Exile—A Chief Constable—The Volga—Perm.
§1
ON the morning of April 10, 1835, a police-officer conducted me to the
Governor’s palace, where my parents were allowed to take leave of me in
the private part of the office.
This was bound to be an uncomfortable and painful scene. Spies and
clerks swarmed round us; we listened while his instructions were read
aloud to the police-agent who was to go with me; it was impossible to
exchange a word unwatched—in short, more painful and galling
surroundings cannot be imagined. It was a relief when the carriage
started at last along the Vladimirka River.
_Per me si va nella città dolente,
Per me si va nell’ eterno dolore_—[79]
Footnote 79:
Dante, _Inferno_, Canto III.
I wrote this couplet on the wall of one of the post-houses; it suits the
vestibule of Hell and the road to Siberia equally well.
One of my intimate friends had promised to meet me at an inn seven
_versts_ from Moscow.
I proposed to the police-agent that he should have a glass of brandy
there; we were at a safe distance from Moscow, and he accepted. We went
in, but my friend was not there. I put off our start by every means in
my power; but at last my companion was unwilling to wait longer, and the
driver was touching up the horses, when suddenly a _troika_[80] came
galloping straight up to the door. I rushed out—and met two strangers;
they were merchants’ sons out for a spree and made some noise as they
got off their vehicle. All along the road to Moscow I could not see a
single moving spot, nor a single human being. I felt it bitter to get
into the carriage and start. But I gave the driver a quarter-_rouble_,
and off we flew like an arrow from the bow.
Footnote 80:
Three horses harnessed abreast form a _troika_.
We put up nowhere: the orders were that not less than 200 _versts_ were
to be covered every twenty-four hours. That would have been tolerable,
at any other season; but it was the beginning of April, and the road was
covered with ice in some places, and with water and mud in others; and
it got worse and worse with each stage of our advance towards Siberia.
§2
My first adventure happened at Pokróv.
We had lost some hours owing to the ice on the river, which cut off all
communication with the other side. My guardian was eager to get on, when
the post-master at Pokróv suddenly declared that there were no fresh
horses. My keeper produced his passport, which stated that horses must
be forthcoming all along the road; he was told that the horses were
engaged for the Under-Secretary of the Home Office. He began, of course,
to wrangle and make a noise; and then they both went off together to get
horses from the local peasants.
Getting tired of waiting for their return in the post-master’s dirty
room, I went out at the gate and began to walk about in front of the
house. It was nine months since I had taken a walk without the presence
of a sentry.
I had been walking half an hour when a man came up to me; he was wearing
uniform without epaulettes and a blue medal-ribbon. He stared very hard
at me, walked past, turned round at once, and asked me in an insolent
manner:
“Is it you who are going to Perm with a police-officer?”
“Yes,” I answered, still walking.
“Excuse me! excuse me! How does the man dare...?”
“Whom have I the honour of speaking to?”
“I am the chief constable of this town,” replied the stranger, and his
voice showed how deeply he felt his own social importance. “The
Under-Secretary may arrive at any moment, and here, if you please, there
are political prisoners walking about the streets! What an idiot that
policeman is!”
“May I trouble you to address your observations to the man himself?”
“Address him? I shall arrest him and order him a hundred lashes, and
send you on in charge of someone else.”
Without waiting for the end of his speech, I nodded and walked back
quickly to the post-house. Sitting by the window, I could hear his loud
angry voice as he threatened my keeper, who excused himself but did not
seem seriously alarmed. Presently they came into the room together; I
did not turn round but went on looking out of the window.
From their conversation I saw at once that the chief constable was dying
to know all about the circumstances of my banishment. As I kept up a
stubborn silence, the official began an impersonal address, intended
equally for me and my keeper.
