Shipwreck

On December 30th, 1848, Bakunin, weary of inaction and of the narrow provincial life of Koethen, moved to Leipzig. His expul- sion from Dresden in the autumn had provoked an angry inter- pellation in the Chamber; and his friends had extracted some sort of assurance from the Saxon Government that, if he re- turned to Saxony, he would not be molested. But Bakunin was taking no chances. He lived in concealment and frequently changed his address. He is heard of lodging, first at the Golden Cock Inn, then with a bookseller named Schreck, then with two brothers named Straka, young Czech students in the faculty of Divinity. Bakunin’s first concern was to arrange with Keil the publisher for a Polish translation of the Appeal to the Slavs, which was made by a Pole from Dresden named Andrzej kowicz. Then he plunged into a big work on the political situation of Russia. Characteristically, it was never completed. But frag- ments of it subsequently appeared as the series of articles on Russian Conditions, which have been quoted in the previous chapter. Throughout this time Bakunin was still in dire penury. He had come to Leipzig with an empty pocket. Reichel sent him a small sum from Paris.