THE TOUR OF THE HEIR-APPARENT THROUGH SIBERIA—OUR LIFE IN THE PENAL
SETTLEMENT—AN INCENSED OFFICIAL
Time passed by much faster in the settlement than in the prison. Busy
with the necessary work for establishing our little community, we
scarcely noticed the passing of autumn and winter. I can never forget
the spring of 1891—the first I enjoyed after the long years of
imprisonment; moreover, that spring brought quite unexpected hopes of
favours soon to be granted us. A report reached us that the Tsar
Alexander III. had decided to issue a manifesto to celebrate the
treading of Siberian soil by the Heir-Apparent. This manifesto, it was
said, would bring pardon to all convicts, and not even the “politicals”
were to be excluded. The official telegram about this—obscurely worded
though it was—could not fail to awaken in us hopes of at any rate
increased liberty. If the news were correct, it was to be concluded that
many of us would shortly be treated as “exiles,” and no longer as
convicts. This would improve our situation in a greater or lesser degree
according to the locality whither we should be banished. “Politicals”
are generally sent to the province of Yakutsk, where conditions of life
are in many respects no better than in the settlement at Kara. It must
be remembered that Yakutsk is a very sparsely populated province, and
lies further from the civilised world than the Transbaikalian province
in which Kara is situated. The climate is worse than that of Kara, the
winter longer; and in other ways, too, our comrades there were worse off
than we. Their post arrived less often than ours, and in many parts of
the Yakutsk government “luxuries,” such as tea, sugar, and petroleum,
are often not to be procured at all. Even stale black bread is sometimes
a rarity, costing twelve to fifteen roubles the pood,[107] and is
regarded as a delicacy only to be set before an honoured guest. The
chief, if not the exclusive, food of the natives consists of fish and
meat. The dwellings, too, are worse than the wooden huts of Kara, being
simply “yurtas,” _i.e._ tent-shaped hovels such as the natives live in,
built of rough logs, the interstices between which are filled up with
earth and turf. Yet most of us were ready to go to these inhospitable
regions, for there was always the chance, when once one was numbered in
the category of “exiles,” that in time one might be sent to a more
advantageous district. Above all, there was greater freedom; for though
a place of residence is appointed for each exile, yet they may travel
about in the surrounding country for considerable distances. There are
more opportunities, too, of seeing people; new additions are always
being made to the numbers of the “administrative” exiles in every
province, and from them one learns what is going on at home; while, on
the other hand, nobody fresh was sent to the penal settlement at Kara
during the whole time that I was there. Finally, the exiles in Yakutsk
had the prospect of yet another step in advance—they might gain
permission to enrol themselves in the peasant class, and in that way win
even greater facility of movement within the borders of Siberia. Things
do not move very fast, and even if all goes well this favour may only be
obtained after ten years’ exile; but one learns patience in Siberia, and
many a one will let his thoughts dwell on that distant future: “Ten
years! then perhaps there will be a manifesto; and in fifteen or twenty
years may come the great event—return to one’s home!”
Footnote 107:
About 8½_d._ to 10½_d._ the English pound, a pood being equal to
36.1127 lbs. avoirdupois, and a rouble to about 2_s._ 1_d._—_Trans._
[Illustration:
KARA PRISONERS AT WORK
To face page 308
]
I confess that I myself indulged in such hopes, though I knew but too
well how deceptive these “favours” of the Tsar might be. To the
Coronation manifesto there had been attached numberless limitations and
exceptions, and it was not to be expected that this time the pardon of
which we had been hearing rumours would be extended to everyone. “But
who knows? They have let me out of prison at last; perhaps now I shall
be made an exile, unlikely though it seems!” Hope and fear alternated,
and optimism gained the upper hand.
While in the Petersburg government-offices the question had to be
settled as to carrying out the proclamation—who was to benefit by it,
and who must be excluded from its operation—the authorities in Siberia
had another care upon them: how to avert all danger from the path of the
Heir-Apparent, as he journeyed through a land where dwelt so many
embittered victims of Tsarism. The gentlemen of the official world
solved this problem eventually in a simple fashion: all along the
Prince’s route we (busy with our hopes of freedom!) were to be locked up
for the time being; and though Kara was a good fifty versts distant from
the high-road by which the journey of state was made, we were shut up in
prison the day before the Cesarèvitch[108] passed, and only set free
again a day after he had got safely through our neighbourhood.
