Chapter Ten

471Purim was drawing near. Zilshteyn and I had planned to travel to Vilna for Passover. Suddenly I learn, through a cleverly disguised letter from my mother, that our Vilna "kruzhok" (circle) had "fallen in" (been cracked), and that several of my home-town comrades had been arrested.

"Your dark, charming comrade, who studies with Rivke, has caught a cold; the funeral has already taken place" — my mother wrote — "they buried him deep, deep, deep. The frosts are great; take care, my son! Don't go about without a shawl (sharf)."

"Deep-deep-deep," one does not say in earnest. Besides: the cold days were already past. Why had Mother now bethought herself to warn me against catching cold? In short, it was plain that the letter was a hint that my dark, charming comrade, the gymnasium student Rabinovich, who had lived together with Baranes at the Pohulanka lodging, had been arrested, and that he was not the only one.

A short while after I had received this letter, Zilshteyn and I got a second disguised letter. This time it concerned our comrade Statshik, 472who had finished the institute together with us and, together with me, had belonged to the Vilna "kruzhok." Just as Zilshteyn and I had gotten posts in Velizh, and Tratski and Yungovitsh in Nevel, so he had gotten a teaching post in Homel. There they later arrested him. The news came to the manager of the Nevel uchilishche (school), who had earlier had a teaching post in Homel and now used to correspond with his Homel friends. So Tratski and Yungovitsh let us know about it at once (for safety's sake they wrote it precisely on an open postcard, in an ostensibly indignant tone of condemnation and surprise, that Statshik should have shown himself to be "such a sort of fellow").

From Homel they transferred Statshik to the "Fourteenth Number," the political prison of Vilna; and there, in a solitary cell, he took his own life.

I had corresponded with Statshik. But I was sure that he had burned my letters, just as I had burned all of his.

Once, on a Friday afternoon, I was lying on the bed in our tiny little bedroom, reading. Zilshteyn was not at home. I was somehow unwell, and I began to doze. Just then I remembered that there were in the house a few "underground" things. So I got up and carried the "treyfe merchandise" over to Maria. "A boy will come for it later," I explained to her — "I told him that I would leave it with you." Ever since I had received that letter from my mother, 473I had been more cautious. I did not want to fall asleep with the underground writings [in the house].

After I had given Maria the parcel, I went back into our "fligel" and lay down again. I fell asleep.

Through my sleep I hear that people are coming — not one person, but several at once. I started awake.

The door was not locked, and in Russia one used to enter a house without knocking. I got up from the bed. I take a look: a whole gang of uninvited guests — the Velizh gendarme colonel (polkovnik), the deputy-ispravnik (district police chief), several gendarmes, a couple of policemen, and a couple of men in civilian clothes.

They made a search (obysk) at my place.

The gendarme colonel had received a paper about it from Vitebsk. But it originated from the Vilna arrests.

The gendarme colonel (I do not remember his name) had no experience in such matters, and he was as ignorant as a peasant. He was a fat, wheezing officer, with swollen legs and a weak breath. It was hard for him to bend down. To spit, he used to keep a glass on the table beside him, and would spit into it instead of into a spittoon.

One of the books I then had in the house was Karl Marx's "Capital," which I had borrowed from a member of the Vitebsk kruzhok. Some ten years later that work was as well known in Russia as the Bible. A child had heard the name. In my time, however, one knew of it almost only in the revolutionary world; and since it is a deeply scholarly book and had no direct connection with the Russian revolutionary 474movement, it had officially never been forbidden in Russia. Still, when a gendarme knew what sort of book it was, he naturally did not take it for a sign of your God-fearingness and tsar-fearingness.

On the title page stand the words: "Capital — a Critique of Political Economy."

— What is this thing? — the wheezing colonel asked me, pointing to the word "political."

— Oh, a book about commerce — I answered, pointing with my finger to the word "Capital" and to the word "economy." And he asked no further questions.

The answer occurred to me thanks to a similar remark, which I had heard a few weeks earlier from an ignorant Velizh merchant. Merson and I had, in his presence, just then mentioned political economy, and he had asked what that thing was.

— Oh, it's a science of some kind — I answered. — It's not easy to explain.

But he knew that an "ekonom" means the manager of a husbandry, of an estate (mayontek) or of some other sort of householding, and he retorted with scorn:

— I am myself a whole commerce, and I don't know what this thing economy is, and you do!

