At a social gathering which I must not describe because I do not wish to make it recognizable, I had an unusual privilege. We were drinking tea and talking—politics, of course, for no one any longer talks of anything else in Russia—when the door opened and a tall and very stately couple entered. A general exclamation hailed the new arrivals. They were welcomed with striking heartiness and invited to the table, as people who had returned from a long journey. When introduced to them I, of course, did not understand their names, and contented myself with enjoying the handsome appearance and elegance of the gentleman as well as of the lady until I could ask my neighbor at table why these people were welcomed with such surprising warmth.
"He has just come out of prison," was the hastily whispered reply.
The communication had such an effect that I was unable to finish the meal. It is not a usual thing for a western European to sit among the guests of a prominent family with people who have just been[Pg 218] discharged from prison. Moreover, among us, culprits do not look like this uncommonly handsome pair. Finally, it is not customary with us to receive with such heartiness people who have just discarded prison shackles. I therefore asked for the name and crime of the new-comer. I was told, and at once I understood everything.
This courtly gentleman was a Russian noble and a prominent lawyer. At my request he related in German his prison experiences. He had, it seems, been arrested at night and immediately incarcerated. His wife had taken the children out of bed, because even the beds had to be searched for forbidden literature, and the like. The pretext for this night visit of the police had been that the lawyer had been informed against as having given shelter to a political fugitive. For this reason search was made even in the cradle of the smallest child, in order to make sure that the criminal was not hidden there. The true ground, however, was that Mr. von X——, as a lawyer, defended political criminals and must be dealt with accordingly. Eleven days were spent in examining him. The search of the house revealed nothing; for only the most reckless have a trace of forbidden literature in their houses, although Struve\'s Osvobozhdenie[7] is read almost everywhere. No other accusation could be brought against a man so highly honored. He was also not [Pg 219]altogether without means of defence in his large clientage. His case had caused a great sensation. The outbreak of the Russo-Japanese war had, however, caused the authorities to content themselves with treating him to the pleasures of a short residence in a police hole, and they refrained for the time being from exiling or banishing him from the place of his practice—an experience which might easily enough happen after a much longer investigation to lawyers less noted or of lower rank.
After this little incident, noteworthy enough to a foreigner, I became much interested in the troubles of lawyers, and obtained the amplest information on the subject. I even incidentally made the acquaintance of one of the officially disciplined lawyers of Kishinef, but was unable to converse with him, as he spoke no language other than Russian. He was a vigorous man, rather young, with heavy, dark hair and beard, and of a distinctively Russian type. As the son of a priest, he ought to have had, according to the ideas of people of discretion, something better to do than to interfere with the programme of the government. But Dr. Lokoloff, the lawyer in question, is a remarkable man. He believes it to be an advocate\'s duty to uphold justice; and he absolutely refused to admit that justice in Russia is a matter of politics. I managed to learn more about the proceedings against Dr. Lokoloff from a well-informed colleague of his whose name I, of course, may not disclose. Since the simple[Pg 220] recital of such a case is more instructive than whole volumes of generalizations, I will give it in detail as related to me. I may, however, promise that the case is by no means the worst I have heard of, as the government takes much severer measures to terrorize lawyers and to prevent them from defending "politically inconvenient" persons. The case of Lokoloff, moreover, calls for more detailed treatment because the massacre perpetrated at Kishinef, in the name of the Czar, has at last drawn public attention to the conditions in his dominions.
The participation of the government organs in the "pogrom" of Kishinef was exposed by another lawyer, Dr. Paul N. von Pereverseff, who expiated his accusation with exile to Archangel, where he and his wife now live in a village, while his children are being sheltered by relatives. Pereverseff had gone to Kishinef after the disturbances, and had there made the acquaintance of Pronin, Krushevan, Stefanoff, and Baron Levendahl, at that time in command of the gendarmes at Kishinef. Since he came as counsel for the accused, and was a Russian nobleman above suspicion, he at once enjoyed the confidence of these honest men. Thus he learned that Pronin, the colleague of Krushevan and the protégé of Plehve, in his character of member of the committee for poor culprits, gave exact instructions to the prisoners how they should speak in the legal proceedings. Pereverseff soon became convinced that the chief[Pg 221] culprit—namely, Plehve, who had planned to administer punishment to the Jews, and to present a new accusation against them to the Czar, would not appear at the bar. Instead there would appear only the poor wretches who had been directed to plunder and kill the Jews by order of the Czar.
Dr. Lokoloff arrived at Kishinef in May, 1903, as advocate for the injured parties, and learned there from Pereverseff what the latter had already discovered. He then made a personal investigation extending over several months, in the course of which he discovered also that the "pogrom" of the police and of Baron Levendahl had been instigated by direct orders from higher authorities. He gave expression to this conviction in the course of the proceedings, and was, in consequence, imprisoned on an order telegraphed direct from the minister of the interior to Prince Urussoff, the governor, on December 9, 1903.
On the day following the despatch of the telegram a letter from Plehve reached Prince Urussoff, in which the former desired that the proceedings of Lokoloff in Kishinef be immediately reported and his exile to the north decreed. Prince Urussoff himself visited Lokoloff in prison, and made him acquainted with Plehve\'s message, whereupon Lokoloff wrote a protocol in answer to four charges based upon data furnished by the gendarmes, as follows (the accusation is given first and is followed by Lokoloff\'s answer):
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