“We get no sympathy. What pleasure is it to me, pray, to quarrel with a
policeman or to inconvenience a gentleman whom I never set eyes on
before in my life? But I have a great responsibility, in my position
here. Whatever happens, I get the blame. If public funds are stolen,
they attack me; if the church catches fire, they attack me; if there are
too many drunk men in the streets, I suffer for it; if too little whisky
is drunk,[81] I suffer for that too.” He was pleased with his last
remark and went on more cheerfully: “It is lucky you met me, but you
might have met the Secretary; and if you had walked past him, he would
have said ‘A political prisoner walking about! Arrest the chief
constable!’”
Footnote 81:
great revenue was derived by Government from the sale of spirits.
I got weary at last of his eloquence. I turned to him and said:
“Do your duty by all means, but please spare me your sermons. From what
you say I see that you expected me to bow to you; but I am not in the
habit of bowing to strangers.”
My friend was flabbergasted.
That is the rule all over Russia, as a friend of mine used to say:
whoever gets rude and angry first, always wins. If you ever allow a Jack
in office to raise his voice, you are lost: when he hears himself
shouting, he turns into a wild beast. But if _you_ begin shouting at his
first rude word, he is certain to be cowed; for he thinks that you mean
business and are the sort of person whom it is unsafe to irritate.
The chief constable sent my keeper to enquire about the horses; then he
turned to me and remarked by way of apology:
“I acted in that way chiefly because of the man. You don’t know what our
underlings are like—it is impossible to pass over the smallest breach of
discipline. But I assure you I know a gentleman when I see him. Might I
ask you what unfortunate incident it was that brings you...”
“We were bound to secrecy at the end of the trial.”
“Oh, in that case ... of course ... I should not venture...”—and his
eyes expressed the torments of curiosity. He held his tongue, but not
for long.
“I had a distant cousin, who was imprisoned for about a year in the
fortress of Peter and Paul; he was mixed up with ... you understand.
Excuse me, but I think you are still angry, and I take it to heart. I am
used to army discipline; I began serving when I was seventeen. I have a
hot temper, but it all passes in a moment. I won’t trouble your man any
further, deuce take him!”
My keeper now came in and reported that it would take an hour to drive
in the horses from the fields.
The chief constable told him that he was pardoned at my intercession;
then he turned to me and added:
“To show that you are not angry, I do hope you will come and take
pot-luck with me—I live two doors away; please don’t refuse.”
This turn to our interview seemed to me so amusing that I went to his
house, where I ate his pickled sturgeon and caviare and drank his brandy
and Madeira.
He grew so friendly that he told me all his private affairs, including
the details of an illness from which his wife had suffered for seven
years. After our meal, with pride and satisfaction he took a letter from
a jar on the table and let me read a “poem” which his son had written at
school and recited on Speech-day. After these flattering proofs of
confidence, he neatly changed the conversation and enquired indirectly
about my offence; and this time I gratified his curiosity to some
extent.
This man reminded me of a justice’s clerk whom my friend S. used to
speak about. Though his chief had been changed a dozen times, the clerk
never lost his place and was the real ruler of the district.
“How do you manage to get on with them all?” my friend asked.
“All right, thank you; one manages to rub on somehow. You do sometimes
get a gentleman who is very awkward at first, kicks with fore legs and
hind legs, shouts abuse at you, and threatens to complain at
head-quarters and get you turned out. Well, you know, the likes of us
have to put up with that. One holds one’s tongue and thinks—‘Oh, he’ll
wear himself out in time; he’s only just getting into harness.’ And so
it turns out: once started, he goes along first-rate.”
§3
On getting near Kazán, we found the Volga in full flood. The river
spread fifteen _versts_ or more beyond its banks, and we had to travel
by water for the whole of the last stage. It was bad weather, and a
number of carts and other vehicles were detained on the bank, as the
ferries had stopped working.
My keeper went to the man in charge and demanded a raft for our use. The
man gave it unwillingly; he said that it was dangerous and we had better
wait. But my keeper was in haste, partly because he was drunk and partly
because he wished to show his power.
