and after saluting, said: “A young girl desires to see your Excellency. I told her you could not give audience to anyone.”

“Idiot ! Why did you send her away?”

“She was only a Jewess, your Excellency. But she is still here. She’s the daughter of the financier Mikhalovitch of St. Petersburg, who was sent to the mines.”

“Mikhalovitch!” repeated the general in a tone of surprise. “Ah! Show her in, and — and see we are not disturbed, Ivanovitch — you understand.”

“Yes, your Excellency.” And the man saluted and disappeared.

In a few seconds Mascha, pale and trembling, advanced timidly into the room. The governor was standing near the door when she entered, and as he closed it after her, he raised the portiere and pushed the bolt into its socket. Then he turned sharply toward her, and asked :

“Well, girl, what do you want?”

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“Your Excellency, “ said Mascha, bowing with that fawning humility which every Hebrew is bound to show toward government officials, “I have been sent by our good ispravnik, Ivan Osnavitsch.”

“Very kind of him to select beauty for me and send it to my door. I’m sure,” remarked the general under his breath.

Continuing, Mascha briefly explained that she and her mother were starving, and that the latter was dying of sheer want.

“But you are a Jewess,” he said sternly. “The relief which my Imperial Master has intrusted me to distribute is only for orthodox Russians.”

“Have pity; have mercy upon us,” she cried earnestly. “I know that I, a Jewess, have no right to ask a favor of your Excellency, but my dear mother is dying!”

“I cannot prevent that, my pretty one,” he said more kindly, stroking her fair disheveled hair. ^

With a quick movement he placed his arm around her waist, and, grasping her tightly, pressed her against his breast, and added : “Come, I must have a kiss!”

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i6

Before she could evade him, she felt his hot breath upon her face, and his lips pressed her soft, dimpled cheek. Trembling with fear and flushed with indignation, she struggled, and succeeded in freeing herself from his hateful clutches. But she did not upbraid him, although her face became more woeful than before.

Frowning, he regarded her with an expression of displeasure, saying: “The wife and child of a political exile classed among the dangerous Nihilists can expect no relief from his Majesty’s private purse.”

“It is to your sympathy that I appeal,” Mascha exclaimed imploringly. “Although my people and yours are of different creed, we all adore the same Father, our Tzar.”

“And Isaac Mikhalovitch was sent to Siberia by ^tape for conspiring against his life ! Curious adoration, eh?”

“It’s false!” she cried hotly. “He was wrongly accused, denounced by some unknown enemy, and sent straight to Irkutsk without any chance of defense.”

“Ha, ha! my pretty champion. So that is the way you speak of the justice of his Majesty! Your words betray you; they show that you.

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too, have become imbued with the revolutionary propaganda.”

Mascha saw she had been trapped. In a moment she knew that he suspected her of Nihilistic tendencies.

Martianoff noticed her alarm, and said: “You need not fear. I don’t intend that you should share your father’s fate. You are too pretty for that.”

“Have you decided to give me food?” she demanded, her brows knit in displeasure.

His coarse, sensual features again relaxed into a complacent smile, as he suddenly flung his arm around her neck. Bending, he placed his lips close to her ear, and whispered some words.

“No! no!” she cried wildly. “God protect me! Anything but that!” And she struggled to freq herself from his embrace.

“You refuse?” he said in a stern, harsh voice.

“I would rather die than agree to such terms,” she replied, her eyes flashing with indignation.

“Very well,” he snarled, as he thrust her from him impatiently. “Go back to your hovel and die, you daughter of a dog. Begone !”

“But, your Excellency — I ”

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“No more words,” he thundered, adding a curse. “Go! or Til fling you out.”

Staggering to the door, sorrowful and crestfallen, she drew back the bolt and went out, her eyes half blinded by tears.

The' moment she had gone, the general touched a gong, at the same time muttering: “The dainty, obstinate little bird must be brought to her senses. She must be put into a cage and tamed.”

“Ivanovitch,” he said aloud, addressing his servant. “That Jewess is a Nihilist. Order Osnavitsch to have her closely watched.”

