had promised
to return it. For some little time I did not see how I could keep my
promise without compromising myself or others, but at last--after having
had my shadowers carefully shadowed in order to learn accurately their
habits, and having taken certain elaborate precautions, with which I
need not trouble the reader, as he is not likely ever to require them--I
paid a visit secretly to Dimitri Ivan'itch in his small room, almost
destitute of furniture, handed him the big parcel of pamphlets, warned
him not to visit me again, and bade him farewell. Thereupon we went our
separate ways and I saw him no more. Whether he subsequently played a
leading part in the movement I never could ascertain, because I did
not know his real name; but if the conception which I formed of his
character was at all accurate, he probably ended his career in Siberia,
for he was not a man to look back after having put his hand to the
plough. That is a peculiar trait of the Russian revolutionists of the
period in question. Their passion for realising an impossible ideal was
incurable. Many of them were again and again arrested; and as soon as
they escaped or were liberated they almost invariably went back to their
revolutionary activity and worked energetically until they again fell
into the clutches of the police.

From this digression into the sphere of personal reminiscences I return
now and take up again the thread of the narrative.

We have seen how the propaganda and the agitation had failed, partly
because the masses showed themselves indifferent or hostile, and partly
because the Government adopted vigorous repressive measures. We have
seen, too, how the leaders found themselves in face of a formidable
dilemma; either they must abandon their schemes or they must attack
their persecutors. The more energetic among them, as I have already
stated, chose the latter alternative, and they proceeded at once to
carry out their policy. In the course of a single year (February, 1878,
to February, 1879) a whole series of terrorist crimes was committed; in
Kief an attempt was made on the life of the Public Prosecutor, and an
officer of gendarmerie was stabbed; in St. Petersburg the Chief of the
Political Police of the Empire (General Mezentsef) was assassinated in
broad daylight in one of the central streets, and a similar attempt
was made on his successor (General Drenteln); at Kharkof the Governor
(Prince Krapotkin) was shot dead when entering