CHAPTER XXI

THE CHIEF OF POLICE AT IRKUTSK—MEETING WITH EXILED COMRADES—FROM IRKUTSK TO KARA—STOLEN FETTERS—A DUBIOUS KIND OF DECABRIST—ANOTHER CONTEST—ARRIVAL AT OUR JOURNEY’S END

The detailed narrative of all that these women had gone through impressed us greatly; for their sufferings had been severe, and often caused by the most paltry tyranny. The wonder was that they had ever been able to hold out. Our indignation against the chief of police, under whose auspices this sort of thing had gone on, was naturally roused to such a pitch that we longed for an opportunity to testify our abhorrence of his conduct. This opportunity was soon forthcoming. A higher official from Petersburg, who was inspecting Siberian prisons, came one day with his suite into our cells, and the chief of police was in attendance. The moment he entered, Làzarev, our head-man, went up to him, (in accordance with a predetermined agreement of our party,) and said in loud and distinct tones—

“We are astonished at your impudence in daring to appear before our eyes, after having by your treatment forced our women comrades into a terrible hunger-strike.”

The whole company of our visitors hastily took their departure, to the tune of our comments and ejaculations, which contained nothing flattering to the evildoer! No 195untoward results followed our action, and the ladies heartily rejoiced at this humiliation of their torturer.

From these four we heard much about the conditions of life in Kara, our appointed destination; as also from another comrade now in Irkutsk, who could give us his personal experience of the prison there. This was Ferdinand Lustig—formerly an artillery officer, and afterwards a student at the Petersburg Technological Institute—who had been sentenced in 1882, in the case of Suhanov and Miha?lov, to four years’ penal servitude. He had now ended his term in Kara, and was going to be interned elsewhere, under police supervision. What he told us was not comforting: the régime was severe, and the governor of the political prison—a captain of gendarmerie, named Nikolin—of the worst repute.

Four of us only were to travel eastward together: Maria Kalyùshnaya, Tchuikòv, Làzarev, and myself. The other seven were to be sent to various places in the government of Irkutsk; and the nineteen-year-old Rubinok, whose sad case I have already described, was to go northward to the deserts of Yakutsk.

At the end of September we started, in company with a party of ordinary prisoners. We had now before us a journey of some twelve hundred versts (eight hundred miles), which would take at least two months. Winter in Siberia begins much earlier than in other places of the same latitude, even in European Russia, and therefore we had to expect many hardships. In two days the last steamboat was to start for Listvinitchnaya, across Lake Baikal, and if we missed that we should have to winter in Irkutsk.

The tempestuous Baikal treated us kindly on the whole, though usually the autumnal storms are a real danger to voyagers on its waters. It is often asserted that the scenery of its shores rivals that of the Swiss mountain lakes; and without myself instituting any comparison, 196I can vouch for it that the impression those magnificent hills made on me was unforgettable.

We had to pass a night at the landing-station on the opposite shore—Mysovaya; and we had been already shut into our prison, when the grating of the lock again sounded, and the warder brought in a young lady, who came straight towards me.

“Sonia!” I cried, in joyful surprise, as I recognised in her Sophia Ivànova, a dear friend whom I had not seen for six years. Like Sophia Perovskaya, Vera Figner, and other prominent women of the terrorist organisation, she had joined the new party of the Naròdnaia Vòlya in the autumn of 1879, when the society of Zemlyà i Vòlya (Land and Liberty) was dissolved. It was just during that transition period that I became acquainted with her and with other Terrorists; and shortly after, in January, 1880, she was arrested in Petersburg, where she had been assisting at the secret printing-press whence issued the organ of the party, named like it, Naròdnaia Vòlya (The People’s Will). At the time of the arrest an armed resistance was made, in which Sophia Ivànova took an active part, for which she was condemned to four years’ “katorga.”[71] This sentence having been fulfilled, she was now being sent for internment into the government of Irkutsk.

We were both heartily rejoiced at seeing one another again, but our meeting could be only a brief one; the steamboat was to start almost directly on its return journey, and Sonia could not miss it. We hurriedly exchanged news of ourselves and of our common friends; then came our parting, and I have never seen her since. To the best of my knowledge she is still living in Siberia.

