The effect of the imprisonment was seen in its results. In the six years after 1891, just forty-eight persons were removed into Schlüsselburg from the Alexis Ravelin, all of them young and in sound health at the time. At the end of these six years, five had committed suicide or had been shot, three were still retained but were out of their minds, three had died insane, nine others had died, the majority of them carried off by consumption. Twenty out of forty-eight was a large proportion, and the fact is authenticated by M. Petit, who can give the names and exact dates.
After the year 1896, the rigours of the régime were in some measure slackened. Books were allowed, such as scientific manuals, grammars and dictionaries for the study of languages, and historical books of a date previous to the eighteenth century, but no works of a purely literary character and no periodicals, reviews or newspapers. Writing materials were issued, a few sheets during the daytime, which, with whatever was written thereon, were withdrawn in the evening. By degrees the dietary was slightly improved, the period of exercise was prolonged and the prisoners were occasionally allowed to work in the garden or in the carpenter’s shop. Still better, association with a fellow prisoner for a brief space was conceded twice a week when at exercise. Later, extracts from the letters of relatives were read out to the prisoner once yearly, communicating a brief message such as, “We are alive and well and living at such and such a place.” By and by the prisoners were permitted to reply no less briefly, but never to state where they were confined.
Two provincial prisons were much concerned with political prisoners, those of Kiev and Moscow. The former was the scene of many tragic episodes, and fierce conflicts between the revolutionists and the authorities. Some remarkable escapes were made from them. The university of Kiev was a hot-bed of political unrest, and its students were active and determined conspirators. An independent spirit was always present in the prison, the product of past resistance. It was from Kiev that the well-known Leo Deutsch escaped with two others in 1878, through the courageous assistance of a comrade Frolenko, who managed as a free man to get a false passport and obtain employment as a warder in the prison. He took the name of Michael and was in due course appointed to take charge of the corridor in which his friends Deutsch, Stefanovich and Bohanovsky were located. They had pretended to protest against his coming to their ward so as to disarm suspicion.
Frolenko set to work without loss of time. He provided disguises, two suits of private clothes and a warder’s uniform, which the prisoners put on, and he then released them from their cells. As they were stumbling along the passage, one of them tripped against a rope which he caught at and pulled frantically. It proved to be the alarm bell of the prison and caused a deafening noise. The false “Michael” at once explained to the authorities what he had done unwittingly, and the disturbance passed off without further discovery. Again the fugitives, who had hidden themselves in the first corners they found, started on their journey and got out of the prison, where a confederate met the party and led them to the river and to a boat stored with provisions which awaited them. They voyaged along the Dnieper for a whole week, concealing themselves when necessary in the long rushes, and at last reached Krementchug, where they were furnished with passports and money and successfully passed the frontier. “Michael” went with them, and it was long supposed by the officials that he had been made away with by the prison breakers.
Beverley, a young man of English extraction, met death when escaping from the Kiev prison. He had been arrested for living under a false passport and being active in the revolutionary propaganda with a comrade Isbitski. He had driven a tunnel from their cell to a point beyond the prison walls. The authorities had discovered the tunnel and had posted a party of soldiers at the exit, where the fugitives must emerge into the upper air. As soon as they appeared they were shot down. Beverley was mortally wounded, and as he lay on the ground he was despatched by repeated bayonet stabs. Isbitski was also struck down, but was carried back alive after a severe beating.
Leo Deutsch gives other cases of escape that proved more successful. A student Ivanov was helped to freedom by the officer commanding the guard, Tihonov, who was a member of the Narodnaya Volya society, or the “Will of the People.” Another prisoner disappeared under the most mysterious circumstances which were never explained. But the most important escape was in August, 1902, when eleven noted prisoners, arrested a short time before, broke prison in a body. They exercised every evening in the prison yard which was bounded on one side by an outer wall overlooking fields and which was unguarded on the outside. The prisoners got into the field, taking with them an iron anchor weighing twenty pounds, and a rope ladder. At a given moment some of them had fallen upon their warder, overpowered him, gagged and bound him. Two others, climbing on each other’s shoulders, reached the top of the wall, where they pulled up the anchor, made it fast, and then secured the rope ladder, which served for the ascent of the prisoners on one side and their descent on the other. So much sympathy was felt for them in the town that they were effectually concealed when at large and provided with the necessary funds for leaving the country. Throughout the whole affair no blood was shed and no one was hurt. Many more escaped from Kiev in a different fashion, passing out of its walls to the scaffold.
The great central prison of Moscow, locally known as the “Butirki,” served as a general depot for ordinary criminals on the point of departure as exiles about to be transported to Siberia. It is a vast establishment with accommodation for thousands; a mighty stone building which looks like a gigantic well. A great wall with a tower at each of the four corners encloses it, and the various classes of politicals were confined in these towers. In the north tower were the “administrative” exiles; in the “chapel” tower were those still under examination, and in another the female prisoners were kept. All the male political prisoners in Moscow wore chains and the convict dress. It was a degrading costume, made the more humiliating by the method of shaving the right side of the head and leaving the left side with the hair cut close.
To Leo Deutsch, who was subjected to the prison barber before leaving Kiev, the ordeal was extremely painful. He says: “When I saw my own face in the glass a cold shudder ran down my spine and I experienced a sensation of personal degradation to something less than human. I thought of the days—in Russia, not so long ago—when criminals were branded with hot irons.
“A convict was waiting ready to fasten on my fetters. I was placed on a stool and had to put my foot on an anvil. The blacksmith fitted an iron ring round each ankle, and welded it together. Every stroke of the hammer made my heart sink, as I realised that a new existence was beginning for me.
“The mental depression into which I now fell was soon accompanied by physical discomfort. The fetters at first caused me intolerable pain in walking, and even disturbed my sleep. It also requires considerable practice before one can easily manage to dress and undress. The heavy chains—about thirteen pounds in weight—are not only an encumbrance, but are very painful, as they chafe the skin round the ankles; and the leather lining is but little protection to those unaccustomed to these adornments. Another great torment is the continual clinking of the chains. It is indescribably irritating to the nervous, and reminds the prisoner at every turn that he is a pariah among his kind, ‘deprived of all rights.’
“The transformation is completed by the peculiar convict dress, consisting of a grey gown, made of special material, and a pair of trousers. Prisoners condemned to hard labour wear a square piece of yellow cloth sewn on their gowns. The feet are clad in leather slippers nicknamed ‘cats.’ All these articles of clothing are inconvenient, heavy and ill-fitting.
“I hardly knew myself when I looked in the glass and beheld a fully attired convict. The thought possessed me, ‘For long years you will have to go about in that hideous disguise.’ Even the gendarme regarded me with compassion. ‘What won’t they do to a man?’ he said. And I could only try to comfort myself by thinking how many unpleasant things one gets used to, and that time might perhaps accustom me even to this.”
A later episode in the experience of Deutsch is rather amusing. Many of the ordinary prisoners were in the habit of ridding themselves of their chains,