and if it is to be martyrdom it will still be victory in the future!” And the fire that had been kindled within him, remained not only unextinguished during the seven years of his revolutionary activity, but fanned by the affection and esteem of those among whom he moved, burned more and more fiercely.
He attached no importance to the fact that he had given away for the cause almost all his fortune (inherited from his father), nor to the hardships and privations which he often had to encounter in the course of his activity. The only thing that grieved him was the sorrow he was causing to his mother and her ward—a girl who lived with her and loved him.
At last one of his comrades—a terrorist whom he did not much like, a disagreeable man—when tracked by the police, asked Svetlogoúb to hide some dynamite in his house. Just because he did not like that comrade, Svetlogoúb agreed; and the next day the police searched the house and found the dynamite. When asked how the dynamite had come into his possession, Svetlogoúb refused to answer.
And now the martyrdom he expected began. At that time, after so many of his friends had been executed, imprisoned, or exiled, and so many women had suffered, Svetlogoúb almost desired martyrdom. During the first moments after his arrest and examination he felt a peculiar exultation and almost joy.
He felt this while he was being undressed and searched, and while he was being led to prison, and when the iron doors were locked upon him. But when one day passed, and another, and a third, a week, two weeks, three weeks, in the dirty, damp, vermin-infested cell, in loneliness and enforced idleness, varied only by cheerless or bad news, which his comrades and fellow-prisoners communicated by tapping on the walls of their cells; and by occasional examinations by cold, hostile men who tried to torment