Soon after this we arrived at Verkhny-Udinsk, where—as in most Siberian towns—the prison was filled to overflowing, and no room could be found for us “politicals.” 197The sergeant (in Transbaikalia the convoys of prisoners are always commanded by a sergeant, instead of by a commissioned officer, as on the previous part of the journey) took us on to the police-station. As, however, it was late the place was all deserted, and no official could be found, which disturbed the sergeant no whit; he simply left us there by ourselves in the office, with unbolted windows and doors, and went his way. We also were free to go or stay as we pleased, and were rather surprised at his calm way of solving the difficulty. But the man knew what he was about. It was true enough that we could walk off without anyone being the wiser; but what then? It was, indeed, always easy to escape from prison here; but it was well-nigh impossible to get any further. Elizabeth Kovàlskaya had twice escaped from prison in Irkutsk (once disguised as a warder), but on both occasions she was caught before she had left the town; and if she had found concealment impossible in a relatively big place like Irkutsk, with all the allies and money she had at command, the case must certainly have been hopeless for us, strangers, in a little hole like Verkhny-Udinsk. Still, it was a curious feeling at the time, as I well remember, to know oneself free and under no kind of observation, and yet to be so helpless. We finished by waxing restive and miserable over the trap we were in.

In this place we met another comrade on his way from Kara, going off to be interned elsewhere. This was Steblin-Kamensky,[72] whom his wife voluntarily accompanied. They had been too late for the steamer, and were now obliged to wait in Verkhny-Udinsk till the way again became open—three or four months probably. During that time he was at liberty to go about in the place as he pleased, and naturally we spent together the two days of 198our sojourn here, Kamensky telling us all he could of life in Kara. He was a brilliant talker, and described with an inexhaustible flow of humour the doings of our comrades in every particular. True, our laughter over his stories was mingled with much sorrow and indignation, for what he related was often sad enough. He told us of the bitter hardships inflicted on our comrades by an inhuman gaoler, and he described Captain Nikolin, in command over the penal settlement for “politicals” at Kara, as a malicious, ill-natured man, continually devising petty humiliations for the prisoners.

These various comrades, from whose personal knowledges we had information about Kara, all made the same impression upon us. They bore the stamp of their long imprisonment; their voices were muffled in tone; anxiety, deep and constant, was painted on their faces; the hair of nearly all, despite their youth—hardly any had reached thirty—was prematurely grey. But discouraged and broken-spirited they were not; or at least with one or two exceptions only. Very few of them could regard the future with any hopeful feelings for themselves personally. Long years of exile lay before them, doomed as they were to vegetate in some forsaken corner of Siberia, victims to all sorts of hardships, far from friends and civilisation. To many it seemed questionable whether their future lot might not be more dreary than prison life itself. Yet even the semblance of freedom attracted them—a doubtful freedom certainly, for the exiles, or “colonists” as they are called, are subject to a thousand and one restrictions at every turn.

I met one only who looked forward with a steadfast confidence in the bright side of things, and this notwithstanding the fact that he was bound for the worst part of Siberia—the government of Yakutsk. Ivan Kashintsev[73] 199was then only twenty-five, and full of youth and high spirits; he declared to me, on the occasion of our meeting at one of the halting-stations (we already knew each other), that he meant to escape at all hazards. This, in fact, he accomplished later, and he is now living abroad.

Before those who were released from prison, to live in exile under police supervision, reached their appointed destinations, they had at that time many difficulties and delays to encounter. We ourselves went at a snail’s pace on our way to Kara, but prisoners coming thence progressed far more slowly. They had to wait at nearly every halting-station until some convoy on the homeward journey could pick them up and take them on for a certain part of the way, and sometimes they were kept in this manner nearly a week at a station. On an average they barely made five versts a day, and when the distance they had to travel was some hundreds or even thousands of versts, the journey might take months to perform.

At each meeting with comrades on the return journey from Kara, I could not help thinking of my own future, and saying to myself, “What will you feel like when after long years you tread this path again? Or, indeed, will you ever tread it?”

One day I found I had sustained an odd loss: someone had made off with a bag in which I kept some of my belongings, the chief item among them being my fetters! I had to make the somewhat curious confession to the commanding officer that, instead of wearing my chains, I had allowed them to be stolen; and I was rather surprised that, while commiserating me on account of my personal losses, he did not seem at all agitated about the loss of the Government’s property.

