Page:Ossendowski - From President to Prison.djvu/185

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AN EREMITE OF THE LAW
173

gathering more and more adherents at every corner. The head of the column stopped and was soon engulfed by its own body in front of the Orthodox Cathedral, where all heads were bared during the chanting of prayers for the souls of those who had been killed in the Revolution. Then the great human mass uncurled and started again. Occasional cries of "We demand a constitution! We demand a parliament!" marked its progress as the only variant of the complete order in which it proceeded to Aleut Street, that led in the direction of the railway station and past the residence of the Commander of the Fortress. The crowd advanced along this street quietly, and even joyously, at finding that the authorities offered no resistance to its progress.

At the head of the procession was Mrs. Sophie Volkenstein, and following her came Dr. Lankowski and engineer Piotrowski, together with other leaders of the Union of Workers and of the revolutionary groups.

As I mention the name of Sophie Volkenstein, there comes before my eyes a lifelike picture of the quiet, attractive, sweet face of a woman no longer young. Streaks of grey are plainly visible in the black hair. In the hazel eyes and around the fresh lips an expression of crushing despair, mixed with pain and sadness, speaks out as the tragic composite of the life of this revolutionary personality.

When she was a student of twenty, her revolutionary conscience thrust her into the ranks of the terrorists and gave her a part in an attempt against the life of Tsar Alexander II. For her share in this plot she was condemned to death but had her sentence commuted to imprisonment for life. After some years in a solitary cell at the terrible prison of Schlusselburg, about forty miles to the east of St. Petersburg on Lake Ladoga, Volken-