Part 42

The hour was over, and with a broken heart I returned to my room. ‘Something must have gone wrong,’ I said to myself.

The impossible had happened that day. Hundreds of children’s balloons are always on sale in St. Petersburg, near the Gostínoi Dvor. That morning there were none; not a single balloon was to be found. One was discovered at last, in the possession of a child, but it was old and would not fly. My friends rushed then to an optician’s shop, bought an apparatus for making hydrogen, and filled the balloon with it; but it would not fly any better: the hydrogen had not been dried. Time pressed. Then a lady attached the balloon to her umbrella, and, holding the latter high above her head, walked up and down in the street alongside the high wall of our yard; but I saw nothing of it; the wall being too high, and the lady too short.

As it turned out, nothing could have been better than that accident with the balloon. When the hour of my walk had passed, the carriage was driven along the streets which it was intended to follow after the escape; and there, in a narrow street, it was stopped by a dozen or more carts which were carrying wood to the hospital. The horses of the carts got into disorder--some of them on the right side of the street, and some on the left--and the carriage had to make its way at a slow pace amongst them; at a turning it was actually blocked. If I had been in it, we should have been caught.

Now a whole system of signals was established along the streets through which we should have to go after the escape, in order to give notice if the streets were not clear. For a couple of miles from the hospital my comrades took the position of sentries. One was to walk up and down with a handkerchief in his hand, which at the approach of the carts he was to put into his pocket; another was to sit on a stone and eat cherries, stopping when the carts came near; and so on. All these signals, transmitted along the streets, were finally to reach the carriage. My friends had also hired the gray bungalow that I could see from the yard, and at an open window of that little house a violinist stood with his violin, ready to play when the signal, ‘Street clear,’ reached him.

The attempt had been settled for the next day. Further postponement would have been dangerous. In fact, the carriage had been taken notice of by the hospital people, and something suspicious must have reached the ears of the authorities, as on the night before my escape I heard the patrol officer ask the sentry who stood opposite my window, ‘Where are your ball cartridges?’ The soldier began to take them in a clumsy way out of his cartridge pouch, spending a couple of minutes before he got them. The patrol officer swore at him. ‘Have you not been told to-night to keep four ball cartridges in the pocket of your coat?’ And he stood by the sentry till the latter put four cartridges into his pocket. ‘Look sharp!’ he said as he turned away.

The new arrangements concerning the signals had to be communicated to me at once; and at two on the next day a lady--a dear relative of mine--came to the prison, asking that a watch might be transmitted to me. Everything had to go through the hands of the procureur; but as this was simply a watch, without a box, it was passed along. In it was a tiny cipher note which contained the whole plan. When I saw it I was seized with terror, so daring was the feat. The lady, herself under pursuit by the police for political reasons, would have been arrested on the spot, if anyone had chanced to open the lid of the watch. But I saw her calmly leave the prison and move slowly along the boulevard.

I came out at four, as usual, and gave my signal. I heard next the rumble of the carriage, and a few minutes later the tones of the violin in the gray house sounded through our yard. But I was then at the other end of the building. When I got back to the end of my path which was nearest the gate--about a hundred paces from it--the sentry was close upon my heels. ‘One turn more,’ I thought--but before I reached the farther end of the path the violin suddenly ceased playing.

More than a quarter of an hour passed, full of anxiety, before I understood the cause of the interruption. Then a dozen heavily loaded carts entered the gate and moved to the other end of the yard.

Immediately the violinist--a good one, I must say--began a wildly exciting mazurka from Kontsky, as if to say, ‘Straight on now--this is your time!’ I moved slowly to the nearer end of the footpath, trembling at the thought that the mazurka might stop before I reached it.

When I was there I turned round. The sentry had stopped five or six paces behind me; he was looking the other way. ‘Now or never!’ I remember that thought flashing through my head. I flung off my green flannel dressing-gown and began to run.

For many days in succession I had practised how to get rid of that immeasurably long and cumbrous garment. It was so long that I carried the lower part on my left arm, as ladies carry the trains of their riding habits. Do what I might, it would not come off in one movement. I cut the seams under the armpits, but that did not help. Then I decided to learn to throw it off in two movements: one, casting the end from my arm, the other dropping the gown on the floor. I practised patiently in my room until I could do it as neatly as soldiers handle their rifles. ‘One, two,’ and it was on the ground.