“What am I to do without my fetters?” I asked him, when I saw that the absence of this important detail in the attire of a convict left him unmoved.

200“Well, of course we must get some for you somehow,” opined the officer. “Just wait a moment; there ought to be things of the kind lying about somewhere.” And he gave the sergeant orders to look in the lumber-room, where a new pair of fetters was discovered.

“Take care you don’t lose these!” said the officer, as I packed them among my luggage.

This is a specimen of the indulgent, almost fatherly demeanour which our guardians more and more assumed towards us as we got further east.

We were by this time in the thick of the Siberian winter and its severities. We had passed the Yablonovoi mountain ridges, and were nearing Tchita, the capital of Transbaikalia. At the last station before our arrival there we observed a great bustle going on among the ordinary prisoners; the sergeant and the soldiers were occupied with them all night, continually going in and out in a quite unusual manner. We racked our brains to imagine what could be on foot; but the riddle was only solved next day, as will be seen further.

Although the distance from Tchita was considerable for one day’s march,—about forty versts (twenty-six miles), I think,—we started very late on the following morning; but after about twenty versts’ march we came to a lonely farmhouse, standing all by itself on the high-road. We had heard from our comrades who had been in Kara that an old man lived here who gave himself out as a Decabrist.[74]

Our party halted in the courtyard, we “politicals” were shown into a room, and the master of the house presently paid us a visit. He introduced himself by the name of Karovàiev; and was a vivacious old gentleman, of eminently respectable appearance. According to his account of himself he had been an ensign in the Guards, had taken part in the revolt of the Decabrists, and had been exiled to Siberia; he claimed to be eighty years of age, but did not 201look more than sixty-five. He made himself very agreeable, and was most anxious to show us hospitality, declining to take any money from us. Meanwhile in the next room and the corridor things were very lively; there seemed to be a sort of combined market and feast going on, soldiers and convicts eating, drinking, and hobnobbing together like boon companions.

It was already dark when we arrived at the gates of the prison in Tchita, where we had at once to engage in a struggle with the governor: first, because he received the ordinary prisoners first, leaving us to wait; and next, because he gave us a room which was absolutely unfit for us to spend the night in. Only after we had made a great fuss, and threatened him with complaints, did he give us proper accommodation.

Next day, when the party was mustered for departure, it became apparent that the ordinary prisoners had hardly any clothes! Their things had vanished, and they were literally half naked. A light was now cast on the events of the preceding night, when there had been such a carousal at the house of the Decabrist. That respectable and hospitable old gentleman was evidently in league with the escort, and had provided the convicts with vodka and other delicacies, in exchange for their clothing, which no doubt he had obtained at a bargain. That the transaction might not be discovered before our arrival in Tchita, the soldiers saw to it that it should be as late as possible before we got in, so that the inspection should be gone through hurriedly, and the absence of the clothes not perceived.

In short, the respectable Karovàiev had not established himself in that lonely spot for nothing. The jollification of the unlucky criminals had evil consequences for themselves. In proportion as their clothing and other State property were deficient they were treated to the soundest of thrashings; and only when that had been administered did they receive a fresh outfit.

202In Tchita we had to part from our good stàrosta Làzarev, who was to be interned here. We three others determined to secure for ourselves a thorough rest in this place; for we had been six weeks on the march from Irkutsk, and were thoroughly tired out. We felt in no hurry to go on; a prison awaited us, while on the journey we had at least a certain amount of freedom and variety. Moreover, we knew that there were a number of our comrades interned at Tchita, and we should be able to see something of them; while apparently all intercourse with the outer world would cease for us after this stage, where we must make our last adieux before the prison doors closed on us. We therefore reported ourselves sick, and easily got the prison doctor’s consent to our breaking the journey here; which meant that we should be picked up by the next convoy in about a fortnight’s time. Our comrades paid us frequent visits; that is, they came to the prison gate when we were in the courtyard. The most interesting news they gave us concerned the travels of the American writer, George Kennan, who had just arrived in Tchita on his return journey from Kara; and our friends were full of praise for that excellent man.

