The White Terror and The Red: A Novel of Revolutionary Russia

by Abraham Cahan

  CHAPTER IX.

  A DAY UNDERGROUND.

  About a week had elapsed, when Pavel read in his morning paper of thehanging of three revolutionists in Odessa: two Gentiles and a Jew. Hehad never met these men, but he knew that two of them had not beenimplicated in anything more violent than the diffusion of socialistideas. Also that the parents of the one who belonged to the Jewish racewere under arrest, condemned to be exiled to Siberia for no other crimethan their having given birth to an enemy of the existing regime.

  Pavel moved about his room with a sob of helpless fury in his throat. Hefound feverish satisfaction in the thought that he had some chemicals inhis overcoat which he was to carry to the dynamite shop of theTerrorists. The explosives to be made from it were intended for a newattempt upon the life of the Emperor. Not being directly connected withthe contemplated attack, neither he nor the dynamite makers of theorganisation had any clear idea about the plot, which was in the handsof a special sub-committee, Alexandre's place having been taken byanother man; but he did know that preparations were under way in theWinter Palace.

  The dynamite shop was kept by a woman with a deep-chested, almostmasculine voice, and a man with a squeaky feminine one. They wereregistered as man and wife. She was the daughter of a priest, but shelooked like a woman of the people and dressed like one--a thick-setextremely blonde young woman with coarse yet pleasing features. Herrevolutionary name was Baska. Her fictitious husband, who was one of thechemists of the party, was addressed by the revolutionists as Grisha. Hehad a scholarly face, yet the two had no difficulty in passing among theneighbours for a tradesman or shop clerk and his wife. For the greaterreality of the impersonation and as a special precaution againstcuriosity they made friends with the porter of the house and his wifeand with the police roundsman of the neighbourhood, often inviting themto a glass of vodka. The porter of St. Petersburg, like his brother ofParis under the empire, is a political detective "ex-officio." The twospies and the police officer were thus turned into unconscious witnessesof the young couple's political innocence, for in the first place theyhad many an opportunity to convince themselves that their dwelling wasfree from anything suspicious and, in the second, people who drank vodkaand went, moreover, on sprees with the house porter, certainly did notlook like Nihilists.

  "Good morning, Pavel," Baska greeted him vivaciously, as she gave hishand a hearty squeeze, while her other hand held a smoking cigarette."Just in time! I hate to eat my breakfast all alone. Grisha has anotherbad headache, poor fellow. But I see you, too, have a long face. Wheredid you get it?"

  Pavel smiled lugubriously as he handed her the package. He had not theheart to disturb her good spirits, and she went on chirping andlaughing.

  Grisha came in, haggard, sickly and trying to smile. The skin of bothhis hands was off. This, like his frequent headaches, was the effect ofthe work he did in these rooms--of inhaling nitroglycerine and kneadingdynamite with his bare fists.

  Baska gayly told how the porter's wife had offered her a salve for her"husband," and how the night before, as Grisha was pouringnitroglycerine into some dynamite "dough," there was an explosion andthe house filled with smoke.

  "Our next door neighbour knew at once that our kerosene stove explodedand set fire to a rag," Baska said with a deep-voiced titter. "She gaveme quite a lecture on negligence."

  "She only wondered why there should be such a strange smell to thesmoke," Grisha added, his hand to his head.

  As Pavel looked at Baska relishing her tea and her muffin and talkingmerrily between gulps, a desire took hold of him to spoil her vivacity.It jarred on him to see her enjoy herself while the image of the threenew gallows was so vivid in his mind.

  "You people don't seem to know what's going on in the world," he saidtestily. "They have hanged Malinka, Maidanski and Drobiazgin."

  "Have they?" Baska asked paling. She had known two of them personally.

  While Pavel took out his newspaper and read the brief despatch, her headsank on the table. Her solid frame was convulsed with sobbing.

  "Be calm, be calm," Grisha entreated, offering her a glass of water. Inspite of her excellent physique she was subject to violent hystericalfits which were apt to occur at a time when the proffer of neighbourlysympathy was least desirable.