The book "Capital" the gendarmes laid out among the books that had already been examined, among the "kosher" ones. They lay in a little heap on the table, and the books that had not yet been examined lay in another little heap, nearer to the other edge of the table.

Bit by bit the unexamined ones passed over to the examined, and the empty space between them 475grew ever narrower. The border between the two heaps no one guarded. I was standing by, to answer the questions that were put to me about the books. At a certain moment, with my elbow, as if leaning on it by accident, I shoved two books across the "border" — from the unexamined to the "kosher." One of them was a diary of Zilshteyn's, in which he used to record various impressions and thoughts. I did not know what stood there. But I reckoned that in any case it would be better if the colonel did not read it. And Zilshteyn was grateful to me for it. What sort of book the second one was I do not remember.

Henrik Yatskevich had left me his photographic pictures. When the colonel examined them, he stopped at Ferdinand Lassalle, because the name did not sound Russian to him.

— Who is this? — he asked.

— A German scholar — I answered.

Chernyshevsky's picture he did not find on me, because it was in the parcel that I had carried over to Maria.

The colonel could not believe that I was one of "those." After he had examined "all" our books and found nothing, he said to me:

— You must have enemies; evidently someone has written a pasquil (slander) about you to Vitebsk.

— So it appears — I latched onto his explanation.

The character of my un-forbidden books and pictures he did not understand. He gave me 476a hint that the pasquil against me had probably been written by someone of the very pious Jews, who hate me for not being pious.

He had received from Vitebsk an order to make a "search" (obysk) at my place. That was all he knew.

The deputy-ispravnik (his name was Starikovich) was a more intelligent man and also a more likeable one. He too did not know who Karl Marx was; but what sort of scholar Ferdinand Lassalle was, that he did know. He pretended, however, not to know, and afterward retold the story with laughter to the ispravnik. The next morning the ispravnik says with a smile to Merson, who was a teacher to his children:

— Tell Cahan he should not think that he fooled Starikovich too. He knows who that sly little German Jew, Lassalle, is.

Between the ispravnik's office and the gendarmerie there existed a hostile rivalry, and the ispravnik used to mock the colonel.

He was of German parents, the ispravnik, and as ignorant as the head of the Velizh gendarmes he was in any case not. His lodging was next to our fligel. He had a houseful of children — some by his lawful wife, and some by the servant. About this official and his household Merson used to tell me curious things.

A few days later I had a second visit. This time they came to me at the "uchilishche," 477while I was in the midst of teaching my class. Again a whole gang, even bigger than the first time.

They marched in, glittering with their gendarme and police uniforms and clanking with their spurs and swords.

— Send the children home and kindly come along with us! — the colonel said to me, now in an angry tone, as though he were shouting: "Yes, the pious Jews have sent a pasquil about you! Now I already know what a fine fellow you are."

Since the uchilishche was right in the middle of the market, they led me past all the shops. The reader can already imagine what a sensation this was for a little town like Velizh.

The children of my class meanwhile had an unexpected holiday. The younger ones ran about the town boasting that their teacher had "killed the tsar."

They led me off to our "fligel," and there they again made a search (obysk). This time the business lasted three or four hours. Every little speck of dust they fingered over and sniffed over.

The twenty-three numbers of "Sovremennik" they carried off to the gendarmerie, and they ordered me to come there in the evening, for an interrogation (farher).

There I met, besides the colonel, the deputy-prosecutor of the Velizh uyezd (district), and he conducted the interrogation.

He was of medium height, slender, with long, straight-hanging hair, with very long, manicured nails. He wore a long black frock-coat, held himself like a baron and spoke like a baron. His wife was the 478daughter of an aristocratic Russian family, which had an estate (mayontek) in those parts, and he had outfitted himself to look like a born aristocrat. He spoke to me with a cold baronial politeness, with measured cold phrases, which were as groomed as his nails.

There was no stenographer. The questions and the answers were recorded by a gendarme under-officer, a tall, broad soldier, with big moustaches. In big, round letters he wrote. A verbatim record it naturally was not.

The fat, wheezing colonel helped along with the questions, and meanwhile he smiled submissively at the prosecutor. He especially exerted himself to assist him here, and wherever a stern tone was called for. To threaten me did not suit the "aristocratic" prosecutor; so he left that to the wheezing gendarme-colonel.

From the questions I learned that at Statshik's they had found a letter of mine. I was astonished, for I had written him that letter several months earlier and, as already said above, I was sure that he had long since destroyed it. In that letter I had, among other things, asked Statshik to introduce a certain girl to Sokolov's younger sister.

