The Shadow of Great Britain

Chapter 1470: Chapter 235: True Feelings for a True Heart

To understand Russia’s prisons, courts, and police, you have to be a peasant, a servant, a craftsman, or a small citizen. Most political prisoners belong to the nobility, and they undergo strict imprisonment and brutal punishment, but their fate is still not comparable to the shabby wretches with beards. For those people, the police are never polite. Where can the farmer or craftsman lodge a complaint afterward, where can they seek justice?

It’s hard to describe the lawlessness, brutality, tyranny, and corruption of the Russian courts and police. As a result, when the common people enter the court, they fear not the punishment according to law but the trial process. They wish to be hastily sent to Siberia—the time when the punishment begins is also when the torment ends. We will never forget that among the suspects arrested by the police, three-quarters were released after interrogation, but they suffered the same severe torture as those who were guilty.

Peter III abolished the torture chambers and secret interrogation offices, Catherine II abolished torture, and Alexander I again abolished it. The repeated orders from the Tsar to ”abolish” torture illustrate that torture has never actually ceased. Across Russia, from the Bering Strait to Tawulogen, people suffer torture. In places where flogging with branches is inconvenient, unbearable heat, thirst, and salty food are used as substitutes for torture.

In Moscow, the police forced the interrogated to stand barefoot on iron plates in temperatures below minus ten degrees, leaving people dying in hospitals. At that time, Duke Meixiersky was in charge of hospital work; this matter was revealed by him in anger. The commanders knew everything, the governors covered up everything, the highest courts with power tolerated everything, the ministers acquiesced to everything. The Emperor and the Church, the landlords and the police, all agreed with Shelivan’s opinion—why not whip the peasants, sometimes they need it!

—Alexander Herzen ”My Past and Thoughts”

Should you grab any hooligan who has been to the police station on the streets of Moscow, they would certainly complain bitterly about their experience in detention.

In the dead of winter, they are not allowed to wear shoes, and if they don’t confess honestly, they are stripped to a single layer and punished to stand in the snow.

Even the daily meals are intentionally kept cold for you, serving the dishes cold, with dirty snow thrown on top.

Even while sleeping, they don’t let you rest well; just as you close your eyes, someone would slap you awake.

The ordinary small people wish only to live well, but once you’re in jail, you might as well wish for a quick death.

Compared to ordinary people, the treatment of Herzen, a son of the nobility, was evidently much better.

Not only was no one to strip his clothing, but because the police station had no room specifically for him, the Police Chief also specially ordered him to sleep in the Chief’s office that night.

After the Constitutional Soldier took Herzen to the police station, the Chief personally led him to the office.

Afterward, Colonel Miller, the Chief, sat down in the easy chair, yawning, and muttered: ”This ghost errand, running around since three o’clock in the afternoon and then spending half the day with you here—now it’s probably midnight, eleven or twelve, and tomorrow at nine I have to report to the higher-ups...”

The Chief chatted with Herzen for a while, said ”goodbye,” and then left.

Before locking the door, the night guard Sergeant reminded Herzen: ”If anything happens, you can knock on the door a few times.”

After the Chief had left, the office immediately grew silent, with not a sound around.

Herzen stared at the starry sky outside the window, feeling indescribable.

Was it fear? Perhaps a little, but fear was not predominant; the fear already passed, now he felt more dominated by a feeling of guilt.

He was concerned about his mother at home. When the Constitutional Soldiers broke into the house this evening, the poor little German woman, who was taking a nap, was awakened by the anxious servants and rushed from the bedroom to see her son.

But at the doorway between the living room and the hall, she was stopped by a Cossack. She cried out in terror, which attracted the attention of Police Chief Colonel Miller. Colonel Miller rebuked the Cossack and expressed his apologies to his mother, but upon seeing her son surrounded by Constitutional Soldiers, his mother could no longer stop her tears.

Seeing his mother cry, Herzen felt a sting in his nose but was unwilling to shed tears, as he didn’t want the police and constitutional soldiers to secretly gloat at witnessing it.

But he feared he couldn’t hold on much longer, so he deliberately tugged at the Chief’s sleeve, pretending to be at ease, and said: ”Let’s go.”

Before leaving, his mother brought a Holy Image of Baptized John and hung it around Herzen’s neck, and Herzen knelt to receive his mother’s blessing.

Before stepping out of the house, he turned to glance at his dear mother, the aging German woman who was nearly fainting.

Herzen held the small Holy Image in his hand, feeling empty inside.

He glanced at the pillow and quilt beside him, delivered by a steward not long ago.

But at this moment, how could he sleep?

He had heard the word ”exile” from others before, but being so close to this word himself, it was indeed his first time.

He once dreamed about exile, honestly, although it was considered a nightmare, Herzen didn’t find it much worse than dreaming about college exams.