My carriage was placed upon a moderate-sized raft and we started. The
weather appeared to improve; and after half an hour the boatman, who was
a Tatar, hoisted a sail. But suddenly the storm came on again with fresh
violence, and we were carried rapidly downstream. We caught up some
floating timber and struck it so hard that our rickety raft was nearly
wrecked and the water came over the decking. It was an awkward
situation; but the Tatar managed to steer us into a sandbank.
A barge now hove in sight. We called out to them to send us their boat,
but the bargemen, though they heard us, went past and gave us no
assistance.
A peasant, who had his wife with him in a small boat, rowed up to us and
asked what was the matter. “What of that?” he said. “Stop the leak, say
a prayer, and start off. There’s nothing to worry about; but you’re a
Tatar, and that’s why you’re so helpless.” Then he waded over to our
raft.
The Tatar was really very much alarmed. In the first place, my keeper,
who was asleep when the water came on board and wet him, sprang to his
feet and began to beat the Tatar. In the second place, the raft was
Government property and the Tatar kept saying, “If it goes to the
bottom, I shall catch it!” I tried to comfort him by saying that in that
case he would go to the bottom too.
“But, if I’m _not_ drowned, _bátyushka_, what then?” was his reply.
The peasant and some labourers stuffed up the leak in the raft and
nailed a board over it with their axe-heads; then, up to the waist in
the water, they dragged the raft off the sandbank, and we soon reached
the channel of the Volga. The current ran furiously. Wind, rain, and
snow lashed our faces, and the cold pierced to our bones; but soon the
statue of Ivan the Terrible began to loom out from behind the fog and
torrents of rain. It seemed that the danger was past; but suddenly the
Tatar called out in a piteous voice, “It’s leaking, it’s leaking!”—and
the water did in fact come rushing in at the old leak. We were right in
the centre of the stream, but the raft began to move slower and slower,
and the time seemed at hand when it would sink altogether. The Tatar
took off his cap and began to pray; my servant shed tears and said a
final good-bye to his mother at home; but my keeper used bad language
and vowed he would beat them both when we landed.
I too felt uneasy at first, partly owing to the wind and rain, which
added an element of confusion and disorder to the danger. But then it
seemed to me absurd that I should meet my death before I had done
anything; the spirit of the conqueror’s question—_quid timeas? Caesarem
vehis!_—asserted itself;[82] and I waited calmly for the end, convinced
that I should not end my life there, between Uslon and Kazán. Later life
saps such proud confidence and makes a man suffer for it; and that is
why youth is bold and heroic, while a man in years is cautious and
seldom carried away.
Footnote 82:
The story of Caesar’s rebuke to the boatman is told by Plutarch in his
_Life of Caesar_, chap. 38.
A quarter of an hour later we landed, drenched and frozen, near the
walls of the Kremlin of Kazán. At the nearest public-house I got a glass
of spirits and a hard-boiled egg, and then went off to the post-house.
§4
In villages and small towns, the post-master keeps a room for the
accommodation of travellers; but in the large towns, where everybody
goes to the hotels, there is no such provision. I was taken into the
office, and the post-master showed me his own room. It was occupied by
women and children and an old bedridden man; there was positively not a
corner where I could change my clothes. I wrote a letter to the officer
in command of the Kazán police, asking him to arrange that I should have
some place where I could warm myself and dry my clothes.
My messenger returned in an hour’s time and reported that Count Apraxin
would grant my request. I waited two hours more, but no one came, and I
despatched my messenger again. He brought this answer—that the colonel
who had received Apraxin’s order was playing whist at the club, and that
nothing could be done for me till next day.
This was positive cruelty, and I wrote a second letter to Apraxin. I
asked him to send me on at once and said I hoped to find better quarters
after the next stage of my journey. But my letter was not delivered,
because the Count had gone to bed. I could do no more. I took off my wet
clothes in the office; then I wrapped myself up in a soldier’s overcoat
and lay down on the table; a thick book, covered with some of my linen,
served me as a pillow. I sent out for some breakfast in the morning. By
that time the clerks were arriving, and the door-keeper pointed out to
me that a public office was an unsuitable place to breakfast in; it made
no difference to him personally, but the post-master might disapprove of
my proceedings.