Then he viciously bit the end off another cigar, and, taking up the paper, resumed his reading.

It was night.

Mascha, after leaving the palace of the government, had wandered about for several hours in search of someone who would give her bread ; but all her efforts were futile, and when she returned to the Ghetto, she had found that her mother’s feeble life had flickered and gone out.

With the moonlight full upon her she was kneeling beside the body, her face buried in the

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^9 ragged covering, and sobbing as if her heart would break. Unable to restrain her flood of emotion, she did not notice the cautious opening of the door, or the entrance of a tall, dark figure, which crept noiselessly up behind her and stood in the shadow, watching, and listening to her murmurings.

“It’s cruel,’’ she said aloud, suddenly drawing a long breath and clenching her teeth in despair. ‘’To the Tzar is due all the dire misfortune that has fallen upon our house. He has taken our money and cast us forth to die like dogs! It is he — the Tzar — the murderer! — who is responsible for my mother’s death. He is a vampire who lives on the blood of such as us.” Raising her tear-stained face and looking up to the clear, bright moon, she cried: “What can I do? My father, exiled, my mother dead, Vladimir on military service, and I am left alone — alone,” she added in a half fearful whisper, “to seek revenge !”

“Very pretty sentiments, indeed,” remarked a gruff, harsh voice.

Springing to her feet she confronted General Martianoff.

“You!” she gasped. “Why — why do you come here?”

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“To see you, my pretty one,” he replied, throwing off his great fur-lined shuba.

He endeavored to place his arm around her waist, but she drew back quickly.

“And you have followed me here,” she said in a tone of reproachful disgust — “here, into the room where my mother lies dead, in order to continue your hateful advances — to insult me before her corpse !”

“Ho, ho!” he said, annoyed. “Then you have not reconsidered your decision?”

“No,” she replied firmly. “Have I not already told you that I would prefer death?”

He argued with her, flattered her, laughing all the time at her indignation, and treating it with flippancy.

Suddenly she turned upon him with angry passion, saying: “I desire none of your detestable caresses. It is such heartless officials as you who curse our country, who carry out the ukases of the Autocrat with fiendish delight, and who are the catspaws of the persecutor of our race. What mercy ought I to expect from you, General Martianoff, who sent Anna Ivanovna to the mines merely because she displeased you, and who condemned Paul Sonvaroff to solitary con-

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finement in Petfopaulovsk for no offense except that he endeavored to save a defenseless woman from your merciless clutches? It is ”

“Silence, wench !“ he thundered.

“I will not be hushed when you insult me! You talk of love — you, whose dissolute habits are as well known as the yellow ticket of shame you would thrust upon us Jewesses. I begged bread from you, and you refused. See I there is the result !” and she pointed to where the body lay.

His face had grown livid, and rushing toward her, he grasped her roughly by the shoulder. “I have not come here on a fool’s errand,” he said fiercely. “I don’t intend that you shall evade me — you understand?”

“Let me go!” she demanded, struggling to get free. “Help! help!” she cried.

“Silence ! Curse you !” he growled, striking her a heavy blow upon the nose and mouth. Although stunned for a few moments she continued to struggle desperately.

Suddenly he lifted her from her feet and tried to drag her by sheer force to the door leading to the room beyond. She saw his intention, and for several minutes fought fiercely, with a renewed

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strength of which she had not believed herself capable.

Presently, in the heat of the struggle, something heavy fell from his pocket. She stooped and managed to snatch it up. At that moment she felt her strength failing and exerted every muscle.

“Will you let me go?” she shrieked, her lips cut and swollen by the cruel blow he had dealt her.

“No, I will not,” he replied, with an imprecation.

As he uttered the words, something bright glittered in her hand. He grasped her arm, endeavoring to gain possession of it.

But too late.

There was a flash, a loud report, and General Martianoff staggered back against the wall with an agonized cry.

“You — you’ve shot me!” he gasped hoarsely, and then sank upon a chair, inert and helpless, with blood streaming from a wound in his shoulder.

Mascha, in desperation, had resorted to the last extremity in defense of her honor.

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That night was an eventful one in Mstislavl.

