XII.

Everywhere now the revolution was in flood. We developed a feverish

## activity in all our centres.... At first we had no very great

influence, but our emissaries were actively at work everywhere, in order to convert our movement from a political one to a social one, or at least to an economic one.

For this purpose we had provided a secret printing-press in Warsaw, where we prepared the necessary leaflets. They were written by a student, who was a genius in this speciality. No one understood as well as he how to appeal to the instincts of the crowd. The moving power of his style was incomparable.... He put the facts side by side, illuminated them from the side that seemed to him most suitable, and then drew his conclusions, which, in their simple convincing logic, seemed irresistible. Then he turned to inflame fanaticism, reminded us how, then and there, and there, and there, so many victims had been sacrificed to the same idea; how, there and elsewhere, on the barricades men had died for it, and had rather rotted in prison than abandon their just demands. In this way he =always= succeeded in moving the crowd.

It was very efficacious, also, to remind the people of all the little tricks which had been played upon them by the manufacturers and by the authorities; he drew their attention to the fact how they, who had created everything, were actually not recognized as human beings, far less as human beings with equal rights.... These proofs most readily infuriated the proletarians to frenzy, and in some places, as in Lagonsk, Tiflis, and Baku, we succeeded in turning the movement in the economic direction. It was a great advantage that we had associates everywhere, and we were quickly notified when the rain was likely to begin, so that we could speedily move to another place.

In Tiflis the affair did not go as I wished; here the people were only =too= practical.... They began neither to strike, nor to demolish, nor to attack the soldiers.... No.... They simply said: “So much wages do we want; then we shall work only for such a time; and no commodity must rise in price.... Every one who will not take part with us we shall shoot.”... All the inhabitants joined them.... After a short time all this came to nothing.

Baku was more pleasing to me.... Here the petroleum-borers made their demands, and as these were not agreed to within two days, they set fire to 140 wells.... Then, to my great regret, the proprietors agreed to everything which had been demanded. I had been so inhumanly glad to see my life-ideal fulfilled. It seemed as if the situation was going to be such as I had often imagined....

A long time already had the religious and racial hatred between the Armenians and the Tartars been inflamed to the uttermost. In the whole of the Caucasus there was a bubbling as if in a witch’s cauldron.... Naturally, I remained in Baku, in order to be ready for what I hoped would happen there.

The whole population was at the uttermost point of tension; everything seemed painfully uncertain; would the dance begin or not?... I felt that it would only be necessary to throw a grain of sand into machine, and in an instant it would lead to an avalanche.... I was possessed by a frightful excitement; this mental tension was intolerable.... From minute to minute the horrible anxiety of the undetermined increased in me, and the hellish desire still burned within me; I longed that it might start at this very minute, so that, at last, my nerve-destroying tension might be relieved.

Then I became possessed with a demoniacal idea: one only needed to give the slightest little push at the right place, and the storm would break.

Inwardly I shuddered at the idea of the horrible consequences; and yet something within me drove me forward with an irresistible force--finally, to close the switch, and to allow the current to pass which must give rise to the explosion.... “It is only a kind of benevolent midwifery,” something seemed to whisper in my ear. “It must happen, in any case!... The sooner the storm breaks, the better!”

Thus I was subjected to a conflict of perceptions, which made me quite irresponsible. I was hurled to and fro by momentary feelings like a football. A single word from the other side would have produced in me such a suggestion that I should have blindly done anything I might have been asked to do.

My state resembled that of those people of whom Blanqui says: “Paris at any moment contains 50,000 men who are ready at a wave of the hand to shed blood for any cause.” It is indifferent to them, he might have added, if it is for the cause of freedom or for the cause of reaction.

This “destroy-everything mood,” which had so long been to me a psychological riddle, I was now able to study in my own person, as the result of an intensified masochistic predisposition.... At the foundation of the whole hermaphroditic state, there lay nothing else than the love of humanity.... An everyday humanity offers us no new sensations.... We are only able to love when it is out of the ordinary.... For this reason, we strive to see mankind in pain and poverty--in order that we may love men more ardently; to love them for that reason, because their misery provides for =us= intense pain.

For days I wandered about, fighting within myself a frightful spiritual battle.... I felt that the only alternatives were either to bring about a catastrophe or suicide. To wait any longer was beyond my powers. A chance must decide....

A kind of trance state had taken possession of my organism.... I knew nothing rightly: I did not know if everything around me was reality or only a dream!... Yes, I even doubted my own existence!... At no moment did I know where I was, how I had come there, what I had just been doing, what I really was.... I remember only that suddenly I was walking in the street in deep conversation with a man entirely unknown to me.... Our conversation turned round the question, What was going to happen?... Both of us were reserved, both on the watch; each seemed to have the feeling--“He is seeing through me; I must not betray myself!... Perhaps I shall be able to get something out of him!”... Thus, we spoke with the most extreme caution about that which each of us read in the soul of the other....

The passers-by stared at us; possibly we had been speaking rather too loudly. It appeared to me that someone was following us in order to listen to our conversation; we stopped, in order that this person might be compelled to walk past us. It was an impudent lad, in the years between boyhood and manhood; he stopped also, with his hands in his trousers pockets, a few paces distant, and listened to us with interest.... My companion was as much taken aback as I was myself, and we both began to stammer. At the moment a crowd of gapers had collected around us, hoping to hear something of interest. We both became continually more confused; my head began to swim, and I began to say something. It must have been nonsense that I spoke, for my companion looked at me, half astonished and half alarmed, and several persons in the crowd began to titter. This made me suddenly lose my head more even than before, and I began to get angry. Suddenly I shouted out to my companion: “That will have the most frightful results; they have cut off the Tartar’s feet and hands, and now the Tartars will massacre the whole town!”... All those around me began to talk to one another at once. “Cut off feet and hands!”... I had turned the switch and the current had passed....

I do not know how I got home.... My landlady rushed to me with the news: “The Tartars are going to burn the town to ashes, and to murder all the Armenians. Some of them have had their feet and hands cut off; their noses have been slit, their eyes cut out; boiling oil has been poured into their ears.... The people are all running away, or barricading themselves in their houses!”