I laughed and said that a captive was secure against eviction and was
bound to eat and drink in his place of confinement, wherever it might
be.
Next morning Count Apraxin gave me leave to stay three days at Kazán and
to put up at a hotel.
For those three days I wandered about the city, attended everywhere by
my keeper. The veiled faces of the Tatar women, the high cheekbones of
their husbands, the mosques of true believers standing side by side with
the churches of the Orthodox faith—it all reminds one of Asia and the
East. At Vladímir or Nizhni the neighbourhood of Moscow is felt; but one
feels far from Moscow at Kazán.
§5
When I reached Perm, I was taken straight to the Governor’s house. There
was a great gathering there; for it was his daughter’s wedding-day; the
bridegroom was an officer in the Army. The Governor insisted that I
should come in. So I made my bow to the _beau monde_ of Perm, covered
with mud and dust, and wearing a shabby, stained coat. The Governor
talked a great deal of nonsense; he told me to keep clear of the Polish
exiles in the town and to call again in the course of a few days, when
he would provide me with some occupation in the public offices.
The Governor of Perm was a Little Russian; he was not hard upon the
exiles and behaved reasonably in other respects. Like a mole which adds
grain to grain in some underground repository, so he kept putting by a
trifle for a rainy day, without anyone being the wiser.
§6
From some dim idea of keeping a check over us, he ordered that all the
exiles residing at Perm should report themselves at his house, at ten
every Saturday morning. He came in smoking his pipe and ascertained, by
means of a list which he carried, whether all were present; if anyone
was missing, he sent to enquire the reason; he hardly ever spoke to
anyone before dismissing us. Thus I made the acquaintance in his
drawing-room of all the Poles whom he had told me I was to avoid.
The day after I reached Perm, my keeper departed, and I was at liberty
for the first time since my arrest—at liberty, in a little town on the
Siberian frontier, with no experience of life and no comprehension of
the sphere in which I was now forced to live.
From the nursery I had passed straight to the lecture-room, and from the
lecture-room to a small circle of friends, an intimate world of theories
and dreams, without contact with practical life; then came prison, with
its opportunities for reflexion; and contact with life was only
beginning now and here, by the ridge of the Ural Mountains.
Practical life made itself felt at once: the day after my arrival I went
to look for lodgings with the porter at the Governor’s office; he took
me to a large one-storeyed house; and, though I explained that I wanted
a small house, or, better still, part of a house, he insisted that I
should go in.
The lady who owned the house made me sit on the sofa. Hearing that I
came from Moscow, she asked if I had seen M. Kabrit there. I replied
that I had never in my life heard a name like it.
“Come, come!” said the old lady; “I mean M. Kabrit,” and she gave his
Christian name and patronymic. “You don’t say, _bátyushka_, that you
don’t know him! He is our Vice-Governor!”
“Well, I spent nine months in prison,” I said smiling, “and perhaps that
accounts for my not hearing of him.”
“It may be so. And so you want to hire the little house, _bátyushka_?”
“It’s a big house, much too big; I said so to the man who brought me.”
“Too much of this world’s goods are no burden to the back.”
“True; but you will ask a large rent for your large house.”
“Who told you, young man, about my prices? I’ve not opened my mouth
yet.”
“Yes, but I know you can’t ask little for a house like this.”
“How much do you offer?”
In order to have done with her, I said that I would not pay more than
350 _roubles_.
“And glad I am to get it, my lad! Just drink a glass of Canary, and go
and have your boxes moved in here.”
The rent seemed to me fabulously low, and I took the house. I was just
going when she stopped me.
“I forgot to ask you one thing—do you mean to keep a cow?”
“Good heavens! No!” I answered, deeply insulted by such a question.
“Very well; then I will supply you with cream.”
I went home, thinking with horror that I had reached a place where I was
thought capable of keeping a cow!