During the last days of November we started again, this time in company with a so-called “family party” of ordinary prisoners—women and children as well as men going forward to prison and exile. There had not been much snow that winter, and instead of sledges two-wheeled carts were our means of transport, travelling in which was a positive martyrdom. The cold became more intense every day, and tried us severely, although we wore every warm garment we possessed, so that we moved with the greatest difficulty. The only way to keep warm was to march beside the carts, and one can imagine the sufferings of the unfortunate children who were accompanying their parents into this inhospitable desert. One longed for the next halting-station and for possibilities of warming oneself, which even there were not always all that could be 203desired. The halting-stations had sometimes not been heated for a good while, and the ordinary prisoners had first to chop wood with their numb and frozen hands; even then there was not always sufficient fuel. The stoves, too, were often out of order, and smoked so badly that to stay in the room was a misery. It happened repeatedly that we three “politicals” were accommodated in a peasant’s hut, and sometimes the whole party had to be quartered in like manner. We were always glad when this happened, for the wretchedest cabin seemed comfortable in comparison with even the best étape. How often we wished we could be by ourselves in a hut of this kind during the rest of our imprisonment!

I have said that relations between prisoners and escort were now very easy-going; strict discipline was no longer the watchword on either side. This had its disadvantages, the soldiers being often very rough with the ordinary prisoners. One day, as we were marching to Nertchinsk, I saw a soldier behaving very brutally to a poor feeble old convict, knocking him about with his rifle-butt for climbing on to one of the carts, and apparently only because the soldier had meant to ride on it himself. I intervened, and called to the sergeant in command that I should report him for not keeping his men in order. Next day, as we went through the town on our way to the prison, I stepped into a sausage shop to buy some provisions, when the soldier whose party I had left called after me, “Where are you going? What do you want?” I let him shout, and concluded my purchases. I then saw that the sergeant had driven on and disappeared, but I only thought that he had taken some short cut to the prison and would meet us there, and I was much surprised when the governor of the gaol received me with the information that the sergeant had reported me for insulting the guard and leaving the ranks without permission. I suppose he wished to forestall the complaint 204I had threatened him with, about which I had quite forgotten, and I now turned the tables on him by making it in due form. The upshot was that the sergeant apologised to me in the presence of witnesses, and we were respectively pleased to withdraw our complaints!

At Nertchinsk, Tchuikòv and I were taken to the men’s prison, and Maria Kalyùshnaya was given a separate cell. I shall never in my life forget the picture that prison presented. From the dimly-lighted corridor one could see into the various rooms, where the prisoners were already lying down, as it was late. Packed closely side by side they lay not only on the wooden bed-places (which were two wide shelves running along the walls one above the other), but all about the floor; there was literally not an inch of vacant space. Most of the men were clad in shirt and trousers, but many had only trousers on, and lay uncovered on the filthy floor. The throng was so dense, that in order to get to the “privileged” room we had actually to step on the bodies of the sleepers. The stench was pestilential, the wooden tubs filled with excrement were everywhere about, and as they were leaky their contents had been trodden over the whole floor. Although most of the men were asleep, here and there groups of excited card-players squatted on the floor or the bed-places, and throughout the whole place there was a deafening babel of sounds. The general effect was most gruesome, a circle of the Dantean Inferno was the only possible comparison.

The “privileged” room was also full of people, and we found there some comrades from Kara—Tchekondze and Zuckermann. They were lying close together on the crowded floor, and we with difficulty found a vacant spot, so that we could lie down near our friends. Zuckermann was known to me: he was a compositor, who in the middle of the sixties had trudged on foot from Berlin into Switzerland, where I subsequently had made his acquaintance. He had gone to Russia later, and had worked at 205the secret printing-press of the Naròdnaia Vòlya, where he was arrested at the same time as Sophia Ivànova. I had been told by comrades how heroically he had behaved during the trial. In order to shield the others he had taken all blame on his own shoulders, declared that it was he who had fired the first shot in resistance to the gendarmerie, and so on. He had been condemned to eight years’ “katorga” and sent to Kara, where he had become the darling of the whole prison. Always sunny-tempered, full of wit and fun, he spread good humour everywhere; moreover, he was unselfishness personified, ever ready to help others at his own expense, one of those people who are called “too good for this world.” Even as we lay on the floor in that horrible place he told stories and jested, drawing the most glowing imaginary pictures of his future life in Yakutsk, whither he was being sent for internment. The reality, unhappily, turned out widely different from his sanguine prophecies. Poor merry Zuckermann could not hold out against the hardships and loneliness of his place of exile, and he put an end to his own life.

