to privation and suffering as a preparation for future revolutionary activity—­now appeared in the flesh.  If we may credit Bakunin, these Rakhmetofs had not even the consolation of believing in the possibility of a revolution, but as they could not and would not remain passive spectators of the misfortunes of the people, they resolved to go in among the masses in order to share with them fraternally their sufferings, and at the same time to teach and prepare, not theoretically, but practically by their living example.* This is, I believe, an exaggeration.  The propagandists were, for the most part of incredibly sanguine temperament.

     * Bakunin:  “Gosudarstvennost’ i Anarkhiya” ("State
     Organisation and Anarchy"), Zurich, 1873.

The success of the propaganda and agitation was not at all in proportion to the numbers and enthusiasm of those who took part in it.  Most of these displayed more zeal than mother-wit and discretion.  Their Socialism was too abstract and scientific to be understood by rustics, and when they succeeded in making themselves intelligible they awakened in their hearers more suspicion than sympathy.  The muzhik is a very matter-of-fact practical person, totally incapable of understanding what Americans call “hifalutin” tendencies in speech and conduct, and as he listened to the preaching of the new Gospel doubts and questionings spontaneously rose in his mind:  “What do those young people, who betray their gentlefolk origin by their delicate white hands, their foreign phrases, their ignorance of the common things of everyday peasant life, really want?  Why are they bearing hardships and taking so much trouble?  They tell us it is for our good, but we are not such fools and simpletons as they take us for.  They are not doing it all for nothing.  What do they expect from us in return?  Whatever it is, they are evidently evil-doers, and perhaps moshenniki (swindlers).  Devil take them!” and thereupon the cautious muzhik turns his back upon his disinterested self-sacrificing teachers, or goes quietly and denounces them to the police!  It is not only in Spain that we encounter Don Quixotes and Sancho Panzas!

Occasionally a worse fate befell the missionaries.  If they allowed themselves, as they sometimes did, to “blaspheme” against religion or the Tsar, they ran the risk of being maltreated on the spot.  I have heard of one case in which the punishment for blasphemy was applied by sturdy peasant matrons.  Even when they escaped such mishaps they had not much reason to congratulate themselves on their success.  After three years of arduous labour the hundreds of apostles could not boast of more than a score or two of converts among the genuine working classes, and even these few did not all remain faithful unto death.  Some of them, however, it must be admitted, laboured and suffered to the end with the courage and endurance of true martyrs.