Complete Works of Bram Stoker (675 page)

It then became necessary to examine the ship in every part. Those were the days of the Thomassin “ infernal machine,” which was suspected of having been the means by which many ships had been sent to the bottom. These machines were exploded by clockwork set for a certain time, and were made in such fashion as would not excite suspicion. Some were in the form of irregularly shaped lumps of coal. The first thing to be done was therefore to take out all the coal which had already been put in. When the bunkers were empty and all the searchable portions of the ship had been carefully examined inch by inch, a picked staff of men opened and examined the watertight compartments. This was in itself a job, for there were, so well as I remember, something like a hundred and fifty of them. However, as each was done Pearce himself set his own seal upon it. At last he was able to assure the Grand Duke, who was in command and who had arrived to take the boat in charge, that she was so far safe from attack from concealed explosives. When she was starting the Grand Duke told Pearce that the Czar expected that he would go on the trial trip. In his own words:

“It is not any part of a shipbuilder’s business to go on trial trips unless he so wishes. But in this case I could not have thought of refusing. The Czar’s relations with me and his kindness to me were such that I could not do anything but what would please him!”

So the Livadia started from the Clyde with sealed orders. Her first call was at Holyhead. There they met with a despatch which ordered an immediate journey to Plymouth. At Plymouth she was again directed with secret orders to go to Brest, whither she set out at once.

At Brest there was an “ easy,” and certain of the officers and men were allowed shore leave. The rest should have been for several days; but suddenly word was received to leave Brest at once; it was said that some suspected Nihilists were in the way. The men on shore were peremptorily recalled and in haste preparations were made for an immediate start for the south. Pearce’s own words explain the situation:

“I went at once to the Grand Duke Nicholas and remonstrated with him. ‘ I can answer for the workmanship of the Livadia,’ I said; ‘ but the design is not mine, and so far as I know the principle on which she has been constructed has never been tested and there is no possibility of knowing what a ship of the pattern will do in bad weather, and that we have ahead of us. It is dirty now in the Bay and a storm is reported coming up. Does your Highness really think it wise to attempt the Bay of Biscay under the conditions? ‘ To my astonishment not only the Grand Duke but some of his officers who were present, who had not hitherto shown any disposition to despise danger, spoke loudly in favour of going on at once. Of course I said no more. I had built the ship, and though I was not responsible for her I felt that if necessary I should go down in her. We had a terrible experience in the Bay, but got through safely to Ferrol. There she was laid up in a land-locked bay round the shores of which guards were posted night and day for months. It was necessary that she should lie up somewhere as the dock at Sebastopol  —  the only dock in the world large enough to hold her  —  was not ready.

“And whilst she lay there the Czar was assassinated, 13th March 1881.”

IV

Then he went on to tell us how once already the Livadia had been the means of saving the Czar’s life:

“When she was getting on I had a model of her made  —  in fact, two; one of them,” he said, turning to me, “ you saw the other day in my office. These models are troublesome and costly things to make. The one which I intended as a present to the Czar cost five hundred pounds. It was my present to his Majesty on the twenty-fifth anniversary of his succession. It arrived the day before, 17th February-29th February old style. The Czar was delighted with it. That evening there was a banquet in the Winter Palace, where he was then in residence. He had been threatened for some time by means of a black-edged letter finding its way every morning into the Palace, warning him in explicit terms that if his oppression did not cease he would not live past the anniversary of his accession, which would be the following day. When he was leading the way to the dining-hall from the drawing-room he turned to the lady with him  —  Princess Dolgoruki, his morganatic wife  —  and said:

“‘ By the way, I want to show you my new toy! ‘ The model had been placed in the salon at the head of the grand staircase and they stopped to examine it.

“As they were doing so the staircase down which they would have been otherwise passing was blown up. The Nihilists knowing the exact routine of the Court and the rigid adherence to hours had timed the explosion for the passage of the staircase!”

We spent a delightful Sunday going round Arran. We dined at anchor in Wemyss Bay and slept on board. On the forenoon of Monday we went back to Glasgow.