  She told all she remembered of the executed men, whom she had met inthe south. But that was not much; so Pavel went to see Purring Cat who,being a southerner, had detailed information to give him about the threeNihilists. Boulatoff could talk of nothing else that day. When he metMakar, in the afternoon, he said:

  "People are being strangled right and left and here you are bent on that_idee fixe_ of yours."

  "Fine logic, that," Makar replied. "If my _idee fixe_ had been realiseda year ago these men would now be free. But this is not the time to talkabout things of that kind." Instead of mourning the loss of the threerevolutionists he was in a solemn, religious sort of mood at the thoughtof the new human sacrifices offered on the altar of liberty. He waspanting to speak about the Jew who had been executed. He was proud ofthe fact that two men of his race had given their lives for the causewithin five months. The other Jewish revolutionist had been executed inNicolayeff. A letter which he had addressed to the revolutionists a fewdays before his execution, exhorting them not to waste any of the forcesof the movement on attempts to avenge his death, was enshrined inMakar's heart as the most sacred document in the entire literature ofthe struggle. But race pride was contrary to the teachings of themovement; so he not only kept these sentiments to himself, but tried tosuppress them in his own bosom.

  * * * * *

  In the evening Pavel took two young cavalry officers of his acquaintanceto the house of a retired major where a revolutionary meeting was to beheld. They found the major's drawing room sparkling with militaryuniforms. The gathering was made up of eight officers, two men incitizen's clothes, and one woman, the dark long-necked hostess.

  Two cheap lithographs, one of General Suvoroff and the other of thereigning monarch, occupied the centre of the best wall, in jarringdisharmony with the refined and somewhat Bohemian character of the restof the room. The two portraits had been put there recently, to bearwitness to the political "reliability" of the house. The hostesspresided over a pile of yellow aromatic tobacco, rolling cigarettes forher guests and smoking incessantly herself. An idiotic-lookingman-servant and a peasant girl fresh from the country kept up a supplyof tea, zwiebacks and preserves. Every time they appeared the hostess,whose seat commanded the door, would signal to the company. She did itrather perfunctorily, however, the revolutionary discussion proceedingundisturbed. The cultured, bookish Russian of the assemblage was Greekto the two servants. They talked of the three executions.

  Presently two other civilians were announced.

  "At last!" the hostess said, getting up from her pile of tobacco in aflutter.

  The two newcomers were both above medium height, of solid build andruddy-faced; but here their similarity of appearance ceased. One of themlooked the image of social refinement and elegance, while the clothesand general aspect of the other bespoke a citified, prosperous peasant.His rough top-boots, the red woolen belt round his coat and the rathercoarse tint of his florid complexion, like his full Russian beard,proclaimed the son of the unenlightened classes. He was taller than hiscompanion and remarkably well-built, with a shock of dark brown hairthrown back from a high prominent forehead and regular features. He wasintroduced to the gathering as Zachar. He and the stylish-looking man byhis side whose revolutionary nickname was "My Lord," conveyed theeffect of a bright, shrewd tradesman and a high-class lawyer bent onsome legal business.

  "If we are late, blame this guide of mine, not me," Zachar said to thehostess, in a deep, rather harsh baritone, pointing at his companion."It turned out that he did not know the place very well himself. Thereis a pilot for you." He accepted a glass of tea in a silver holder andduring the ensuing small talk the room rang with his merriment. Hisjests were commonpl
ace, but his Russian and all he said betrayed the manof education. The tradesman's costume was his disguise, and if it becamehim so well it was because his parents were moujiks. Born in serfdom butbrought up as a nobleman at the expense of his former master, thisuniversity-bred peasant--a case of extreme rarity--for whom thegendarmes were searching in connection with a bold attempt to blow up animperial train, loomed in the minds of the revolutionists as the mostconspicuous figure of their movement.

  "And how is my young philosopher?" he said to Pavel. "I was at yourplace this morning, but found you out, Pasha."

  "I'll see you later on," Pavel said dryly. "Philosopher" referred to thenature of the studies which Pavel's mother thought him to be pursuing.There was a touch of patronage in the way Zachar used the word, andPavel resented it.

