ead a Bohemian life, and they very often
obstinately refused to give their consent. In such cases the persistent
daughter found herself in a dilemma. Though she might run away from
her family and possibly earn her own living, she could not cross
the frontier without a passport, and without the parental sanction a
passport could not be obtained. Of course she might marry and get the
consent of her husband, but most of the young ladies objected to the
trammels of matrimony. Occasionally the problem was solved by means of
a fictitious marriage, and when a young man could not be found to
co-operate voluntarily in the arrangement, the Terrorist methods, which
the revolutionists adopted a few years later for other purposes, might
be employed. I have heard of at least one case in which an ardent female
devotee of medical science threatened to shoot a student who was going
abroad if he did not submit to the matrimonial ceremony and allow her to
accompany him to the frontier as his official wife!

Strange as this story may seem, it contains nothing inherently
improbable. At that time the energetic young ladies of the Nihilist
school were not to be diverted from their purpose by trifling obstacles.
We shall meet some of them hereafter, displaying great courage and
tenacity in revolutionary activity. One of them, for example, attempted
to murder the Prefect of St. Petersburg; and another, a young person of
considerable refinement and great personal charm, gave the signal
for the assassination of Alexander II. and expiated her crime on the
scaffold without the least sign of repentance.

Most of the studious emigres of both sexes went to Zurich, where female
students were admitted to the medical classes. Here they made the
acquaintance of noted Socialists from various countries who had settled
in Switzerland, and being in search of panaceas for social regeneration,
they naturally fell under their influence, at the same time they read
with avidity the works of Proudhon, Lassalle, Buchner, Marx, Flerovski,
Pfeiffer, and other writers of "advanced opinions."

Among the apostles of socialism living at that time in Switzerland they
found a sympathetic fellow-countryman in the famous Anarchist, Bakunin,
who had succeeded in escaping from Siberia. His ideal was the
immediate overthrow of all existing Governments, the destruction of
all administrative organisation, the abolition of all bourgeois
institutions, and the establishment of an e