The ignorant moujiks, encouraged by the officials of the government, had heaped every indignity possible upon the Jews, and the anti-Semitic feeling reached a climax when it became known that a Jewess had attempted to assassinate the governor.

Led by a wild-haired local agitator, a mob of a thousand persons proceeded to the Ghetto and carried out a frightful work of destruction. They surged down the narrow street, and after entering the houses and treating the inmates with shocking brutality, looted and set fire to their homes. The enraged rioters wrecked the synagogue and killed the rabbi, shouting: “Clear out the rats’ nest ! Kill them all !” Screams of pain mingled with wild yells of pleasure, and through the long night the Ghetto was a veritable pandemonium.

The scene was terrible. The street ran with blood. Many Jewish women fell victims to the brutal lust and fanatic frenzy of the mob, and were so barbarously maltreated that eleven succumbed, while a dozen men were shot or , stabbed.

Before dawn the Ghetto had been totally de-

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stroyecl and its unfortunate inhabitants, having lost everything they had, were compelled to seek shelter in the forest on the Kritchev road, where many afterward died of exposure and starvation.

General Martianoff lost no time in wreaking his vengeance upon my hapless sister. She had been arrested and taken to prison immediately after firing the shot, and he had condemned her to receive fifty lashes of the knout. Such a sentence was tantamount to death, for punishment by the knout is so barbarous a torture that few strong men could survive so many strokes. Yet public whippings are of everyday occurrence in the Tzar’s empire, and even women are hot spared by the officials.

It was about ten o’clock on the following morning when Mascha emerged from the grimy portals of the prison, and, under a strong escort, walked across the market place to the temporary platform that had been erected. A great crowd had assembled to witness the chastisement of “the pretty Jewess,’’ and as she mounted the steps, with pale, determined face, they greeted her with yells of triumph.

She looked round upon the sea of upturned countenances contemptuously.

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On the platform there had been set up a square wooden frame, inclined diagonally. Unceremoniously the brutal moujiks who assisted the executioner grasped her with their coarse, dirty hands and tore off her clothing, exposing her bare, white back down to the waist.

The irate mob roared with approbation when they saw this preparation, and a few moments later she was forced upon the black frame, and her wrists and ankles secured so tightly that the tension caused dislocation of the joints. Then the executioner, whose duty it was to carry out the sentence, seized the knout — a number of triangular thongs of leather fixed into a short whip handle — and looked round for the signal to commence. As he did so. General Martianoff, with his shoulder bandaged, made his way through the expectant crowd, and shouted :

“Come, get to work. Don’t spare her, but keep the death blow till last.’’

Hushed and open-mouthed, the spectators awaited the result of the first blow.

The executioner receded, swung the terrible torture instrument over his head, and, giving it a peculiar twist, brought it down upon the victim’s back with a sound like a pistol shot,

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The cruel thongs cut their way into the flesh, and the blood gushed forth. Time after time the blows fell monotonously, until the flesh was cut into strips, and both victim and executioner were covered with blood.

Such was the scene of fiendish brutality that met my gaze on my arrival at Mstislavl, after having traced my mother and sister from St. Petersburg.

I was making my way through the shouting populace when, out of mere curiosity, I glanced at the face of the unfortunate girl, and recognized her.

Was it surprising that I rushed wildly up and endeavored to stop the horrible punishment? So suddenly did it all happen, however, that I remember very little about it, except that in my wrathful indignation I cursed the Tzar’s myrmidons, and struck the inhuman governor, who attempted to throw me off the platform. Thinking that I was Mascha’s lover, and enraged at the blow, he thereupon ordered me to receive thirty lashes.

I saw them carry away the insensible and mutilated form of my poor sister.

Then they tied me to the reeking frame.

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I felt the thongs cut into my back like knives. Once! Twice! Thrice! The pain became excruciating. My head reeled, and a moment later all became blank.

When I regained consciousness I found myself in the prison hospital with warders rubbing salt into my wounds in order to heal them. I asked after Mascha, and was informed that she was still alive, and recovering.

One fnorning, while exercising in the prison yard, I saw her for a few brief moments, and she told me the story I have narrated.