§7
Before I had time to look about me, the Governor informed me that I was
transferred to Vyatka: another exile who was destined for Vyatka had
asked to be transferred to Perm, where some of his relations lived. The
Governor wished me to start next day. But that was impossible; as I
expected to stay some time at Perm, I had bought a quantity of things
and must sell them, even at a loss of 50 per cent. After several evasive
answers, the Governor allowed me to stay for forty-eight hours longer,
but he made me promise not to seek an opportunity of meeting the exile
from Vyatka.
I was preparing to sell my horse and a variety of rubbish, when the
inspector of police appeared with an order that I was to leave in
twenty-four hours. I explained to him that the Governor had granted me
an extension, but he actually produced a written order, requiring him to
see me off within twenty-four hours; and this order had been signed by
the Governor after his conversation with me.
“I can explain it,” said the inspector; “the great man wishes to shuffle
off the responsibility on me.”
“Let us go and confront him with his signature,” I said.
“By all means,” said the inspector.
The Governor said that he had forgotten his promise to me, and the
inspector slyly asked if the order had not better be rewritten. “Is it
worth the trouble?” asked the Governor, with an air of indifference.
“We had him there,” said the inspector to me, rubbing his hands with
satisfaction. “What a mean shabby fellow he is!”
§8
This inspector belonged to a distinct class of officials, who are half
soldiers and half civilians. They are men who, while serving in the
Army, have been lucky enough to run upon a bayonet or stop a bullet, and
have therefore been rewarded with positions in the police service.
Military life has given them an air of frankness; they have learned some
phrases about the point of honour and some terms of ridicule for humble
civilians. The youngest of them have read Marlinski and Zagóskin,[83]
and can repeat the beginning of _The Prisoner of the Caucasus_,[84] and
they like to quote the verses they know. For instance, whenever they
find a friend smoking, they invariably say:
“The amber smoked between his teeth.”[85]
Footnote 83:
Popular novelists of the “patriotic” school, now forgotten.
Footnote 84:
A poem by Púshkin.
Footnote 85:
_The Fountain of Bakhchisarai_, I. 2.
They are one and all deeply convinced, and let you know their conviction
with emphasis, that their position is far below their merits, and that
poverty alone keeps them down; but for their wounds and want of money,
they would have been generals-in-waiting or commanders of army-corps.
Each of them can point to some comrade-in-arms who has risen to the top
of the tree. “You see what Kreutz is now,” he says; “well, we two were
gazetted together on the same day and lived in barracks like brothers,
on the most familiar terms. But I’m not a German, and I had no kind of
interest; so here I sit, a mere policeman. But you understand that such
a position is distasteful to anyone with the feelings of a gentleman.”
Their wives are even more discontented. These poor sufferers travel to
Moscow once a year, where their real business is to deposit their little
savings in the bank, though they pretend that a sick mother or aunt
wishes to see them for the last time.
And so this life goes on for fifteen years. The husband, railing at
fortune, flogs his men and uses his fists to the shopkeepers, curries
favour with the Governor, helps thieves to get off, steals State papers,
and repeats verses from _The Fountain of Bakhchisarai_.[86] The wife,
railing at fortune and provincial life, takes all she can lay her hands
on, robs petitioners, cheats tradesmen, and has a sentimental weakness
for moonlight nights.
Footnote 86:
Another of Púshkin’s early works.
I have described this type at length, because I was taken in by these
good people at first, and really thought them superior to others of
their class; but I was quite wrong.
§9
I took with me from Perm one personal recollection which I value.
At one of the Governor’s Saturday reviews of the exiles, a Roman
Catholic priest invited me to his house. I went there and found several
Poles. One of them sat there, smoking a short pipe and never speaking;
misery, hopeless misery, was visible in every feature. His figure was
clumsy and even crooked; his face was of that irregular
Polish-Lithuanian type which surprises you at first and becomes
attractive later: the greatest of all Poles, Thaddei Kosciusko,[87] had
that kind of face. The man’s name was Tsichanovitch, and his dress
showed that he was terribly poor.