CHAPTER XLVII

STEPNIAK

A congeries of personalities  —  The “ closed hand “  —  His appearance  —  ” Free Russia”  —  The gentle criticism of a Nihilist:  —  Prince Nicholas Galitzin  —  The dangers of big game

I

ON the evening of 8th July 1892, after the play, Faust, Irving had some friends to supper in the Beefsteak Room. I think that, all told, it was as odd a congeries of personalities as could well be. Sarah Bernhardt, Darmont, Ellen Terry and her daughter, Toole, Mr. and Mrs. T. B. Aldridge, of Boston, two Miss Casellas  —  and Stepniak. It was odd that the man was known only by the one name; no one ever used his first name, Sergius. Other men have second names of some sort; but this one, though he signed himself S. Stepniak, I never heard spoken of except by the one word. I sat next to him at supper and we had a great deal of conversation together, chiefly about the state of affairs in Russia generally and the Revolutionary party in especial. Hall Caine had been staying with me for a week, 2oth to 27th June 1892, and he told me all about his coming journey to Russia. He had been studying the matter very carefully and trying to get back to the real cause of the “ Exodus.” To him it had begun in what was locally known as  —  the “ closed hand.” It was, so far as he could gather, on an economic basis. The Russian moujik was illiterate and as a rule a drunkard when he got the chance. In the endless steppes, which are so flat that the roads simply disappear on the horizon line, all the carriage of goods has to be by carts. There are no minor railways. The moujik with his load of corn would take his way to the nearest market centre and there stay in the tavern till he had drunk up all he had received for his crop. The Jew tavern-keeper was also the local usurer, and would make a certain advance on the man’s labour for the coming. year. When that credit had ended, since he never could get even, he would pledge the labour of his children. Thus after a time the children, practically sold to labour, would be taken away to the cities there to be put to work without remuneration. It was practically slavery. Then the Russian Government, recognising the impossibility of dealing with such a state of affairs, undertook to drive out the Jews altogether.

Such was the allegation made by the supporters of the Exodus, and there was at least a certain measure of truth in it. Caine had explained it all to me fully so that when I talked that night with Stepniak I had some foothold of information to rest on whilst I asked for more. He, who had presumably been in the very heart of the Revolutionary party and in all the secrets of Nihilism, told me some of his views and aspirations and those of the party  —  or rather the parties  —  of which he was a unit.

II

Stepniak was a very large man  —  large of that type that the line of the shoulders is high so that the bulk of the body stands out solid. He had a close beard and very thick hair, and strongly-marked features with a suggestion of the Kalmuck type. He was very strong and had a great voice. On 1st May of that year, 1892, I had heard him speak at the great meeting in Hyde Park for the “ Eight-hour “ movement. There were in the Park that day not far from a quarter of a million of people, so that from any of the tribunes  —  which were carts  —  no one could be heard that was not strong of voice. The only three men whom I could hear were John Burns, Stepniak, and Frederick Rogers  —  the latter a working bookbinder and President of the Elizabethan Society  —  also one of the very finest speakers  —  judged by any standard  —  I have ever heard.

In our conversation at supper that night he told me of the letters which they were receiving from the far-off northern shores of Siberia. It was a most sad and pitiful tale. Men of learning and culture, mostly University professors, men of blameless life and takers of no active part in revolution or conspiracy  —  simply theorists of freedom, patriots at heart  —  sent away to the terrible muddy shores of the Arctic sea, ill housed, ill fed, over worked  —  where life was one long, sordid, degrading struggle for bare life in that inhospitable region. I could not but be interested and moved by his telling. He saw that I was sympathetic, and said he would like to send me something to read on the subject. It came some weeks later, as the following letter will show:

“31 BLANDFORD ROAD, “BEDFORD PARK, W., “August 2, 1892.