I did not trust much to my vigour, and began to run rather slowly, to economize my strength. But no sooner had I taken a few steps than the peasants who were piling the wood at the other end shouted, ‘He runs! Stop him! Catch him!’ and they hastened to intercept me at the gate. Then I flew for my life. I thought of nothing but running--not even of the pit which the carts had dug out at the gate. Run! run! full speed!

The sentry, I was told later by the friends who witnessed the scene from the gray house, ran after me, followed by three soldiers who had been sitting on the doorsteps. The sentry was so near to me that he felt sure of catching me. Several times he flung his rifle forward, trying to give me a blow in the back with the bayonet. One moment my friends in the window thought he had me. He was so convinced that he could stop me in this way that he did not fire. But I kept my distance, and he had to give up at the gate.

Safe out of the gate, I perceived, to my terror, that the carriage was occupied by a civilian who wore a military cap. He sat without turning his head to me. ‘Sold!’ was my first thought. The comrades had written in their last letter, ‘Once in the street, don’t give yourself up: there will be friends to defend you in case of need,’ and I did not want to jump into the carriage if it was occupied by an enemy. However, as I got nearer to the carriage I noticed that the man in it had sandy whiskers which seemed to be those of a warm friend of mine. He did not belong to our circle, but we were personal friends, and on more than one occasion I had learned to know his admirable, daring courage, and how his strength suddenly became herculean when there was danger at hand. ‘Why should he be there? Is it possible?’ I reflected, and was going to shout out his name, when I caught myself in good time, and instead clapped my hands, while still running, to attract his attention. He turned his face to me--and I knew who it was.

‘Jump in, quick, quick!’ he shouted in a terrible voice, calling me and the coachman all sorts of names, a revolver in his hand and ready to shoot. ‘Gallop! gallop! I will kill you!’ he cried to the coachman. The horse--a beautiful racing trotter, which had been bought on purpose--started at full gallop. Scores of voices yelling, ‘Hold them! Get them!’ resounded behind us, my friend meanwhile helping me to put on an elegant overcoat and an opera hat. But the real danger was not so much in the pursuers as in a soldier who was posted at the gate of the hospital, about opposite to the spot where the carriage had to wait. He could have prevented my jumping into the carriage or could have stopped the horse by simply rushing a few steps forward. A friend was consequently commissioned to divert this soldier by talking. He did this most successfully. The soldier having been employed at one time in the laboratory of the hospital, my friend gave a scientific turn to their chat, speaking about the microscope and the wonderful things one sees through it. Referring to a certain parasite of the human body, he asked, ‘Did you ever see what a formidable tail it has?’ ‘What, man, a tail?’ ‘Yes it has; under the microscope it is as big as that.’ ‘Don’t tell me any of your tales!’ retorted the soldier. ‘I know better. It was the first thing I looked at under the microscope.’ This animated discussion took place just as I ran past them and sprang into the carriage. It sounds like fable, but it is fact.

The carriage turned sharply into a narrow lane, past the same wall of the yard where the peasants had been piling wood, and which all of them had now deserted in their run after me. The turn was so sharp that the carriage was nearly upset, when I flung myself inward, dragging toward me my friend; this sudden movement righted the carriage.

We trotted through the narrow lane and then turned to the left. Two gendarmes were standing there, at the door of a public-house, and gave to the military cap of my companion the military salute. ‘Hush! hush!’ I said to him, for he was still terribly excited. ‘All goes well; the gendarmes salute us!’ The coachman thereupon turned his face toward me, and I recognized in him another friend, who smiled with happiness.

Everywhere we saw friends, who winked to us or gave us a Godspeed as we passed at the full trot of our beautiful horse. Then we entered the large Nevsky Perspective, turned into a side street, and alighted at a door, sending away the coachman. I ran up the staircase, and at its top fell into the arms of my sister-in-law, who had been waiting in painful anxiety. She laughed and cried at the same time, bidding me hurry to put on another dress and to crop my conspicuous beard. Ten minutes later my friend and I left the house and took a cab.

In the meantime the officer of the guard at the prison and the hospital soldiers had rushed out into the street, doubtful as to what measures they should take. There was not a cab for a mile round, every one having been hired by my friends. An old peasant woman from the crowd was wiser than all the lot. ‘Poor people,’ she said, as if talking to herself, ‘they are sure to come out on the Perspective, and there they will be caught if somebody runs along that lane, which leads straight to the Perspective.’ She was quite right, and the officer ran to the tramway car which stood close by, and asked the men to let him have their horses to send somebody on horseback to the Perspective. But the men obstinately refused to give up their horses, and the officer did not use force.