  As the gathering began to lapse into a graver mood the conversation wasexpectantly left to Zachar, who by degrees accepted the role of theprincipal speaker of the evening. That he relished this role and wasfond of a well turned phrase became apparent at once, but the impressionsoon wore off. He compelled attention.

  "The practice of nations being inherited like furniture or chickens hasbeen out of date for centuries," he said in the course of a ferociousattack on the existing adjustment of things. "But our party does notdemand full justice at once. The Will of the People is notinconsiderate. We are willing to project ourselves into the position ofan old chap with whom the love of power has been bred in the bone. Allour party does demand, as a first step, is some regard for the rights ofthe individual; of those rights without which the word civilisation isof a piece with that puerile sort of hypocrisy as our late war withTurkey, when the ambitious old fellow in his unquenchable thirst forterritory sent his subjects to die for the liberty of Bulgarians so thattheir own children at home might be plunged into more abject slaverythan ever.

  "The government knows, of course, that its days are numbered and that itis only cowardice and incapacity for concerted action which make itsbrief respite possible. To retreat honourably, before it is too late, toyield to the stern voice of the revolution under some speciouspretext--this is the step indicated by the political situation, but thenthis is not what the ambitious oldster is after. Is there any wonder hehas lost his head? So much the better for the revolution. One or twodecisive blows and the government will topple over. Thanks to thesplendid army section of the Will of the People, on the one hand, and toour powerful Workingmen's Section, on the other, one hundred resolutemen will be enough to seize the Winter Palace, to cut off all egress,arrest the new Czar and, amid the general confusion following the deathof the old tyrant, proclaim a provisional government. What a gloriousopportunity to serve one's country!"

  His speech lasted an hour and a half. Most of his hearers were recentconverts, and these the matter-of-fact tone of his utterances took bystorm. The Third Section had heard of him as an irresistible agitator.So he was, and the chief secret of his success lay--despite an effect ofconscious floridity and bravado--in a sincere depth of convictionmanifested by a volcanic vehemence of delivery. His speeches took it forgranted that Russia was at the threshold of a great historical changeand that his organisation was going to play a leading part in thatchange. He gathered particular assurance from the fact that the "armysection" that had been formed by his efforts included several officersof the court guard whose number he hoped to increase. These courtofficers it was whom his imagination pictured as "cutting off allegress" at the Winter Palace. The funds of his party includedcontributions from some high sources. Things seemed to be coming the"Will of the People's" way. As he spoke his strong physique seemed to beaflame with contagious passion, sweeping along audience and speaker. Theharshness of his mighty baritone was gone; his peasant face wasbeautiful. Words like "party," "citizen," "National Assembly," arewinged with the glamour of forbidden fruit in Russia, and when Zacharuttered these words, in accents implying that these things were as goodas realised, his audience was enravished. To all of which, in thepresent instance, should be added the psychological effect of a group ofdashing army officers, all members of the nobility, reverently listeningto an address by a peasant. He struck one as a giant of energy andcourage, of nervous vitality as well as of bodily strength. He had thestuff of a political leader in him. Under favourable conditions he wouldhave left his mark as one of the strong men of the nineteenth century.He carried people along current-fashion rather than magnetised them.

  Pavel was the next speaker, but the outraged sense of justice which wasthe keynote of his impassioned plea, coming as it did upon the heels ofZachar's peremptory and matter-of-course declarations, sounded out ofdate.

  "Oh, it takes an idiot to talk after you, Zachar," he said, breaking offin the middle of a sentence. "One feels like being up and doing things,not talking. I wonder why we don't start for the Winter Palace, atonce."

  "That's the way I feel, too," chimed in a very young cavalry officer,while two older men in brilliant uniforms, were grasping Zachar each byone hand. The long-necked hostess was brushing the tears from her eyesand calling herself "fool," for joy.

  An artillery officer with bad teeth of whom Pavel could not thinkwithout thinking of the rheumatism of which that revolutionist had oncecomplained to him, drew his sword fiercely, the polished steel flamingin the bright light of the room, as he said:

  "By Jove!"