— How do I know Sokolov? — the prosecutor asked.

Sokolov had earlier been a postmaster in Ashmene, Vilna province. I said that I had become acquainted with him there, though in truth I had never in my life been in Ashmene. From the letter it was 479to be seen that I had been a frequent guest at Sokolov's.

— Was I a regular visitor at Sokolov's lodging in Vilna? — the prosecutor asked.

— I was at his place a few times.

— Whom did I see there?

— Some pupil of his; I don't remember the name.

He named me the names of several young men and women. Had I seen them there?

— No.

— Why was it important that that Jewish girl should become acquainted with Sokolov's sister?

— Because she wants to go study at the Bestuzhev courses, and Sokolov's sister is familiar with the program — I answered. And that was partly the truth.

From a couple of the questions I noticed that in the papers the prosecutor had received from Vilna by way of Vitebsk, the names were jumbled together and tangled; so I made use of the error.

The prosecutor asked me whether I knew Baranes. "Yes, he was for a short time a pupil at our institute. From there I know him" — I answered. And that sounded quite natural. "Bandas" was the name of another young man, a gymnasium student of the Vilna "kruzhok." When he asked me whether I knew him, I said that this was probably the same Baranes, only the name was wrongly recorded.

One of the others he asked about was a Christian named Narbatshevski. With him too I had become acquainted at Sokolov's house. But he happened to be a teacher to the children of Kateleni480kov, the director of the institute; I said that I had become acquainted with him in the courtyard of the institute, where he had lived with us on the "gigantic steps."^*

At one point, when I denied something, and the prosecutor with the colonel pressed me with stern words, I protested at their speaking to me impolitely. I did this chiefly in order to gain time to consider my answer.

— Calm yourself, calm yourself — the prosecutor said to me in his aristocratic manner — no one wants to insult you. One wants only the truth.

The interrogation lasted until late at night. At the end they declared to me that in a few days I would be taken for an interrogation in Vitebsk.

— Meanwhile you must not dare to leave Velizh — the colonel said angrily — your every step will be watched in any case.

A couple of days later it was conveyed to me that at the gentry club the prosecutor had said about me: "A clever little fellow, but not yet fledged. He thinks we understand nothing."

At the Lakhovs' too they made a search. Their address had been found in the notebook of a traveling revolutionary, who had been arrested in Vilna, and in the search that was made at their place, they 481found at Kolya's a letter of Morozov's, [saying] that he, Morozov, was getting ready to come to Velizh and Sivets and conduct propaganda in the villages.

For the time being they placed the Lakhov family under house arrest.

There was another interrogation, to which they brought both them and me. The colonel told me again that I would be taken to Vitebsk, and warned me not to try to escape.

I began to notice that people were drawing away from me. Some simply avoided me. Zilshteyn was friendly and faithful. The Mersons too, and a couple of other acquaintances. But the town in general treated me like a victim of a contagious disease.

Velizh became unbearable to me. The question was whether I should wait until I was taken to Vitebsk, or consider a plan to "vanish."

No great danger faced me. They had found nothing at my place, and ordinarily, for such "crimes" as mine, one was exiled to not very distant regions of Siberia for five years. That would have been no great misfortune. To Siberia had been exiled many of the best and most educated people. I would have been in good company. My Petersburg uncle would have supported me, and I would have spent five years reading and learning. Far better than to lie in this forsaken province and be a little teacher forever. So 482I used to think. But there were moments when I pictured my situation in dark colors.

Then I used to paint myself another picture: I will escape. I will come to Switzerland or to Paris, where there were then many Russian revolutionaries, and among them some celebrities. I arrive there at a university; I study and read. At the same time I take part in the activities of the local Russian revolutionary groups, and I visit Russia as an "illegal."

If I were to escape, it had to be done as quickly as possible, before the Vilna prosecutor would receive the papers from Velizh and uncover my lies. And if not to escape but to wait to be taken to Vitebsk, I hoped that from there they would more quickly transfer me to Vilna, to the "14th Number," where Rabinovich, Sokolov and the others arrested from our "kruzhok" were sitting.

I wanted to consult with the Vilna comrades who were free. Besides, I wanted to know what had taken place there and how to answer further questions from the prosecutor in Velizh, or Vilna. To this end I decided to send a messenger to Vilna. There was still time, for the report about my interrogation was going to Vitebsk and from there to Vilna, and the wheels of the Russian government turned very slowly.

