As he was a criminal of special importance, he was conveyed separately, and not allowed to communicate with others; and it was only in the prison at Krasnoyársk that he first succeeded in having some intercourse with other political prisoners who were also being sent to penal servitude. There were six of them: two women and four men. They were all young people of a new type unfamiliar to Mezhenétsky. They were Revolutionists of a newer generation—his successors—and therefore of special interest to him. Mezhenétsky expected to find them following in his footsteps, and therefore valuing very highly what had been done by their forerunners, and especially by himself, Mezhenétsky. He was prepared to treat them with kindness and condescension, but he had the unpleasant surprise of discovering that these young people not only did not regard him as a pioneer and teacher, but treated him with something like condescension, evading and excusing his superannuated opinions. According to the views of these new Revolutionists, all that Mezhenétsky and his friends had done—all their attempts to rouse the peasants, and especially their terroristic methods and their assassinations of the Governor Kropótkin, Mezentsóf, and even of Alexander II , had been a series of mistakes. They had all merely contributed to the triumph of the reaction under Alexander III , which put society back almost to the days of serfdom. According to them, the true path was a quite different one.
For two days and the greater part of two nights the disputes between Mezhenétsky and his new acquaintances hardly ceased. Especially one of them, their leader, Román (everybody called him by his Christian name), pained and grieved Mezhenétsky by his unwavering assurance of being right, and by a contemptuous and even sarcastic rejection of all the old methods of Mezhenétsky and his comrades.