As to the violinist and the lady who had taken the gray house, they too rushed out and joined the crowd with the old woman, whom they heard giving advice, and when the crowd dispersed they quietly went away.

It was a fine afternoon. We drove to the islands where the St. Petersburg aristocracy go on bright spring days to see the sunset, and called on the way, in a remote street, at a barber’s shop to shave off my beard, which operation changed me, of course, but not very much. We drove aimlessly up and down the islands, but, having been told not to reach our night quarters till late in the evening, did not know where to go. ‘What shall we do in the meantime?’ I asked my friend. He also pondered over that question. ‘To Donon’s!’ he suddenly called out to the cabman, naming one of the best St. Petersburg restaurants. ‘No one will ever think of looking for you at Donon’s,’ he calmly remarked. ‘They will hunt for you everywhere else, but not there; and we shall have a dinner, and a drink, too, in honour of your successful escape.’

What could I reply to so reasonable a suggestion? So we went to Donon’s, passed the halls flooded with light and crowded with visitors at the dinner hour, and took a separate room, where we spent the evening till the time came when we were expected. The house where we had first alighted was searched less than two hours after we left, as were also the apartments of nearly all our friends. Nobody thought of making a search at Donon’s.

A couple of days later I was to take possession of an apartment which had been engaged for me, and which I could occupy under a false passport. But the lady who was to take me in a carriage to that house took the precaution of visiting it first by herself. It was densely surrounded by spies. So many of my friends had come to inquire whether I was safe there that the suspicions of the police had been aroused. Moreover, my portrait had been printed by the Third Section, and hundreds of copies had been distributed to policemen and watchmen. All the detectives who knew me by sight were looking for me in the streets; while those who did not were accompanied by soldiers and warders who had seen me during my imprisonment. The Tsar was furious that such an escape should have taken place in his capital in full daylight, and had given the order, ‘He must be found.’

It was impossible to remain at St. Petersburg, and I concealed myself in country houses in its neighbourhood. In company with half-a-dozen friends, I stayed at a village frequented at this time of the year by St. Petersburg people bent on picnicking. Then it was decided that I should go abroad. But from a foreign paper we had learned that all the frontier stations and the railway termini in the Baltic provinces and Finland were closely watched by detectives who knew me by sight. So I determined to travel in a direction where I should be least expected. Armed with the passport of a friend, and accompanied by another friend, I crossed Finland, and went northward to a remote port on the Gulf of Bothnia, whence I crossed to Sweden.

After I had gone on board the steamer, and it was about to sail, the friend who was to accompany me to the frontier told me the St. Petersburg news, which he had promised our friends not to tell me before. My sister Hélène had been arrested, as well as the sister of my brother’s wife, who had visited me in prison once a month after my brother and his wife went to Siberia.

My sister knew absolutely nothing of the preparations for my escape. Only after I had escaped a friend had hurried to her, to tell her the welcome news. She protested her ignorance in vain: she was taken from her children, and was kept imprisoned for a fortnight. As to the sister of my brother’s wife, she had known vaguely that something was to be attempted, but she had had no part in the preparations. Common sense ought to have shown the authorities that a person who had officially visited me in prison would not be involved in such an affair. Nevertheless, she was kept in prison for over two months. Her husband, a well-known lawyer, vainly endeavoured to obtain her release. ‘We are aware now,’ he was told by the gendarme officers, ‘that she has had nothing to do with the escape; but, you see, we reported to the emperor, on the day we arrested her, that the person who had organized the escape was discovered and arrested. It will now take some time to prepare the emperor to accept the idea that she is not the real culprit.’

I crossed Sweden without stopping anywhere, and went to Christiania, where I waited a few days for a steamer to sail for Hull, gathering information in the meantime about the peasant party of the Norwegian Storthing. As I went to the steamer I asked myself with anxiety, ‘Under which flag does she sail--Norwegian, German, English?’ Then I saw floating above the stern the Union Jack--the flag under which so many refugees, Russian, Italian, French, Hungarian, and of all nations, have found an asylum. I greeted that flag from the depth of my heart.

PART SIXTH