When the warder had withdrawn with his lantern absolute silence reigned, and the chamber was perfectly dark. Lights were not allowed here either in the cells or passages. I took my bearings as well as I could, groping along the walls, and, having found a bed, I lay down fully dressed as I was. My mind was in a state of chaos; I could follow no clear train of thought, nor form any conclusions about what had occurred. The sense of fate weighed me down; my strength seemed broken. Sinister dreams left me no peace all night, and consequently I awoke from slumber in a dazed condition, not knowing where I was or what had happened to me. When at last with an effort I realised my position, despair seized on me. Extradition to Russia stared me in the face; I could not banish the fear of it. True, at that time there was no extradition treaty between Germany and Russia which applied to political refugees.[3] But I had special reasons for fearing that I might be treated exceptionally; and that the significance of my position may be clear to the reader, I must now give some details of my earlier career. Footnote 3: This treaty was only concluded in the autumn of 1885. * * * * * In 1874, just ten years before the events described above, as a youth of nineteen I had joined the “Propagandist movement,”[4] which at that time engrossed a great number of young students throughout Russia. Like most of the young Propagandists, I was led to this chiefly by sympathy with the sufferings and endurance of the people. According to our views, it was the sacred duty of every reasonable and upright human being who really loved his country to devote all his powers to the object of freeing the people from the economic oppression, the slavery, the barbarism, to which they were subjected. The young generation, always most prone to pity the misfortunes of others, could not remain indifferent to the miserable situation of the newly enfranchised serfs. An entire social revolution in Russia appeared to the Propagandists the sole means of altering the existing wretched material conditions, and of removing the heavy burden on the people; following, therefore, the teaching of the Socialists of Western Europe, they set before themselves as their ultimate object the abolition of private property and the collective ownership of the means of production. The Propagandists felt entirely convinced that the people would instantly embrace their ideas and aims and join them at the first appeal. This belief was an inspiration to them, and spurred them to unlimited self-sacrifice for the idea that possessed them. These youths and girls renounced without hesitation their previous social position and the assured future that the existing order of things offered them; without further ado they left the educational institutions where they were studying, recklessly broke all family ties, and threw their personal fate into the balance, in