  "Look at him! Look at him!" Zachar shouted.

  "Bridle your passions, old boy," Pavel put in.

  A minute or two later he called the orator into the next room and handedhim what looked like a package of tobacco.

  Zachar was in high feather over the success of his speech and loath toleave the atmosphere of adoration that surrounded him here; but animportant engagement forced him to take his departure.

  * * * * *

  A quarter of an hour's ride in a tramcar and a short walk through themoonlit streets brought him to a deserted corner in the vicinity of theWinter Palace, where he was met by a man dressed like an artisan, astall as himself, but slimmer of girth, and the two went on trudgingalong the snow-encrusted sidewalk together. The other man had anexpressive sickly face which the pallid glare of the moonlight gave aghastly look.

  "How is your health?" Zachar asked.

  "Bad," the sickly looking man answered, holding out his hand into whichZachar put the package of tobacco, saying:

  "See if it isn't too heavy for a quarter of a pound."

  "It is, rather, but it'll pass," the other replied, weighing the packagein his hand and then putting it into his pocket. Buried in the tobaccowas a small quantity of dynamite.

  "It's too bad you are not feeling well."

  "Yes, my nerves are playing the devil with me. The worst of it is that Ihave got to keep the stuff under my pillow when I sleep. That gives meheadaches."

  "I shouldn't wonder. The evaporations of that stuff do that as a rule.But can't you find another place for it?"

  "Not for the night. They might go through my trunk then. They are apt tocome in at any time. Oh, those surprise visits of theirs keep mywretched nerves on edge all the time."

  While the gendarmerie and the police knew him to be a leader among therevolutionary workmen of the capital and were hunting for him all overthe city, this man, whose name was Stepan Khaltourin, had for the pastfew months been making his home, under the name of Batushkoff, in thesame building as the Czar, in the Winter Palace, where his work as avarnisher was highly valued. He was a self-taught mechanic, unusuallywell-read and clear-headed. Of retiring disposition and a man of fewwords, with an iron will under a bashful and extremely gentle manner,he was one of the prominent figures of the Will of the People, havingbeen driven to terrorism by the senseless persecutions which he had metat the hands of the authorities in his attempts to educate some of hisfellow-workmen. He now lodged, together with other mechanics, inthe basement of the Winter Palace, with only one room--theguard-room--between the ceiling over his head and the floor of theImperial dining hall. Indeed, the fr
equent raids which a colonel at thehead of a group of gendarmes had been making upon that basement sincethe seizure of "Alexandre's" diagram were largely a matter of displayand red tape. There was more jingling of spurs and flaunting offormidable looking moustaches than actual searching or watching. Nowherewas the incapacity of Russian officialdom illustrated more glaringlythan it was in the very home of the Czar. The bold Terrorist for whomthe police were looking high and low had found little difficulty insecuring employment here, and one of the first things that had attractedhis attention in the place was the prevailing state of anarchy anddemoralisation he found in it. Priceless gems and relics were scatteredabout utterly unguarded; stealing was the common practice of the courtservants, and orgies at which these regaled their friends from theoutside world upon wines from the imperial cellars were a nightlyoccurrence. Since Alexandre's arrest the vigilance of the courtgendarmes had been greatly increased, so that no servant could enter thepalace without being searched; yet Khaltourin contrived to smuggle in asmall piece of dynamite every evening, thus gradually accumulating thesupply that was needed for the terrible work of destruction he waspreparing.

  As to his position within the palace, he played his role so well that hewas the favourite of gendarmes and servants alike, often hearing fromthem stories of the Nihilists and of the great plot to blow up thedining hall that was supposed to have been nipped in the bud.

  "Well, how is that old gendarme of yours?" Zachar inquired. "Stillteaching you manners?"

  "Yes," Khaltourin answered with a smile. "I am getting sick of hisattentions, though. But there is something back of them, it appears.What do you think he's after? Why, he has a marriageable daughter, so hehas taken it into his head to make a son-in-law of me."

  "Ho-ho-ho-ho!" Zachar exploded, restraining a guffaw.