Bobohov passionately disputed my arguments. “I cling to life as much as any other man,” he said. “If I am ready to face death as a means of protest, it would only be if I could reckon on others to follow my example. Without casting lots—that is, without making it a duty—there would be no sense in the undertaking; the others might draw back after I had taken my life, and my sacrifice would have been in vain, for the effect on the Government would be lacking.” The impression I gathered from the whole of this conversation with Bobohov was that life was really dear to him, and that he would not commit suicide, so that my worst fears were quieted. But his fate and that of some others of our comrades was already sealed. Rumours reached us directly after this that, by order of the Governor-General, Nadyèshda Sigida was to be subjected to corporal punishment for assaulting the commandant. We took this rumour as quite improbable. In all the history of our movement there had been no single instance of a woman being punished in such a manner; and among the men even, Bogolyùbov alone (sentenced to fifteen years’ “katorga” on account of the demonstration in the Kazan Square of December, 1876) had suffered this indignity. And since, to avenge him, Vera Zassoùlitch had fired at and wounded Trèpov, and had been acquitted by a jury, in all the twelve years that had elapsed no attempt had ever again been made to inflict corporal chastisement on a political prisoner. Certainly it had been repeatedly threatened in cases of attempted escape; but the threat had never been carried out, only lengthened terms of imprisonment imposed. It seemed therefore impossible to believe that such treatment of a woman should be meditated. On the other hand, in view of the Yakutsk tragedy, the victims in which had been mere boys and girls, we could not but fear that the Government of the “peace-loving Tsar” would shrink from no barbarity. Terrible days followed for us, but our uncertainty was not of long duration. In the beginning of November we learned that the Governor-General’s order had actually been executed. I find it hardly possible to describe our state of mind. It was not depression that we felt, but deep agitation and gloomy resolution. Externally we strove to preserve calm, lest the gendarmes should become suspicious. We soon heard that Sigida had died immediately after the infliction of the punishment. Some reports said that she had succumbed to a nervous seizure; others that she had poisoned herself. And at the same time we were informed that Kovalèvskaya, Kalyùshnaya, and Smirnitskaya had taken poison, and had died in the prison infirmary.