Page:My Disillusionment In Russia.djvu/158

, Bakunin, Kropotkin, and scores of others spoke in a thousand-throated voice of their social idealism and their personal suffering—of their high hopes and fervent faith in the ultimate liberation of Russia. Now the fluttering spirits of the heroic dead may rest in peace: their dream has come true. But what is this strange writing on the wall? "To-night I am to be shot because I had once acquired an education." I had almost lost consciousness of the reality. The inscription roused me to it. "What is this?" I asked the guard. "Those are the last words of an intelligent" he replied. "After the October Revolution the intelligentsia filled this prison. From here they were taken out and shot, or were loaded on barges never to return. Those were dreadful days and still more dreadful nights." So the dream of those who had given their lives for the liberation of Russia had not come true, after all. Is there any change in the world? Or is it all an eternal recurrence of man's inhumanity to man?

We reached the strip of enclosure where the prisoners used to be permitted a half-hour's recreation. One by one they had to walk up and down the narrow lane in dead silence, with the sentries on the wall ready to shoot for the