For my messenger I chose Isaac Merson's younger brother, Zelig. He was a clever lad and a capable young fellow.

When he came to Vilna, he met with great difficulties. One of the socialists whose opinion 483I wanted to have was not in town — so he was told. A second, who, according to my expectations, was free, turned out to be one of the arrested. And those whom he was able to see (Medvedev was one of them) were not sure that he was my messenger and that he could be trusted. His general impression, however, was that the arrests had made a havoc (khurbn) in the Vilna kruzhok.

When he came back and gave me his report, I decided to become "nelm" (to disappear).

To escape was not difficult, for the spy who "watched my every step" existed only in the colonel's fantasy. The gendarmerie and the police were sure that for me it would simply be impossible to escape.

When I told the Mersons that I had decided to "vanish" from Velizh, the whole family set about helping me. Chiefly Isaac Merson, Zelig, a brother, and their father, Yosef Moshe Merson, the eldest, took part with energy and enthusiasm.

This old man — not tall, lean, with a long, narrow gray beard — was an interesting type: a Jew, a scholar (lamdn), a sharp mind and a "sermon-head," with an inexhaustible spirit of enterprise and with a special passion for rescuing Jews who needed to escape from "goyish (gentile) hands." When fate set before him an opportunity of this sort, he used to become twenty years younger.

He had his own house, a big one, a wooden one, and he kept it forever under rebuilding. His 484active brain was full of plans. Had he lived in America, he would have rebuilt whole streets in Brownsville or in the Bronx. In Velizh his spirit of enterprise busied itself with "architectural" fantasies in regard to his house.

It stood at the very bank of the Dvina.

The ice had broken up. From the previous summer there had remained a Vitebsk "laive" (a barge, a project-boat), which had gotten stranded a few months earlier, when the river froze over. Now it was getting ready to float back to Vitebsk. So old Merson's plan was that I should go up on this "laive." And with him it was "said and done."

He went straight off to the owner of the "laive" and bargained with him. He told him about a young merchant who must depart secretly, and the man asked no questions. Whether the barge-man (laivetshnik) suspected that this was the teacher (uchitel) at whose place searches had been made, or not, I do not know.

The details of the plan consisted of the following: when the "laive" would be ready to float off, I would find myself in a hidden spot right nearby. There was a dry ditch there, and over the ditch was a little bridge; and I would wait under that little bridge. When they would give me a signal that the "laive" was ready for the road, I would clamber up onto it. They would take me into an empty crate and cover me with a couple of sacks, and the "laive" would set off.

Before my departure old Merson began to say "du" (thou) to me, like a father, and provided me with a false name.

485— On the road you must forget that you are called Cahan — he taught me — you are no longer Cahan, you are Lipshitz. Now, what is your name? — he examined me.

— Lipshitz — I answered with a smile.

— It is no laughing matter. Don't forget your new name. Don't get tangled up.

For the journey — up to across the border — I needed about 200 rubles, and this sum was put together partly from my own money and partly from Bas's son-in-law and from another friend.

So that the gendarmes should not detect that I was gone, I arranged with Zilshteyn that the lamp should burn at our place the whole evening, whether he was at home or not. The next morning, too, he should go about looking for me, and finally report to the police that I had not spent the night at home and that he could not find me.

The reckoning was that I would arrive in Vitebsk at dawn; there, at 6 o'clock, I would take a train to Kursk, and in Kursk seat myself on a train to Warsaw. The police would at first look for me in Sivets and other surrounding places; and before they came to their senses, I would be in Warsaw, at Doctor Yatskevich's son's. Such was my reckoning.

The laive was supposed to leave in the afternoon. I sat at the Mersons' and waited for the minute when I would go to that little bridge.

There came news that everything was ready, but that on the little bridge, under which I was to climb up onto the laive, stood the ispravnik and the "golova" (mayor) of the town. This had no connection 486to me. They had simply come out of curiosity.

The first little boat got ready to float off, and in the life of Velizh that was an important piece of news. The barge-man waited about a quarter of an hour; then he sent word that he could wait no longer. "Stafetn" (couriers) flew back and forth. Old Merson begged him to have patience. The barge-man waited a little more, and a little more. Finally the laive went off. I was in despair.

Old Merson, however, knew nothing of despair. He took a snap of his fingers and explained a new plan: to buy a rowboat (lodke) and hire two boatmen, who should ferry me across all the way to Vitebsk. With the journey one would have to wait until about ten at night. But if all went properly, I would reach Vitebsk for the 6-o'clock train. I accepted the plan with joy, and one of old Merson's sons hurried over to the "small side" — that is, to the other side of the Dvina — bought a brand-new rowboat and hired two sturdy Belarusians.