Footnote 108:
A familiar form of transliteration is employed here, but more correct
would be Tsesarèvitch.—_Trans._
For long afterwards we awaited with the greatest excitement the advent
of the post every week or ten days, always hoping that some decision as
to the scope of the manifesto would arrive. But government departments
take their time; those who amused themselves with thoughts of the Tsar’s
grace had still to endure uncertainty as best they could. A whole year
elapsed before we received the long-expected news, and then it was
disappointing enough; nearly half the inhabitants of the Kara penal
settlement were excepted from the operation of the manifesto, the rest
had but a very short curtailment of their sentences. I was among those
who got nothing at all, and was obliged to reconcile myself to the
thought of another four years in Kara. It was bitter to have one’s hopes
thus destroyed.
It was the more bitter that our first joy over release from prison had
soon worn off, and life in the settlement had now become almost as
irksome as the life in prison had been. Our days seemed as monotonous
and empty as ever; and while in prison one had been constrained to
accept the unalleviated barrenness of life, here in the settlement one
felt the tug of the chain at every turn, and chafed at it. There we had
known from the first that all reasonable and profitable activity was
denied us, that we were condemned to an uninteresting and aimless
existence; and under such conditions one’s mental alertness becomes
dulled—almost atrophied. In the settlement, on the contrary, it was
quite otherwise; here we were in the midst of life again, the state of
lethargy that had reigned in the prison passed away; and although the
pulse of life could hardly be said to beat high, yet we could see people
exerting themselves, undertaking enterprises, pursuing their various
interests, fighting with difficulties and dangers. We ourselves the
while were restricted to the work of our narrow household economy; work
which naturally could not satisfy our aspirations. Most of us yearned to
set our powers to work—to do something that should call forth all our
energies and capabilities, not merely to chop wood and make hay. But in
this forsaken spot, and hemmed in as we were by all manner of
restrictions, we could find no congenial outlet for our activities. To
all appearance we were now at liberty to undertake many things that had
been forbidden in prison; but this appearance was mainly illusory. It
was just this contradiction between our apparent rights and our actual
possibilities that galled us and weighed heavy on our spirits, making us
sometimes inclined to think we would almost rather return to prison, if
thereby we might escape from this torment of inactivity. We found it
irksome in the extreme to have to take enormous pains and waste much
time over mere trifles—the details of our primitive household
management—which, under the difficult conditions of our life, made
exorbitant demands upon us. Especially at first, when we were new to it
all, it often happened that for weeks at a time one could never take up
a book or a newspaper, and for educated, intellectual men that was
naturally very wearisome. The only interesting mental occupation open to
us was to observe the lives of the dwellers in this strange place; as
already mentioned, they were an oddly mixed lot, and we had plenty of
opportunity for studying them.
[Illustration:
FEMALE CRIMINALS AT KARA DRAWING WATER-CART
To face page 310
]
I have often been in the criminal prison of Kara, and witnessed there
the life of the convicts in their cells and in the workshops, as they
went about their various occupations. The employment of convict labour
in the gold-washing had been abandoned by that time, having been found
too costly; and the convicts were occupied with so-called “domestic
work.” Among other things they were used in transport, to take the place
of beasts of burden; and the spectacle of men—even of women—harnessed to
heavy carts, and moving painfully along like oxen in a yoke, was
altogether revolting.
About a year after our establishment in the settlement, convict labour
in Kara was entirely given up; the convicts were taken away, some to
serve in the construction of the Siberian railway, (then just begun,)
some to the island of Saghalien or to other penitentiaries. With the
convicts departed their guards, the Cossacks, and other officials; our
settlement was well-nigh depopulated, and life became more monotonous
than ever. However, one advantage ensued for us: we could use the
abandoned dwellings of the officials, and so lived more comfortably
henceforward. We were on the best of terms with the few inhabitants who
were left; we taught their children, assisted them with our counsel when
we could, and gave them medical and legal advice. To these people a
“political” seemed a compendium of learning, and they applied to us on
every kind of occasion. Now it was strictly forbidden us to engage in
any work that could interfere with that of practitioners of the “liberal
professions”; by law we were not allowed to teach or to give medical
aid; yet, circumstanced as we were, the officials themselves were not
above calling for our help, notwithstanding the infringement of the law.
Of course, therefore, they could not very well bring us to account for
our dealings with civilians. Only on one occasion did this kind of thing
lead to any unpleasantness, and I will briefly relate that occurrence.
