Because of the crowded condition of our prison it was impossible to maintain a régime of strict isolation. The politicals who had relatives in town were allowed interviews with them. Notwithstanding that these interviews took place in the presence of gendarmes, they succeeded in sending verbal messages to friends outside, and also found out what was going on without the prison walls. The news that the Orloffs, their servant, and I would be put on trial reached the outside world.

In those years politicals had not been tried in any court. Since the seventies they had been exiled in the “administrative order,” which means that any one suspected of “political unreliability” was sent, after a more or less protracted stay in prison, to some remote northern province, or to Siberia, for as many years as the Minister of the Interior, the chief of the gendarmes, or any gendarme general, or colonel saw fit. This was a new move against the politicals by the all-powerful Plehve. The advantage it offered was the possibility of sending them to hard labor, whereas under the old order they were “only” exiled.

This departure from the time-honored “system” aroused great interest in the liberal circles of Russian society, particularly among the members of the legal profession. Several prominent St. Petersburg lawyers, Maklakoff, Pereverzeff, Kalmanovitch, and others, wrote to the procureur offering their services to us free of charge.

At last copies of the indictment were delivered to us. The crime with which I was charged was punishable by from eight to twelve years’ hard labor. The main evidence against me were my letters, of which the strongest passages were quoted in the indictment.

The trial was set for October 15, 1903. A few days before the trial I was called to the prison office. Instead of the gendarmes I had expected to meet, I saw two gentlemen in civilian clothes. The guard told them my name and went out, leaving me alone with them. This was the first time since my imprisonment that I was alone with free people, without the company of gendarmes.

The two gentlemen regarded me for some time in surprise, and then one of them said:

“I am Maklakoff, attorney-at-law, and this is my colleague, Mr. Ratner. We came to defend you. Are you really the author of the letters which are quoted in the indictment?” he asked, again looking me over in surprise.

“Yes, of course,” I replied.

“How old were you when you wrote those letters?” asked Mr. Ratner.

“Sixteen.”

They laughed heartily, and shook my hands.

“That’s clever, very clever!” exclaimed Maklakoff. “Eight years’ hard labor for letters written at sixteen! Fine!”

He began to pace up and down the room, somewhat agitated. Suddenly he stopped, as if remembering my presence, and said:

“But you needn’t worry. We will see that you are acquitted.”

“No,” I said, “it will hardly be possible to acquit me. You know when I wrote those letters, I really had no serious intentions. But after they have kept me in these stone walls for over nineteen months, my mind is made up, and nothing, nothing can ever change it. I hate this despotic government with all the fibers of my soul, and I will fight it to the last drop of blood in me. And I intend to tell this openly to the czar’s court.”

They remained silent for some time.

“We understand you,” they said, “and this makes us wish still more to be of help to you.”

They bade me good-by in a very friendly manner and went away, having promised to see me again before the trial. After this interview a beautiful bouquet was brought to me every morning, together with my bread and water. I learned later that these bouquets were sent by my lawyers, who had obtained special permission from the procureur.

At last the long-awaited day of the trial arrived. On the fifteenth of October, early in the morning, I was led out of the prison gate. The autumn sun greeted me from a cloudless sky. The air was cool and fragrant. My eyes, which for many months had seen nothing but gray walls, bathed in the green grass. The open space before the prison fascinated me.

“To escape,” an inner voice whispered to me.

A carriage was waiting near the gate. I entered it, and two gendarmes with drawn sabers took their seats on each side of me. The carriage rolled fast over deserted streets, and after a short ride stopped in front of a massive brown-brick structure. It was the court-house.

“Here we are!” said one of the gendarmes. They led me into the prisoners’ room and locked me in there. But soon the door opened, and the lawyers, counsel for the defense, came in one by one, six of them. They were more agitated than I, because they already knew the verdict which had been ordered by Plehve in advance, and felt the futility of their efforts to save us.

At ten o’clock two gendarmes in brand-new uniforms, with drawn sabers, took me to the court-room. The immense hall was empty. Only in a corner, opposite a long table covered with a green cloth, sat my comrades. Gendarmes, with drawn sabers, stood in front and back of them, but before I reached their bench I noticed, amid a sea of vacant chairs, the bent figure of an old man. He sat with his head bowed low. “Father!” The thought struck me like an electric shock. Instantly I ran to him, and before the gendarmes had time to recover from their surprise, I was near him. “Father, dear!” I had time to say. The trembling arms of my father were torn from my neck, and the gendarmes led me to the prisoners’ bench, holding me fast with their free hands.