Tchekondze I had not met before, but we had many common friends. He came from Gruzia, and had graduated in the Petersburg college for artillery officers. With other Caucasians he had then participated in the Propagandist movement, had been arrested in 1875, and sentenced in the “Trial of the fifty” to banishment; but he had escaped from Siberia, and had been recaptured and condemned to three years’ penal servitude. He was now going into exile in Yakutsk. He impressed one as a strong-willed, careful, practical man, who would never be at a loss, but would find a sphere of usefulness under any circumstances; and so indeed he proved in his after life. The privations he suffered during long years of exile undermined his health, however. When sent to Western Siberia in the early nineties he fell seriously ill and died in Kurgan, on the threshold of Europe, in 1897.

206At last, on the morning of December 24th, 1885, we arrived at Ust-Kara, a little village wherein is situated the prison for ordinary convicts and the prison for women “politicals.” Here we had to part from Maria Kalyùshnaya, and I saw her that morning for the last time. Tchuikòv and I had fifteen versts more to travel to Nizhnaya Kara, where was the prison for male “politicals”; and we had to wait till next day for the commandant, who received in charge both ourselves and the ordinary criminals. Our luggage was put into a cart; and accompanied by a guard, we marched off, having previously donned our fetters in due form.

It was a frightfully cold day, and despite the chains and our heavy clothing, we stepped out briskly as though we were in a hurry to get under lock and key. We knew that this was our last tramp in the open, that for many long years there would be only a trot round the prison-yard for us, and our thoughts dwelt dismally on the prospect.

“There is your prison,” said one of the soldiers, and pointed out, a little way ahead, a stockade made of tall posts set side by side.

Suddenly there appeared coming towards us a group of people—two women, a Cossack, and a man in civilian dress. “Victor!” I cried, recognising the latter as we approached nearer. It was my old friend Victor Kostyùrin, whom I had not seen for nine years.[75] He was now being removed from prison to his place of internment.

After hasty greetings he introduced me to the two ladies who accompanied him—Natalia Armfeld and Raissa Prybylyèva, both “colonists” in Kara. Kennan has given Natalia Armfeld’s story in his book,[76] and I will only mention here that in 1879 she (with Maria Kovalèvskaya) was implicated in armed resistance to the gendarmerie, 207and sentenced to fourteen years and ten months’ penal servitude. Raissa Prybylyèva had been a member of the Naròdnaia Vòlya, and had been sentenced in 1883 to four years’ “katorga.”

Victor and I had, of course, much to say to each other, but our time was short, for our guards naturally did not see the fun of remaining longer than necessary in the freezing cold of the open field, and a few brief sentences were all we could exchange.

“A Frenchman would have had a lot to say about this,” I said: “we two friends meeting on the threshold of a prison, one going in, the other coming out.”

Another pressure of the hand, and we parted.[77]

“Shall we ever meet again?” I asked.

“Ah yes!” cried one of the ladies. “We shall all meet in Petersburg at the triumph of the Russian revolution.”

For her, at least, that hope was vain. Natalia Armfeld died at Kara in 1887, and Raissa Prybylyèva (who married afterwards the exile Tiutchev) is also no longer among the living. Kostyùrin still lives in Tobolsk; but since that day our paths have never again crossed.

Tchuikòv and I were now taken to the guard-room, which was close to the prison. Our arrival was notified; and soon there appeared, accompanied by some of the gendarmes, the governor of the prison, an officer of Cossacks named Bolshakov, a man who had been described to us by our comrades as respectable and humane.

We and our luggage were carefully searched. Of our clothes only our warm under-garments were left in our possession; everything else was to be taken to the wardrobe-room, except certain articles which were reserved that 208Commandant Nikolin might decide whether we should be permitted to retain possession of them.

“You need not put the fetters on again,” said the captain of the guard, Golubtsòv. “They are not necessary here.”

It was evening before we were ready to be taken on by the gendarmes to the prison—the goal of my long wanderings. Since my arrest in Freiburg twenty-two months had elapsed; I had travelled about 12,000 versts (nearly 8,000 miles), and I had visited more than a hundred different prisons.

“Guard, there!” cried our escort. A bolt flew back with a crash, and we stepped across the threshold.

MARTINOVSKY

STARINKYEVITCH

SUNDELEVITCH

ZLATOPOLSKY

PRYBYLYEV

YEMELYANOV