But these prison walls have also witnessed sadder scenes. Many revolutionists have passed their last hours within them, waiting to be led to the scaffold. Still greater is the number of those who have left this place to tread the path to exile and the Siberian prisons. Only the Fortress of Peter and Paul, the gaol at Odessa, and perhaps the Warsaw citadel, can for memories like these compare with the prison of Kiëv. Here too, more than anywhere else, have conflicts taken place between the imprisoned revolutionists and the authorities. The tradition as to these occurrences remains unbroken; every “political” cherishes the memory of the “old times”—_i.e._ the exceptionally stormy years 1877-9. The young generation speaks of them as the “heroic ages”; and not only the prison staff, but even the ordinary criminals (who are employed here in the domestic labour of the place), relate stories of them. The authorities have never succeeded in uprooting the independent spirit that flourishes within these precincts, and the door had hardly closed behind me when I had a proof of it. “The ‘politicals’ beg that you will be so kind as to write down your name, in what case you are implicated, and where you were sentenced,” I heard a voice at the door say. I stepped nearer, and saw it proceeded from one of the ordinary criminals, who was speaking through the peephole. When I answered that I had nothing on which to write, he instantly produced a pencil and a bit of paper, and poked them through to me. I stated shortly who I was, and begged my comrades to let me know in return who and how many they were, and concerned in what cases. The same man came back almost immediately with a reply, which ended with the words: “You will soon hear particulars verbally from our ladies.” And sure enough I soon heard a woman’s voice bidding me climb up to the window. I did so; but as I then found that there was no way of opening it, I wasted no time, simply proceeding to smash two panes of the double windows. Outside stood two ladies, wives of political prisoners, by name Paraskovya Shebalina[44] and Vitolda Rechnyèvskaia. They were taking exercise in the courtyard of the women’s quarters, and my window being close to the wall separating the two yards, we could easily communicate. I thus heard full details about the imprisoned “politicals,” who were not few in number, as a trial had just taken place in the Kiëv courts, at which twelve persons had been sentenced: four of them, including Shebalìn, to penal servitude, and his wife to exile, on the sole ground that in their house type had been discovered with which a pamphlet was to be secretly printed. We were, however, suddenly interrupted in our talk by the appearance of the assistant governor. Footnote 44: Surnames in Russian take the feminine termination when used for a woman. It will be noticed below that the husbands of these two ladies are called Shebalìn and Rechnyèvsky.—_Trans._