, and of the other
writings above mentioned not to Netschajew but to Bakunin himself, has
perhaps some foundation. But it matters little who is the author of
these works. Netschajew is thoroughly imbued with his master's spirit,
and he might even say to him (p. 115):

"... What thou hast thought in thy mind
That I do, that I perform.

And e'en though years may pass away
I never rest, until to fact
Is changed the word that thou did'st say,
'T is thine to think and mine to act.

Thou art the judge, the headsman I;
And as a servant I obey;
The sentence which thou dost imply,
E'en though unjust, I never stay.

In ancient Rome, a lictor dark
An axe before the consul bore;
Thou hast a lictor too, but mark!
The axe comes after, not before.

I am thy lictor; and alway
With bare, bright axe behind thee tread;
I am the deed, be what it may,
Begotten from thy thought unsaid."

In the year 1869 a sudden end was put to Netschajew's activity in
Russia. Among his most trusted friends in Moscow was a certain Iwanow,
one of the most respected and influential members of the secret
society. Iwanow himself lived in ascetic seclusion, and in his leisure
time gave the peasants instruction gratis, establishing classes of
poor students, and so forth. He was a fanatic in his belief in the
social revolution. He had also established cheap eating-houses for
poor students, and one day these were closed by the police, and their
founder vanished, because Netschajew had placarded revolutionary
appeals in them. In despair at this, Iwanow wished to retire from the
secret society. Netschajew, believing that he might betray its
secrets, enticed Iwanow one evening into a remote garden, and with the
help of two fellow-conspirators, Pryow and Nicolajew, shot him, and
threw the corpse into a pond. He then fled, and arrived safely in
Switzerland, where, in conjunction with Bakunin, he produced the
literary efforts referred to above. Soon, however, he quarrelled with
Bakunin, owing to certain sharp practices of which he was guilty, went
to London, edited a paper called _The Commonwealth_ (_Die Giemeinde_),
in which he bitterly attacked his former master, and at last, in 1872,
was handed over to Russia at the request of the Russian Government.
Since then nothing more was heard of him; Netschajew disappeared, like
the demon in a pantomime, "down below."

CHAPT