“DEAR MR. STOKER,-It is a long time that I wanted to write to you since that delightful party at the Lyceum. But I was so busy, and the parcel I wanted to send to you for one reason or another could never be ready, and so it dragged on. What I send to you is the paper, Free Russia, I am editing. Since you have read all my books and have been so kind and indulgent for them, and so interested in the Russian Cause, I suppose you will be interested in the attempt to give a practical expression to English sympathies. Unfortunately the collection of Free Russia is incomplete (No. r is quite out of print). But what you will have is quite sufficient to give you an idea of the whole.

“May I ask whether you live permanently in London and whether I may hope to see you some day once again?  —  Yours very truly, S. STEPNIAK.”

III

In February 1893 Stepniak saw Irving and Ellen Terry play in King Lear. The following excerpts are from a letter which he sent to Irving  —  a long letter of fourteen pages. I was so struck with it when Irving showed it to me that I asked leave to make a copy. Whereupon he gave me the letter.

This was after a habit of his of which I shall speak later. In the letter he said:

“The actor is a joint creator with the author  —  even with such an author as Shakespeare. He has a right of his own in interpretation, and the only point is how far he made good his claims, and that you have done to a wonderful extent. Yours was not acting: it was life itself, so true, natural and convincing was every word, every shade of expression upon your face or in your voice. The gradual transformation of the man, his humbling himself, the revelation of his better, sympathetic self  —  it was all a wonder of realism, nature and subtlety. Your acting reminded me of the pictures of the great Flemish master who seems to paint not with a brush but with a needle. Yet this astonishing subtlety was in no way prejudicial to the completeness and the pow.: and masterliness of the great whole.... I cannot forbear from asking you to transmit my compliments and admiration to Miss Ellen Terry  —  if you think that she may care about such a humble tribute. There is a passage from ‘ I love your Majesty according to my bonds, not more or less ‘ and the following monologue, which I am bold enough to say are the weakest in the play: too cold and dry and forward and elaborate for Cordelia. But in her rendering there was nothing of that: it was all simplicity, tenderness, spontaneous emotion. The charm of her personality and character, which she has such a unique gift of infusing into everything, has partially improved the original text. I hope you will not consider my saying so too sacrilegious. There are spots upon the sun. And the scene in the French camp! Her ‘ No cause, no cause! ‘ was quite a stroke of genius. I would not believe before I saw her in that, that words can produce such an emotion.”

And this was the man who stood for wiping tyrants from the face of the earth; who aided in the task, if Underground Russia be even based on truth. This gentle, appreciative, keenly critical, sympathetic man 1

Strange it was that he who must have gone through such appalling dangers as beset hourly the workers in the Nihilist cause and come through them all unscathed was finally killed in the commonplace way of being run over by a train on the underground railway.

IV

It reminds me of another experience with Irving and a surprising denouement. When we were in California in 1893 a gentleman called to see Irving at his hotel. He was a countryman of Stepniak, but of quite the opposite degree  —  a Prince claiming blood kin with the Czar, Nicholas Galitzin. He supped with Irving and some others, forty-five in all, at the Cafe Riche, 13th September, when he gave Irving a very charming souvenir in the shape of a gold match-box set with gems. Several times after we met at supper and came to be quite friends. Prince Galitzin was a mighty hunter and had slain much big game, including many bears and some grizzlies. He told us many interesting hunting adventures. He had lost one arm. He had not mentioned any adventure bearing on this, and one time Irving asked him if it was by a mischance in a hunting adventure that he had suffered the loss. He said with a laugh:

“No! No! Nothing of the kind. It was a damn stupid fellow who let a Saratoga trunk fall on me over the staircase of a hotel I”

CHAPTER XLVIII

E. ONSLOW FORD, R.A.

Fatherly advice  —  The design  —  The meeting  —  Sittings-living’s hands

ONE morning  —  it was 12th January 188o  —  I got a note from Irving sent down by cab from his rooms. In it he said:

“There is a certain Mr. Onslow Ford coming to the theatre this morning. Please see him for me and give him some fatherly or brotherly advice.”