It happened to be a moonlit night. The boatmen stood ready beside the little boat. We went out into the courtyard — I, Merson's three sons and the young daughter of a fourth son. Quietly, in the light of the moon, we took our leave. I took off 487my official teacher's cap, put on a plain cheap cap and twisted the edges of my hair, so that they should look like peyes (sidelocks). The cap with the cockade one of the Mersons took to burn. We pressed one another's hands. They wished me luck. I got into the rowboat. The oars began to work and the rowboat let itself off downstream, toward Vitebsk.

At first the two Belarusians stopped at the opposite bank, by the workshop of a potter. Outside lay a mound of clay vessels. Through the fresh wood of the rowboat water had been seeping; so the boatmen had to use little bowls to bail it out.

— Hey! Thieves! Don't touch the vessels! — a watchman, whom they could not see, shouted from the bank.

— We're only taking a couple of shards to bail out the water — answered one of my "sailors."

— Ah, there!

One had to bail the water without cease.

I remember the splash of the oars and the scrape of the shards, when the rowboat began to move.

On the way, a few hours later, my "sailors" put in at a bank to rest. And there they fell asleep. Wake them today, wake them tomorrow! They slept on until a good part of the day was gone.

We arrived in Vitebsk not at six, but around three in the afternoon. To take the train, any train at all, was already a danger. Probably they were already looking for me. At every station there were gendarmes, who perhaps had a description of me; and my squint 488eyes were a dangerous sign. It would have been easy to recognize me.

So I, as far as possible, avoided the railways. From Vitebsk I traveled by a diligence (omnibus) to Orsha; and from Orsha, by a steamship, over the Dnieper, to Mohilev.

Under the name Lipshitz, then, without a passport, I arrived in Mohilev. This was a few days before Passover.

On the steamship there sat beside me a young man, a suede-dealer, from Kovne. He had relatives in Mohilev and was traveling there to work. A "sharp" lad he was, full of life. He treated me to chicken and to anecdotes. As is the way among our Jews, he asked further why I was traveling to Mohilev, who I was, what I was.

I had not prepared an answer, and I told him whatever came onto my tongue:

— I am traveling about a match (shidekh) for a brother of mine.

He demanded details, and I went on "improvising," as they say in Vilna.

He looked me over with my peyes and burst out laughing aloud.

— Does one send such a yeshiva boy to look over a bride and talk about a dowry (nadn)? — he exclaimed.

— If you don't like it, you needn't! — I answered.

— Sha, he's offended! — he begged my pardon.

He promised to be helpful to me in Mohilev.

— You don't know anyone there, after all — he explained — and I have many acquaintances there.

489He was a friendly lad. But for me his friendliness in Mohilev did not pay off. I decided to free myself of him as soon as we should arrive.

We arrived in Mohilev about nine o'clock in the evening. The suede-dealer watched over me like a mother over a child, and I kept pondering how I could get rid of him.

He led me to a relative of his for a night's lodging. I went with my small bundle, and he with a larger pack. As I walked, I looked over the "strategic positions" of the streets and courtyards.

Finally, at a certain point, I bade him wait for me a minute.

I went through a courtyard, and then I slipped aside and made my way back along an alley, until I reached a convenient hiding-place fifty paces behind him. There I stopped behind a gate.

— Lipshitz! Lipshitz! — he shouted with all his might. — Where have you got to?

Hearing no answer, he went off to look for me, all the while calling me by my new name.

For some ten minutes he searched for me, until at last I hear how he shouts in an agitated voice:

— It's a yeshiva boy! — He got lost right under my hands! — and such a clever one they send about a match for a brother!

When it had grown quiet, I went off for some five minutes in a sidewise direction. Here and there people passed by; I began to ask where there was an inn (akhsanye).

490It was a few days before Passover. I decided to remain in Mohilev until after the holiday, until in Velizh the uproar would blow over and they would stop looking for me in the surrounding places. I was sure that the Vitebsk gendarmerie had sent out a description of my appearance.

In a couple of weeks, then, when they would have forgotten about me, I would set off on a steamship over the Dnieper to Kiev. From Kiev onward I would already travel by train. I would come to Warsaw, and there I would consult with Henrik Yatskevich about further plans. Such was my program.