A peasant from a neighbouring village came and laid the following case
before us. One day the newly appointed _prìstav_ (commissioner of
police) had appeared at his house with the _stàrosta_ of the village and
other officials, and without giving any reason had instituted a
domiciliary search. In the larder they had found some poods of ship’s
biscuit, tea, tobacco, candles, and other stores, all of which the
_prìstav_ had confiscated out of hand, on the pretext that the peasant
could only have such quantities of these things in his possession in
order to exchange them for “pirated gold,” and that he was therefore a
convicted receiver of stolen goods. Then when the peasant had attended
at the house of the _prìstav_ in compliance with the latter’s orders, he
was informed by the official that he must pay him fifty roubles before
he could have his property back. This claim appeared to the peasant
quite unconscionable, and on the advice of a neighbour he had come to
beg me to draw up for him a petition against his extortionate oppressor.
The peasant told me a long story: how he needed all the articles in
question for his own consumption; he procured them in winter, when the
transport was easier, and used them in the summer for his workpeople, of
whom he employed a great number. This was evidently all humbug; it was
perfectly obvious that the good man was really a receiver of “stolen
gold.” On the other hand, it was as clear as daylight that the official
had been guilty of an offence, having tried to use the peasant’s
infringement of the law as a means of extorting backsheesh for himself.
I had already heard that this newly appointed satrap was grinding the
faces of the whole population in this province—a district as large as
many a German state, over which he was irresponsible master—and was
diligently using his position to fill his own pockets. Nearly every
night he paid surprise visits to the houses of the inhabitants, took
possession of whatever fell into his hands, and then put it to ransom at
a high price. At the same time he bullied the simple people in the good
old fashion of official Russia, raging at them like a Berserker. His
favourite speech was, “You fellows shall learn that I’m your Tsar and
your God!”
The notion of teaching this functionary a lesson rather attracted me;
but I did not want to play the hedge-lawyer, so I advised the peasant to
find someone else to undertake the affair, as I knew there were
officials whose business it was to write out appeals and complaints. He
told me that they had refused to help him, as they were afraid of the
_prìstav_. So I finally decided there was nothing for it but to do as he
asked; and that I should not appear to be denouncing the man secretly I
added at the end of the document (though I knew I had no legal right to
draw up petitions for other people)—“Written and signed for the
illiterate petitioner by the political exile Leo Deutsch.” By signing my
own name I meant to show that it was far from my desire to make
anonymous denunciations; and also I calculated that this circumstance
would oblige the authorities to attend to the matter. The peasant was
much pleased, thanked me warmly, and wanted to tip me a rouble for my
trouble, which of course I declined.
For several months nothing was heard of the business; then one day the
_dessyàtnik_[109] came to me and called on me to go to the office, as
the _prìstav_ wished to speak to me. This order was quite irregular, as
we “politicals” were only answerable to our own superintendent, not to
the police. I therefore answered the _dessyàtnik_ very shortly—
“Go and tell your _prìstav_ that I am not at his beck and call, and that
if he has anything to say he can come to me.”
I made the man repeat my words till he had them correctly, and impressed
upon him that he must tell the official exactly what I had said, which
he did most conscientiously. The wrath of the “Tsar and God” may be
imagined at receiving this answer in the presence of all the officials
of the commune and a number of the peasantry. As I was subsequently
informed, he stormed and raged like one possessed, and finally ordered
that I should be put in irons and brought before him. Despite his
categorical command the people hesitated to obey, and not till some
hours later did the communal officers come to my house, and beg me, with
all manner of apologies, to accompany them. I explained to them that the
_prìstav_ had no legal rights over me, and that it would be far more in
order for him to communicate with me through the superintendent of the
penal settlement. This contented the ambassadors, who returned and
informed the _prìstav_ that he had no jurisdiction over me. The day
after I learned from our superintendent that all the _prìstav_ had
wanted was to tell me about a communication he had received in
consequence of the complaint I had drawn up—a circumstance, therefore,
that had nothing whatever to do with me. The whole affair fizzled out in
the end; but when I left Kara some years later the peasant had not yet
received back his goods, which still lay under the official seal in
charge of the _prìstav_, and for aught I know they may lie there to this
day.
Footnote 109:
A village constable appointed by the inhabitants of the
commune.—_Trans._
[Illustration:
AGED ORDINARY PRISONERS AT KARA
To face page 314
]
For me personally the affair had no evil consequences. After the lapse
of some months a document was sent me by the Governor, wherein I was
warned that I was not permitted to draw up complaints for the
inhabitants. Of course, if our relations with the peasant population had
not been so cordial, the business might have led to trouble; but as it
was, the authorities did not care to risk causing an agitation among the
peasants by harsh measures towards us.