“The Court enters! Rise!” called out the court _príestav_ in loud tones.

The judges entered, took their seats, and the farce of a trial began. The secretary read the indictment. All of us were charged with having established a secret printing-office and published the forbidden journal _Iskra_. I, in addition, was charged with having uttered threats against the czar’s life. The usual questions were asked. In answer to the presiding justice’s question:

“Do you acknowledge yourself guilty?” I replied:

“No. From the letters it will become clear to you that I had no connection with the publication of the _Iskra_, which is a Social Democratic organ. I say this, not because I want to clear myself, but because I am a convinced Socialist-Revolutionist, and as such have been and always will be an enemy of the existing form of government. I do not expect mercy from anybody.”

The witnesses gave favorable testimony, with the exception of the official translator of my Yiddish letters. He maintained that one of my expressions was, “I shall not rest until I shed the blood of the vampire,” while another translator, not official, said that the sentence read: “I shall not rest until the blood of the vampires is shed.” While admitting that my Jewish was poor and ungrammatical, he asserted that this particular sentence was written clearly and correctly, and that he had translated it exactly. May heaven forgive him! He was simply afraid of the gendarmes.

On the second day the speeches of the prosecution and the defense were made. The procureur demanded the maximum sentence of twelve years’ hard labor, saying there was no question of my guilt, as I had acknowledged in my speech that I was a Social Democrat. My counsel, Mr. Ratner, said in his speech:[8]

“Private letters cannot serve as evidence before any court, particularly in a case which concerns general idealistic convictions. Such letters always bear the stamp of a subjective mood and therefore cannot have the value of exact evidence. But if letters are to be believed, how is it possible to pick out one at will and to discard the other? to believe one and not to believe the other? We must believe Miss Sukloff that she is a Socialist-Revolutionist, and the repeated statement of the procureur that she is a Social Democrat is utterly incomprehensible. Between the Socialist-Revolutionists and the Social Democrats there is a great difference.... The labor organ which Miss Sukloff says in her letters she wants to publish can by no means be the _Iskra_. Everybody knows perfectly well that this organ is published abroad, and was being issued long before Miss Sukloff wrote her letters, consequently she could not have in view the _Iskra_ when she wrote about the intention of herself and her friends to issue a paper....

“As regards the word ‘vampire,’ to consider it, particularly in view of the doubtful conscientiousness of the translator, a deliberate intention to commit a definite terrorist act, is juridically impossible. It is simply a poetical expression of the terrorist mood which agitates now, by force of circumstances, not one young heart in Russia. Whether it was written ‘vampire’ or ‘vampires’ is, after all, of no import to us, because in the letter is expressed only an abstract intention, and to punish for such intentions no court has ever attempted.... The substance of the accusation is that the accused had definite opinions, convictions, and general intentions, and all this is quite comprehensible, if one will be more attentive to her manner of life. A worker since fifteen, vivid and bright, she ponders over the strange contrast between her own and her chums’ position on the one hand, and that of, let us say, their customers, while her own mental superiority to those bedecked ladies could be no secret to her. Reasoning logically, not hampered by prejudices which did not fasten upon her, her thought came to certain conclusions. Meeting with people of greater mental development, she, under their influence, adopted at first the Social Democratic teachings; but her mind, being of wider scope, did not stop there, and thanks to her militant temperament, she, having become acquainted with the views of the Socialist-Revolutionists, joined them.... We ourselves in her place would undoubtedly thirst as much as she for emancipation and the possibility of a better life for herself and others. It must be noted that, notwithstanding the specifically Jewish persecution she was subjected to, the accused did not engage in a narrow-nationalistic struggle. She had a broader outlook, and the interests of all humanity are dearer to her. This is a talented nature, responsive to all good; in some other country she might have been happy, but here, among us—alas! This is not possible. The court may, of course, convict her, but it will hardly be a triumph of justice; it will be another ill-considered, unjust verdict, of which history knows not few.”

After two days of anxious waiting the verdict was announced: We were sentenced “to be deprived of all rights and exiled to Eastern Siberia for life.”

Footnote 6:

Report.

Footnote 7:

A dark, windowless cell, in which prisoners are kept on bread and water.

Footnote 8:

Quoted from the _Revolyutzionnaya Rossiya_, the organ of the Socialist-Revolutionists, No. 37.