As I was saying, I tried to get the gendarme to talk to me during my exercise, and after a while I found out his weak side, and that even he had not a heart of stone. He had an enormous family; and it was very grievous to him that as he had received strict orders not to take his eyes off me for a second, he could never get away to visit his home. He at last contrived to move the governor to stand by him, and let him off for an hour now and then, without his superiors knowing of it. These secret visits of the gendarme to his wife and children led to a tacit understanding between him and me, and brought us more together. He could not help letting out complaints now and then about the severe discipline that kept him away from his family; and as I listened with much sympathy, he presently began to talk about the service, and his hard work. He related to me how he had helped to get hold of Socialists in various ways. “My chief once ordered me,” he said, “to keep an eye privately on one of the _specialist_ ladies” (unfamiliar words were rather a stumbling-block to him, and _socialist_ was always _specialist_ in his vocabulary). “Oh, she was a oner! Clever and cute, and could lead us all by the nose. Vera Figner[34] was her name. A real beauty she was, and must have been well brought up, and associated generally with the officers’ families. Well, I dressed up in private clothes and followed her secretly wherever she went. If she took a carriage, I got into a droschky and went after her. If she went into a house, I took down the address, and asked the _concierge_ who it was the fair lady had visited; so I got to know pretty well who her friends were. I followed her like this for three days. Suddenly she disappeared; I couldn’t find her anywhere; she might have sunk into the ground. I tell you I did feel a fool! They say she went to Khàrkov, and that in the end she was caught.”[35] Footnote 34: See portrait, p. 112. Footnote 35: Vera Figner was arrested in Khàrkov during February, 1883, the informer Merkúlov having pointed her out in the street to the police. I shall have more to say about her later (see chap. xiii.). This zealous gendarme, who had dogged the footsteps of the “specialists” with such zest, became in the end quite confidential with me, especially when I told him I would give him this and that little thing as souvenirs when my fate was finally decided. From him I learned the details about the watch that was being kept over me. He confided to me, among other things, that the governor of the town, the commandant of the garrison, and the colonel of the gendarmerie had come to look at me during the first days of my imprisonment here; had spied at me through the peephole without my being aware of it, and had strictly ordered that I was not to be told.