Footnote 87:
The famous Polish general and patriot (1746-1817).
Some days later, I was walking along the avenue which bounds Perm in one
direction. It was late in May; the young leaves of the trees were
opening, and the birches were in flower—there were no trees but birches,
I think, on both sides of the avenue—but not a soul was to be seen.
People in the provinces have no taste for _Platonic_ perambulations.
After strolling about for a long time; at last I saw a figure in a field
by the side of the avenue: he was botanising, or simply picking flowers,
which are not abundant or varied in that part of the world. When he
raised his head, I recognised Tsichanovitch and went up to him.
He had originally been banished to Verchoturye, one of the remotest
towns in the Government of Perm, hidden away in the Ural Mountains,
buried in snow, and so far from all roads that communication with it was
almost impossible in winter. Life there is certainly worse than at Omsk
or Krasnoyarsk. In his complete solitude there, Tsichanovitch took to
botany and collected the meagre flora of the Ural Mountains. He got
permission later to move to Perm, and to him this was a change for the
better: he could hear once more his own language spoken and meet his
companions in misfortune. His wife, who had remained behind in
Lithuania, wrote that she intended to join him, _walking from the
Government of Vilna_. He was expecting her.
When I was transferred so suddenly to Vyatka, I went to say good-bye to
Tsichanovitch. The small room in which he lived was almost bare—there
was a table and one chair, and a little old portmanteau standing on end
near the meagre bed; and that was all the furniture. My cell in the
Krutitski barracks came back to me at once.
He was sorry to hear of my departure, but he was so accustomed to
privations that he soon smiled almost brightly as he said, “That’s why I
love Nature; of her you can never be deprived, wherever you are.”
Wishing to leave him some token of remembrance, I took off a small
sleeve-link and asked him to accept it.
“Your sleeve-link is too fine for my shirt,” he said; “but I shall keep
it as long as I live and wear it in my coffin.”
After a little thought, he began to rummage hastily in his portmanteau.
He took from a small bag a wrought-iron chain with a peculiar pattern,
wrenched off some of the links, and gave them to me.
“I have a great value for this chain,” he said; “it is connected with
the most sacred recollections of my life, and I won’t give it all to
you; but take these links. I little thought that I should ever give them
to a Russian, an exile like myself.”
I embraced him and said good-bye.
“When do you start?” he asked.
“To-morrow morning; but don’t come: when I go back, I shall find a
policeman at my lodgings, who will never leave me for a moment.”
“Very well. I wish you a good journey and better fortune than mine.”
By nine o’clock next morning the inspector appeared at my house, to
hasten my departure. My new keeper, a much tamer creature than his
predecessor, and openly rejoicing at the prospect of drinking freely
during the 350 _versts_ of our journey, was doing something to the
carriage. All was ready. I happened to look into the street and saw
Tsichanovitch walking past. I ran to the window.
“Thank God!” he said. “This is the fourth time I have walked past,
hoping to hail you, if only from a distance; but you never saw me.”
My eyes were full of tears as I thanked him: I was deeply touched by
this proof of tender womanly attachment. But this was the only reason
why I was sorry to leave Perm.
§10
On the second day of our journey, heavy rain began at dawn and went on
all day without stopping, as it often does in wooded country; at two
o’clock we came to a miserable village of natives. There was no
post-house; the native Votyaks, who could neither read nor write, opened
my passport and ascertained whether there were two seals or one, shouted
out “All right!” and harnessed the fresh horses. A Russian post-master
would have kept us twice as long. On getting near this village, I had
proposed to my keeper that we should rest there two hours: I wished to
get dry and warm and have something to eat. But when I entered the
smoky, stifling hut and found that no food was procurable, and that
there was not even a public-house within five _versts_, I repented of my
purpose and intended to go on.
While I was still hesitating, a soldier came in and brought me an
invitation to drink a cup of tea from an officer on detachment.
“With all my heart. Where is your officer?”
“In a hut close by, Your Honour”—and the soldier made a left turn and
disappeared. I followed him.
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